Ashley Simpson's Forum

It exploded after her Saturday Night Live debacle

[monkeythumpa]

While the saying goes "All press is good press, even bad press" I have to think that the number of posts trashing the singer on her own site has to be bad her image. For those who missed it, she lip-synced (annoying, but not unusual for that show) through her first song on a popular sketch comedy show and for the second song instead of cueing up the right music they played the first song again and she walked off stage in embarrasment. She then blamed the band for the screw up. If you were responsable for her site, do you delete the messages that trash your employer, or let it go, collecting a hundred times more content than usual?

[bhartzer]

I would leave it, it's just a forum. Besides, the forum and site will probably get a ton of links because of it.

[Livenomadic]

monkeythumpa, we all know you just wanted to get a chance to talk about Askley Simpson :P

Ok, Seriously now, I think as a forum moderator you are in a lose-lose situation.

Either you look like the @$$hole who is censoring speech and furthermore you have to check the forum every 10 minutes to delete more bad posts

Or you let 5000 people flame her on her own forum.

I'd let them stay, atleast then you don't have to be moding the forum all day.

[encyclo]

I'd just take the forum offline for a bit - might as well save the bandwidth.

I've never heard of this particular "artist", but lip-synching is so awful I'm not sure their career will be particularly long-lived. I'm amazed that they allow it on mainstream TV (they certainly don't here) - but that's another debate!

[AAnnAArchy]

I run an official site and I would delete all of the nasty responses. I figure that people have the rest of web to rip on the artist, so why would the official site have to be spoiled by a bunch of angry people? I wouldn't remove a calm discussion, but the stuff I saw on the Ashlee Simpson was abuse that no one has to leave on their official site. (an aside, that site poppped up all kinds of junk on my computer, including giving me virus notifications) I figure the sites are for fans, not for people who dislike the person. I like a tidy peaceful board. I'm not the ACLU.

By the way, I felt the same way most of the nasty posters did on her site, only I wouldn't post it. I figure it's enough fun to pick on her on my own private uncrawlable boards.

[Leosghost]

Who is Ashley Simpson ...Is He/she related to Homer?

[Liane]

ROFLMAO! :)

[MichaelBluejay]

At first blush a bunch of posts trashing a singer on her own site is bad news -- but step back a minute: Is anyone really going to think less of her *because of THOSE posts*? Ashley's debacle was all over the international news. Do we really think that there's anyone who only formed a negative opinion of Ashley after reading her own message board? I doubt it. If someone doesn't like Ashley, they came by that opinion before they ever went to her site.

Given that her controversy happened on national TV, there's no way it can be swept under the rug. Given that, I'd milk the activity for all it was worth. It's got to be worth something in advertising, and maybe even record sales (as least more than you'd get by censoring the posts).

[paybacksa]

hahahaha you need a clever moniker... something on par with "wardrobe malfunction". Not only will it distract some of the criticism, but if it is as unique as "wardrobe malfunction" it will also create a new niche SEO opportunity ;-)

C'mon, I know you can do it!

[Marketing Guy]

I would certainly moderate any comments that were out of order (ie, keep the forum clean for younger users - no abuse, no swearing, etc etc), but I'd leave the rest.

As others have said, it's just gonna cause more trouble if the admin started to "censor" people.

A smart move would be to get her to post on the forums herself, 'fessing up to the mess and showing she really is down to earth, etc etc. And no, a statement from her lawyers cut and pasted into a post won't cut it! ;)

Scott

[trillianjedi]

Yeah, as Marketing Guy says, you need to answer it rather than brush it under the carpet with mass deletion of posts.

The answer needs to come from the horses mouth - and turn it into humour... let her show her embarassment.

Not all publicity is good publicity - that's a myth, but all publicity can be turned into good publicity with the right spin.

TJ

[Hunter]

The answer needs to come from the horses mouth - and turn it into humour... let her show her embarassment.

That might have worked if she had tried it before she:
Blamed it on the band.
then
Blamed it on acid reflux.
then
Announced at a major award show that she does not lip-sync.

[rogerd]

This is a good example of the dark side of building a community around your company or product - if bad news breaks, you had better be prepared to deal with it.

I don't think that's an argument against building such a community, though. Having your own large community gives you a chance to get your message out in a loud and clear manner to your most committed customers/fans. Anything released through the media will be filtered, edited, analyzed, and critiqued before it reaches the public; your own blog or forum lets you talk directly to the community.

The challenge is figuring out how to deal with the negative comments, probing questions, etc. that are likely to accompany bad news. Still, it's better to have the channel available.