Author Topic: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?  (Read 6755 times)

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Offline Luis Dias

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
I would take a compromise approach and have the vessel be named Boaty McBoatface for a year then renaming it to something else afterwards. It honestly doesn't seem that big of a deal really.

For real, I tell ya, my dejá vu is strong in this thread.

Would you also suggest that Mountain Dew went with launching a new drink called "Hitler Did Nothing Wrong" for a year too? :p

Let's be honest though, Boaty McBoatface is nowhere near that Godwin. The only thing it is trolling is the boat itself, not the Jews or anyone else.

 

Offline Wobble73

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
And now there is a racehorse called Horsey McHorseface in tribute to this news story!
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Offline Luis Dias

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
That's the spirit :D

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
Well racehorses often have silly names. Horsey McHorseface probably isn't even in the top ten.

EDIT : One quick Google later shows I wasn't wrong. Kudos to whoever thought of May The Horse Be With You.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2016, 04:18:37 am by karajorma »
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Offline Wobble73

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
Funnily enough, I have always wanted to buy a racehorse to enter into the Grand National, and name it "Donteatyellowsnow".

So if anyone ever asks me if I have any tips for the race.......


LOL!
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Offline PDibbs1972

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
It's not really an issue, Churchill (iirc, it was some prominent UK politician anyway) served on a vessel named, 'The Gay Charger', and that was a Warship (more innocent times). No reason why a Science vessel can't be named Boaty McBoatface, you should see the names some personal yachts and merchant barges with a similar tonnage get called.

The only reason this is even become a concern is because it's one thing when people are doing it every day without anyone caring, it's another when it hits the Internet and becomes a PR issue.

 

Offline Black Wolf

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
It's not really an issue, Churchill (iirc, it was some prominent UK politician anyway) served on a vessel named, 'The Gay Charger', and that was a Warship (more innocent times). No reason why a Science vessel can't be named Boaty McBoatface, you should see the names some personal yachts and merchant barges with a similar tonnage get called.

The only reason this is even become a concern is because it's one thing when people are doing it every day without anyone caring, it's another when it hits the Internet and becomes a PR issue.

Churchill was in the Army, never served in the Navy, just ran it as a politician, so it must have been someone else.
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Offline PDibbs1972

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
Yup, just trying to find out who it was now, I think it was one of the old 'Thatcher Era' cabinet...

Edit : Yup, it was Nigel Lawson.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2016, 09:39:25 am by PDibbs1972 »

 

Offline The E

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
It should be noted that when those ships were built and commissioned, the word "gay" had different connotations (Well, by the 1950s, gay had already acquired sexual meanings, but I can't imagine that the naval authorities at the time intended the word to be read that way)
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Offline PDibbs1972

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
Exactly, more innocent times, the same thing happened with the word 'Fanny' changing meaning in the 50's. There were a lot of Barges named things like 'Happy Fanny' and 'Fanny in the Morning' which took on a whole different set of meanings when the word 'Fanny' developed a slang meaning in the UK. These things happen. Though it should be noted that considering the permutations that appeared in that interim period, when words have both meanings, there's no way on Earth that they were all named after girls named Fanny, there was absolutely some wordplay going on with the double-meanings of the words.

I can understand it with Military vessels, you don't really want a 'USS Allyourbase' or the like, but comedy and self-effacement has been common in boat-naming conventions for years in the public sector.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2016, 10:55:25 am by PDibbs1972 »

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
Honestly if I was one of the researchers assigned to that ship, I'd get a real kick out of it.  Walk into any lab out there and I can guarantee you that the staff have given most of the equipment some manner of nerdy/goofy pet names. :D

 

Offline Klaustrophobia

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
I just read elsewhere that Boaty McBoatface has been rejected.  Lame.  :no:
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Offline headdie

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
one thing I will say is that this is not the general public, this is the general public with their internet alter egos running full tilt
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Offline 0rph3u5

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
You know, "PR" isn't that hard. You just have to spend a morning with non-idiots discussing some ideas, learn from mistakes and get it right.

Link is broken, doubling down on the https doesn't make it safer :D But a powerful organisation like NLF is a hard comparisons to something like NERC

Public relations are not hard if your public is wide enough, so your message is generic enough, but as soon as you start aiming for specific demographics things get complicated fast, but that is a campaign veteran speaking.



And it made it Colbert's Late Show.... "Do the english not like the proud scottish heritage of clan McBoatface?" link
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Offline PDibbs1972

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
It's a human psychology thing, I think.

Most casual internet use is after work-hours, so that 'work persona' is turned off, you aren't living to company rules any more and often need some ****s and giggles after a day at work, hence 'Boaty McBoatface' or other online corporate/governmental experiments. They are generally voted on by people who have spent the day working, are tired and and need to let off steam in a safe environment, and this is a fun way of doing it. It could have been a lot worse, people were surprisingly gentle. After all, this is the same public that put 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead' at number one in the charts when Thatcher died.

Dealing with specifics is always difficult in PR, as the old saying goes, Diplomacy is the art of letting other people get your own way....

 

Offline Luis Dias

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
Orph3u5, the correct link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JHe4Hbr5Ic , sorry :D

 
Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
Honestly, I'm pretty sure they saw this coming from miles away - IIRC, the campaign was always described as 'suggestions' that the public can vote on, with the winners being reviewed and taken into consideration. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know they never explicitly stated they would actually give the ship the winning name.

My two cents say this was a great PR stunt, and it's still going strong. How many oceanic research vessels do you know by name? Props to the NERC for putting oceanic research back on the front pages everywhere, at least for a little while.

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
After all, this is the same public that put 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead' at number one in the charts when Thatcher died.
Eh, remember that in the latter case, there was a large of people who actually celebrated her death and were dead (*cough*IRA*cough*) serious about it. This might seem a bit distasteful, but is hardly surprising considering the number of people who wanted (or, in a few cases, actually tried) to accelerate that process... She was a polarizing figure, to say the least.

 

Offline 0rph3u5

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
Quick follow-up to close the story:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36225652

Quote
The UK's new polar research ship is to be named RRS Sir David Attenborough, after Boaty McBoatface previously topped a public vote.

The £200m vessel will be named after the world-renowned naturalist and broadcaster, Science Minister Jo Johnson confirmed.

The move, coming days before Sir David turns 90, would recognise his "legacy in British broadcasting", he said.
"As you sought to steal a kingdom for yourself, so must you do again, a thousand times over. For a theft, a true theft, must be practiced to be earned." - The terms of Nyrissa's curse, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

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"I am Curiosity, and I've always wondered what would become of you, here at the end of the world." - The Guide/The Curious Other, Othercide

"When you work with water, you have to know and respect it. When you labour to subdue it, you have to understand that one day it may rise up and turn all your labours into nothing. For what is water, which seeks to make all things level, which has no taste or colour of its own, but a liquid form of Nothing?" - Graham Swift, Waterland

"...because they are not Dragons."

 

Offline Wobble73

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Re: When will organisations learn that the general public can't be trusted?
Quick follow-up to close the story:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36225652

Quote
The UK's new polar research ship is to be named RRS Sir David Attenborough, after Boaty McBoatface previously topped a public vote.

The £200m vessel will be named after the world-renowned naturalist and broadcaster, Science Minister Jo Johnson confirmed.

The move, coming days before Sir David turns 90, would recognise his "legacy in British broadcasting", he said.

But they will be naming a submarine on the vessell, Boaty McBoatface though!  :yes:
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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
 
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