Here are some dictionary definitions...
'Prejudice - intolerance of or discrimination against a person or group, esp. on account of race, religion or gender'
'Bigot/Bigotry - an obstinate and intolerant believer in a religion, political theory etc. Dogmatist, partisan, sectionalist, intransigent. Prejudice, intolerance, narrow-mindedness, partiality, partisanship, dogmatism, discrimination.'
'Bully - persecute or oppress by force or threats'
Those are the definitions of those words that we understand at Big Finish. Unfortunately, there have been examples of all these on our forum recently.
As we have said many times, we are a small company. We set up our forum for the purpose of fun and lively debate about our audio productions. But in recent months, there has been a significant increase in the number of postings which have fallen into the categories of those definitions listed above. Some threads containing these kinds of posts have run unchecked, simply because we don't have the manpower to monitor all of these threads. In this respect, we have failed to keep the forum as a fun and friendly place for our listeners to discuss our productions, and as a direct result of this, a number of listeners have been seriously offended.
It is becoming clear to us that, as a commercial company, the forum is becoming counter-productive. Rather than creating an enthusiastic and engaged community of people who enjoy listening to our productions, it is potentially turning into a forum for angry and polarised debate, which is already upsetting some listeners, spoiling their enjoyment of our productions and leading them to decide to part company with us.
Of course, the vast majority of posts are good-natured, and much of what most of our listeners have to say is informative, humorous and helpful. However, we feel that the minority who intentionally or otherwise offend others and display levels of unacceptable prejudice bring into question the whole existence of the forum.
We are therefore taking the step of suspending the Big Finish forum for an indefinite period while we consider this issue fully. Anyone wishing to convey comments to us at Big Finish can still do so via the
enquiries@bigfinish.com and
podcast@bigfinish.com email addresses. Our magazine, Vortex, will continue to answer listeners' questions, as will the regular, weekly podcasts. And, of course, our Facebook page will continue. We still very much welcome your thoughts and comments.
We are very saddened that we have had to take this decision, but hope you will understand that we find ourselves in a very difficult position.