Note: Submitted by me, by hand, after reading the posting and deciding it's relevant to startups.
Branding is important, and what you do with your brand is important. Actions speak louder than words. Google is still associated with "Do no Evil," but that's starting to wear a little thin as some of their actions belie the mantra. Similarly, you can get people chanting a slogan, but if you do something wrong, people will notice, and the backlash can be severe.
I would add that this:
> There is no way to explain all this in a way that does
> not make GoDaddy and it's CEO look good, and plenty of
> ways to interpret it as bad.
... appears to have either too many or not enough negatives. I suggest it should read:
> There is no way to explain all this in a way that makes
> GoDaddy and it's CEO look good, and plenty of ways to
> interpret it as bad.
This is a CEO who, in 2005, posted a blog article talking about why we have to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, because (mumble mumble) 9/11. He deleted both the original post and a half-retraction shortly thereafter, or I'd provide a link.
As such, I'm not surprised that he turned his personal hunting exhibition into a marketing expense. He seems to have a deaf ear when it comes to brand management. And that doesn't seem to have hurt him in any meaningful way.
I'm not sure what lesson to take away from any of this, except that he runs his business differently than I do.
Right, I find it difficult to believe that any of this was uncalculated (does that make me a high-mach?)
They appear to target the bottom 90% who needs a domain name. And, they very wisely get name recognition with non tech savvy business owners who often have the ultimate decision in which registrar to use.
Look at it from the vantage of a typical conservative small business owner here in America. Slaughtering a beautiful and rare animal is not deaf-ear branding - it's shrewd marketing. GoDaddy is not afraid to kill to solve problems. The association is powerful and on target.
I think that attitude is a bit harsh. Does it make him a bad person? I disagree. While I can't imagine doing such things, I understand that people have vastly different values regarding many topics and aren't trying to be evil regardless of how opposed the values are to others.
I agree that in this particular case its a bad move to release this publicly because he is a leader of a major company and shouldn't invite such controversy.
yes. While i think all killers are bad persons, i see how a necessary killing may be up for debate. Jumping at the first chance to kill and doing it willingfully indicates that the person is a moral trash.
Thanks for the link. I shall read it. I wasnt trolling, but I come from a country where we won our freedom with a non violent movement so the point of guns is largely missing from my cultural upbringing. In my opinion 10 million people uprising is sufficient for any government - with or without guns. That being said I will read the book and will not comment on this conversation any further so that it doesnt derail the original post.
I cannot speak for anyone other than myself. I don't currently own a gun, but that is more because of my life circumstances than belief.
I believe in gun rights because I have had relatives / personally been protected from both people and animals (feral dogs) by gun ownership. I believe weakening any of the bill of rights provides avenues to weaken the others. I also believe that it is an important counter balance to authority figures becoming despots. Mostly I just see guns as another tool and have serious problems with saying an object did something when it is the person who did. Plus, most of the gun stat stories were done narrowly and didn't include rural areas (did a stint in the social work area).
So, I understand the purpose, but am horrified by the picture and do not think NRA membership is a factor in the reaction to the picture.
I dont mind the downvotes but I could like the education on what people who believe in gun rights believe in.
I don't currently own any guns, and am clumsy enough to be a threat to everybody within 1/4 mile if I did, but I do believe that the right to self-defense is a fundamental human right, perhaps the most fundamental of all.
Historically, most deaths due to misuse of guns have occurred in times and places where the state has maintained a monopoly on the use of violence. It would be very hard to convince me that a disarmed populace is a net positive for society, over the long run.
He didn't say he didn't use guns for killing people or animals. Depending on the circumstances, he probably would, as would I (and I've never touched a gun in my life). That doesn't imply support for hunting elephants.
Anyone who has had the misfortune of registering a domain with GoDaddy and using its horrible user interface to try to adjust DNS settings will not be surprised by this.
GoDaddy should have been out of business a long time ago just due to the horrid usability of its product.
I have been with Gandi for years. They are a bit more expensive than some other other registrars, but offer good service, and donate proceeds to non-profit projects:
I recently moved to name.com. I absolutely love their minimalistic interface, and I like supporting local business (Denver)...
So far no issues what so ever other than with GoDaddy and moving domains over because of issues with whois, but once there everything is fast, and simple. Unlike GoDaddy's interface.
I'm not sure if they're still doing it, but the thing that drove me away was their spammy DNS.
Example: I had valid DNS records for mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com but they were forwarding ANYTHING.mydomain.com to one of their ad-ridden pages.
I can kind of see an argument for having that when a domain has just been purchased and there is no valid content yet. But doing that to an established site makes ME look like a spammer.
tl;dr - if you're using name.com's DNS, you might want to see if they're hosting spam pages on whatever.yourdomain.com
I do my own DNS hosting, I've never used a registrars DNS services, I've never found them to be reliable enough, nor do they meet my needs in terms of being able to update records quickly or in programmatic way (such as hosting my own DynDNS like service, keeping a record updated for my home IP address).
No, but it's like they've been digging themselves into a hole. Then they break throw to a seemingly bottomless pit, and decide it's a good idea to jump in to see how deep it is.
This is stupid. If the elephant is going to be shot by a warden anyway, WHY NOT let some rich american shoot it? Why does it matter WHO shoots the elephant? It doesn't!
If you want to argue about whether the elephant SHOULD have been killed, that's fine. There is plenty to debate there. But who does the shooting is of no importance.
That said he's right that as a CEO you represent your company--especially when you're handing out swag. Probably not a smart PR move.
It has precious little to do with the legality or morality of the action. Circumstances don't really matter here.
What "matters" is that you have a picture and video clip that can fuel a he said / she said segment on all the 24 hour news channels and various organizations now have something they can spin for their own purposes. CEOs should know better.
What in the world does Enron have to do with a publicity stunt? They committed fraud and went bankrupt. How is that like shooting an elephant and putting it on youtube?
And Lohan, she's still making movies. Where's the problem?
Well, Ms. Lohan has been bounced from a couple of movies now due to her publicity, and the quote didn't have "stunt" in it and Enron certainly became a household name but not in a good way.
Because basic supply and demand suggests that their are way more rich Americans wanting to shoot elephants than there are elephants in need of shooting.
Ergo: the idea itself isn't sustainable, economically or morally.
Yes because rich and stable African governments are completely able to ensure their wildlife is protected properly in the same way a western country can.
I like the free market too, but let's be reasonable here. We can dump money into Africa at far greater levels than they can sustainably support.
He explained it - it gives an incentive for marking more elephants as "problem elephants" than needed.
I wonder if a couple of fence (electric) might be a better solution than shooting the elephant. And all I saw in the video was a couple of square meters of trampled grass. I wonder what animal court in the world would give the death sentence for that.
It might look just like trampled grass, to you, but it's Sorghum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorghum) which a subsistence farmer was growing so he could feed himself, and to him it was the difference between eating and starving. It's ridiculous to glibly dismiss the farmer's worries about STARVING because you didn't see much damage in the video.
And do you really think a poor village in remote Zimbabwe is going to have the electricity (and money) to put up an electric fence around all their fields?
Would I be very far off if I would guess that a single photo safari for taking pictures of living elephants would earn more money than the whole village makes in farming the whole year?
Maybe they can't afford electric fences, but the GoDaddy guy surely could. Also now I remember in the Zoo they also don't have electric fences. It sounds doable to me - certainly not more effort than for example building those rice terraces other countries seem to manage.
Maybe these farmers really have no choice, which would be a purely political problem. They are definitely picking the wrong solution, though.
Wood is in very short supply in that part of the world. And building a wall strong enough to stop an elephant, and big (long) enough to cover a farm is really really hard without power tools.
Killing an elephant without power tools is really hard, too, yet they managed it easily.
Even if your arguments are correct that the villagers are so poor that they have no choice (which I doubt), it all crumbles down when the rich hunters come into play. Surely they have enough money and tools to erect a wall.
He addressed that in the article: because "there is an immediate opportunity to mark more animals than needed as 'problematic' or 'diseased' than is really the case and that would cloud the issue considerably."
As a thought experiment imagine some rich guy offers a tremendous amount of money (let's say millions) to allow authorities to perform an execution of a death row inmate. To allow that would be playing with fire. The government now has a financial interest in having more inmates on death row, as opposed to simply serving the public interest.
I wonder what the best way to cook corn-fed elephant is? Maybe montreal steak seasoning, a cajun dry-rub, southern-style malt vinegar bbq sauce, something else (http://funkymunky.co.za/elephantstew.html)?
But, seriously, if we as a society are so concerned about dwindling elephant numbers, why aren't we actively managing them as a luxury food source instead of leaving them to their own devices on the savannah where they frequently(?) tick-off the locals. Why aren't there enterprising elephant ranchers in the open spaces of Texas? I would think that mesquite-scrub country would be great elephant habitat. That rancher is going to make damn sure he has a sustainable population of elephants, because if he doesn't, there goes his livelihood. And, I imagine that the rancher could profit handsomely off of just the pure novelty of the product. I know I would pay quite a bit for elephant steaks.
In the grand scheme of things, my 27 domains switched from GoDaddy won't change much from their company's perspective, but I will not continue to use them as a domain registrar because of this.
Actually, it will. What if a 1000 customers like you who own 10 domains do it at the same day?
They sure HAVE to notice it. I've already transferred my domains and I'll make sure I won't buy any from GoDaddy again.
GoDaddy already has one of the scammiest UIs I've ever come across (with a possible exception of, maybe, MySpace) and the recent elephant killing was the last straw!
Well, you're right - he might not care but next time he'd think a million times before killing yet another helpless creature and posting a shameless video of it.
I liked Gandi.net's attitude but I couldn't get over their prices. I ended up at dynadot.com which has a fairly busy home page but a pretty clean UI when dealing with your account. It's prices are more in line with what I expect and they seem to have a good reputation.
Gandi is slightly more expensive than GoDaddy on domains with no extras, but if you want to anonymize your whois data, the combined price of the domain + the anonymization is cheaper with Gandi than with GoDaddy.
I don't agree with GoDaddy's lowest common denominator branding strategy, but it seems to have served them well over the years. It's hard to argue with results.
Make no mistake though, this is just as much a part of their branding strategy as their stupid, tasteless Super Bowl commercials. They'll probably make a token PR apology to hedge their bets here, but this reinforces their "brand" more than it damages it.
Ultimately, this is why I'm looking for another registrar. How can I reasonably recommend them to clients? The first thing you see on their site is a photo of a girl in a tight t-shirt, and text at the bottom that says "Aligators nipping at your ass? How to hang in there & enjoy the ride. PLUS a smoking hot crazy blond." It's ridiculous.
Having been to Africa and seen elephants in the wild up close, among other animals, I simply can't stomach that I'm supporting a bunch of fat white Americans flying half way around the world to destroy a magnificent animal simply because they can.
Basically go to any registrars home page and either search for "Transfer" on the page itself or in their search box if provided. They will all offer it together with easy how to steps - and I am sure their support team will help as well. They want your business and will make it as easy as possible.
I've also had horrendous customer service from 1and1. Minor billing problems for several months on end, which would have likely been easily remedied if they had competent phone support. (This was about 3 years ago, so maybe they've gotten better since then. They have already lost my business, and they'd be hard pressed to win it back.)
100% agree on that. I had a DSL contract with them in Germany and moved to another town where i had internet via cable included. They insisted that i have to keep paying for another 18 months with no way to cancel the contract early.
I paid and will avoid 1and1 for the rest of my life.
We use them at work - not a fan but haven't had any issues. Personally I use Gandi and love them.
Another one to avoid like the plague imho is dotster - lost a domain via dotster, even though my payment was accepted and then returned a week later. Domain briefly showed up with whois information of the CEO, and then it changed.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to transfer the domain away from GoDaddy. It's to a registrar unknown to me but the instructions will work for any registrar, and the guide is new enough to use the current version of GoDaddy's craptastic UI:
GoDaddy doesn't own your domains at all, and they'll be more than happy to help you transfer away to a competitor.
It's simple! Just find the place in the GoDaddy UI to unlock your domains, then the other place to request the authorization code required to transfer the domains (you need to request this in an email per domain), then disable private registration if you have that enabled (but don't change your personal info, or you'll have to wait another 2 months), then wait for the correct registration info to propagate (wait a day to be safe, because if you do this wrong it really gets tricky), then start the transfer process at the competing registrar, and follow similarly byzantine steps with them.
At some point, GoDaddy will send you an email telling you that you can confirm the transfer, but they don't mention how. Instead, they give you the steps how to cancel the transfer. Follow those steps, if you can (make sure to click on the correct "My account" link or you'll never find the right forms) and just change the last step to say "confirm" rather than "cancel".
A few days will pass, and then your domain will be transferred!
I've been moving my domains one by one away from godaddy as they expire, and I can confirm that this is the general procedure. The only thing different for me is that it all seems to happen in about 30 minutes. I'm using dynadot.com as my new registrar and the domains seem to transfer very quickly. So quickly that I've tempted luck a couple times and transferred on the day the domains expire. I know, I know, but it all worked out O.K. But I'd recommend doing it a couple weeks early, just in case.
You should move your domains away for reasons like constant up sales and other crappy tactics to keep you from your domains, not because the CEO shot a elephant in a different country.
And that's exactly why I want to move, I just didn't know how and saw the opportunity in this thread to get some help (also, OP, sorry for the small hijacking).
I've never seen an elephant in the wild and don't know Zimbabwe nearly well enough to know how much of a problem elephants in general (and this one in particular) are.
The whole attitude, though... Something akin to "here I am to save the day", or something like that... That I don't like, and it adds to the poor customer experience.
>> I'll be moving my domains away from GoDaddy asap.
I moved all my domains, ~30, from GoDaddy about 18 months ago. It was a slog. There was no "asap" to it. It took about 2 months to get them all moved over to namecheap. Transfers gets curtailed for various reasons and the current registrar is usually little help in solving the mysteries.
I'm telling you this not to take the wind from your sails but to prep you for a bit more effort.
The reason for my move was the full-on "retail experience" of GoDaddy. It just didn't work for me anymore. I wanted a more spartan registrar.
I also transferred all my domains from GoDaddy to NameCheap in the past year and never looked back. I was tired of having to navigate a maze of circa-1995-UI pages filled with upselling. Want to change your DNS settings? Oh, look for that teeny tiny link in the corner. Want to turn on domain privacy? That'll be another $9.95, and you have to log in to a different site with a different username+password to manage that.
Admittedly, GoDaddy has a genius business model IMO. The confusing UI is what probably makes them their bucks.
I've moved about a dozen domains away from GoDaddy over the last year. The time savings (less spam, cleaner interface) well exceeded the effort involved.
I agree that it's a horrible stunt, but I don't see how it can harm GoDaddy's reputation. As far as I am concerned, GoDaddy's reputation is so far down in the dumps that it is difficult for it to sink any lower, and that is based on their behavior as a registrar, not stunts by the CEO.
So, to recap: sexist advertising campaigns for the benefit of the entire company == OK; the CEO shooting an elephant == boycott. To be clear, I'm in no way agreeing with his actions, but it was getting fed up with the advertising that got me to dump GoDaddy for DynDNS long before anything like this occurred.
Umm -- YES! Sexist advertising campaign = Silly, but I am not going to choose or drop a registrar based on that. CEO shooting an innocent animal = A company that I don't want to do business with.
You aren't trying to say that showing some scantily clad women is equivalent to killing, are you?
Almost every CEO in the country is responsible for killing "innocent" animals, since most are not vegetarian. Most are paying others to do it for them and are eating it themselves, but why is that morally better?
This is a form of blood sport (i.e. killing for personal entertainment). Animals that are destined for human consumption aren't generally killed for entertainment.
You are connecting the actions of the CEO with the actions of the company. I am making a point about the culture of a company that actively promotes themselves with sexist advertising campaigns. They are free to do as they wish and I am free to suggest that supporting a company that promotes themselves in this manner is also supporting the attitude in our culture that 'women==objects for our amusement' and is rewarding them for adopting that attitude for profit.
[addressing a sibling comment] Yes, the actors in the ads are willing participants...and that matters why?
One useful way we have of responding to corporations is by not participating in their activity if we do not agree with them. And yet, this ability is horribly underused. Don't like sexism? Don't support companies that rely on it. Don't like violence? Don't support companies that participate in it?
I just find it interesting where people draw the lines.
@locopati You are right. The difference is in where people draw the lines.
@travisp I've heard this logic before. Your girlfriend perhaps eats beef. Ask her to take a chainsaw and chop a cow for her next meal. She'll tell you how the two things are different.
Unfortunately all my domains are with GoDaddy. Moving them ASAP. It is unacceptable for such a big company to have its CEO involved in something like this.
For years we've been discussing social responsibilities of the enterprise (I've been on it since 1998 here in Brazil) and then we see something like this. If it has the potential to make one disappointed and wonder if she shouldn't give up the fight, it also makes one see that discussing the social impacts and actions of businesses is still tremendously important and necessary.
I'm proud to be on the right side of the fight. And I'm ashamed of having my domains hosted with the slaughterhouse registrar.
I found an email in my inbox today from a competitor who are taking advantage of the PR disaster by offering a discount and a charitable contribution to anyone wishing to transfer their domains to them over this. Here's a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/za7G6.png
This is the final straw for me, godaddy has a horrible UI that looks like a toplinks page and functions much the same I presume. I've been wanting to move my domains from godaddy for years, but haven't due to laziness. What are the best alternatives?
This was a reasonable post when it was about it was stupid to mix up GoDaddy's corporate image with this stuff. But this:
> It's a good thing that I have all my domains with another registrar or I'd be forced to move them.
is way over the top. Nobody's forcing you to do anything. If you choose to buy into the "CEO image = corporate image" thing, then fine, move your business elsewhere. But I kind of thought the point of the post was that it's kind of silly, but yeah, people do conflate those things.
GoDaddy is essentially 100% owned by Bob Parsons. I've heard that their marketing department dislikes the Super Bowl ads almost as much as the rest of us, but the final call rests with Bob.
I don't think its any more stupid than them trying to associate scantily clad women with a domain name registrar. At least he actually has something to do with the company. It might be different if the models actually helped you fill out the forms, but they don't, they have nothing to do with the process, except creating a memory associated with the company name. It is a live by the sword die by the sword situation when it comes to brand identity.
I guess I'll be the lone discenting voice and say I don't think it's that bad. Bob Parsons has always run his company the way he wants, and he has particular freedom to do so since he has zero investors and is the sole owner. He does certain things for shock value, such as the super bowl commercials, which by the way caused outage with a completely different demographic of people.
Slaughtering an elephant might offend some of your sensibilities, but hunting in Africa is wide spread and as long as the elephant is not endangered, I don't think your outrage has a leg to stand on. The elephant was used as food and now crops are protected.
There are much worse things going on in America's food industry then this. In fact if anything if that elephant could feed the village I'd say this was actually a good thing.
I can understand how this might offend vegetarians but even then, it's not like the animal was wasted.
Thank you. Agreed. He fed a village (or more), saved the crop, and it looks like the people there find this to be a noble act.
Our U.S. grocery stores have stock piles of meat stacked in open refrigerators, butchered behind closed doors. Animals are fed and bred to be slaughtered so we can have a juicy burger and fries. Out of sight out of mind I guess.
Now... MAYBE the CEO of a hugely popular brand should not have participated in such an activity and filmed it for sake of his company, employees and customers, but I'm certainly not moving my domains over this.
There are probably employees there that don't like what he did either, but I'm not going to punish them for the actions of 1.
Me neither. I'm moving my domains because this reminded me of the silent, seething rage I have for Bob Parson's face.
When I go to a site that registers and manages domains, I don't want to see your face. I also don't want to see ads about how great your company is. When I buy a domain, I don't want to wade through five pages of bullshit you put up in the hopes that I won't notice some default or will misclick somewhere and inadvertently buy your useless services. I just want to register and manage my fucking domains.
Seriously, GoDaddy is the expertsexchange of domains.
Just out of curiosity where are you going to move your domains? I own just over 30 domains all at GoDaddy and I'd move them over the massive amounts of cross selling and insanely cluttered UI.
... and just emailed me, as an existing Namecheap customer, letting me know that I can help save the elephants. Nice fast-move marketing. :)
"It's not often that we would disagree publicly with a competitor, but we at Namecheap are very disturbed by this video of a competitor killing an elephant for sport. Check out the ABC News Report (Warning: Very Graphic!)
We've decided to throw our support behind our Elephant friends by offering domain transfers at a price where we actually lose money.
Show your protest by saying BYEBYEGD again and transfer your domains to Namecheap for $4.99 for the next 24 hours through 11:59pm EST on 3/31/11 (limit 10 per user, valid for all com/net/org domains).
NameCheap are an ex-client (obvious disclaimer) back when they were a lot smaller than they are these days. They were a decent bunch and while always on the ball with marketing, I can imagine there being some genuine feeling behind this - they weren't the type to stick branded caps on African villagers, that's for sure.
I use dreamhost which sells domains at 10 bucks with automatic private registration. But dreamhost only sells .com, .net, and .us I believe. For the others I use name.com
Honestly I haven't done enough research, but I completely agree with the OP. I'd rather pay double than to have to sift through godaddys utter bullshit of a UI.
We're currently taking registrations under COM/NET (Verisign) and ORG/INFO (Afilias). US is a third, separate registry (NeuStar), and we aren't currently a registrar for them.
I'm slowly moving all my domains to Name.com. Once your account is setup and you've purchased one domain, all future domain purchases take a grand total of two clicks.
I've used godaddy, namecheap, and 1&1, but ended up switching all my domains to name.com. One of the best interfaces I've used as it doesn't try to abstract the DNS records from you. That was one of my biggest issues with 1&1 and godaddy - their interface made it so that I never knew exactly what my DNS settings were, just what the spoon-fed messages that I was given told me. The only "abstracted" thing that they do is provide a one-click solution for setting the dns entries for google apps (which you can still manually edit, as they appear in your DNS records). Here's some screenshots of the backend:
Seriously, try it. I liked them so much that I paid to have my other domains transfered to them. That alone should show you how much I enjoy it over the others I've tried.
I've been moving my domains (one by one as they expire) over to dynadot.com. So far I'm very happy--they have a much better interface and no annoying upsell junk during checkout.
I've heard they have a less powerful DNS interface but I run my own DNS servers so I've never noticed.
Yes, it seems a large number of people are comparing our own countries way of life to the way of life in another country. We might go and admire elephants in zoos, but for some countries they're a PITA. Some people might think the way we (the "west") exterminate cock roaches and stuff is bs. Different cultures etc.
That might well be true, but is it not Zimbabwe we're talking about here? I know they're neighbors, but that doesn't mean they face the same exact problems.
That's cool, so does mine, and I have zero problem with that. However, GoDaddy is not it the elephant butchering business. Slapping their hats on people butchering an elephant strikes me as a crass marketing attempt (even for them).
While I agree that this certainly isn't the worst action of a CEO ever (nor this year or probably this day), I can understand the outrage a bit.
First of all, controlling your public image is a good idea, most of the time. Unless you want to go totally over the top and take it too a Donal Trump level. Hunting probably belongs in the same class as politics, religion and sexuality: Don't talk about it too much.
Second, it's hunting in Africa. Trying to look like you're the protector of a poor village there is going to bring back things like the "White Man's Burden" into the mind of people reading and watching this. Not a good idea, part deux.
Never mind that shooting elephants is a last-ditch effort. As far as I know there are lots of other ways to drive them off, maybe not as easy (and "entertaining") as just shooting them.
On the other hand, it's the GoDaddy CEO. Not exactly a brand with a good publicity anyway, and they barely need it. Enough people go there because they like to save money and/or don't know any competitors. Regarding needs for good publicity, they're probably somewhere between McDonalds and Monsanto.
I found it somewhat ironic that the villagers standing around cutting meat off the elephant seemed to do more damage by trampling the crops than the elephants did. Look at the last part of the video... between the elephants, hunters, and the entire village fighting over the meat, the poor farmers crops don't stand a chance.
While I respect your opinions in support of Parsons, I'm going to have to disagree with you on a lot of your arguments.
>Bob Parsons has always run his company the way he wants, and he has particular freedom to do so since he has zero investors and is the sole owner
Parsons does have the freedom to do what he likes but there are consequences to those actions. No one is questioning his freedom to do what he chooses.
> He does certain things for shock value...
True but I think killing an elephant and then posting a video about it is a bit different than showing scantily clad women dancing on the hood of a convertible. Both can be equally demeaning and morally questionable to certain parts of the population but let's be real here, killing an "innocent animal" is much more controversial than what is shown on TV almost every night.
> Slaughtering an elephant might offend some of your sensibilities, but hunting in Africa is wide spread and as long as the elephant is not endangered, I don't think your outrage has a leg to stand on.
Not sure if you read the article but Jacques specifically states there's a clear difference between a rich dude shooting the Elephant and a native Zimbabwean game warden doing it to protect his crops (which btw, there are many other ways of going about that than shooting it). The psychology behind the former doing it can be extremely powerful (and enraging) compared to the latter.
> There are much worse things going on in America's food industry then this.
Agreed. But that's missing the point.
> I can understand how this might offend vegetarians but even then, it's not like the animal was wasted.
I'd assume this statement was more offensive to vegetarians than watching that video. I'd assume that b/c I am one.
Both can be equally demeaning and morally questionable to certain parts of the population but let's be real here, killing an "innocent animal" is much more controversial than what is shown on TV almost every night.
In a culture where steakhouses dot the roadsides, it seems odd to assert that killing an "innocent animal" is controversial at all. In some US locality where vegetarians make up the vast majority of the population, maybe, but does a place like that even exist?
I haven't seen the video; I'm just speaking to that one sentence, really.
There's nothing hypocritical or even illogical about special casing every single species with varying levels of concern. At some point you have a set of purely irrational axioms about some qualities, be they kingdom, phylum, family, genus, species, or some other subjective criteria for what makes a living creature worthy of consideration when its life is in danger.
If you don't believe there's a rational basis to this consideration, it's hypocritical to criticize somebody else for having a different but no less valid set of qualities he considers.
Not at all. I'm criticizing you for your repeated misuse of the word hypocritical. (And your attempt to equate disagreement with your viewpoint to a failure of logic.) If you can't have a reasonable discussion without name calling, you don't belong here.
Really? You don't see how flying in a rich westerner into some poverty-stricken region of the developing world to carry out an endangered wild big-game trophy hunt might be more controversial than killing an animal farmed for food for its intended purpose? I don't buy it, and as someone with so much at stake, he should have known better.
> Not sure if you read the article but Jacques specifically states there's a clear difference between a rich dude shooting the Elephant and a native Zimbabwean game warden doing it to protect his crops (which btw, there are many other ways of going about that than shooting it). The psychology behind the former doing it can be extremely powerful (and enraging) compared to the latter.
That's a great point. I mostly agree with the GP, but the symbolism of Parsons' actions is really powerful.
I'd assume this statement was more offensive to vegetarians than watching that video. I'd assume that b/c I am one.
So what if you're offended? That's no reason for the other side of a rational argument to change their argument in reaction to you being offended, so it's irrelevant.
Not sure if you read the article but Jacques specifically states there's a clear difference between a rich dude shooting the Elephant and a native Zimbabwean game warden doing it to protect his crops (which btw, there are many other ways of going about that than shooting it). The psychology behind the former doing it can be extremely powerful (and enraging) compared to the latter.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the elephant ends up dead either way. If the Zimbabwean government can monetize a practice that would otherwise cost them money (viz., protecting crops from elephants) and simultaneously a dude with excess money can get some recreational activity out of it, it seems like it's a win-win.
There obviously are some issues with this, e.g., if the government's only interest is moneymaking rather than proper wildlife husbandry, then they're incentivized short-term to sell the rights to kill every elephant around. But no one is going around complaining that there's insufficient evidence of proper husbandry here; rather, they're complaining because a big mammal that lots of us read about in storybooks as kids just got shot.
I'd be pissed if this were a case where they obviously baited the elephants or were just slaughtering the animals indiscriminately. This obviously isn't the case, though.
That's not true. Vegetarians have a problem eating meat, hence the vege- prefix. I'm a vegetarian and have no problem with killing, especially for food. I'm just not going to eat meat.
From context, it is clear that he's talking about people who are vegetarians for moral reasons (as are most people when they say "vegetarians believe X," since obviously if you're not a vegetarian for ideological reasons, no ideology can be inferred from your vegetarianism).
You could choose to be a vegetarian because you disagree with factory farming and the industrialization of the meat industry. You could become a vegetarian because you don't like the texture of meat.
All 'vegetarian' infers is dietary choice. The reasons for becoming one can vary greatly.
It's not so much about slaughtering the elephant as it is exploitation of the villagers to promote his company.
It's like he's saying to them "Fine. I'll help you. I'll get rid of this elephant and save your crops and even feed you for a day or two, but you will have to wear my hats when you slaughter it".
If this is more a philanthropic gesture, are the hats necessary? Should Bill Gates require every kid who is saved from malaria wear Microsoft t-shirts?
Isn't it more likely that he handed out the hats as a nice gesture to the locals, and he had no idea those same people would soon attack the dead carcass and start handing out its flesh?
Yeah, well somebody definitely made the editing decision to include that nice shiny, well-framed shot of the guy wearing a GoDaddy hat. So whether the decision came before or after, they seem to be happy about it...
You're putting words in my mouth there. There's killing in the name of hunger, and then there's killing in the name of sport. I don't give a shit how much PR GoDaddy wraps around this story (hungry villagers, elephants on a rampage to destroy crops, funding other wildlife preserves, etc.), this is killing for sport.
There's no valid need to kill this animal. If the villagers themselves had taken care of it (or if a game warden had culled the animal as part of a considered program that benefits both human and elephant populations), I may feel differently.
I don't see how vegetarianism even plays a part in this discussion. I'm not a vegetarian, but this offends me. I'm offended by Parson's bravado and his claim that "Of everything I do this is the most rewarding."
Parson kills an animal under the guise of crop protection and to feed a village. Were I watching a local hunt for this elephant to feed their family I would feel that the death was justified. But we're really just watching a rich westerner tramp around in the dark so he can fire a gun.
Is this really the most rewarding thing Parson could think to do for local villagers in Zimbabawe? And even if so, I would expect some more humility from someone who claimed their actions were so noble.
You are going to be offended that some of the conservations in Africa are maintained by 'rich westerner' hunters who do not want to see the animals gone in order to preserve hunting.
If "conservation" means breeding wild animals in what is essentially captivity so that "rich westerners" can pay lots of money to go around and shoot them for the sake of shooting them, then you're absolutely right, I am going to be offended.
So if the elephant were dead by the hand of a poor African, it would be okay in your eyes? Income seems like an arbitrary factor to determine whether or not it is morally acceptable to kill an animal.
Not arbitrary at all. As soon as large sums of money are involved, the question goes from one of pure necessity to one that tries to "balance" a lack of necessity against the promise of an easy buck.
I find your reasoning faulty. Frankly, I think it's you without a leg to stand on.
Tu quoque much? Murder, child abuse, blah blah, is widespread everywhere as well. Arguing this is somehow justifiable because something is "widespread" makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever.
And implying that Parson's gutless little stunt is justified simply because this is great for his company puts you squarely in the ends justify the means camp. Inhabiting that miserable landscape, you and he will not mind when I declare open season and cull a few company CEOs and feed a whole village, too. Would you then say that's actually a good thing, too?
I have no problems with killing and eating animals. There are 1.5 billion cattle on this planet. Elephants, however, have been hunted from a population of 5-10 million a century ago to around 600,000 today and are now a threatened species. Do you really not see the difference between one and the other?
No, I'm not sure if I do. The pain cattle feels is no less pleasant than that elephants experience. The lives they lead in captivity so that we may eat them are almost certainly hellish compared to those that elephants live. In essence not only are they killed, but they're bred and forced to live torturous lives just for the purpose of being killed.
How exactly does a greater world-wide population of one's species lower the value of one's life? Is it based on some cutoff beyond which extinction is assured? Or is it linear?Does maximizing the number of species on the planet really trump all concerns of suffering?
If so, this logic would also somewhat weaken the value of the life of a dog (300 million) in comparison to that of a cat (200 million)? And what about the value of your life or mine? There are 6 billion of our species.
Personally, I find it very hard to justify both eating animal flesh and outrage at animal killing. On occasion, I have an uneasy feeling that centuries from now humanity will look upon our current practices in a similar way as we look upon slavery... or cannibalism.
Was with you until your stab at vegetarians. I'm a vegetarian, I'm not an animal rights activists.
This is like seeing a change going in the Ubuntu distribution and saying it might offend Linux kernel developers. In other words, it's misinformed at best, and a worthless and argumentative statement at worst.
Pro Tip: Actual dissent requires being on-topic. And that means paying enough attention to know what the topic actually is.
Had you actually read the OP, you'd have understood that the crux of the criticism has to do with mindless participation in an obviously bad system. That is, a system that turns a necessary but easily abused task into a profit center - thereby ensuring that it will be stretched to utterly unnecessary proportions.
It had nothing to do with hunting in general, or being a vegetarian in particular.
For the record, there's (a lot) more to the issue than a few meals. Even in the limited areas where elephant populations are not highly endangered, there's still substantial controversy around any practice that allows the ivory market to legitimately revive itself, since it not only provides cover for black-market ivory, it also fuels the kind of demand that leads to increased poaching in places where elephants remain truly endangered.
You should also know that what you saw on that video is the exception, not the rule. In the all-too-common cases where elephants are killed illegally, any stray documentary crews would also be killed, with all the bodies left to rot. The same goes for rhinos, tigers, and other magnificent creatures unfortunate enough to have one or two body parts valuable only to chronically egotistical douchebags.
As a citizen of a southern African country I can tell you that A) The educated locals are disgusted by this kind of hunting for sport as opposed to food and B) I can assure you that the "foreign currency" that it supposedly brings in is not converted to Zim dollars and spent on the local economy.
Upvoted for pointing out that any marginal program promoted by Zimbabwean officials citing "benefits to the local economy" is utter bullshit.
If any of those officials actually cared about the local economy (or actually intended to let the money reach it), they wouldn't have demolished those economies with their utterly unrestrained corruption and graft.
Honestly, believing propaganda like that makes you look as naive as the people who believe that the wives of abusive husbands "just happen to keep falling down the stairs."
You can reply without being offensive. You could also save time by not prefacing some of your sentences with insults.
Come on, uncool.
Additionally, the article you linked says (among other pros and cons)
Some countries, including South Africa, Zimbabwe,
Botswana, and Namibia, had been able to manage their
elephant populations and claimed that increased
populations were causing increased agricultural losses,
decreased revenue from hunting and increased conflicts
between elephants and local residents.
Which is something you ignore in your arguments. Did you happen to miss that part in the page you linked?
The money these countries get from allowing safaris does pay for the parks they preserve. The few animals killed (legally) do not have a significant impact on the population as a whole, and I'd argue have a significant positive impact on the parks as a whole.
I neither missed nor ignored the segment you cite (though I do appreciate your reading it).
The point is that commercial big game hunting remains a very problematic issue, in that it fuels a man vs. beast mythos that gives trophies a value which encourages more hunting in areas where populations remain truly endangered. And again, it creates a legitimate source for ivory which has the nasty effect of providing cover to ivory gathered illegally.
Not only does that cover serve sellers with ivory in the market, it also applies to ivory in the possession of buyers who can more easily deflect the (totally justified) social stigma that was slowly starting to attach itself to the stuff.
It comes down to this: there are some areas where profit seeking tendencies are toxic, and where responsible stewardship demands a more disinterested handling. The "glory" of big game hunting (and, specifically, its packaging for sale) is one of the prime reasons that many populations got endangered in the first place.
Even if the necessity to cull does return in certain areas, it's critically important to handle this without reviving the specter of the Great White Hunter. And it's just as important to ensure that any consumption remains entirely local. Letting commodities like ivory and hides slip out may bring short term gains, but only by serving markets that represent the antithesis of conservationism. The arguments you cite don't do nearly enough to acknowledge this aspect of the problem.
Separately, what you allow to offend you is your business. Personally, I don't mind lightly-salted language and a well deserved jab. Where I take offense is in seeing a demonstrably mindless response that veers wildly off-topic before landing in a thicket of unwarranted slurs getting upvoted to the degree that c2's did. And I hope I'm not alone.
Seems to me like it would be much more reasonable to blame the poachers and the systems that allow poaching versus one man who legally killed an animal. An animal that was going to be destroyed anyways.
In my opinion, Bob Parsons did nothing wrong, even if I wouldn't have posted a video about it. Heck, I also wouldn't have killed the animal. But to attempt to blame him to poaching and historical racism (the great white hunter line) seems a little out there.
Do you have any evidence that the legal killing, in this manner, actually has any affect on wildlife populations? Any reason to think that it actually does provide cover (data reasons rather than anecdotes)?
Again, it's not something that I would do, or even something that I approve. But to say that it's wrong, seems uncalled for. Then again, I also wouldn't use large breasted woman as the focus on my domain name sales company.
Also, I hate godaddy for how horrible their interface is. They have made major strides in their DNS hosting, which is all I'll use it for anymore.
There's nothing reasonable about blaming one agent instead of another when it's their partnership that's doing the damage.
Indeed, and in a very small way, advocacy for this kind of buck-passing you makes you part of the problem, not the solution.
The problems of trophy hunting, poaching, black-market animal parts, and wholesale extinction are all connected. They're all part of an outlook that reflexively sees wildlife as being worth more dead than alive. The thing supporting this view is a larger (and hugely problematic) outlook that views the Earth as an infinitely renewable resource, and only acknowledges financial limits when it comes to one's own consumption.
The good news is that a growing number of people look at this guy's 'adventure' and think "ick". Though you may not share that sense of moral revulsion, please be aware that it reflects an instinct that you and any kids you may have will ultimately benefit from.
I believe that your connection of the tragedy of the commons with this specific story may be wrong.
I recall Zimbabwe is one of the countries that more or less _privatized_ elephants, and the owners of private hunting parks do not treat them at all as an infinitely renewable resource, exactly like a cow farmer doesn't. They don't have interest in over hunting, on the contrary their profit depends on having a healthy and stable population. I am not qualified enough to judge the long term effects, but Zimbabwe has had a stable/growing population of elephants for more than twenty years now.
While I don't like big animals hunting, I'd say this shows a completely different outlook from the one you refer to.
Even the Republicans don't grease their slopes this much.
One guy killing one elephant for the sake of a minor and frankly uninteresting publicity stunt (and this guy being part of a small minority of company owners capable of doing this, since shareholders would never approve) does not ipso facto lead to a bunch of rich sport-hunters decimating the wildlife population of Africa as a revival of some sort of primal hunting instinct. That's absolutely absurd. I seem to recall this show back in the day called the "Crocodile Hunter" featuring the contest of a human with an endangered species in waaaaay more glorified terms than this.
I'm pretty sure Steve Irwin was a conservationist though... Aka -- he went and wrestled with Crocodiles but he never shot them - certainly not for sport.
// Being an Aussie -- we'd never really heard of Steve Irwin until he died. At which point he moved from being a tosser to being a national hero.
>The point is that commercial big game hunting remains a very problematic issue, in that it fuels a man vs. beast mythos that gives trophies a value which encourages more hunting in areas where populations remain truly endangered
This is not a commercial big game hunt.
>It comes down to this: there are some areas where profit seeking tendencies are toxic
This was not profit seeking. Last I checked the guy who shot the elephant left with nothing.
>Even if the necessity to cull does return in certain areas, it's critically important to handle this without reviving the specter of the Great White Hunter. And it's just as important to ensure that any consumption remains entirely local
So the fact he took video of it then means he's making a spectacle of himself? He's just trying to record something good he was doing.
>Letting commodities like ivory and hides slip out may bring short term gains, but only by serving markets that represent the antithesis of conservationism.
Neither of these commodities went anywhere except with the surrounding villagers.
>The arguments you cite don't do nearly enough to acknowledge this aspect of the problem.
Because it's not a problem, nothing was taken.
>Separately, what you allow to offend you is your business. Personally, I don't mind lightly-salted language and a well deserved jab.
You were objectively being an unprofessional, emotional twat.
>Where I take offense is in seeing a demonstrably mindless response that veers wildly off-topic before landing in a thicket of unwarranted slurs getting upvoted to the degree that c2's did. And I hope I'm not alone.
Mindless to who? You. Your entire rant that i've read is 100% mindless to me. Your opinion of what's mindless is just that - opinion, and it's subjective. Since you hate mindless responses I'll assume you think your response is mindful. I find this interesting seeing as how the majority of your post is about "jabbing" people and speaking emotionally.
>>It comes down to this: there are some areas where profit seeking tendencies are toxic
>This was not profit seeking. Last I checked the guy who shot the elephant left with nothing.
Though it might be arguable that the hunt organizers/tour guides were profit seeking. Guiding someone to a place where they can shoot an animal for fun (with the guise of doing good) will bring them some money. Sure, it could have been beneficial to the community to rid a problem elephant and give the villagers additional meat - but Bob's desire to shoot something is doubtfully meant to be for the good will of the community and more so to fill his own desires of killing something.
Great points, but there are a lot more dangerous things out there to sorghum than a couple of elephants. Elephants are big animals and they would have scared off a number of smaller, possibly more dangerous critters.
shock value or not (and even if he did do the right thing), he still comes off as a dick.
1) Read the OP
2) He could have donated money he spent on the expedition to feed that village.
3) He could have relocated the elephants. They are called tranqs, it won't take one, but it'll take a few and get the elephant down.
This is just an excuse for a rich person to brag about killing an endangered specie with a gun. OOOO SKILL. If he did it with his bare hands, then I would applaud.
I would agree with most on here, this is par for the course considering the companies branding already, which is pretty cheap low rent stuff. He's coming across as the "dickish" "most interesting man in the world" here. And I agree it should be a game warden duty to handle such situations, for the same reason McD's wouldn't allow old food to be eaten by employees, because it would increase the chances of there being more "old food." But the thing that really bugs me is the end, why not have it properly butchered and dispersed that way? Instead of something that reminds me of Bum Fights. Class is obviously not part of their branding in anyway.
Following in the footsteps of Thomas Edison? [1] I've never been a fan of the phrase "Any publicity is good publicity." But damaging the brand? I don't know that it rises to that level. Because the guy slaughter's elephants you think he can't maintain a credible domain registry? Now if he was running a shelter for abandoned big game animals, sure it would be a challenge but this is the guy who uses large mammary glands as a marketing tool.
333 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 281 ms ] threadBranding is important, and what you do with your brand is important. Actions speak louder than words. Google is still associated with "Do no Evil," but that's starting to wear a little thin as some of their actions belie the mantra. Similarly, you can get people chanting a slogan, but if you do something wrong, people will notice, and the backlash can be severe.
I would add that this:
... appears to have either too many or not enough negatives. I suggest it should read:As such, I'm not surprised that he turned his personal hunting exhibition into a marketing expense. He seems to have a deaf ear when it comes to brand management. And that doesn't seem to have hurt him in any meaningful way.
I'm not sure what lesson to take away from any of this, except that he runs his business differently than I do.
They appear to target the bottom 90% who needs a domain name. And, they very wisely get name recognition with non tech savvy business owners who often have the ultimate decision in which registrar to use.
Look at it from the vantage of a typical conservative small business owner here in America. Slaughtering a beautiful and rare animal is not deaf-ear branding - it's shrewd marketing. GoDaddy is not afraid to kill to solve problems. The association is powerful and on target.
Upvoted for this comment alone. In this context, the whole event makes a lot of sense.
I agree that in this particular case its a bad move to release this publicly because he is a leader of a major company and shouldn't invite such controversy.
yes. While i think all killers are bad persons, i see how a necessary killing may be up for debate. Jumping at the first chance to kill and doing it willingfully indicates that the person is a moral trash.
1. Self/property protection 2. Fun/sport/hunting 3. Assertion of constitutional rights( and sometimes duty )
That said, this thread is in danger of political derailment.
I believe in gun rights because I have had relatives / personally been protected from both people and animals (feral dogs) by gun ownership. I believe weakening any of the bill of rights provides avenues to weaken the others. I also believe that it is an important counter balance to authority figures becoming despots. Mostly I just see guns as another tool and have serious problems with saying an object did something when it is the person who did. Plus, most of the gun stat stories were done narrowly and didn't include rural areas (did a stint in the social work area).
So, I understand the purpose, but am horrified by the picture and do not think NRA membership is a factor in the reaction to the picture.
I don't currently own any guns, and am clumsy enough to be a threat to everybody within 1/4 mile if I did, but I do believe that the right to self-defense is a fundamental human right, perhaps the most fundamental of all.
Historically, most deaths due to misuse of guns have occurred in times and places where the state has maintained a monopoly on the use of violence. It would be very hard to convince me that a disarmed populace is a net positive for society, over the long run.
Not all animals are elephants.
GoDaddy should have been out of business a long time ago just due to the horrid usability of its product.
http://twitter.com/hotdogsladies/status/1553046234
Thanks god no. When I started publishing websites the webmaster forums were full with warnings about GoDaddy :)
- Namecheap promotion [HN discussion] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2390764
- Ask YC: Who's your favorite domain registrar and why? [2008] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150561
http://en.gandi.net/supports/
So far no issues what so ever other than with GoDaddy and moving domains over because of issues with whois, but once there everything is fast, and simple. Unlike GoDaddy's interface.
I'm not sure if they're still doing it, but the thing that drove me away was their spammy DNS.
Example: I had valid DNS records for mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com but they were forwarding ANYTHING.mydomain.com to one of their ad-ridden pages.
I can kind of see an argument for having that when a domain has just been purchased and there is no valid content yet. But doing that to an established site makes ME look like a spammer.
tl;dr - if you're using name.com's DNS, you might want to see if they're hosting spam pages on whatever.yourdomain.com
If you want to argue about whether the elephant SHOULD have been killed, that's fine. There is plenty to debate there. But who does the shooting is of no importance.
That said he's right that as a CEO you represent your company--especially when you're handing out swag. Probably not a smart PR move.
What "matters" is that you have a picture and video clip that can fuel a he said / she said segment on all the 24 hour news channels and various organizations now have something they can spin for their own purposes. CEOs should know better.
And Lohan, she's still making movies. Where's the problem?
Ergo: the idea itself isn't sustainable, economically or morally.
Now its sustainable economically, if possibly not morally.
I like the free market too, but let's be reasonable here. We can dump money into Africa at far greater levels than they can sustainably support.
I wonder if a couple of fence (electric) might be a better solution than shooting the elephant. And all I saw in the video was a couple of square meters of trampled grass. I wonder what animal court in the world would give the death sentence for that.
And do you really think a poor village in remote Zimbabwe is going to have the electricity (and money) to put up an electric fence around all their fields?
Maybe they can't afford electric fences, but the GoDaddy guy surely could. Also now I remember in the Zoo they also don't have electric fences. It sounds doable to me - certainly not more effort than for example building those rice terraces other countries seem to manage.
Maybe these farmers really have no choice, which would be a purely political problem. They are definitely picking the wrong solution, though.
Even if your arguments are correct that the villagers are so poor that they have no choice (which I doubt), it all crumbles down when the rich hunters come into play. Surely they have enough money and tools to erect a wall.
I am pretty sure they did it without power tools, too, back in the day.
As a thought experiment imagine some rich guy offers a tremendous amount of money (let's say millions) to allow authorities to perform an execution of a death row inmate. To allow that would be playing with fire. The government now has a financial interest in having more inmates on death row, as opposed to simply serving the public interest.
But, seriously, if we as a society are so concerned about dwindling elephant numbers, why aren't we actively managing them as a luxury food source instead of leaving them to their own devices on the savannah where they frequently(?) tick-off the locals. Why aren't there enterprising elephant ranchers in the open spaces of Texas? I would think that mesquite-scrub country would be great elephant habitat. That rancher is going to make damn sure he has a sustainable population of elephants, because if he doesn't, there goes his livelihood. And, I imagine that the rancher could profit handsomely off of just the pure novelty of the product. I know I would pay quite a bit for elephant steaks.
They sure HAVE to notice it. I've already transferred my domains and I'll make sure I won't buy any from GoDaddy again.
GoDaddy already has one of the scammiest UIs I've ever come across (with a possible exception of, maybe, MySpace) and the recent elephant killing was the last straw!
He might notice, but he's making so much money that I really doubt he cares.
Name.com's interface is a little confusing and NameCheap have great customer service!
Make no mistake though, this is just as much a part of their branding strategy as their stupid, tasteless Super Bowl commercials. They'll probably make a token PR apology to hedge their bets here, but this reinforces their "brand" more than it damages it.
Having been to Africa and seen elephants in the wild up close, among other animals, I simply can't stomach that I'm supporting a bunch of fat white Americans flying half way around the world to destroy a magnificent animal simply because they can.
I'll be moving my domains away from GoDaddy asap.
They kind of own my domain names now, how can I simply change registrars?
Gandi: https://www.gandi.net/domain/transfer
1and1: http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/DomaininfoMove
NameCheap: http://community.namecheap.com/blog/2011/03/30/elephants/
Basically go to any registrars home page and either search for "Transfer" on the page itself or in their search box if provided. They will all offer it together with easy how to steps - and I am sure their support team will help as well. They want your business and will make it as easy as possible.
I've been using namecheap for a couple of years, and I'm very happy with them.
We had a bit of trouble with them on credit card billing... Also, we found it hard to use their interface to change configuration settings.
I paid and will avoid 1and1 for the rest of my life.
Another one to avoid like the plague imho is dotster - lost a domain via dotster, even though my payment was accepted and then returned a week later. Domain briefly showed up with whois information of the CEO, and then it changed.
http://support.tigertech.net/godaddy.com
It's simple! Just find the place in the GoDaddy UI to unlock your domains, then the other place to request the authorization code required to transfer the domains (you need to request this in an email per domain), then disable private registration if you have that enabled (but don't change your personal info, or you'll have to wait another 2 months), then wait for the correct registration info to propagate (wait a day to be safe, because if you do this wrong it really gets tricky), then start the transfer process at the competing registrar, and follow similarly byzantine steps with them.
At some point, GoDaddy will send you an email telling you that you can confirm the transfer, but they don't mention how. Instead, they give you the steps how to cancel the transfer. Follow those steps, if you can (make sure to click on the correct "My account" link or you'll never find the right forms) and just change the last step to say "confirm" rather than "cancel".
A few days will pass, and then your domain will be transferred!
Now, was that so hard?
http://blog.dnsimple.com/post/3167427271/preparing-domains-i...
Naturally I'd love if you used DNSimple, but this will work for transferring out to any other registrar.
Wake up, everyone. I hate asshats like the GoDaddy CEO just as much as you do, but this self-righteous indignation is at The View levels right now.
SMH. Downvoted because I prioritize humans over elephants.
There is no such thing as a valid concern. All my concerns are valid.
I've never seen an elephant in the wild and don't know Zimbabwe nearly well enough to know how much of a problem elephants in general (and this one in particular) are.
The whole attitude, though... Something akin to "here I am to save the day", or something like that... That I don't like, and it adds to the poor customer experience.
So, there. :)
I moved all my domains, ~30, from GoDaddy about 18 months ago. It was a slog. There was no "asap" to it. It took about 2 months to get them all moved over to namecheap. Transfers gets curtailed for various reasons and the current registrar is usually little help in solving the mysteries.
I'm telling you this not to take the wind from your sails but to prep you for a bit more effort.
The reason for my move was the full-on "retail experience" of GoDaddy. It just didn't work for me anymore. I wanted a more spartan registrar.
Admittedly, GoDaddy has a genius business model IMO. The confusing UI is what probably makes them their bucks.
Given the above, I would say: 1) He knows exactly what he is doing and why 2) It is working*
*meaning growing the company, making lots of money, returning value to shareholders etc.
You aren't trying to say that showing some scantily clad women is equivalent to killing, are you?
[addressing a sibling comment] Yes, the actors in the ads are willing participants...and that matters why?
One useful way we have of responding to corporations is by not participating in their activity if we do not agree with them. And yet, this ability is horribly underused. Don't like sexism? Don't support companies that rely on it. Don't like violence? Don't support companies that participate in it?
I just find it interesting where people draw the lines.
@travisp I've heard this logic before. Your girlfriend perhaps eats beef. Ask her to take a chainsaw and chop a cow for her next meal. She'll tell you how the two things are different.
For years we've been discussing social responsibilities of the enterprise (I've been on it since 1998 here in Brazil) and then we see something like this. If it has the potential to make one disappointed and wonder if she shouldn't give up the fight, it also makes one see that discussing the social impacts and actions of businesses is still tremendously important and necessary.
I'm proud to be on the right side of the fight. And I'm ashamed of having my domains hosted with the slaughterhouse registrar.
> It's a good thing that I have all my domains with another registrar or I'd be forced to move them.
is way over the top. Nobody's forcing you to do anything. If you choose to buy into the "CEO image = corporate image" thing, then fine, move your business elsewhere. But I kind of thought the point of the post was that it's kind of silly, but yeah, people do conflate those things.
Slaughtering an elephant might offend some of your sensibilities, but hunting in Africa is wide spread and as long as the elephant is not endangered, I don't think your outrage has a leg to stand on. The elephant was used as food and now crops are protected.
There are much worse things going on in America's food industry then this. In fact if anything if that elephant could feed the village I'd say this was actually a good thing.
I can understand how this might offend vegetarians but even then, it's not like the animal was wasted.
Our U.S. grocery stores have stock piles of meat stacked in open refrigerators, butchered behind closed doors. Animals are fed and bred to be slaughtered so we can have a juicy burger and fries. Out of sight out of mind I guess.
Now... MAYBE the CEO of a hugely popular brand should not have participated in such an activity and filmed it for sake of his company, employees and customers, but I'm certainly not moving my domains over this.
There are probably employees there that don't like what he did either, but I'm not going to punish them for the actions of 1.
Me neither. I'm moving my domains because this reminded me of the silent, seething rage I have for Bob Parson's face.
When I go to a site that registers and manages domains, I don't want to see your face. I also don't want to see ads about how great your company is. When I buy a domain, I don't want to wade through five pages of bullshit you put up in the hopes that I won't notice some default or will misclick somewhere and inadvertently buy your useless services. I just want to register and manage my fucking domains.
Seriously, GoDaddy is the expertsexchange of domains.
"It's not often that we would disagree publicly with a competitor, but we at Namecheap are very disturbed by this video of a competitor killing an elephant for sport. Check out the ABC News Report (Warning: Very Graphic!)
We've decided to throw our support behind our Elephant friends by offering domain transfers at a price where we actually lose money.
Show your protest by saying BYEBYEGD again and transfer your domains to Namecheap for $4.99 for the next 24 hours through 11:59pm EST on 3/31/11 (limit 10 per user, valid for all com/net/org domains).
On top of that, we'll donate $1 for each transfer to Save The Elephants at http://www.savetheelephants.org/
Use coupon code BYEBYEGD and let's help the Elephants together!
Regards, Team Namecheap"
Honestly I haven't done enough research, but I completely agree with the OP. I'd rather pay double than to have to sift through godaddys utter bullshit of a UI.
http://name.com
I've used godaddy, namecheap, and 1&1, but ended up switching all my domains to name.com. One of the best interfaces I've used as it doesn't try to abstract the DNS records from you. That was one of my biggest issues with 1&1 and godaddy - their interface made it so that I never knew exactly what my DNS settings were, just what the spoon-fed messages that I was given told me. The only "abstracted" thing that they do is provide a one-click solution for setting the dns entries for google apps (which you can still manually edit, as they appear in your DNS records). Here's some screenshots of the backend:
http://i.imgur.com/F5j5m.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rx3uq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vGwwz.jpg
Seriously, try it. I liked them so much that I paid to have my other domains transfered to them. That alone should show you how much I enjoy it over the others I've tried.
I've heard they have a less powerful DNS interface but I run my own DNS servers so I've never noticed.
Godaddy's got plenty of other atrocities higher on my list, like the usability of their web panel.
First of all, controlling your public image is a good idea, most of the time. Unless you want to go totally over the top and take it too a Donal Trump level. Hunting probably belongs in the same class as politics, religion and sexuality: Don't talk about it too much.
Second, it's hunting in Africa. Trying to look like you're the protector of a poor village there is going to bring back things like the "White Man's Burden" into the mind of people reading and watching this. Not a good idea, part deux.
Never mind that shooting elephants is a last-ditch effort. As far as I know there are lots of other ways to drive them off, maybe not as easy (and "entertaining") as just shooting them.
On the other hand, it's the GoDaddy CEO. Not exactly a brand with a good publicity anyway, and they barely need it. Enough people go there because they like to save money and/or don't know any competitors. Regarding needs for good publicity, they're probably somewhere between McDonalds and Monsanto.
>Bob Parsons has always run his company the way he wants, and he has particular freedom to do so since he has zero investors and is the sole owner
Parsons does have the freedom to do what he likes but there are consequences to those actions. No one is questioning his freedom to do what he chooses.
> He does certain things for shock value...
True but I think killing an elephant and then posting a video about it is a bit different than showing scantily clad women dancing on the hood of a convertible. Both can be equally demeaning and morally questionable to certain parts of the population but let's be real here, killing an "innocent animal" is much more controversial than what is shown on TV almost every night.
> Slaughtering an elephant might offend some of your sensibilities, but hunting in Africa is wide spread and as long as the elephant is not endangered, I don't think your outrage has a leg to stand on.
Not sure if you read the article but Jacques specifically states there's a clear difference between a rich dude shooting the Elephant and a native Zimbabwean game warden doing it to protect his crops (which btw, there are many other ways of going about that than shooting it). The psychology behind the former doing it can be extremely powerful (and enraging) compared to the latter.
> There are much worse things going on in America's food industry then this.
Agreed. But that's missing the point.
> I can understand how this might offend vegetarians but even then, it's not like the animal was wasted.
I'd assume this statement was more offensive to vegetarians than watching that video. I'd assume that b/c I am one.
In a culture where steakhouses dot the roadsides, it seems odd to assert that killing an "innocent animal" is controversial at all. In some US locality where vegetarians make up the vast majority of the population, maybe, but does a place like that even exist?
I haven't seen the video; I'm just speaking to that one sentence, really.
Elsie = delicious;
That's a great point. I mostly agree with the GP, but the symbolism of Parsons' actions is really powerful.
So what if you're offended? That's no reason for the other side of a rational argument to change their argument in reaction to you being offended, so it's irrelevant.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the elephant ends up dead either way. If the Zimbabwean government can monetize a practice that would otherwise cost them money (viz., protecting crops from elephants) and simultaneously a dude with excess money can get some recreational activity out of it, it seems like it's a win-win.
There obviously are some issues with this, e.g., if the government's only interest is moneymaking rather than proper wildlife husbandry, then they're incentivized short-term to sell the rights to kill every elephant around. But no one is going around complaining that there's insufficient evidence of proper husbandry here; rather, they're complaining because a big mammal that lots of us read about in storybooks as kids just got shot.
I'd be pissed if this were a case where they obviously baited the elephants or were just slaughtering the animals indiscriminately. This obviously isn't the case, though.
I think you're confusing vegetarians with people who dig frugality.
All 'vegetarian' infers is dietary choice. The reasons for becoming one can vary greatly.
Isn't it more likely that he handed out the hats as a nice gesture to the locals, and he had no idea those same people would soon attack the dead carcass and start handing out its flesh?
You're assuming a very specific value system on the basis of a single, vague axiom.
There's no valid need to kill this animal. If the villagers themselves had taken care of it (or if a game warden had culled the animal as part of a considered program that benefits both human and elephant populations), I may feel differently.
Parson kills an animal under the guise of crop protection and to feed a village. Were I watching a local hunt for this elephant to feed their family I would feel that the death was justified. But we're really just watching a rich westerner tramp around in the dark so he can fire a gun.
Is this really the most rewarding thing Parson could think to do for local villagers in Zimbabawe? And even if so, I would expect some more humility from someone who claimed their actions were so noble.
Moral Hazard 101.
Tu quoque much? Murder, child abuse, blah blah, is widespread everywhere as well. Arguing this is somehow justifiable because something is "widespread" makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever.
And implying that Parson's gutless little stunt is justified simply because this is great for his company puts you squarely in the ends justify the means camp. Inhabiting that miserable landscape, you and he will not mind when I declare open season and cull a few company CEOs and feed a whole village, too. Would you then say that's actually a good thing, too?
It's not like we'd be wasting the fucking meat.
How exactly does a greater world-wide population of one's species lower the value of one's life? Is it based on some cutoff beyond which extinction is assured? Or is it linear?Does maximizing the number of species on the planet really trump all concerns of suffering?
If so, this logic would also somewhat weaken the value of the life of a dog (300 million) in comparison to that of a cat (200 million)? And what about the value of your life or mine? There are 6 billion of our species.
Personally, I find it very hard to justify both eating animal flesh and outrage at animal killing. On occasion, I have an uneasy feeling that centuries from now humanity will look upon our current practices in a similar way as we look upon slavery... or cannibalism.
This is like seeing a change going in the Ubuntu distribution and saying it might offend Linux kernel developers. In other words, it's misinformed at best, and a worthless and argumentative statement at worst.
Had you actually read the OP, you'd have understood that the crux of the criticism has to do with mindless participation in an obviously bad system. That is, a system that turns a necessary but easily abused task into a profit center - thereby ensuring that it will be stretched to utterly unnecessary proportions.
It had nothing to do with hunting in general, or being a vegetarian in particular.
For the record, there's (a lot) more to the issue than a few meals. Even in the limited areas where elephant populations are not highly endangered, there's still substantial controversy around any practice that allows the ivory market to legitimately revive itself, since it not only provides cover for black-market ivory, it also fuels the kind of demand that leads to increased poaching in places where elephants remain truly endangered.
You should also know that what you saw on that video is the exception, not the rule. In the all-too-common cases where elephants are killed illegally, any stray documentary crews would also be killed, with all the bodies left to rot. The same goes for rhinos, tigers, and other magnificent creatures unfortunate enough to have one or two body parts valuable only to chronically egotistical douchebags.
Assuming that being thoughtful enough to read isn't too much trouble, you can start to educate yourself by considering this: http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw_international/save_animals/elephant...
http://www.video.me/ViewVideo.aspx?vid=501
As a citizen of a southern African country I can tell you that A) The educated locals are disgusted by this kind of hunting for sport as opposed to food and B) I can assure you that the "foreign currency" that it supposedly brings in is not converted to Zim dollars and spent on the local economy.
If any of those officials actually cared about the local economy (or actually intended to let the money reach it), they wouldn't have demolished those economies with their utterly unrestrained corruption and graft.
Honestly, believing propaganda like that makes you look as naive as the people who believe that the wives of abusive husbands "just happen to keep falling down the stairs."
Come on, uncool.
Additionally, the article you linked says (among other pros and cons)
Which is something you ignore in your arguments. Did you happen to miss that part in the page you linked?The money these countries get from allowing safaris does pay for the parks they preserve. The few animals killed (legally) do not have a significant impact on the population as a whole, and I'd argue have a significant positive impact on the parks as a whole.
Thanks for the perspective, though.
The point is that commercial big game hunting remains a very problematic issue, in that it fuels a man vs. beast mythos that gives trophies a value which encourages more hunting in areas where populations remain truly endangered. And again, it creates a legitimate source for ivory which has the nasty effect of providing cover to ivory gathered illegally.
Not only does that cover serve sellers with ivory in the market, it also applies to ivory in the possession of buyers who can more easily deflect the (totally justified) social stigma that was slowly starting to attach itself to the stuff.
It comes down to this: there are some areas where profit seeking tendencies are toxic, and where responsible stewardship demands a more disinterested handling. The "glory" of big game hunting (and, specifically, its packaging for sale) is one of the prime reasons that many populations got endangered in the first place.
Even if the necessity to cull does return in certain areas, it's critically important to handle this without reviving the specter of the Great White Hunter. And it's just as important to ensure that any consumption remains entirely local. Letting commodities like ivory and hides slip out may bring short term gains, but only by serving markets that represent the antithesis of conservationism. The arguments you cite don't do nearly enough to acknowledge this aspect of the problem.
Separately, what you allow to offend you is your business. Personally, I don't mind lightly-salted language and a well deserved jab. Where I take offense is in seeing a demonstrably mindless response that veers wildly off-topic before landing in a thicket of unwarranted slurs getting upvoted to the degree that c2's did. And I hope I'm not alone.
In my opinion, Bob Parsons did nothing wrong, even if I wouldn't have posted a video about it. Heck, I also wouldn't have killed the animal. But to attempt to blame him to poaching and historical racism (the great white hunter line) seems a little out there.
Do you have any evidence that the legal killing, in this manner, actually has any affect on wildlife populations? Any reason to think that it actually does provide cover (data reasons rather than anecdotes)?
Again, it's not something that I would do, or even something that I approve. But to say that it's wrong, seems uncalled for. Then again, I also wouldn't use large breasted woman as the focus on my domain name sales company.
Also, I hate godaddy for how horrible their interface is. They have made major strides in their DNS hosting, which is all I'll use it for anymore.
Indeed, and in a very small way, advocacy for this kind of buck-passing you makes you part of the problem, not the solution.
The problems of trophy hunting, poaching, black-market animal parts, and wholesale extinction are all connected. They're all part of an outlook that reflexively sees wildlife as being worth more dead than alive. The thing supporting this view is a larger (and hugely problematic) outlook that views the Earth as an infinitely renewable resource, and only acknowledges financial limits when it comes to one's own consumption.
The good news is that a growing number of people look at this guy's 'adventure' and think "ick". Though you may not share that sense of moral revulsion, please be aware that it reflects an instinct that you and any kids you may have will ultimately benefit from.
I recall Zimbabwe is one of the countries that more or less _privatized_ elephants, and the owners of private hunting parks do not treat them at all as an infinitely renewable resource, exactly like a cow farmer doesn't. They don't have interest in over hunting, on the contrary their profit depends on having a healthy and stable population. I am not qualified enough to judge the long term effects, but Zimbabwe has had a stable/growing population of elephants for more than twenty years now.
While I don't like big animals hunting, I'd say this shows a completely different outlook from the one you refer to.
One guy killing one elephant for the sake of a minor and frankly uninteresting publicity stunt (and this guy being part of a small minority of company owners capable of doing this, since shareholders would never approve) does not ipso facto lead to a bunch of rich sport-hunters decimating the wildlife population of Africa as a revival of some sort of primal hunting instinct. That's absolutely absurd. I seem to recall this show back in the day called the "Crocodile Hunter" featuring the contest of a human with an endangered species in waaaaay more glorified terms than this.
// Being an Aussie -- we'd never really heard of Steve Irwin until he died. At which point he moved from being a tosser to being a national hero.
This is not a commercial big game hunt.
>It comes down to this: there are some areas where profit seeking tendencies are toxic
This was not profit seeking. Last I checked the guy who shot the elephant left with nothing.
>Even if the necessity to cull does return in certain areas, it's critically important to handle this without reviving the specter of the Great White Hunter. And it's just as important to ensure that any consumption remains entirely local
So the fact he took video of it then means he's making a spectacle of himself? He's just trying to record something good he was doing.
>Letting commodities like ivory and hides slip out may bring short term gains, but only by serving markets that represent the antithesis of conservationism.
Neither of these commodities went anywhere except with the surrounding villagers.
>The arguments you cite don't do nearly enough to acknowledge this aspect of the problem.
Because it's not a problem, nothing was taken.
>Separately, what you allow to offend you is your business. Personally, I don't mind lightly-salted language and a well deserved jab.
You were objectively being an unprofessional, emotional twat.
>Where I take offense is in seeing a demonstrably mindless response that veers wildly off-topic before landing in a thicket of unwarranted slurs getting upvoted to the degree that c2's did. And I hope I'm not alone.
Mindless to who? You. Your entire rant that i've read is 100% mindless to me. Your opinion of what's mindless is just that - opinion, and it's subjective. Since you hate mindless responses I'll assume you think your response is mindful. I find this interesting seeing as how the majority of your post is about "jabbing" people and speaking emotionally.
>This was not profit seeking. Last I checked the guy who shot the elephant left with nothing.
Though it might be arguable that the hunt organizers/tour guides were profit seeking. Guiding someone to a place where they can shoot an animal for fun (with the guise of doing good) will bring them some money. Sure, it could have been beneficial to the community to rid a problem elephant and give the villagers additional meat - but Bob's desire to shoot something is doubtfully meant to be for the good will of the community and more so to fill his own desires of killing something.
shock value or not (and even if he did do the right thing), he still comes off as a dick.
This is just an excuse for a rich person to brag about killing an endangered specie with a gun. OOOO SKILL. If he did it with his bare hands, then I would applaud.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_%28elephant%29
http://community.namecheap.com/blog/2011/03/30/elephants/