UnNews talk:British group boycotts American goods, protests government

Explanation

Being Uncyclopedia readers, you all are probably aware of the arrogance of many (not ALL, not MOST, but many) British people online. Members of this small but significant group of people act like they're superior to everyone else because they're British and not American. I think that's stupid; people from one country are not inherently better than people from another country, and judging someone by his or her nationality makes no more sense than judging him or her based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, social status, etc. As such, the idea of this parody is NOT to suggest that America is inherently better than Britain; just that extremely negative views against one country from people of another are severely misguided.

And yes, I am American. For the reasons listed in the above paragraph, please do not make comments or edits based purely on your opinion of my nation of origin. -Unknownwarrior33 01:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Martell

First of all, thank you very much for proving the point behind this article. Second, re-read the end of my previous comment. Your edit was essentially vandalism, as it removed a huge portion of the original article. As I said in my edit description, if you want to make a different point, write something yourself. -Unknownwarrior33 13:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The article, me, changes etc etc.

Right then. First of all, I don't consider myself British and agree with you that no one nationality is better than another. Furthermore, the name I am using on uncyclopedia was created by a very gifted American writer- I do not resent the fact that he (or most other authors I read are American. This goes along with American music I listen to, certain bits of American technology I use etc etc.)

As well as you, I find the egotistical annoying, this be whether they're English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, American, German, French or anything else and discriminate against anyone. Far from believing Britain to be the best, I believe that along with the US, Britain has the most to answer for in terms of history and morals. So no, I do not believe Britain is superior and I did not prove the point of your article.

Your article seemed to be doing that which you spoke out against- it was not putting forward any shred of argument (which you can do, even though this is UnNews) and it was thoroughly unfunny- as we all know, UnNews is about being funny.

You should've noticed in my re-write, before you deleted it that I made fun of both the British and Americans, which is more than you did. To be fair, the article before the re-write sounded more like a rant, rather than a parody.

So in a nutshell, I was not saying anything that was said because of you or your nationality, I was simply trying to make something thoroughly unfunny and seemingly pointless a little more lighthearted.

Martell 19:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I completely understand what you are saying, but I do not agree to all of it. I found your edit to be much more anti-American than anything else, although I certainly have no reason not to believe you if you say that was not your intention.

You are correct in saying that my article was completely one-sided, because that was my point: to show the flipside of the anti-American attitude in the group of people I described. Their side is plastered all over Uncyclopedia, sometimes crossing the line between funny and offensive, so I do not think my satirical response to it should have to show both sides.

Having said that, I do not wish to have an edit war with you. I am certainly not accusing you of being anti-American yourself. I recognize that my previous comment was unjustly harsh, and I apologize; examples of these sentiments much more offensive than I perceived your edit to be have led me to feel very strongly about the issue. I truly do consider it on the same level as making fun of race or religion, and just as one would be offended to see even a humor site like this one constantly insulting Jewish or Hispanic people even in its templates, I feel that way about the site's portrayal of Americans. I can laugh at myself to a great degree (greater than most people can, probably), but there is a limit. Uncyclopedia sometimes exceeds that limit, and I have plenty of other examples to share if anyone wants to hear them (I am using Uncyclopedia as an example in this comment for obvious reasons). This article was meant to portray an idea about which I feel very strongly, and while I certainly overreacted when I saw that your edit partially contradicted the idea, I think making fun of Americans and British people equally in this article transforms it from satire to random humor. Random humor is certainly not a bad thing, but my understanding is that Unnews is focused more on satire.

To that end, yes, the article is somewhat of a rant. That is not coincidence; this article was originally part of a larger satire newspaper I wrote, entitled "The Rantribune". The same goes for the other Unnews articles I created the day I made this one. As its name implies, it was meant to satirize things that annoy me; that is, things about which I would like to rant. I do not think that necessarily makes it unfunny, though. Whether an article is funny is a matter of opinion. Even if you do not find it funny, there are ways to remedy that without harming the satirical focus.

Again, I am not going to start an edit war or anything; this website is just for fun, after all. I am sure, through our own edits and edits by anyone else who happens to come by, we can reach a version of the article that we both find humorous (or humourous) without compromising the satire.

By the way, a word of advice: I'm not sure why you did this, but it's not a good idea to leave random words unchanged when massively editing an article. Usually edits that leave random words unchanged are vandalism. -Unknownwarrior33 21:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

--

Point taken, forgive me for any offence caused and thanks for the advice. I wouldn't mind taking a look at those articles you mentioned that 'provoked'- for lack of a better term, this article. And if, for any strange reason, you decided to copy what I wrote, I wouldn't mind it back, so I could create something new (Oh, I'm cheeky ;p). Also, I see what you did there with the spelling ;D Cheers.

Martell 22:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Just do some random Uncyclopedia browsing and it won't take you too long to realize that the site goes a bit overboard. Look at any arOutside of Uncyclopedia, I've seen some really messed up stuff. For example, on an emulator forum, someone started a thread with something along the lines of "where can I find the BIOS files for the DS emulator because I'm not a greedy American who can afford to waste money on a DS." I didn't change the grammar from how I remember it in the post. Keep in mind that bringing nationality into the topic was not in response to anything, as this was the first post of the thread. Not only do you not have a high ground on which to stand if you're asking for something illegal, it was completely unprovoked and random. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. -Unknownwarrior33 00:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)