The best!!!

Zooplantman

Zooplantman

Well-Known Member
OK, I can't stand it anymore. I have to rant a bit:

I can see why an individual might feel this zoo or that is best, from their point of view.

But it's a personal opinion for heaven's sake! The arguments here about whether this zoo or that is the best in North America, or the best built after 1962, or best East of the Maginot Line, or the best for Hissing cockroaches ...is absolutely freekin' nuts!

There cannot be a "best" zoo. Each has strong points and each has weak points. No zoo can build all GREAT exhibits or replace all the older ones within our lifetimes. Anyway, we have established that our priorities and tastes are different! So what is best to my eye is crap to yours. Personally, not only am I ok with that, but I enjoy hearing about what you love. I don't need to agree with you to appreciate your point of view.

So WHY all these threads with nasty often personal attack filled arguments about whether this is "best" or that is????????

So do we love zoos...or do we love to compete?
Reading many threads, it's not easy to tell.

OK, I feel a bit better now. Go on with your day.
 
...and breathe out. :D

In truth, you make a good point - in fact several. I really try to avoid any unambiguous statements like 'the best', 'the biggest' etc in my posts - because someone will always think that something else is better in their eyes (or come up with numbers to show something else is bigger!).

A continuum of 'Very good -> Very bad' rather than 'Best -> Worst' is much more flexible, and makes allowances for all the zoos, enclosures and animals I have yet to see to be fitted into the scale later. ;)
 
Zooplantman said:
absolutely freekin' nuts[/I][/SIZE]!

So WHY all these threads with nasty often personal attack filled arguments about whether this is "best" or that is????????
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Okay but what do you really think :p
 
No, really, I'm feeling much better now. :)

Some folks just love a good tussle. I think its a stupid waste of energy and time.

I don't see why our opinions aren't great for being opinions. We often couch them in these grandiose "best" "world's most fantastic" terms as if they were Platonic Truths. I can see why AnyNuis does it ...it's his business. But for the rest of us...
 
The Best Zoo in the World

Like it or lump it. I have visited hundreds of zoos. I have worked in several (including this one). I have more than forty years of zoo work under my belt. Okay...I have only visited one zoo in the States (The Seminole Indian Village Zoo) so I may at some point change my mind. But the best zoo in the world so far is The Arabian Wildlife Centre (Sharjah's Desert Park) in Sharjah. It ticks all the boxes. It is not about rarity. It is conservation, education, research, enrichment, dedicated caring staff, well presented and maintained enclosures. You get the drift?
 
Peter Dickinson said:
Like it or lump it. I have visited hundreds of zoos. I have worked in several (including this one). I have more than forty years of zoo work under my belt. Okay...I have only visited one zoo in the States (The Seminole Indian Village Zoo) so I may at some point change my mind. But the best zoo in the world so far is The Arabian Wildlife Centre (Sharjah's Desert Park) in Sharjah. It ticks all the boxes. It is not about rarity. It is conservation, education, research, enrichment, dedicated caring staff, well presented and maintained enclosures. You get the drift?
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Oh Peter!
First of all - Hi!
Next - So you want to jump on my perfectly cleansing rant to bring the very debate about best here? :D
 
And hello Zooplantman, nice to meet you. It is eight minutes past two in the morning here in Thailand. I have had more beers than I should have (a friend was buying because I have not got the cash) but I just thought it had to be said. Not to cause a rift in your rant but to show that there are so many directions from which 'best' can be approached. That is my final say on the subject...unless you want second and third? ;-)
 
I think it is within human nature to want to rank things, just about anything in fact, and sometimes that means literally creating numbered lists of "Best", "Second Best" etc. I think this is perfectly harmless and nothing to get all worked up about -whatever the subject. I have started a few threads on ZooChat along this line ("Best Photograph on Zoochat", "Best Tiger Exibit" comes to mind...).

Sure it is all subjective, but what´s the harm? For the best part of it just good clean fun, I would argue - people exchanging opinions.

Of course, just as you put it, we do not want this to result in nasty personal attacks, as the sad example we have witnessed the last couple of days at ZooChat, but - in general - I think that one is an exception on this site.
 
Oh I agree - friendly arguments about the best this or that don't bother me.

But in some of the threads , some people get pretty dug in and unfriendly. There's no reason for the lack of civility as far as I can see
 
@Zooplantman: nice post mate! Haha!

Anyway, Billboard magazine has been ranking the highest charting and "best" singles for decades now, Entertainment Weekly magazine has had the 50 best comedians, the 100 best movies, the 50 greatest TV shows, the 25 scariest films of all time, the 50 best albums ever, and on and on and on. Rolling Stone magazine came out with the 100 greatest guitarists ever, the 500 best albums of all time, etc.

EVERYONE ranks things at one time or another, so why not zoos? I agree that it is not very nice when it turns nasty, but there are countless threads on ZooChat where someone is ranking the best zoos, best elephant exhibits, best polar bear enclosures, and pretty soon someone will have a thread on the best cockroach habitats.;) It comes with human nature, and Allen Nyhuis + Jon Wassner published a book in 2008 called "America's Best Zoos". Maybe one day there will be books on various other nations and their best zoos, and so the deluge of rankings will never truly disappear. Join in or ignore!:)
 
snowleopard said:
EVERYONE ranks things at one time or another, so why not zoos? I agree that it is not very nice when it turns nasty, but there are countless threads on ZooChat where someone is ranking the best zoos, best elephant exhibits, best polar bear enclosures, and pretty soon someone will have a thread on the best cockroach habitats.;) It comes with human nature, and Allen Nyhuis + Jon Wassner published a book in 2008 called "America's Best Zoos". Maybe one day there will be books on various other nations and their best zoos, and so the deluge of rankings will never truly disappear. Join in or ignore!:)
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I think the problem is that saying 'This is the best' doesn't leave much room for debate - it's presenting a 'truth' - which may ruffle the feathers of those who disagree, as it implies the poster thinks they are flat-out wrong.

If it were worded as 'This is my favourite' or 'This is how I would rank them' then some good discussion can ensue.
 
snowleopard said:
Anyway, Billboard magazine has been ranking the highest charting and "best" singles for decades now, Entertainment Weekly magazine has had the 50 best comedians, the 100 best movies, the 50 greatest TV shows, the 25 scariest films of all time, the 50 best albums ever, and on and on and on. Rolling Stone magazine came out with the 100 greatest guitarists ever, the 500 best albums of all time, etc.

EVERYONE ranks things at one time or another, so why not zoos? I agree that it is not very nice when it turns nasty, but there are countless threads on ZooChat where someone is ranking the best zoos, best elephant exhibits, best polar bear enclosures, and pretty soon someone will have a thread on the best cockroach habitats.;) It comes with human nature, and Allen Nyhuis + Jon Wassner published a book in 2008 called "America's Best Zoos". Maybe one day there will be books on various other nations and their best zoos, and so the deluge of rankings will never truly disappear. Join in or ignore!:)
Click to expand...

For things like Best Singles, albums, Movies, TV Shows, they are ranked based upon sales, gross turnover, weekly ratings etc. The ranking is based on imperical data. The 100 best guitarist, or 50 funniest comedians would probably be based on popularity amongst a relatively small group of people (someone went around the office and asked for opinions, or asked half-a-dozen experts in their field). And how often do you agree - or disagree - with the listings?

But on ZooChat, the "Best [insert species name here] Exhibit in the World" or "Best Zoo in USA" is based upon one person's opinion and is very, very subjective. (Note that I'm not singling out any one person here - lots of people do it.) There's nothing wrong this, as long as you are aware it is one person's view.

The really good thing about Nyhuis and Wassner's book is that firstly two people are conducting the assessment, and secondly - one looks at a zoo from the perspective of a visitor who has kids, and the other from a keeper's viewpoint. And this is all enumerated in the introduction (as well as the fact that it is all their own opinions).

Just my two cents worth.

:p

Hix
 
Actually , being named "the best" is a bit of a curse.
Lehman as the best bank.The guy in your class at school who always got full marks in mathematics - where is he now?The Titanic, the finest ship ever built. And so on.If my zoo was named as "the best" this or that, I´d have a few sleepless nights.It is far more constructive to point out specific buildings, enclosures or husbandry practices or policies that seem to be working at a given time in a given situation.Much of my life has been determined by lists of the best - being sent to the "best school" and so on, and most of that was all nonsense.In the business decisions I must make on a day-to-day basis at work I place very little trust in any type of ratings list, as things are never that simple and of course you can never be sure what interests were involved in preparing the list.I am being constantly surprised on Zoochat by zoos I was unfamiliar with and which seem to be real jewels, and vice versa- zoos that were high up on my mental list and now seem to be quite run-of-the-mill.The moral of the story is to keep an open mind and keep your mental lists flexible in a dynamic and changing world.
 
Ahh, Mr Kanye West, how can we forget that :P

I often have no probelm with these debates (Although everyone, including me, do get a bit nasty sometimes) as long as there are no personal attacks

Although i never said it, I was sorry after I attacked phionex and snowleopard (Actually, I apologized to snowleopard, not sure)

Sometimes the arguments do get a bit ridiculous (When people try to desperately try to pull excuses out of there asses about why the certain exhibit is good/bad)
 
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