People's reaction; Vendor only area?

D

Demosthenese

Guest
I have seen a bunch of comments up here and there to the vendors, both before and after this weekend and the events. People say "post in the buy/sell/trade" and then others say "that's suppose to be for individuals, not vendor promotion", and then others say "no vendors!". We as a community need to make this decision.

I don't see how allowing the vendors to link their wares harms the site. Promotion is different, but a simple list of product and a website address in a seperate location on the board doesn't bias or hurt anyone if it's there for any vendor to post in. Strict rules, perhaps up to and including no adjectives or something, it could be kept to strict listing of available product.

I think associating equally with ALL vendors is the same as NO vendors. Favoritism, manipulation and apparently sponsorship is were things go wrong. And to be honest, i WANT to know when dax's Titan is ready to ship, or if Andy develops a tuned pipe or whatever. I want people to tell me their review of new product, i want the vendors to feel like they can send free stuff to respected individuals for impartial reviews. Those are all reasons i visit this site. I have nothing to do with Tom or any of the vendors, so i don't know their position, but i know that there are non-sponsor vendors that have very important products. It seems a shame that it is so hard to find the info that is in these pages sometimes, when you need something very specific. Having a list somewhere on the site under the search engine might help a lot.

The vendors shouldn't be allowed to use the site as free add space, but i don't think we should bury our heads in the sand as to the difficulty of finding the exact right peice for our incredibly diverse creations. Most vendors i'm sure are linked somewhere in the posts, by somebody asking "is this a good engine", "should i buy from x company?", "will this work for my application", or whatever. I'm sure we've all noticed the difficulty in using the search engine. If we had a definitive list of product as it was available, and clear instructions for contact with the vendor, i think it would help people see what the possibilities are before buying. It's one thing to flip through our picture section and be inspired, and quite another to know you have 300 bucks to spend, and that that rear tank costs 34.99 exactly. The easier it is to get from inspired to ownership the more people will join the movement. Vendors that are untrustworthy or ship faulty wares will be identified by the community, i'm sure.

I think my point is that, depending on the approach, allowing the vendors to link somewhere specific can be looked at as just letting them do our organization for us, while at the same time being fair on them and stopping the arguments of promotion and self promotion once and for all. I think that this is an issue that will continue to trouble the community unless we get it out there and discuss it. We need solutions, not just arguments, so while im interested in comments, suggestions would be more helpful.

What do people think?
 
I think if you sponsor this site,you have the right to display your wares. You PAYED for the spot. You help keep this forum alive. I think that other vendors linking their stuff for free is unfair to our sponsors especially when they are in competition with the sponsor.
Now as far as this talk about free stuff and reviews I'm not gonna BS you when I tell you some of our members would LOVE the opportunity to test some products,myself included. But I really think a sponsor doesn't have to give stuff away to get a review. I think the review comes AUTOMATICALLY when the BUYER actually BUYS the products and then tells the rest of us how it's going. You see it all the time here. You see,that way,a potential tester is not felt to be OBLIGATED to the vendor to give a good review.
If were to allow testers and reviewers were gonna fall into this drama all over again.
But it may still happen....man would I love to test stuff...never mind. :D
Heck,just looking at the different forums,Happy Time,Rack Mounts,Heritage,gives the member here a pretty good score on reliability. Reviews have so much opinions and guesstimates and again,most may feel really bad if they in their hearts want to give a bad review to something they got for simply reviewing it.

So my suggestion for a solution is no more formal reviews but encourage readers to review what they have and keep sponsors happy by encouraging vendors to sponsor so they can have vendor privileges.
And if they won't sponsor this site and want to continue to push their products,then kindly send them to that other forum where they will greet them with open arms.
 
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I was just thinking that we do need some sort of vendor forum for vendor announcements. It would have to be strictly moderated though and limited only to genuine announcements for major new products, and not just a place to advertise their stuff. I will try to get something created within the week.
 
You're right, Tom. There IS a difference between pushing a product and a new product announcement. But, in a forum that's intended for questions & answers for a specific area, an unsolicited announcement or a product 'push' feels like spam.:yuck: Even IF the vendor has bought advertising. (Their ad is up there, right?)

If it's in the buy/sell/trade forum, or a vendor 'Marketplace' forum though, then it's a different animal entirely. They have a new product, and we have a forum for it. :cool:
 
i totally agree large, and loquin.

"But, in a forum that's intended for questions & answers for a specific area, an unsolicited announcement or a product 'push' feels like spam. Even IF the vendor has bought advertising."

That's it exactly. And the question is, what is inherently wrong with a vendor wanting to announce new product. I guess i hadn't considered that probably our current sponsors want to remain the exclusive vendors linked on the site. But does their sponsorship involve a clause of exclusivity? They would be the only ones with adds, but as Tom said, something formal at least for new product announcement would keep the rest of the board cleaner, and it would end the arguments in a realistic way.
I guess i also see it as any of the vendors could sign up here, post an intro, and in a few weeks start dropping glowing reviews of their own products, while at the same time complaining about a rivals. We wouldn't know who they were. If they had an outlet it might end the problem. And, i'm fine with not "allowing" testers, because you're right, the community reviews it all anyway, i just think if it's going to happen i'd rather have it out in the open. If one of our senior, respected members gets a call from a vendor asking to review a product they would never purchase normally, but which they have the experience to thouroughly review, can we expect them to say no, and do we want them to have to say no under the communities rules? We CAN expect, at the beginning of the review "I was sent this product free to test. I have done my job as a tester to the best of my ability, and i feel i have thus earned the product.". I don't know what we can do about the feeling of obligation, but I don't see how we can police our members, or the vendors, either.

It just seems like a very black and white stand to take, when we NEED the vendors as a community.
 
All right, so it's up and i see Tom has moved some of the threads into it.
The rules will have to be posted i guess, about what vendors can expect to be allowed to do there.
At least if you don't want to be influenced by vendors, or see their adds, now you can just not ever go to that thread :) Maybe that thread shouldn't be viewable by non-members (ie guests). Don't know if that's doable or not, it just seems like if it's for the community not the vendors, maybe it should be available to the community and not just posted for the public.

Just thoughts...
 
Gotcha. Guests can see that there is a vendor forum and that there are posts in it, but cannot view the threads. Same with the Buy/Sell/Trade forum.
 
vendors

I see it like this sellers, vendors and buyers, we need each other...when you need something you go see a vender...Tom is right inasmuchas we need to know when there is something new and where to go... where not to get screwed comes from reading...i bought haphazardly in the begining from some clown on fleabay...I was able to return that bum engine and buy a thatsdax...back in the begining it was word of mouth...we were small now we big...things change that's part of life...the vendor area is a good one IMO...was this area not in the works before all this mess? Just wonderin??:confused:
 
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