Great points, stitch and Thom....
I agree, opinions and un-reviewed information is important, but one must, as stitch pointed out, weigh the source and content carefully.
What I am afraid of -- and for -- is that generation that's out there now who think that anything and everything they read on the Internet is God's Own Truth....that the mad ravings of one idiot (or a few) is more representative of the truth than the words of an expert just because the latter isn't as well known.
Consumers need to realize that the Internet is just another form of media and that they still need to exercise their critical thinking skills when they're making their decisions. Like stitch, they must still intrepret the information they gather and read and integrate it to fit their needs.
There are new guys and gals who pop up on these and countless other Forums each day that have very deeply ingrained preconceived notions based not on their own experiences, but rather unfortunately from just what they've "researched" just that very morning by reading only a few newly posted threads.
I've researched things for the better part of my life in both academics as well as on various jobs. I dig, I dig, and then I dig some more -- that's just what I've been conditioned to do before making decisions.
When I first started to open up this hobby a short 6 months ago, my then-need was to find a folder for outdoors use that would supplement my then-EDC for nearly 2 years, a decidedly less-than rugged though very well-bulit and silky smooth Spyderco Viele.
My choices at the time narrowed down to the Benchmade 722 and the EKI CQC7, "tanto."
At the time, there were several large, on-going complaint threads on the Q/C of many Benchmade AXIS lock products....not just at that time period, but overall and throughout the years.
Very surprising now, in light of the extremely favorable posts on the Benchmade products more recently -- and a similar disapproval of many production linerlocks -- right?
But upon expanding my search parameters and contacting a few good friends in the industry and hobby, I saw that this kind of behavior on the Forums was, and still is, rather "cyclic." Complaints about one make will roll in, people will jump on the bandwagon and the argument will grow to near riot-forming proportion, things will eventually die-down, and then another complaint about another make will start the whole thing over again.
What I'm trying to say here in this thread and this post is that people simply have to realize that the Internet is not a be-all and end-all source of information. And that they still need to exercise their own best judgement when trying to gather information from its electronic depths.
Allen
aka DumboRAT
I agree, opinions and un-reviewed information is important, but one must, as stitch pointed out, weigh the source and content carefully.
What I am afraid of -- and for -- is that generation that's out there now who think that anything and everything they read on the Internet is God's Own Truth....that the mad ravings of one idiot (or a few) is more representative of the truth than the words of an expert just because the latter isn't as well known.
Consumers need to realize that the Internet is just another form of media and that they still need to exercise their critical thinking skills when they're making their decisions. Like stitch, they must still intrepret the information they gather and read and integrate it to fit their needs.
There are new guys and gals who pop up on these and countless other Forums each day that have very deeply ingrained preconceived notions based not on their own experiences, but rather unfortunately from just what they've "researched" just that very morning by reading only a few newly posted threads.
I've researched things for the better part of my life in both academics as well as on various jobs. I dig, I dig, and then I dig some more -- that's just what I've been conditioned to do before making decisions.
When I first started to open up this hobby a short 6 months ago, my then-need was to find a folder for outdoors use that would supplement my then-EDC for nearly 2 years, a decidedly less-than rugged though very well-bulit and silky smooth Spyderco Viele.
My choices at the time narrowed down to the Benchmade 722 and the EKI CQC7, "tanto."
At the time, there were several large, on-going complaint threads on the Q/C of many Benchmade AXIS lock products....not just at that time period, but overall and throughout the years.
Very surprising now, in light of the extremely favorable posts on the Benchmade products more recently -- and a similar disapproval of many production linerlocks -- right?
But upon expanding my search parameters and contacting a few good friends in the industry and hobby, I saw that this kind of behavior on the Forums was, and still is, rather "cyclic." Complaints about one make will roll in, people will jump on the bandwagon and the argument will grow to near riot-forming proportion, things will eventually die-down, and then another complaint about another make will start the whole thing over again.
What I'm trying to say here in this thread and this post is that people simply have to realize that the Internet is not a be-all and end-all source of information. And that they still need to exercise their own best judgement when trying to gather information from its electronic depths.
Allen
aka DumboRAT
