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Buy a STRIDER knife...NOT ME!

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Ketsugo I had to go back and read your post again just to see how I could have missed your sarcastic intent. After reading it again I still don't see how to read between those lines. That has no sarcastic tone to it at all as far as I am concerned. Must just be that I am not to bright.

Even if it was meant as sarcasm, it was sarcasm in very poor taste.


Edited for spelling, not content.
 
Gentlebeings, Bladeforums has a rule against personal attacks. We can allow some slack here on TGB&U because sometimes the parties to a transaction have such strong feelings about it, it can be difficult for them to adhere strictly to that rule. But when uninvolved members who contribute their opinions start slinging mud all over themselves, entertaining as it may be for the rest of us to watch you make fools of yourselves ... we have to draw the line somewhere.

Please address posted remarks to all the people reading this thread, not just to an individual whose last post may have annoyed you -- and you might pause occasionally to consider the option of making a fool of yourself in email, where only one person will see.... :)

and now, back to Days of our Knives
 
But it wasn't in poor taste for Mick to e-mail a potential customer saying <b><I>F#ck Off</i>?</b> Maybe now you see my point. Both were in poor taste. IMO.

John
 
To all readers of this thread (and especially one in particular):

It is one thing to try to "get the same effect". But it does matter how you do it. Suppose someone told another person to F#$K off..., I know, hard to believe. To then insinuate that that person got a dishonorable discharge because of their "attidude" isn't right. Please see my response to 1whobuys. I have no problem with 1whobuys when he said Striders were funky and over priced. Those are different matters than calling the knives POS, and welcoming Mick, Suane, and company to enjoy their 15 minute sof fame. The facts of the matter state otherwise. Now, to insinuate that someone likely got a dishonorable discharge, given that now said person told a customer to F#$K off, is to sling crap. Tell said person to F#$K off off you want to achieve the same effect. Don't make emotively loaded insinuations. Apples and oranges, my forumites!

If our imaginary person had made insinuations to their customer, like "well, from your e-mail I can tell you think Pakistani $3.99 specials are the best knives out there", then perhaps slinging the crappy insunuations back would, at best, be a mirror response. Both crappy, mind you, but they would be on the same level. But to sling crappy insinuations at a person who told someone to F#$K off is taking things to a grevious level.

Personally speaking, I think it is especially grevious when people knock soldiers. These people stood on a wall which protects our freedom. They sttod there and put their lives on the line so we can piss around on the net. To throw terms around like "dishonorable discharge" is a very dishonorable thing to say, and a cheap way to use the freedom you had bought for you by the blood, sweat and tears of soldiers.
 
Never knocked a solider. I knocked a knifemaker. I support our troops 100%. Poor taste is a matter of opinion. Nothing more nothing less. Some feel Playboy is in poor taste. Some don't but think that Hustler is. As the saying goes <b><i>opinions are like a-holes everyone has one</i>.</b>

John
 
Originally posted by Ketsugo:

"I am sure glad he is no longer part of the armed services. Wonder if he received a dishonorable discharge?!?"

Mick may not be an active soldier right now, but your comments were directed towards mick's capacities when he was a soldier.

Originally posted by Ketsugo:

"As the saying goes opinions are like a-holes everyone has one."

My following comment is of a general nature for Bladeforums and forumites as a whole, not just directed to Ketsugo:

There is a difference between opinions and arguments. Arguments are composed of premises (which are propositions- statements about the world), one of which is called the conclusion. The premises are reasons to believe the conclusion (in formal arguments, the conclusion follows from the premises deductively.) My posts here were intended as arguments, not opinions. I recommend that forumites conduct debate using arguments, as opposed to opinion. All one need to do to write off someone's opinion is to call it that; just opinion. That is too easy. Instead, make arguments about the subject at hand. Re-read the posts on this thread and you will see that some people do have arguments to state a case (Richard's post is a good one.) To respond to an argument, one cannot write it off by saying, "ah, just opinion." You have to show that the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises, that from the premises follow absurdities, that oen or some of the premises are false, or best yet that the premises are false but the conclusion is true. Don't merely handwave.

I think that this thread is a very good one for us. We haven't really talked about the maker/customer relationship, business practices, and honor. The reason I have made the posts that I did here was that I thought matters of honor needed to be dealt with. You know what? It is honorable to admit when you have messed up. Just last night I e-mailed a formal letter of apology to a forumite as I felt I participated in a thread which, though it had innocent intentions, was actually hurtful to the forumite. I think that my participation was tangential to the thread, but still I felt the honorable thing to do was to apologize. Please, let's not sling crap, let's not write off people's comments, and let's not insinuate. Let us proceed with rational arguments and discuss these matters like gentlemen. If you can't handle things gentlemanly, well, there ain't no sunshine, when it's on.

I direct these comments toward myself as well, as is evidenced by my e-mailing a forumite last night with an apology.
 
Folks...It's time to end this thread!

In 1990, I started Scattergun Technologies, Inc. In the beginning, Just like Mr. Strider, I swept the floors, answered the phones, built the shotguns and shipped them, and worked lots of trade shows.

During most of the early years, we struggled to keep up with the growth. We were often late with deliveries and didnt'always meet our customers expectations BUT, we did what we could to show our customers we cared. Never was one customer more important than another and as much as we probably wanted to, never did we ever tell a customer to F#$K-OFF!

By 1999, our website was getting 48,000+ hits a month. Even with a full customer service staff in place, because I felt it to be important, I managed to answer the dozens of weekly e-mails personally. I wasn't always timely with my responses but at least apologies were made for tardiness.

When I sold the company to Wilson Combat 10 years later, it had grown to being the #1 supplier of Tactical Shotguns in the world. There wasn't a major Federal, State, Local, U.S. Military, or Foreign Special Response Team that didn't have a Scattergun product in their inventory. We got there by always remembering that but not for the customer, all this would not have happened..

To get to the point...

I saw one of Mr. Striders advertisements and became interested in possibly purchasing one of his knives. Wanting more information, I decided to visit his website. Not finding prices or a SPECIFIC dealer link, I decided to try e-mail. Eleven days later, I finally got a response...

Having been in business for myself and now, being a potential customer, I felt it appropriate to "gig" Mr. Strider for at least not apologizing for being late with his e-mail response. Furthermore, if he didn't have a dealer in Tennessee, I felt he could have at least let me know that there wasn't a specific dealer link but that I might find one listed under "links". He did neither. What he did do is fail to take my e-mail constructively and instead, respond in what should be considered as "un-business-like.

For those who support my position I say thanks. For you are unwilling to compromise your values or settle for less.

For those who believe that I "got what I deserved"; so be it. I only ask that the next time a clerk in a store, or a mail order supplier fails to respect you as a customer and treat you accordingly, you remember what you posted on this thread.

That's all I've got to say, so let's move on!
 
Crayola stated...

<b><i>It is honorable to admit when you have messed up.</i></b>

Did I miss the post where Mick stated he <i>messed up</i>? Like <i>I'm so sorry, you really caught me on a bad day</i>! If he did, and I missed it, I surely do owe him an apology. If not, then I don't feel I do. Stating something is in poor taste, <B>is an opinion</b> but stated with arrogance unless you add "IMO".
IMO.

John
 
Coug, as much as I understand that you are just trying to keep this place civil, I find it very difficult to understand your statement about not directing a post to a particular person. Sometimes a comment can be meant for everyone and sometimes it has to be directed to just one person. If a person makes a statement that needs clarifying or is something that I want to comment on or ask a question about, I must direct my post to just that one person. Sometimes you just can't direct your comments to all the people on the thread.
 
What was stated was in poor taste and did not need a caveat added to it. Sometimes it is obvious to everyone that a statement is in poor taste and needs no IMO when it is stated as so. IMO.
 
For those who believe that I "got what I deserved"; so be it. I only ask that the next time a clerk in a store, or a mail order supplier fails to respect you as a customer and treat you accordingly, you remember what you posted on this thread.
Click to expand...

Hey, if I act like a jerk towards a clerk who's having a busy day, I deserve to be blown off. If there's a long line at the supermarket, I won't push my full cart to the express checkout line and expect to be served. If I make a snide comment then, I'll fully deserve to be shown the door by the manager.

Keith, I think Coug is requesting that we refrain from personal attacks (i.e., "I bet you got a dishonorable discharge.")

ketsugo, I think you were out of line with your comments regarding Mick Strider's service record. And claiming you were just being sarcastic...well, Mick might have told somebody to F*** off, but at least he didn't try to back out by claiming he was just being sarcastic. Pretty lame excuse for rude behavior.
 
Keith is right; it's not always inappropriate to address a post to a specific person -- as long as you can keep in mind that you're speaking to a large audience and not just to him. It's when people get so involved in an argument they might forget where they are that the moderator of a meeting traditionally suggests addressing remarks "to the chair" or in effect to the meeting as a whole. It's a remedy for a situation when things start getting out of hand rather than a rule that everyone should follow at all times.
 
Burke,
Please don't misquote me! I stated <B><i> Wonder</B> if he received a dishonorable discharge?!?</i> BIG difference. IMO.

Thanks,
John
 
Man, the only thing that this thread is missing is a few words from Mad Dog. Kevin would fit right in here. :)
 
Ketsugo, I didn't attribute the quote in my example to you. It was merely a generalization of the sort of personal attack that I believe Cougar Allen wished us to eschew, used as an example.

Besides, you're worming (i.e., playing semantic games for the purpose of avoiding responsibility for a roundly and deservedly condemned comment).
 
Burke,
You don't know me very well. I don't "worm". I take full responsibility for my remark. If you don't like it, too bad. If you don't want to believe it was sarcastic, I really don't care. I do care when you misquote me though.

John
 
As long as everybody's interpreting for Super Cougar, my interpretation of what he was trying to say is this thread is degenerating into explanations of why what Ketsugo posted was over the line and Ketsugo's denials. I think Super Cougar probably considers that argument off-topic for this forum -- and speaking for myself, I consider it boring!

Wake up! If Ketsugo doesn't understand by now he never will -- and if he hasn't been able to think of anything to post worth reading in the last (how many?) posts, he never will -- so why don't you just quit reading his boring posts and quit writing boring replies to them too?
 
For the last time John, I did not misquote you. I did not quote you at all. I simply used a theoretical comment (inspired, I'll admit, by your earlier comment), to illustrate a point. If you don't believe me, well, I don't really care either.

It seems to me that you are in fact trying to avoid taking responsibility for a remark that didn't come out as sarcastic as you perhaps meant it. If you tell me so, I will trust your word, and admit I am wrong. I apologize for taking your comment as written and failing to see the sarcasm inherent in it.

Here is a direct quote from you:
Ketsugo wrote:
Please don't misquote me! I stated Wonder if he received a dishonorable discharge?!? BIG difference. IMO.
Click to expand...

IMHO, there is not a big difference. It's a leading question, which is so similar to a statement as to be equivalent in intent. But hey, this is just my opinion, which is like a nose: everyone has one and they all smell.

I hope this goes a ways to clarify my viewpoint, and does not come across as a personal attack. Perhaps the matter is one of miscommunication. I appreciate the fact that you have remained in this thread to defend your position, and have not edited your original post. Take care, John. Ben
 
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