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Has anyone asked kershaw why they don't want forums here?
- Thread starter GalvanizedHero
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And a Manufacturer forum is a different beast than other subforums. They may be for the fans of the brand to share their experience with it. They may not. Can you complain about the brand? Can you not? Can CS issues be discussed? etc etc etc
Who is going to decide that? Let a rep from the company decide how things are going to go, and then make it go that way. Supermods have other things to do, and you cant have "self appointed member mods," as much a some folks try.
KAI called people in their forum who didn't like KAI trolls and didn't want them in there, but then didn't do anything about it.
(And some of their mods thought their powers extended the GKD, also.)
It was a mess, not because KAI is lazy or jerks or anything...it was a mess because they didn't know how to run it, and it didn't seem worth it to find out how, let alone to actually do it.
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Hmmm.... I think he is (to use his phrase) "genuinely curious". It does seem odd to some that one of the largest dedicated knife companies in the world, one with a large USA presence doesn't have more a dedicated venue on this site. Simple curiosity can be very dangerous, especially in certain places.
I didn't detect a troll post, or anything even more sinister, especially when he acknowledged that he knew he might ruffle some feathers up front just to satisfy his own questions. I took that as a "mia culpa" up front in case he did. But I am not good at that kind of detection and often take the words people type as exactly what they are, and miss hidden meanings or agendas.
I do agree with him on the idea that (in my words) there are a lot of thin skinned, angry people in the ether spoiling for trouble, though.
Robert
I agree! Of course there are.
That said, one of the key things that "went south" when the KAI forum was around there were many folks who had legitimate issues or critiques with KAI participating in the subforum, who were being cast as trolls.
They weren't.
Now if KAI said, "This forum is expressly for KAI fans to share their positive experiences with KAI." then those people could have been accused of trolling. But KAI never said "This forum is expressly for KAI fans to share their positive experiences with KAI."
That's what KAI didn't get. If you are going to allow respectful members acting within the site's rules, with a negative opinion about your product in your forum, then you can't allow members to accuse them of being trolls or haters (that is against the site's rules) and you cannot infract them (they have broken no "local" rules). And that is what happened.
It was a hot mess.
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I couldn't agree with that more. They never got a handle on it.
I went back and re-read some of the posts and I had forgotten just how nasty some of the interaction was. I think Thomas understood that Kershaw didn't always get it right, but didn't like being heckled. I remember that he told me that his box would be full of nasty replies, placed there so respondents wouldn't get infractions. It was too much for Thomas, and as I said before, in my opinion he was never the right guy for the job. Kershaw was undergoing massive expansion, ZT was really taking off, they were moving their manufacturing around, they had to know that they were at the last of the great Ken Onion years, etc., etc.
As is on all of BF, there are those guys that just need to be ignored. Someone would post on the Kershaw forum, "hey, I just got this new Tyrade, and it is pretty neat, but I don't like the rubber inserts". Next post might be (how many times have a I seen this... (*face palm slap to self*) GET A SEBBIE and be done with it! Post after that might be, I hate rubber, and since it is glued on it will probably fall off. After that, "if I wanted a hard use knife, I would want better steel maybe like in my (fill in name of custom costing 5X more)". That drove Thomas nuts, as the knife in question may not have been out for a month, and no one had seen it in person much less purchased and handled one. Thomas would have been a lot calmer if the hadn't seen the reviews of "I just bought one and it SUCKS! Stay away from this knife" only to see that the were using it incorrectly (say batoning) of as an expression that their new knife didn't "flip" or "deploy" as rapidly as their Blur.
Those were also the dark days of roaming moderators. The based infractions many times on tone or intent, without much reason or rhyme. Some of the longest time moderators were really even handed and patient, but when BF exploded they had a lot of help from folks that honestly weren't that much better than Thomas and had their own buddies that got away with murder. Thankfully that seems to be well under control, these days.
But the bottom line was that there were more good guys than bad. But it is always the rotten apples in the barrel that rot it out. And Kershaw never, ever had a solid handle on what they were trying to achieve with it. When you think about it, without clear direction and without the right folks manning the helm, it really didn't stand much of a chance.
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Honestly I think there's something to this, but also a lot is that Thomas was by himself. Spyderco has Sal AND Kristi and more dedicated moderation. No way was Thomas ready to do his day job for Kai AND solo moderate and respond to all requests in the Kai forum.
I was a big fan of his and certainly understand their decision.
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I felt like passing and part time BF moderators contributed to the sourness of certain threads from time to time, bringing a distasteful feeling to the forum. I could be wrong, except I remember getting an infraction myself as well as an email telling me not to take "sides". Certainly others had a different experience, and pardon my economy of words for speaking in broad strokes.
I would beg to differ about the BF explosion. It seemed to me that there were (and may have been) about 2500 new posts a day all over the site. And the numbers that the mods touted for all levels of membership (not to mention lurkers) was almost unbelievable to me, even if I thought they were exaggerating. I remember Spark having to overhaul his software a couple of times at great time and expense to him because (at least in part) to the burgeoning number of posts and posters.
Thinking back over my syntax and vocabulary usage, to be more readily comprehended, I should have probably used "when BF was undergoing a tremendous upsurge in their membership metric" or "at that time BF was experiencing a huge up tick in non-cyclical renewable memberships" or the like to be clear.
Sorry for the lack of clarity.
Robert
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Some people can find a way to be personally offended by any thing on the internet. I was curious as to the why and how and more information has been offered in these 2 pages than what I can find sifting through 5 years of posts. I figured the thread would be locked and it still might be if it doesn't die by itself but the mods did move it which means they're probably offended too.
I still think all the kershaw threads in gkd are a nuisance and should be moved off the highest traffic page to somewhere else.
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Sal is a super likable dude. Not everyone is cut out to be in a position of authority even if it is some place as trivial as an internet forum that 99% of the population will never see.
Wanna see how Kai should’ve handled their forum??? Check out how Sal handles a straight up troll on the Spydie Forum.
Thomas was a straight up presumptuous arrogant twit who pounced on anyone that wasn’t a fanboy.
Thomas was a straight up presumptuous arrogant twit who pounced on anyone that wasn’t a fanboy.
r8shell
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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If there are a lot of threads about Kershaw knives in GKD, it's because a lot of posters want to discuss Kershaw knives. It is what it is. (I just checked the first page, and I saw a few, but certainly not enough to be a nuisance IMO.) The same argument comes up within the Traditional knives subforum from time to time. Great Eastern Cutlery doesn't have a dedicated forum on BF, but they are a very popular brand, so there are always a handful of threads about GEC knives on the first page. That may bother some people, but I'd hate to see the site compartmentalized too much.
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I hear you dude but a lot of people want to discuss a lot of things that aren't related to gkd and the threads get moved/locked/deleted in droves. Every other topic not related to kershaw is compartmentalized.
I don't know the guy so I can't comment but as far as fanboys go I'm straight up blown away with how honest people have been around here about what went down with kai forums. It's nice to see people put their fanboyism aside and simply recite history from a non biased point of view.
Speaking of fanboys I took jims knife steel results and made a thread about spyderco maxamet mules having an inferior heat treat and got 5 pages worth of fanboys foaming at the mouth on me and even threats of violence. It wasn't even a jab at spydero it was just a "hey did anyone notice mules are 1000 cuts behind production knives" thread but spydie fans reacted like I ran over their cats.
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LOL... welcome to Blade Forums. Pretty diverse groups of guys. Some just enjoy knives, some are serious collectors, some see knives as tools (like me!) and some see themselves as the faithful defending their Faith.
There are a lot of off limits brand names here than can only be reasonably discussed by the brand's most dedicated fanboys. And even they turn on one another from time to time. To intrude on "their turf" is asking for the treatment you got over the Mule. They are ready at a moment's notice to defend their brand. I fell afoul of one of those groups (I know, stupid me) and when I quit responding I was even contacted by email to see if they could bait me into an argument.
Hang around and you will know who and what to stay away from, and which topics to avoid.
Robert
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Yeah, my memories of it are a little hazy to be honest. I don't remember all the crabbiness that everyone else recalls.
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This is why we can't have nice things:
Ad homin attacks, spleen venting, angry anonymous people spiting venom from behind their screen. I would invite palonej to come talk with Thomas at blade this year. Is it so difficult to have civil conversations on the internet? Yes, it seems so. Huge successful brands lose nothing by not being here. We are just left the poorer.
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Thomas earned his own reputation. He may well be a fine person in many contexts, but he was out of his depth and hopelessly incompetent as a forum mod.
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