Hinderer forum gone?

[marcinek]

Guess the Hinderer mods just got tired of trying to get everyone to sing Kumbaya all the time. Which raises an interesting question. Can a forum moderator who is not a supermod move a thread to a forum other than his own? Presumably the only forum they'd need to have as a backdoor would be GKD, right? Or would they need W&C too?

Good question. If I was running things D) I'd give them that ability. It seems that, at the very least, they should be able to ask a mod to move a thread elsewhere as to not spoil the fun of the fans (or fanboys, depending on where you stand).

And if its a customer service issue, and not just a critic/hater/troll....deal with it offline if you don't want to deal with it on the forum. Give out your CSR's number.

But nobody listens to me. I can't see why. Madness.

 

[Guyon]

First things first..

Not entirely true. Some people's only goal is to apparently "generate heat". Their posts serve no purpose other than to stir things up, bring attention to themselves and incite as many people as possible. They don't know if they are a spoon or a stove top. These same people are slowly being weeded out one by one and will continue to be removed. When someone proves they only want a pointless argument it's time for them to move on, because it clearly shows there is no desire to be part of what the community at large here is really about. Expect more spoons and stove tops to come flying off the shelves in time.

Nailed it.

Another part of the problem is that Spark tries to select moderators who can deal with the different problems we see here.

When a knifemaker or manufacturer selects a moderator, he is probably taking someone off the workbench or office who may not have experience in management or customer service. If they don't spend much moderating, they may never learn how. They just get frustrated.

Total agreement here too. From an experiential perspective, one thing the Becker/Ka-Bar forums had going for them from the outset is that long-time members wound up being the moderators. In this regard, Busse did a good job in "promoting" Jaxx and RVO3VOM.

I have occasionally had to step in and help Mfg. mods because they simply didn't know the ropes--of BFC or of vBulletin.

 

[cncpro11]

Can't even have a thread in tech support without a bunch of negativity and drama so a better question might be "why do so many manufacturers bother to stick around?"

 

[Guyon]

Can't even have a thread in tech support without a bunch of negativity and drama so a better question might be "why do so many manufacturers bother to stick around?"

I miss the Kershaw subforum too.

 

[DJC72]

While I would have liked to seen Hinderer stay on BladeForums and would like to know why they left (not that they owe me that). I guess they felt it wasn't worth their time anymore. With so many social media options, like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, they can still communicate with consumers.

 

[cncpro11]

Ya know, in the past I was outspoken against KAI and even said that I would never buy another product from them, but I recently hit up Kershaw Dave for a ZT 0452cf and would really have liked to post it up in the KAI forum.
I had absolutely nothing to do with Hinderer leaving, but for my part in the whole KAI fiasco I do sincerely apologize.

 

[bld522]

But nobody listens to me. I can't see why. Madness.

I don't know, marcinek. You're actually pretty stunning when you make sense.

 

[Kiah]

Guess the Hinderer mods just got tired of trying to get everyone to sing Kumbaya all the time. Which raises an interesting question. Can a forum moderator who is not a supermod move a thread to a forum other than his own? Presumably the only forum they'd need to have as a backdoor would be GKD, right? Or would they need W&C too?

Yes, a subforum (sp?) mod can move a thread from the subforum they moderate to any other one.

 

[bld522]

Holy mackerel. So your saying that if a thread in a subforum gets too hot to handle, all the subforum moderator has to do is send it to some other forum and voila, problem solved? I can't help but wonder how many subforums could have been saved if their moderators had simply moved threads they didn't like to GKD or W&C. Hell, KAI and Hinderer might still be here and we could all be singing Kumbaya together if they had done that.

 

[hatchettjack]

All I've learned from all of my forum memberships, is that on some forums I can call a dik hed a dik hed! I annually support those forums!

 

[Homo habilis]

And here is a revolutionary idea: Why not start a new one, grass roots? I am not really interested whether or not RHK moderates it or not. I bought one of their knifes (BTW love it) and a forum in BF is just part of the expected consumer experience IMO. That is what this place is for, right? With no forum their brand is dead in the water. We will do RHK a favor by going bottom up.

 

[Codger_64]

And here is a revolutionary idea: Why not start a new one, grass roots? I am not really interested whether or not RHK moderates it or not. I bought one of their knifes (BTW love it) and a forum in BF is just part of the expected consumer experience IMO. That is what this place is for, right? With no forum their brand is dead in the water. We will do RHK a favor by going bottom up.

Can't. Manufacturer forums have to have manufacturer presence and participation. There are other forms here where the Hinderer knives may be discussed by interested members.

 

[bld522]

Yep. GKD is where folks generally go to discuss a specific manufacturer's knives if the manufacturer doesn't have a subforum here.

 

[Guyon]

Holy mackerel. So your saying that if a thread in a subforum gets too hot to handle, all the subforum moderator has to do is send it to some other forum and voila, problem solved? I can't help but wonder how many subforums could have been saved if their moderators had simply moved threads they didn't like to GKD or W&C. Hell, KAI and Hinderer might still be here and we could all be singing Kumbaya together if they had done that.

It's not really that simple. If a manufacturer's forum did it all the time, the company would start to take heat for passing the buck rather than dealing with problems. First, if there's substance behind criticism, it needs to be acknowledged and dealt with. However, once a discussion has reached the point of diminishing returns (when people start to bicker or quibble over minutia), the best thing a manufacturer's moderator can do is acknowledge that fact as well and lock the thread.

 

[philwar]

With no forum their brand is dead in the water.

LOL, right. No way Hinderer can exist without a small subforum on a website about knives...

We will do RHK a favor by going bottom up.

He'll be thrilled. Another magnet for the haters, only this time he can't even shut it down. But have at it. It's a free world. :thumbup:

 

[bld522]

It's not really that simple. If a manufacturer's forum did it all the time, the company would start to take heat for passing the buck rather than dealing with problems. First, if there's substance behind criticism, it needs to be acknowledged and dealt with. However, once a discussion has reached the point of diminishing returns (when people start to bicker or quibble over minutia), the best thing a manufacturer's moderator can do is acknowledge that fact as well and lock the thread.

I hear you, Guyon. Problem is, the point at which diminishing returns happens for some mods is a whole lot sooner than it happens for others. There is no objective criteria for establishing exactly where that point occurs. From what I've seen however, the thinner the skin, the sooner it's reached . . . if you know what I mean.

I also understand why manufacturers' mods don't want to pass the buck by sending difficult threads to GKD or W&C even though they'd be way better off leaving the hard moderation jobs to the experts. And I agree that if there's substance behind the criticism, it should be acknowledged and dealt with. Again, however, some mods are better equipped to deal with it than others. And some mods can't address criticism because they can't speak for the company whose forum they moderate. As always, it's a matter of applying the right tool for the job.

I know the supermods have their hands full dealing with what goes on around here. But clearly something has to happen to prevent subforums from caving. Regardless of whose fault it is, every time a KAI or a Hinderer leaves us, we're left with a black eye. I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't help to have subforum mods go through an apprenticeship period with a supermod. If they knew they had someone specific to reach out to when the going got tough, they might learn how to to navigate their ships successfully when our waters turn treacherous. Just a thought . . .

 

[RevDevil]

And here is a revolutionary idea: Why not start a new one, grass roots? I am not really interested whether or not RHK moderates it or not. I bought one of their knifes (BTW love it) and a forum in BF is just part of the expected consumer experience IMO. That is what this place is for, right? With no forum their brand is dead in the water. We will do RHK a favor by going bottom up.

Hush up. Read more, post less.

I hear you, Guyon. Problem is, the point at which diminishing returns happens for some mods is a whole lot sooner than it happens for others. There is no objective criteria for establishing exactly where that point occurs. From what I've seen however, the thinner the skin, the sooner it's reached . . . if you know what I mean.

I also understand why manufacturers' mods don't want to pass the buck by sending difficult threads to GKD or W&C even though they'd be way better off leaving the hard moderation jobs to the experts. And I agree that if there's substance behind the criticism, it should be acknowledged and dealt with. Again, however, some mods are better equipped to deal with it than others. And some mods can't address criticism because they can't speak for the company whose forum they moderate. As always, it's a matter of applying the right tool for the job.

I know the supermods have their hands full dealing with what goes on around here. But clearly something has to happen to prevent subforums from caving. Regardless of whose fault it is, every time a KAI or a Hinderer leaves, we're left with a black eye. I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't help to have subforum mods go through an apprenticeship period with a supermod. If they knew they had someone specific to reach out to when the going got tough, they might learn how to to navigate their ships successfully when our waters turn treacherous.

The issue can be simply, the trolls that hate on the brand as well. There was not shortage of dare I day morons, that could complain and argue ad infinitum about the silliest things regarding their knives. For the sake of brevity I remember classics like this:
"I can't flip this knife open, must be a POS"
"Why don't you make your knife like X rather than Y"
"That knife is overpriced hype, nothing more"
"How many made? How many made? How many made? How many made?"
"ZT is a rip off of a Hinderer, made of lesser materials"
There were many, many more examples, but you get the general idea. Most of the arguments seemed like attempts to garner some kind of attention from the manufacturer. While you can't please everyone, people need to be able to behave themselves like adults. Arguing over the internet is simply a waste of time and energy. If people don't like the items represented here, they can move onto different places and get their fix of whatever it is they want. I can't speak for all the supers, but gotdamn I get tired of seeing the same foolishness coming from the same people. That is why I mentioned that we've started cleaning house, and will continue to do so. A good discussion is perfectly acceptable even with a disagreement, but the bickering, insults, jabs, etc are going to stop. Many people have mentioned it casually and otherwise that there seems to be more aggression in the discussion forums, that seems to be a bigger black eye. The apprenticeship thing is one idea, but too little to late.

 

[bld522]

If you've already embarked on a course of action, more power to you. But to expect people to behave themselves like adults in a public forum with little or no entry requirements may be a bit too optimistic. What I've seen in my interactions with you and some of the other supermods recently is that you're all working too damn hard to try to maintain control. There needs to be more of you and those you bring in need to be able to prove themselves capable of doing the job. I just don't see any other way around that in the long run.

 

[Skimo]

All I've learned from all of my forum memberships, is that on some forums I can call a dik hed a dik hed! I annually support those forums!

What does this have to do with the conversation?

bld522, I think what we have here can be seen in the Benchmade forum, very low input from moderators and unless I don't see super moderators working to keep it afloat, it seems to work just as well without much moderation. Sure, there's a difference, BM has moderation experience and my experience with them is that unless someone has gone full retard(and reported), spams or tries to sell fakes they let self regulation take care.

 

[RevDevil]

If you've already embarked on a course of action, more power to you. But to expect people to behave themselves like adults in a public forum with little or no entry requirements may be a bit too optimistic. What I've seen in my interactions with you and some of the other supermods recently is that you're all working too damn hard to try to maintain control. There needs to be more of you and those you bring in need to be able to prove themselves capable of doing the job. I just don't see any other way around that in the long run.

I'm confused, I never said I or others wanted total control. When you join any forum, you click a few boxes and agree to be held to an agreement of conduct. If you fail to do so, you're out. I can say many of my interactions with people are positive, they respond with interest to a simple request. There are those that take it as a challenge to be a smart ass and get in a few shots before getting banned. The job is easy, just need to have thick skin, be level headed, and try to see both sides of a disagreement. A low tolerance for BS also helps a great deal. You can't see a way around it because your perspective and membership level. In any case, time will tell if we are on the right track or not.