knife rags vs forums?

I bought a few to read on the plane during my last vacation.

Predictably sad wastes of paper.
 
I still enjoy TK and other knife magazines. Looking at a photo on the net is just not as satisfying to me as looking at a full page, glossy photograph. I think the OP and others in this thread are spot on though. You have to use some critical thinking whether you are reading a magazine or some random internet post.
 
It does not matter what magazine you're talking about, gun, car, knife, they all are nothing but shills for the artificial market they create to sell more stuff. And high dollar stuff at that.

The only use I have for object worship magazines is to cut them up into small squares and put them besides the toilet. And their not really good for that. Haven't looked at a knife, gun, car, motorcycle, boat magazine in years, and I'm happy with what I've got.

Carl.
 
I look at magazines and firearms related TV shows as Infomercials. I read or them as advertisements and if something interest me, I research it on online forums.
 
I get 99,9% of the info from internet. Preferably forums like here. I like youtube as well to get an impression (unfortunately many uploaders just "read" the knife specs... which I can also easily get from the producers site).
I don't care much if someone likes a knife or not, but do care what someone likes/dislikes and especially why :) hm I think I search first for negative aspects, then some strong points and then try to make up my mind what my opinion would be.
Magazines I only read now and then for entertainment.
 
I buy a few but not very often. Once I'm done with them I leave them at the doctor's office waiting room. When I go back months later for checkups those magazines are worn and dog eared.
 
Internet is more reliable IMO. You get differing viewpoints on the products, compared to the single reviewer in magazines. And as has been pointed out, there is a conflict of interest in magazines critiquing the same manufacturers that pay their bills. Hard, if not impossible, to remain objective.

The difficulty in getting your information from the internet is learning to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is as much crap out there as there is good info.
 
I have no liking for Dick ,the editor of Tactical Knives. He strikes me as a very conservative,dull individual who doesn't even seem to like tactical knives that much, and instead waxes rhapsodic over lumberman's axes. Having said that ,I like the magazine and count down the weeks until the next issue comes out. Rather than lie about knives, I think the modus operandi of knife magazines is not to say anything at all about a knife, if they can't say something good about it. In any case I will always prefer a hard copy of the printed word [and photos] that I can choose to look at whenever I want and refer back to years later.
There is a lot of good information on forums, but it's a matter of looking for islands of knowledge in a vast and stinking lake of sewage.
The deep thinker above ,who wonders why there still are knife magazines, probably also wonders why tax dollars are still spent on libraries. [or perhaps that's no longer true in Tea Party Amuricca?]
 
Magazines are at the mercy of their advertisers. If you write a story on how bad a knife is, do you think they are gonna spend their dollars putting an ad in your magazine? Gun magazines are the same, with the same issues. The only magazine that is quazi true is Consumer Reports, only because they have NO advertisers. You can't be honest when your lifeblood is the very thing that you are writing a bad review on.
 
I used to write reviews for other things outside of knives, and I got many of my samples for free, but I managed to keep it pretty accurate. If you get to choose what you review, and you turn down a product that you're pretty confident won't be up to par, then you've got more leeway. I am a big believer in pros and cons. What's good about this knife, what's bad about this knife. Keep it the facts, and you can get a good review that an advertiser won't mind. Problem is when you get greedy and you start accepting bad products. I pretty much read magazines as advertisements though, so hey. You get what you're looking for.
 
Knife magazines give positive reviews to makers that advertise with them. I don't want a review by somebody that's financially connected to the product they're reviewing. They're concerned with money first and foremost. I'll get my knife information on forums and read knife magazines for entertainment purposes only. Oh and haha you said knife rags in the title :)
 
My main interest in production knives is Spyderco, Kershaw/Zero Tolerance and Chris Reeve. On-line there is Sal Glesser of Spyderco, Thomas Welk of KAI USA and members of the Chris Reeve staff as well as knowledgeable users of the brands to comment and answer questions. I don't find the same quality in magazine content.
 
Tell me, should I trust a shill writer or should I put to use my own critical thinking ability to glean pertinent information from a variety of sources.

HUGE bonus, being a paid member here means no advertisements, some other knife forums don't have advertisements to get rid of, but I digress, why would I pay for commercials, I pay to get rid of the darned things!
 
I am an avid photographer and own high-end professional cameras and lenses. It is an accepted truism that no camera or lens review in a magazine is EVER unfavorable. You really have to read between the lines to pick up any negative vibe at all. The magazines are shills for the manufacturers.

I used to get a kayaking magazine. It was the same. There were no bad kayaks. It was only a question of which might be more outstanding than another. I'm sure anybody here involved in a hobby can say the same about their hobby mags.

Online postings come from a more diverse opinion base and might be more truthful than the mags, but you have to discount the knuckleheads who have an axe to grind or get their noses out of joint for no good reason like: "I only buy tip-up." "Made in China sucks." (I'm guilty of that one,) "CR was rude to me." "Strider lacks honor." etc.

There is also some "group think" that happens. You every notice that when a particular brand is attacked the fanboys can get aggressive? That can happen pretty quickly on most of the manufacturers forums here and dampens honesty.

Or, sometimes we take a report and repeat it and someone else repeats it and so on and all of a sudden one instance sounds like 20. I think that happened a bit with the DPX folder, for example.
 
statmonster said:
My main interest in production knives is Spyderco, Kershaw/Zero Tolerance and Chris Reeve. On-line there is Sal Glesser of Spyderco, Thomas Welk of KAI USA and members of the Chris Reeve staff as well as knowledgeable users of the brands to comment and answer questions. I don't find the same quality in magazine content.
Click to expand...

Good point. As I recall, I think I've seen posts here by the following. Most of it factual stuff, very little sales fluff.

  • Chris Reeve
  • Ernie Emerson
  • Mick Strider
  • Sal Glesser
  • Tim Galyean
  • Ken Onion
  • Darrell Ralph
  • Thomas Welk (KAI)
  • Chad Los Banos
  • Rick Hinderer
  • Robert Pelton
  • Michael Janisch
  • Ed Schempp
  • The ESEE Guys
  • Ethan Becker
  • The Hawks
  • AG Russell
  • The Lion Steel Guy (Enzo?)
 
Magazines, for a great many topics just just guns and knives and the like, are typically nothing more than giant advertisements with the occasional article written by a guy who will always say good things about the product (s)he received for free
 
I will glance through a review on anything if I am interested in the product. As a contractor, I used to buy a lot of tools, so a review could provide pertinent information like how long a warranty was valid, what size bits or blades were used in the machine, how much power it needed to work properly, etc. Kind of an at a glance type thing to get some bulk information. I quit relying on magazines and large websites for quality review information.

I started reading reviews like this one (obviously a parody) for a new circular saw: "So in closing, if you want a lightweight saw that can't cut a straight line, has no power, and is louder than a small jet engine, this saw could be just the tool for you!"

Or in my gun mags: "I didn't expect much from this pistol so I wasn't disappointed in its performance. It didn't shoot well, it jammed quite a bit, and the magazine fell out after a few rounds. But if you are happy with a poor performer that falls squarely in the medium price category, this gun could be just what the doctor ordered."

The reviews sounded like they were churned out by the same guys no matter what the product was. While I still take them with a grain of salt, online reviews prove to me to be much more helpful. I read more reviews on Amazon when I am purchasing electronics than anywhere else.

Gotta stay away from the fanboys, though. They think if you get a lemon that is a product of their favorite manufacturer, it is your fault. If you post a bad comment (never, ever post a bad review of some of knives so well loved here) you will get creamed. I can't imagine the screaming and teeth gnashing of someone posted a full review (not just a comment) on certain knives they found to be lacking. On this site, it would be extremely difficult to get an honest review on about 4-5 different knife brands if it were negative. I think that keeps the honesty factor down a lot as a lot of folks just don't want to be torn to pieces for their opinion.

Robert
 
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