The problem with any manufacturer forum is people are going to say good things and bad, some of those bad things might even be accurate and deserved others won't be. While we like to think we are the customers they should be tailoring their business/products to, that's simply not the reality and several companies have alluded to it over the years.
Over the last 15 years or so I've seen three kinds of "successful" manufacturer forums. More than just KAI has had multiple failed attempts along the way.
1) The kind that restricts topics so much that it's basically just fan boys patting each other on the back, worthless for any unbiased info as nothing but glowingly positive remarks are allowed.
2) The kind that has basically no manufacturer input at all. Unbiased, but really no better than the general forum, just sorted by brand.
3) The kind that has someone in charge that can let negative comments and criticisms pass without inflaming the situation, or better yet has the PR/CS skills to diffuse the situation and turn unhappy customers into repeat purchase ones.
Any company representative that doesn't have enough self control to not press the "submit reply" button when baited unless a moderator bans them from posting shouldn't be representing the company publicly in the first place. KAI is hardly the first knife company to have that problem, and they certainly won't be the last.
Look at Spyderco or Benchmade forums, plenty of people post critical things about pricing, QC, designs, etc. etc. but you don't see company representatives making those threads worse, and they fade quickly. They also don't tolerate a small group of trouble makers that use ANY opportunity to bad mouth a company OR fan boys that attack whenever something less than positive is posted. The KAI forum quickly gained a reputation for both of those issues and the later only encouraged the former to cause more problems.
Over the last 15 years or so I've seen three kinds of "successful" manufacturer forums. More than just KAI has had multiple failed attempts along the way.
1) The kind that restricts topics so much that it's basically just fan boys patting each other on the back, worthless for any unbiased info as nothing but glowingly positive remarks are allowed.
2) The kind that has basically no manufacturer input at all. Unbiased, but really no better than the general forum, just sorted by brand.
3) The kind that has someone in charge that can let negative comments and criticisms pass without inflaming the situation, or better yet has the PR/CS skills to diffuse the situation and turn unhappy customers into repeat purchase ones.
Any company representative that doesn't have enough self control to not press the "submit reply" button when baited unless a moderator bans them from posting shouldn't be representing the company publicly in the first place. KAI is hardly the first knife company to have that problem, and they certainly won't be the last.
Look at Spyderco or Benchmade forums, plenty of people post critical things about pricing, QC, designs, etc. etc. but you don't see company representatives making those threads worse, and they fade quickly. They also don't tolerate a small group of trouble makers that use ANY opportunity to bad mouth a company OR fan boys that attack whenever something less than positive is posted. The KAI forum quickly gained a reputation for both of those issues and the later only encouraged the former to cause more problems.