"Hall of Shame" discussion thread

Same here:

Interesting how huntking bought a Zanflare F1 for the MSRP price of $39, as the light is always on sale.

Edit: the correct answer is Zanflare

What! I bought it some months ago!

Maybes its just me but Zanflare is back at it again.

Starting to feel too commercial in the “non-commercial space.

” Zanflare B3 Teaser ( Bike Light )“:Zanflare B3 Teaser ( Bike Light )

I totally get that old4570 does not work for Zanflare aka gearbest but adding a crowd funding link feels sort of over the top.

For a so so light.

but maybe its just me?

Now if old4570 thought it was the worlds greatest light and was worried they would not get seed money and fail? (cool), but we all know Gearbest is behind starting/pushing an inhouse brand (as such I cant think of a single reason I would recommend my friends to dig in there pockets to save gearbest development money on inhouse marketing and product development.

I’m not against inhouse brands or comapnies doing product development but to ask us for money to do is… well… ballsy!

.02

First post of the boss:
“….Please avoid discussions here, and just post the name of vendors that you have recently seen spamming threads or using shill tactics……”

I do not understand why people not read the first posts…. there are tons of discussions here….
(sorry for this post)

Gearbest is using Fin17

the “give away” is supposed to be a “Fin17 Six-Month Anniversary Giveaway ” but it is obvious it is just more marketing and research.

I think what we need is a “commercial” button because spam is not quite correct, so we can put these in the proper place and have it recorded.

So information is now over the top ? ( Very strange )
I dont work for anyone - I do reviews - sometimes I am sent stuff - some times its out of my pocket …

I don’t want to get in on the politics of opinion … So how about leaving me out of it … ( I have worked hard at distancing myself from OPINION )
If you dont want a review posted on the B3 just let me know !

Oh and so that you know , I don’t know what I think about the B3 yet !
So far it has some good points and some not so good …

But I really don’t want to get involved in the politics , I just do reviews - part of that is trying to provide information …

Argh come on!
Make it a sport to call bluff, point to nice deals or just give commercial parties a chance
Just wanted to post a reply (I was happy about, bam, topic gone here is the reply I wrote:

A few months back a “shill” posted about some outdoor string lights or something, the topic filled up with the same product for less or same price for more. That teaches more and gives some interesting threads.

Mostly the main issue is posting in wrong section, so a “commercial” button to move it seems cool!

llucas xie, spammer for ledflashlighting.com

(Funny…or not: everytime this member makes a post, it is his/hers 1st post… BTW, normally the threads presenting their lights are not even in the commercial part)

http://budgetlightforum.com/forum/misc/commercial

Zanflare is now banned after many flagrant rule violations and warnings.

This thread used to be the Hall of Shame thread, but it has now been opened up as a general discussion thread.

The new Hall of Shame thread (NO DISCUSSIONS ALLOWED!) is here:
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/47069

I have just re-read a Zanflare product thread, but this time without the spammy comment by member Zanflare. Suddenly, the Zanflare product became much more appealing without the spamming. In a way this is contradictory, as the purpose of a spammer is supposed to increase sales.

Exactly, I hope that the flashlight vendors will read this and realize how incredibly stupid and counterproductive their spammy tactics are. And the worst thing is that it’s completely unnecessary, BLF has an incredibly lenient and inviting FREE policy toward commercial vendors.

Seeing as how I just posted a review of a freely provided light recently, and it was my first actual product review, I’d like to post my opinion.

Personally, I like to see 3 or 4 reviews of the same product (with original content, not just copy/paste of the sellers page). This gives me a good idea of what a few different people think of a product. If there are 9, 12, or two-dozen reviews… OK, that’s getting excessive.

If it’s clearly an advertising post masquerading as a “review”, that’s not OK to me either. That being said, it does make some sense to combine multiple reviews of a single model of product in a way…

Ultimately, I think we want to avoid/reduce spam posts, and if we can get legitimate reviews (even for free products) that are not excessive or advertising in nature, that would be a win.

It’s true that subtle forms of advertising are a legitimate issue that we need to deal with better. But the subject of this thread is blantant spam that even some established big brands have been posting here on BLF recently. I found an example in of one of HKJ’s usual fantastic review threads where the manufacturer of that product popped in and posted: “Nice review. Wanna buy one? Check it out here (link)”. So garbage like that is nothing to debate about, it’s a flagrant and shameless violation of the Rules for Commercial Sellers, and should be marked as spam if anything like that appears in the future.

Thanks for the explanation about this, I also had that doubt!! :+1:

Oh, absolutely agree. Anytime a seller/vender or manufacturer comments like that, posting a link to a purchase site, or even if they don’t and they simply solicit a sale by asking for purchase, that is NOT OK. Their comments should be limited to thanking the reviewer and answering any direct inquiries with regards to the technical aspects of the product, so long as things don’t cross into sales territory.

I really felt compelled to post here because I did not want to be seen as contributing to spam posts because of free review samples sent by manufacturers, mainly the aforementioned Sofirn. They have sent a lot of product out to us recently, thus an influx of posted reviews. Full disclosure, the original PM from them to me asking if I’d like to review the light said nothing about being required to post a review at all, just whether I’d like to evaluate the light in my free time.

I think that manufacturer or seller never must talk in the review that we make.
Reviews with aff link must go to the site of negociated deal, review without aff link is fine in the normal section.

Right, I understand your point too. I was just trying to say that these are really two completely different issues. There are currently no rules about how reviews of free products should be handled, and specifically nothing about those “blitz” style review campaigns where they send the same product to 20 reviewers at once. So that discussion definitely has its place (preferably in a different thread), but I’m not in any way trying to condemn as spammers our BLF members who review free products, because they’re not doing anything wrong and are not violating any written BLF rules. As a matter of fact I occasionally review free samples myself here. This thread is to raise awareness about the cut-and-dried issue of commercial employees posting blatant spam on BLF that clearly violates the written rules, which we all need to be more vigilant about eliminating via the SPAM button.

@ JasonJ (and all interested)
There is/was an ongoing thread discussing some issues about affiliate links in reviews and other issues about reviews!

I for one am done doing any reviews and for that matter, will not enter for any free give-aways.
Let the new members have the shot at new free product for a slice of their dignity.
The repetition and clone reviews get old right quick and of no fault of the reviewer’s, as they all hit the shores at the same time and all manufacturer’s demand a quick review on multiple platforms.
How thorough your review really is, does not matter to the “Shotgun Blast” of reviews intended solely to up Google searches and flood Amazon with reviews.

It is “over the top” total effing BS anymore.

Sign me the h out.
Keith