"Hall of Shame" discussion thread

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:

I’ll start with:

Tank007
Odepro Outdoors

+1

Hi all, so sorry for the trouble here. I went against the rule to create more threads than expected. I feel so sorry.

I was here four months ago and just thought two posts per week are okay but I failed to get the exact meaning of the threads (title).

Also, thanks for your reminder and it's a good way to do a fast reference here, which let us know what we do to upset others.

I learned so much and most expert flashlight lovers shared their ideas here at any time.

Hope it did make any difference to our friendship and hope all of you enjoy your nice day.

Hahaha so clear it would come to this.

I think it is also hard to do it right. A Facebook action won’t get much love around here :wink:

If they want to post links to their Facebook page that’s up to them. But they must do so in the correct category and not blatantly violate the simple guidelines.

IMHO at least one reason needs to be given when a vendor is listed in this thread. For newbies or those of us with goldfish memories, we shouldn’t have to ‘just trust’ the poster. Thanks

But what if I really need a new kitchen.
:smiling_imp:

I recommend Ikea

Massdrop. They coordinated 6 “reviews” by people who got FREE lights, to appear simultaneously for the Brass Tool

Giving free lights to “reviewers” is a typical way to enroll an individual to promote a product while bypassing the Commercial forum.

imo, “reviewers” who get free lights should post in the commercial section.

Real reviews should come from people that PAID for the light.

All of my full reviews are of lights provided by manufacturers or dealers free of charge for review purposes. I am not kind to review units that have issues. I think it’s also pretty clear in my writing when discussing a light that doesn’t have any major problems but didn’t do it for me. I thought my unenthusiastic review might keep Fenix from sending me more lights, but I have a new headlamp on the way for review already.

I’m publishing three reviews probably tomorrow, and one of them will warn users that the light in question might burn their house down and unequivocally recommend a competing product (incidentally, one of the other three reviews).

There are a lot of good reviewers in the community who don’t pay for what they review. If somebody has a history, you can usually figure out if they’re fair by looking at the negative things they have to say about lights. One thing to be aware of though is that reviewers often request specific lights and usually pick things they expect to like. I’m usually not wrong when I expect to like something.

I’m not saying that reviewers of free products are dishonest, at all. I do think they are being “played” by the Vendors.

I AM saying that Vendors intentionally offer multiple reviewers free samples in order to get multiple “reviews” to appear on the board. That is why we see what is essentially SPAM (Marketing Blitz), when more than one review appears, often at the same time, for the same product.

I think reviews of free samples should go into the Commercial Forum, to stop the Vendors from gaming the system to bypass the Commercial Forum. I always use the “not commercial” link at the top of the BLF page. It does not work to eliminate multiple “reviews”.

I put “review” in quotes because I consider them Commercial SPAM, when there is more than one “review” due to multiple free samples.

^

A good example I think is Sofirn. I’m not against Sofirn, but it was very noticeable the last couple of days that there are a lot of (objective) reviews of Sofirn lights. Obviously, this will increase brand exposure thus sales; hence this can be seen as a form of advertising. And this seems to be a legit construction to advertise outside the commercial section. I think this is what jon_slider is referring to. This is just an observation from my side.

yes

It is the Vendor, not the “reviewer”, that is causing multiple posts (SPAM) about the same light. I think “reviewers” of free lights should post to the SAME thread, IF there is already a “review”.

That way we won’t have to see all the same MFG info and photos, over and over, and the “reviewers” can focus on posting their own ORIGINAL material based on their own tests. I DO value Original material from “reviewers” of free samples.

I have always wondered how do people get all these lights for free, are there lists to sign up to, do they ask directly or get asked?
I have offered a couple of times and never heard back, I think they fear what I would do to their product :laughing:

ask the vendor :slight_smile:
Vendor will ask you for a link to one of your reviews, so they can judge the quality of your work for their advertising purposes.

One of the easiest ways to create a “review” to promote yourself to a Vendor, is to use a YouTube Video. Some “reviewers” just post a link to their Video, which forces you to watch the whole thing to find any original material. Often Video “reviews” have even less original material than written “reviews”.

Vendors like video “reviews”, I do not.