Some comments from a vintage guitar dealer...

BloodEagle

Dont be a twat, I wasnt even talking about you. Seriously, people are puzzled why serious businesses would probably prefer to distance themselves from this forum when the last 15 pages of more or less complete bullshit exist?

Bridgehouse

BloodEagle said:

Dont be a twat, I wasnt even talking about you

In which case, perhaps best not to call me a twat? Even if I am.

BloodEagle

Mate, youre completely irrelevant - sorry to break it to you in such a straightforward way. I was talking about the thread as a whole. Fuck this, what a bunch of losers.

sweepy

I do love this place, cheers me up no end when I’m stuck at work on a Saturday night

Bridgehouse

BloodEagle said:

Dont be a twat, I wasnt even talking about you. Seriously, people are puzzled why serious businesses would probably prefer to distance themselves from this forum when the last 15 pages of more or less complete bullshit exist?

You could argue that a good proportion of the content on here is complete bullshit. There’s certainly some pretty ridiculous threads on here regularly.

However, and I’ve said this many times before - there are many many forums out there where the general tone of posting would leave you speechless. Go spend half an hour on Pistonheads (uk’s biggest motoring forum) to see real in your face bullying, cringeworthy bullshit. It’s a similar story on many other forums. 

Maybe I’ve just spent too much time on other bits of the internet and I’ve lost sensitivity to it - but I see very little over here that comes anywhere close. In fact, everyone I’ve met who posts here (quite a few organising the Jam days and lots of trading) has been a great upstanding decent human being. 

I think we *think* we are all cliquey and quick to jump on people who come here - but judging by other forums I go to I’d say it’s in the top 5% of more pleasant places on the internet. There’s some grim forums out there.

Bridgehouse

BloodEagle said:

Mate, youre completely irrelevant - sorry to break it to you in such a straightforward way. I was talking about the thread as a whole. Fuck this, what a bunch of losers.

Oh, well that’s ok then. 

mrkb

BloodEagle said:

Mate, youre completely irrelevant - sorry to break it to you in such a straightforward way. I was talking about the thread as a whole. Fuck this, what a bunch of losers.

Is this Mikes wife posting?? ;-)

Voxman

I've got bored. C'mon guys...enough is enough. Give the poor guy a chance! 

sixstringsupplies

Thing is though if you’re running a business and you have an online presence, you HAVE to be thick skinned and be prepared for a potential backlash, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong. Reviews, YouTube comments, Facebook comments, forum threads....It’s the nature of the beast. 

saying that, as a “business” member of this forum who lurked and lurked and lurked for over a year before jumping in (i initially started lurking to see if anyone was slagging off my business!) It’s not the easiest place to settle in to and most of the time it’s easier to keep your mouth shut.

If you don’t defend any negativity properly
you can end up doing more damage to yourself. 

That’s how I expect it though to be honest it doesn’t matter if it’s a knitting forum or a gardening forum. Forums are forums. 

love the banter though  

Bridgehouse

sixstringsupplies said:

Thing is though if you’re running a business and you have an online presence, you HAVE to be thick skinned and be prepared for a potential backlash, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong. Reviews, YouTube comments, Facebook comments, forum threads....It’s the nature of the beast. 

saying that, as a “business” member of this forum who lurked and lurked and lurked for over a year before jumping in (i initially started lurking to see if anyone was slagging off my business!) It’s not the easiest place to settle in to and most of the time it’s easier to keep your mouth shut.

If you don’t defend any negativity properly
you can end up doing more damage to yourself. 

That’s how I expect it though to be honest it doesn’t matter if it’s a knitting forum or a gardening forum. Forums are forums. 

love the banter though  

Yes, I can imagine it’s hard for a new business member.. but like I said, I do honestly think we are a lot lot softer here than a good number of other places on the internet. 

You only have to look at some of the youtube comments some businesses get to see it.. and in motoring or sports forums it’s positively hostile 75% of the time

BloodEagle

So its a race to the bottom?

Bridgehouse

BloodEagle said:

So its a race to the bottom?

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that we have embarrassing threads but they are no where near as common as in other forums or places on the internet. 

The fact is, this forum has conversations like this, where we discuss whether behaviour is acceptable or not - we actually do seem to care about new members and getting them involved and welcomed. I don’t see that happening anywhere else.

My point is that we are often very hard on ourselves *in comparison* with other places on the internet.

You might think I’m a twat, but I actually think that it’s good that members like you call out what you see is unacceptable, and your comments are met with reasoned response and not as they would be on other forums - which I can tell you now would almost undoubtably be “fuck off, snowflake wanker”. That’s the response someone got on Pistonheads recently when they said members were being unfair to someone who was involved in a hit and run accident. 

So actually, don’t stop calling it out - but please do accept that part of the process is that your views might be challenged or questioned..

StuartMac290

But again I have to ask, what does it achieve? What did we achieve here? How does chasing an expert in vintage guitars away enhance the forum in any way? He has a highly successful business. If he felt by participating in this forum his business interests might be harmed, what does that do for the members here? I just don't see the point.

Bridgehouse

StuartMac290 said:

But again I have to ask, what does it achieve? What did we achieve here? How does chasing an expert in vintage guitars away enhance the forum in any way? He has a highly successful business. If he felt by participating in this forum his business interests might be harmed, what does that do for the members here? I just don't see the point.

I think you could argue that apart from the “help me out it’s not working” threads then actually there’s very little point to a lot of the threads here. 

Do we really need 50 threads on the Gibson bankruptcy/debt/true historics or yet another joe B thread? Does it achieve anything? 

Mike joined and made a pretty bold statement. The forum gave a mixed reaction to that. Partly because there’s been a lot of threads highlighting where vintage purchases have gone wrong - it’s always been a hot potato. A lot of members here will never touch a vintage guitar as they see it as too risky. 

Given the history - if a vintage dealer joins and in a thread they start says they are going to set the record straight and add some expertise on a subject that they think is missing here then there is going to be some heated debate on the subject. That’s just the way it is.

My view is that our greatest asset as a forum is the fact that in many subjects we show a huge degree of balance. I’d love to have seen this in this thread, but we didn’t quite get it right. 

I disagreed with Mike on his stance that there is no expertise here. I also disagreed with the bullish “he’s hawking a stolen guitar, the rotter” view too. And, I disagree with the self-flagellation “we are so bad and it’s so embarrassing that we chase every dealer ever out of dodge”.

Come on, balance guys, balance. 

Mike should be given a chance on the forums. Not in this thread - but in any topic he joins in on. 

Similarly, you lot need to go easy on the pitchforks.

And, you also really need to stop with the “we are such an embarrassment” - compared with most of the internet we are tea drinking ladies who lunch. 

There’s more hyperbole in this thread from all sides than I’ve seen for a long time. Chill. Give Mike a chance. Don’t demonise him. And have some pride in the great things that happen on this forum. It’s an amazing place that does some brilliant things. 

GoldenEraGuitars

I think the fact that Mike is still generating conversation means he is more than welcome. 

Id like to hear more from him on other threads if he’s still about.

joeyowen

I've just realised the problem.  We should have known...

https://www.ft.com/content/3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c

TTony

TTony said:

JerkMoans said:

It honestly reminds me of being back in primary school when a couple of kids would have a dust-up over something, and everyone else would gather in a big circle chanting 'scrap, scrap, scrap' until the teacher tasked with maintaining a semblance of order happened by and everyone legged it.

That I suppose is where you, @TTony and the crew come in

I have been keeping a casual eye on the thread, mainly as a first line of defence against us getting sued!



Just embarrassing really.

@timhulio @jf122 ;

What, in my post above, did you consider so funny as to be lol-worthy?

timhulio

I remembered something similar happening on TGP a few years back. TGP wasn't as abrasive as this place, but it got to the stage when they actually banned criticism of certain brands for fear of being sued. 

mrkb

joeyowen said:

I've just realised the problem.  We should have known...

https://www.ft.com/content/3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c

What’s the problem, that you have access to the FT and us poor plebs can’t read the article?






in all seriousness, what is a brief summary of your linked article? 

jf122

TTony said:

TTony said:

JerkMoans said:

It honestly reminds me of being back in primary school when a couple of kids would have a dust-up over something, and everyone else would gather in a big circle chanting 'scrap, scrap, scrap' until the teacher tasked with maintaining a semblance of order happened by and everyone legged it.

That I suppose is where you, @TTony and the crew come in

I have been keeping a casual eye on the thread, mainly as a first line of defence against us getting sued!



Just embarrassing really.

@timhulio @jf122 ;

What, in my post above, did you consider so funny as to be lol-worthy?

It’s strange that you seem to be more concerned with that Tony than posts where someone calls everyone “losers”.