Large Scale Central

Where are the vendors and magazine publishers \ authors??

General Discussion
#41

Greg Elmassian said:

I actually think having manufacturer’s forums would be an asset

. I think there are manufacturers that pretty much operated in a vacuum in terms of a well rounded public input …

Greg

Greg, yes I agree. On this site, and others, I read about people wondering why X hasn’t been produced, or why X road-name hasn’t been produced, or whatever. To have a manufacturer read those kinds of questions, and answer them would be helpful. And just maybe, if they heard what the buying public wanted, they just might provide it. Maybe. And then they win (with more sales) and we win with getting the product we want.

#42

Manufacturers would have to have thick skins to put up with complains every time they produced something with an actual fault in it.

They would never get away with suggesting, after the second complaint, that no-one else had the same problem.

They would do the same thing they did with Dave Goodson…force him to stop bothering them, because they had others to do reviews, who were not as critical, of obvious faults.

Then of course, the “Fans” of certain manufacturers would blindly black ball the people who had found faults and all hell would break loose…and Young Booby would be banning and chastising anyone that dared suggest that there was a problem…

No…let the dealers and manufacturers put up their own web pages, and moderate away anyone that dares to suggest a problem exists…as we have seen in the past…

Meanwhile, here on LSC the problems can be brought forward, and either solved by some of our experienced Modellers, or at least discussed “Nicely” under the supervision of the “Great Dictator/Site Owner” Bobby the brave…!!

As far as dealers… If Bobby can make a buck or two letting dealers have a section in the forums…let them have it…but, please…NO MORE ADS than what we are subjected to now…PLEASE…We don’t want another MLS…Thank you.

I would suggest to Bobby, that if dealers were to post, they post under a heading like the existing headings in the forums…one heading of "New Products (Manufacturers. Open to ONLY Posting by Manufacturers) that could be read only by the general public.

#43

There are two extremes. One is a conditioned, compliant and controlled audience that won’t say boo and the other is an angry crazed lynch mob out of control, to burn those with the ability to provide more.

Something between the two extremes would probably work well.

Andrew

#44

Paul, for a while I was a “darling” of that site, Lewis quoting me, taking my suggestions, asking advice, etc.

Then I posted something on my personal site about the problems AND HOW TO IMPROVE them and I had the choice to be banned or “never say anything negative on the forum again”…

But that was not the same here, where the manufacturer could control “his” forum, but things (courteous, factual, objective things) could be discussed on the general, or other forum.

It could keep “both sides” in line… keep the manufacturer’s forum courteous, and a place where the manufacturer could be comfortable and share, but also keep things to reality… otherwise people could present facts on another forum… again this would take more moderation and care, but I think the benefits would outweigh the disadvantages.

Maybe I’m too idealistic, but why not try it?

Greg

Paul Bottino said:

Greg, isn’t that what we had with the Aristocraft forum, before they went away. That forum is almost vacant now. But Aristo moderated it very closely, preventing a lot of bashing of anything, and everyone was afraid of mentioning another company name.

I just don’t know about this.

Paul

#45

I agree, that is my point. They really controlled things, banned people, You are not the only one banned, controlling content. That’s why I am not sure it is a good idea.

#46

Bob if this is something you wanted to try I would be interested in Participating

#47

Hans-Joerg Mueller said:

If manufacturers want a forum, let them have their own forum on their own site with whatever rules they wish.

I guess vendors won’t have the time to participate in fora. As far as publishers go, how many are there who focus on LS?

But more basically/elementary, I really like the mix of this forum. As far as I can see everything of “vendors and authors” is covered, it’s just a matter of looking in the right places.

I agree with the comments by HJ. Vendors web sites exist here in their post endings, some obvious others less so. Just needs a little observation.

#48

Just my two cents.

I think that its worth a try. If it gets out of hand, Bob can always shut it down.

I think that, by and large (pun intended), we pretty much are self regulating. The problem occurs when someone new registers on this site, and brings his baggage with him, whatever that may be. Rather than engage in a flame war, if we were to use the back channel approach (message) to carry on a private discussion, we could keep the rancor to a minimum. If a flame war seems to be starting, a gentle reminder from anyone to take it back channel should be all that is necessary.

I think it would be great to be able to directly ask “How come you did this, or Perhaps you could try that.”

#49

Steve, yes, it would be nice to have a direct line to a manufacturer, or manufacturer’s representative. As for folks with “excess baggage”, We can always report their posts to Bob. He has “erased” folks before for not playing nice with others. Its a pain, I know, but he isn’t afraid of doing it if it becomes necessary.

#50

Steve Featherkile said:

Just my two cents.

I think it would be great to be able to directly ask “How come you did this, or Perhaps you could try that.”

Or even better yet offer information prior to production. Say a manufacturer wants to build X model. How much can the manufacturer learn in a limited amount of time? Not nearly as much as a collective group of people that are ‘experts’ (I use this term in a broad sense to encompass all sorts of knowledge from prototype to electronics) on particular things. This could be as simple as having the correct road numbers for rolling stock (a major pet peeve of mine), or as detailed as having the correct number of louvers on the side of a locomotive. If the manufacturer could have access to all this data in one place (say a thread) then they could make the individual choice to include or not to include said information. Then when the product is produced, and the review comes out stating that this piece of rolling stock has the wrong road number the manufacturer can’t play dumb. They had the information (assuming it is available) and they choose the option that they went with.

#51

Yes and no Craig. It might help the manufacturers, if they bother to ask and listen. But how many times do we complain that such and such was announced x months or years ago, so where is it? One manufacturer, that we all know, used to announce something and then it was “delayed” till next year, or the year after. Do we need more of something being discussed and then not seeing it?

Ok, I have a bit of sour grapes on that topic. So, feel free to disregard my opinion.

#52

David Maynard said:

Steve, yes, it would be nice to have a direct line to a manufacturer, or manufacturer’s representative. As for folks with “excess baggage”, We can always report their posts to Bob. He has “erased” folks before for not playing nice with others. Its a pain, I know, but he isn’t afraid of doing it if it becomes necessary.

David, I don’t thing that we need to bother Bob with everybody who upsets us. He has enough on his plate. I think that we can be self policing. A gentle, or, if necessary, a not so gentle, Private Message to the offender is often enough to stop bad behavior. Just do it in private, not in the fora.

#53

From feedback, it sounds like its a mostly good idea. Matt, I’ll set it up. Tony, you expressed some interest too?

Lets see how this will play out. I’ll work on the rules, elegibility, etc.

#54

Sounds good bob let me know when you want to start

#55

Matt, I’ve set up a category and a forum for you, and set you as moderator. Should be all set.

#56

I like this idea, hopefully others sign on board.

#57

I can really see this being a great thing. Like I said, I’ve seen this work on a bunch of other forums that I’m on, to great benefit.

#58

Steve Featherkile said:

Just my two cents.

I think that its worth a try. If it gets out of hand, Bob can always shut it down.

Careful! If it gets out of hand and Bob shuts it down, the offenders will begin screaming “CENSORSHIP” and “CONTROL”

#59

If vendors were invited to post on the forum would we then be seeing all kinds of ads all over the place like we now see on the other largescale forum? I know the guy who ran it sold out recently and I sure hope Bob doesn’t anytime soon, I hate all those ads.
I do see a benefit to having manufactureres on here since it would end the rumours and speculation that often turns ugly. We could hear the facts right from the source.

As for garden railways did they change the photo requirements? In the past I have used a 12 year old 4megapixel kodak camera and that was fine for submissions. I now use a nice Nikon DSLR. I’m in the April edition on page 58. I have also been turned down by Marc due to him having a similar idea already on file. In the case of the open air passenger conversion I took photos as I built it then sent him a few describing the build for his OK and when he said yes I wrote up the how to text. I didn’t waste much time at all. At the start of the build challenge I sent Marc the link and a heads up about the amazing projects that I knew you guys would be building. I thought if he saw a few he might contact the builder to do a writeup but he wasn’t interested. I say if you build something cool or have a unicque process to overcome a common problem we all might face then snap a few photos and type a few sentences about it and send them in.

Right now they are looking for “If I’d only known” submissions. Send in 300-400 words 2-3 photos and you just might receive $75 for your trouble.

#60

Hi Bob.

Yes, I am interested in giving it a try.

Thanks for the offer.