Like most other really large and volatile internet forums, our Trad Gang operating costs are great and we rely upon sponsorships to keep our cyber campfire burning 24x7. And so we all - members, moderators and admins - thank them for allowing us to exist and share and perpetuate. We simply could not be here otherwise.
This absolutely does NOT mean that non-sponsor traditional bowhunting/archery products and services can't be discussed here at Trad Gang. Heck, we welcome it, and there are LOTS of threads and posts to prove it!
However, there can all too easily come a point where posting patterns of certain members are clearly pushing a non-sponsor product or service as their threads and posts read like marketing ad copy. This is shilling and we remove such threads and posts because we have a responsibility to our sponsors.
It doesn't at all mean the shilled product or service is bad. It's simply that we're not going to allow free marketing to those who don't support Trad Gang and therefore don't deserve using our forum as their marketing agent.
We're gonna protect our sponsors - they got our back, we've got theirs.
One prominent bow company in particular received Years and Years of FREE advertising, besieged Trad Gang with proven shilled threads and posts, and consistently refused to acknowledge Trad Gang in every manner possible. Well, we just had enough of that.
Howdy Sir
I guess it was my post that made you delete that border thread
QuoteOriginally posted by Rob DiStefano:
This absolutely does NOT mean that non-sponsor traditional bowhunting/archery products and services can't be discussed here at Trad Gang. Heck, we welcome it, and there are LOTS of threads and posts to prove it!
I do not believe in what you are saying in your statement above !!!!
Here´s why
It appears to me that as long as you put down Border Bows - especially the Covert Hunter - the thread will stay alive .... as soon as you start liking / praising their products you are called a shill
Is this what you call fair play ?
And yes ... I am a customer of Border Archery ...but .....
I speak my own words and not theirs !!!
That is what you can blame me for .... not for being a shill.
Now you can go ahead and delete my way of looking at things.
Makes complete sense to me, and probably to a large majority Rob.
yononindo:
the last border thread was taken offline because several posts were inflammatory, not because of border bows per se.
let me rephrase that - we all need to play nice, as we'd expect the same from others. if there's a beef to be made with anyone or anything, let's please take it offline.
I recently re-upped my Trad Gang membership and really enjoy the site, but this doesn't sit well with me.
I understand there may have been some previous issues with Border that I may not be privvy to, but the idea that some company's products can't be mentioned here (or, perhaps more accurately, can only be mentioned by certain people in a certain light) is ridiculous.
One of my primary uses of Trad Gang is for research into new equipment. There's a good chance my next bow will be a Covert Hunter, as they've been on my radar for a while. More than most brands, the fact they are located overseas and are relatively expensive makes my ability to research them here even more important.
I was following the deleted thread and found some of the information useful.
If it was only removed because of "several inflammatory posts", why not just remove the offending posts?
I agree on "we all should play nice"
as for inflammatory posts ...
it looks like the mods had no problem with a guy jumping on that thread saying:
"he´s gonna tell the REAL TRUTH about the Border Company"
and he´s only doing it because he cares about all future customers that would risk their health by buying and shooting a Border bow ?????
this, indeed, is what I would call a inflammatory post !!!
Imagine someone saying this about another Bow Company let alone one of the sponsors
Was curvemans post also inflammatory and this the reason for getting deleted ???
Or was it because he´s a happy and satisfied customer of Border Archery ... mentioning that he´s set flight records with Border bows ???
With all my respect for the great members / Sponsors on here .... allow
me to say that I agree to disagree with you on certain subjects :)
dennis,
border bows can and have been more than mentioned. and, there's another covert hunter thread on powwow.
if you found that last border thread useful i'll take the time to moderate it and put it back, probably late in the day when i have time. however, that thread could have been managed quickly if someone saw an inappropriate post and click on the 'report post' icon. we can't be everywhere and see everything.
daniel,
later today i'll clean up that thread and put it back, and then hopefully you and a few others will be back to being happy trad gang campers, ok?
Rob-
First off, let me say that I appreciate all that you (Moderators) do. I can only imagine how difficult it is to stay on top of everything.
No need to re-post for me- as noted I had already read it.
It is my understanding as a casual visitor to this site that there are a few "taboo" companies that are not to be discussed here, Border among them. I could be wrong (hope I am)?
My point is that I think we should be free to discuss any and all traditional archery-related entities here on Trad Gang. If some of them have had past bad dealings with this community, then these issues should be pointed out when appropriate and we (members) can decide if we want to do business with them or not.
YES - please do discuss any aspect of traditional bowhunting, and certainly including the products and services of non-sponsor companies. no one here has ever said the opposite.
Oh boy! This is going to be good. Seems as though discussing Border bows falls in to the religion and politics category. Have at it. :pray:
If a customer wants to praise a product on the web without monetary or relational return its not shilling...sorry Rob
Sometimes good products sell themselves...
QuoteOriginally posted by Michael Arnette:
If a customer wants to praise a product on the web without monetary or relational return its not shilling...sorry Rob
Sometimes good products sell themselves...
dang.
y'all are missing the point - this is NOT about talking it up about a non-sponsor product or service - it's about certain individuals who CLEARLY are repeatedly "pushing" (yes, that's shilling) a non-sponsor product or service over and over and over again and again.
sorry that a "few" sponsors feel like Border might take away from their sales .Border is not selling here people that like Border bows talk about border bows that is all . If some of your sponsors need protecting ,then protect them .
QuoteOriginally posted by grayfeather:
sorry that a "few" sponsors feel like Border might take away from their sales .Border is not selling here people that like Border bows talk about border bows that is all . If some of your sponsors need protecting ,then protect them .
NO, there have been no comments from trad gang sponsors, this is about curtailing people from taking advantage of their hosts.
and, by the way, they're YOUR SPONSORS, they're OUR SPONSORS - you can thank them for paying the bills so that you and i and everyone can enjoy trad gang, and allow YOU make that last post ya just typed out.
I appreciate the sponsors that make this site possible. I also appreciate the work the moderators do to keep this site so special.
I, for one, am happy to abide by what ever rules the mods deem necessary to protect the site.
Thanks!
Thanks Rob,The Nocking Point appreciates you guys.
Terry
Thank you Rob! Your efforts to do what is right is appreciated! I clearly understand the rules and the point you are trying to make!
Thank you Sponsors, Moderators and admin.
I think some of you guys are missing the point. That thread wasn't removed because it was mentioning Border bows. Heck there's still one up that wasn't removed on page one. In fact rob even offered to step aside from his full time work to clean up the thread and re post it.
I'm not trying to jump into the argument here but I understand its hard to moderate a place this large and make everyone happy. I hope you guys can see it from the other view point.
Daniel, I think it was just coincidence the thread was pulled after your post, not because of your post. I like and respect your posts here on trad gang. I hope you have another spectacular winter scene picture as you did on your horse with the snow covered trees in the background. That photo remains in my memory!
I've had threads removed or deleted in the past. Some were legitimate others, probably not but I will not take it personally because I knew what I was trying to say and probably came across completely different. That's easy to do with typed conversation.
Heck I think I have even lost a friend over the years over a misunderstood text message.
Thanks again to everyone who makes this place possible.
Thanks Rob
Thanks Rob x2. You mods have a thankless job and keep doing what you are doing to keep this a great site.
Everyone needs to shill out and make this site great again!
This issue has some history on this site and I never understood why and it matters not if I ever understand... I just like the folks here and could care less about the underbelly of the industry. Just give me some good hunting tips or stories and keep stoking the fire...
:bigsmyl:
Happy day!
Thanks for your diplomacy Rob.
With respect Rob you may be already have a tainted reputation. Deserved or not I cannot say. I can speak only for myself and that's to say I have always been treated fairly here and with respect. However, this site does retain a strong reputation for doing things like banning members who post reviews of certain brands or posting pics with them ect. Again take that with a large grain of salt and I am not saying it is a deserved reputation just that it is a real one. I hope this post is taken in the right way and not as an accusation.
thanks Rob, I understand and agree with what you are doing.
I have no idea what's going on.... Nor do I care. Thanks sponsors and mods and people that produce quality content.
Rob,
I certainly understand and support your point and the fact that you offered an explanation at all. Some will want to argue it. Just the nature of forums. Scott
I can see both sides.
Should we be able to discuss whatever that pertains to traditional bows? YES.
Should there be an obvious support for out sponsors? YES!
Should we avoid products who are not made by our sponsors? No!
on the opposite side, I have no idea of what could have happened between border and tradgang, nor do a lot of you, so just trust the moderators.
As I have been reminded,
"if you don't like the rules of the play ground, go play else where".
**that is not intended as an insult. There are reasons I primarily search here first, and one of those is how "clean" it is. There are not posts that allow you to bash someone(thank you mods). Part of that is them taking something down we may find as helpful.
I appreciate the morale of this camp fire.
Thanks Rob for all you do to keep TG at the top of the heap when it comes to traditional archery web sites. :thumbsup:
Thank you Rob and to all the sponsors I totally understand where Trad gang is coming from. I work hard I pay my due's we have enough free rides in our country. If you pull this post I understand.
I appreciate all that the moderators do here to keep the site clean. I've seen my share of shill jobs over the years. I also try to do business with the sponsors of this site whenever I possibly can. I just had an email exchange with some stuff I purchased from a non-sponsor where I saw the recommendation to buy from a thread here. In my exchange I mentioned that I saw reference to them on Tradgang and that I buy most of my stuff from sponsors there and recommend they look into for their future advertising.
This is a huge playground and as Rob mentioned takes a large budget to manage. It's easy for armchair quarterbacks to critique how a site is run on a thread like this, but until you've done your own (and I don't see the airwaves busting at the seams with quality sites), I'd suggest giving the Tradgang site some slack in the rope.
As a side note, I would think a company like Bear Archery would be a sponsor here. Seems like a natural, however if you look behind the scenes, you've got sponsors in Big Jim, Lost Nation and Kustom King here all selling Bear Bows, so in a way they are sponsoring on behalf of Bear Archery.
^^^^^ What Ray said! ^^^^
A couple weeks ago I logged out of one of the bigger outdoor oriented sites on the net for the last time! (Not an archery site). Despite a massive membership count, the majority of the posting is by a small core of critical bashers and cranks. New members are routinely hammered to the point of being silenced and run off. Moderation of the site has gone downhill to the point where if proper moderation was reinstituted, there would be few remaining participants. Sponsors would drift away and the site would wither.
In other words, IT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF TG!!
Here we have broad participation in a considerate and respectful style. It is due to careful moderation.
That doesn't mean you can't speak your mind here. Almost any point of view can be iterated here or anywhere else. It's more about how we choose to say it than what we say.
I do find it interesting that when I was researching the Covert Hunter recently on this site that all of threads that were titled Covert Hunter do not exist. No matter I ended up going on 3 other sites that didn't delete information regarding this bow and found plenty. In fact I ended up buying one. Now I just don't come to this site that much anymore and I do not plan on renewing my classified fee to have the privilege of viewing bows for sale here.
Over the years I have seen a few posts deleted that maybe I would not have taken down, but overall, I think the mods do a really good job of looking after this site and us. I totally see Rob's point, and agree with it, about not allowing non-sponsor vendors to use Trad Gang as a marketing outlet. If any of us buy or like to recommend the products of a non-sponsor, we should certainly encourage them to become sponsors on our site. It can be beneficial to them and us.
Rob
I posted on the former border bows topic as a satisfied customer despite a limb failure. Am I a shill ? I don't think so...
I bought from trad gang sponsors enough bows and for some still own them, shared and still do on bow info, bowhunting pics and stories and so not to be a called shill of anybody. Neither a basher despite some very less than optimal business issue with some sponsors product.
Plus I could have put in those border topics or general "performance" topics controlled technical info showing datas comparing some very famous sponsors recurve vs border's recurve. I did not because for some I felt that it could have been very unfair and bad for their business to show 20+ fps difference between 2 identical bows for same arrow...
I really enjoy this forum and try to share at my small level some of what is linking us all: the love of bowhunting and archery. Trad Gangers should be free to discuss and share info in a gentleman way about any kind of traditional bow, including border bows.
thank you all, particularly those that seem to understand where we're coming from, which in this matter is ...
please DO discuss non-sponsor trad bowhunting products and services, if y'all have a mind to, that's never a problem.
we don't care what gear you wanna talk about or buy, and as long as it's trad bowhunting related it's all very very good. that's a prime focus of trad gang.
please don't shill for non-sponsors. "shill", in our case, means to actively and consistently promote a product or service offered by a non-sponsor, by creating more than just a thread or post - that smacks of marketing. we trust you can understand that in doing so this just ain't fair to everyone, and in the long run it's a disservice to the membership.
if there are a number of non-sponsor threads running concurrently, yes we're probably gonna at the very least be very concerned.
the borders bows thread that i took offline was done so not because it was a borders bows thread but because some posts were inappropriate. in review, it turns out it was lots more than a few posts in question so it's not going back online. there's another border bows thread running, please use that one.
we (moderators and admins) could never ever see, let alone read, every post. most times we're late to the party, and we do rely on you folks to click the "Report Post" icon if you see something that don't seem to look right to you, so we can respond lots quicker and hopefully not allow a thread to escalate out of hand. we like trad gang to have lots of civil minded discussions. we won't tolerate bashing of any kind, that's not our way.
lastly, to err is human, and i prove my humanity daily. i make mistakes, as we all do. i apologize if i've offended anyone, that was not my intent, it was to get us all on the same page and get back to the good trad gang party.
thank you.
QuoteOriginally posted by FBB:
I do find it interesting that when I was researching the Covert Hunter recently on this site that all of threads that were titled Covert Hunter do not exist. No matter I ended up going on 3 other sites that didn't delete information regarding this bow and found plenty. In fact I ended up buying one. Now I just don't come to this site that much anymore and I do not plan on renewing my classified fee to have the privilege of viewing bows for sale here.
I just now ran a search for all the topics in Pow Wow that contained the terms "covert" "border" and "hex". Seventy two threads were returned.
How you enter your search criteria makes a big difference. There are probably a few other terms that would bring up even more.
Rob, your explanation makes sense to me.....and I shoot a Covert Hunter. I really enjoy Tradgang. I'm very likely here to stay! 'Nuff said.
The fact that covert has remained"covert" on this one could be a testament to their character.
Rob and the gang are doing a tremendous job. We can't thank them or our sponsors enough. If anyone is upset with our moderators perhaps they start their own website.
Put your pants back on and go shooting
I don't frequent this sight as much as I once did. In fact, I'm not a contributor and very seldom post. However, I read the "Border thread" in question and feel compelled to comment here.
Once upon a time, I had a post about a bowyer deleted, so I PM'd Terry about it. He responded by sending his phone number and we had a very good conversation which opened my understanding as to why deleting that post was in everyone's best interest. Sometime later his private reservations about the bowyer were born out publicly. In the end I was grateful for the judgement call which resulted in my post being pulled. Not only that, but I learned Terry is not an egocentric monster but a very cordial and considerate man - at least to me.
On another occasion I sold a bow to Rob which he soon discovered had serious issues. It was completely my bad and he had a right to be frustrated but again, what I found was a very reasonable man and a man of honor. I refunded the money but didn't want the bow shipped back to me - Rob could have kept it, attempted to sell it, whatever - but what he did was send me a picture of the bow sawn neatly in two, demonstrating that the bow was taken out of commission as was my wish.
Through these dealings both men were complete gentlemen and I continue to respect them very much. I may not agree with every decision made here, or at least not understand every decision, but I'm going to give them a pass this time and probably every time. They've proven themselves and they've earned it.
I've never been a shill for a company nor any man so I'm not pumping sunshine up anyone's skirt - just telling it like it is. There were some comments on the Border thread that were inappropriate - even if they were true. I think it showed remarkable restraint for some of those comments to have been up as long as they were and for those who made them to still be members here.
The thread wasn't pulled because it was a Border thread - it was pulled because it had taken a disrespectful turn and had ill-spirited posts. Like I tell my kids, you may disrespect me but your not going to do it in my house. So here' s to you Rob for keeping it in line and being man enough to take the criticism - and punches - without retaliating. You've once again proven yourself to be a gentleman.
I posted that thread to learn about Border bows. And I did learn a lot before it was deleted. I'd liked to have been able to learn a little more, but it is what it is. I just have to remember all the Border shooters so I can send them PM's (for the record, I posted that here because I usually get some good information from this site).
I'll probably end up getting a Covert Hunter. I still have a lot of questions if any of you guys that own one want to send me a PM.
Thank you, Rob! I appreciate the sponsors, mods for providing a great site to discuss trad archery. I've learned so much from the members and sponsors!
This is the only site left where you can call a crossgun a crossgun and also refer to it as 'not archery equipment'. I'm in for the long run. I respect what is being done here to keep things in order.
Ron
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: Good job Rob!
QuoteOriginally posted by Jedimaster:
I don't frequent this sight as much as I once did. In fact, I'm not a contributor and very seldom post. However, I read the "Border thread" in question and feel compelled to comment here.
Once upon a time, I had a post about a bowyer deleted, so I PM'd Terry about it. He responded by sending his phone number and we had a very good conversation which opened my understanding as to why deleting that post was in everyone's best interest. Sometime later his private reservations about the bowyer were born out publicly. In the end I was grateful for the judgement call which resulted in my post being pulled. Not only that, but I learned Terry is not an egocentric monster but a very cordial and considerate man - at least to me.
On another occasion I sold a bow to Rob which he soon discovered had serious issues. It was completely my bad and he had a right to be frustrated but again, what I found was a very reasonable man and a man of honor. I refunded the money but didn't want the bow shipped back to me - Rob could have kept it, attempted to sell it, whatever - but what he did was send me a picture of the bow sawn neatly in two, demonstrating that the bow was taken out of commission as was my wish.
Through these dealings both men were complete gentlemen and I continue to respect them very much. I may not agree with every decision made here, or at least not understand every decision, but I'm going to give them a pass this time and probably every time. They've proven themselves and they've earned it.
I've never been a shill for a company nor any man so I'm not pumping sunshine up anyone's skirt - just telling it like it is. There were some comments on the Border thread that were inappropriate - even if they were true. I think it showed remarkable restraint for some of those comments to have been up as long as they were and for those who made them to still be members here.
The thread wasn't pulled because it was a Border thread - it was pulled because it had taken a disrespectful turn and had ill-spirited posts. Like I tell my kids, you may disrespect me but your not going to do it in my house. So here' s to you Rob for keeping it in line and being man enough to take the criticism - and punches - without retaliating. You've once again proven yourself to be a gentleman.
:clapper:
I had a post pulled (I wanted opinions on neck shots) it was pulled, so discussion was not allowed. I disagreed BUT did not take it personal, the moderators etc are walking a fine line and pleasing everyone all the time is next to impossible. I have yet to find a man made organization perfect so let's relax and appreciate this site.
Also if I were a sponsor I would want some consideration on discussions when A FEW try to shill. Again a fine line is being walked to consider sponsors and people who try to beat the system.
I've been largely absent on TG in recent months, so I'm a bit in the dark on this one. But I'd like to chime in that I have seen "shilling" being done on this site, and it smacked of someone out there trying to get free marketing space... trying to boost sales for someone's business. It just didn't feel honest to me... You know, like buying a fancy suit, wearing it to a photo shoot, and then taking it back for a full refund. That's using someone else's stuff without paying for it.
I think TG is a pretty well-run site. Perfect? No way... we're all human and there are bound to be differences in judgment from one person to the next. But I am posting here in support of Rob's decision to try to limit the "shilling", but still allow discussions of both sponsored and non-sponsored products.