New Rule - No More Brand Bashing / Bragging Threads

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Hut said:
This new "rule" came out when I reposted the Bayou Josh video that honestly wasn't even bragging or bashing. It was just a video from a former Nikon Youtuber explaining why he started using Sony (without any exaggeration or false claims). Which some of us can relate too. Moderators could have kept the off topic complainers out of that thread but instead chose to delete it. The only semi-valid complaint was a criticism of the video capabilities, which was discussed and shown to be an incorrect criticism. All other complaints given in the thread was that it was being posted at all and of course me being a problem here. The best was the guy that complained about the video then admitted he didn't even watch it. 🤡
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The moderators deleted that thread. You re-posted it. What did you think was going to happen?

Look, this forum is filled with a bunch of photographers who talk about gear more than they talk about photography… at least when they’re here. Just scan the thread titles, and you can see this is a gear forum, not a photography forum. There are other forums on this site that are less gear-focused, but that’s not the case in this forum.

Into a forum where people are clearly very focused on Their Brand, and in an environment where you have most definitely seen people tend to take Their Brand personally, you posted a link to a video where one guy said “I’m dumping BrandA for BrandB”, and said “what do you think?“. An argument started. Of course it did.

Do you not see how this is going to create an argument? And do you not see why this is a problem for the forum? After the moderators deleted the thread (presumably to stop the nascent flame war), did you not stop to think that perhaps trying to start a conversation/argument about Brands might not be appreciated here?

You can say “I’m just trying to have a conversation”, but the proof is in the pudding. Some conversations about camera systems have resulted in productive conversations, and some have turned into flame wars. Your thread turned into a flame war. Twice. Even if you could blame The Internet for being too touchy the first time, there’s absolutely no excuse for trying to light the fire a second time.
 
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FB101 said:
So, how has this been working for the past month?

From my vantage point, BCG has reverted back to a Nikon echo chamber with a single brand focus and on the rare occasion where somebody new asks for input on something non-Nikon the answer invariably is “I’ve not shot X, but here is why the z9 walks on water”. The people who have multi brand experience, genuine hands-on experience, don’t post anymore, except for you of course, and I wonder how long it will take before someone shuts down this “Steve guy who thinks the A1 does a few things better”.

To be clear, the policy is not at fault, I think it’s very respectable and sound. The issue is that even before the policy was implemented, genuine gear discussion and civil comparisons weren‘t welcome, and now they are simply gone.

Don’t beat yourself up over it, I don’t think a single Internet forum has managed to pull it off and this one came the closest I ever saw but in the end, single thought is too powerful of an inertia. Even your shooting 3 brands for a while (or now 2) and clearly explaining each brand’s strengths and gaps wasnt enough to enable breaking away from that gravitational pull towards “one happy family dogma”.

i sure hope it won’t stop you from continuing to put out your tremendous educational material for the “others” but as you often say, time is the limit, and if those books don’t sell well because this is not a welcoming community for other brands, you’ll probably need to adjust and the circle will be complete. At that point, we’ve all, completely lost.
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DavidT said:
I haven’t commented on all of this but I will now and won’t bother again as it won’t matter.

I’ve noticed the same thing. I kind of chuckled recently if the Z9 wasn’t out there wouldn’t be hardly any posts. Case in point as of this post the first page has 25 threads, 19 are Nikon in subject line and 11 of them are specific to the Z9. If you click on non Nikon subject lines most of the remaining ones are discussing Nikon. Talk about a major shift in one direction. It makes this forum less benificial unless you’re a Nikon shooter and even if you are unless you’re using the Z9 it doesn’t help you much either.

I’m sure I’ll get lit on fire for this but in my prospective it was the Nikon folks who went off the deep end which is to be expected when they are in the majority.

I sure never wanted a flame war and mostly tried to avoid but it’s funny when I did gear updates years ago I fed off the Nikon brand loyalist and their bashing anything but Nikon especially Sony so I never looked at Sony. That was a mistake and that happened because I listened to the echo chamber like we now have here and didn’t think and try for myself. Once I did it was very enlightening.

To me use what works for you but don’t defend your loyalty if you’ve never tried anything else. It’s the reason Steve’s opinion to me matters and maybe a couple others and the rest is mostly noise.

Maybe this is why other forums separate brands into their own forums to avoid most of this but allow open and free conversations.
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You know I was curious about this and poked around a bit. A couple of things I noticed... during the main wave of people hopping on the A1 train there were a lot of Sony threads including a lot of A1 specific threads, including by Steve as he covertly and then overtly revealed that he'd been happily using it. As the Z9 release kept being delayed and then it was announced but deliveries were delayed the main discussions were around frustration with Nikon by those waiting and happiness with Sony by those who'd switched. Once Z9's started getting into people's hands through til now the wave of Z9/Nikon centric posts has grown and grown (Steve's Z9/800PF thread has thousands more views than his A1 setup guide thread). I mean it really has always been primarily a Nikon forum. As for brand bashing the 2 things I've noticed the most has been defensiveness by Nikon loyalists when people praise/post excitedly about their Sony's (most especially if those people switched from Nikon and are comparing their new experience to their old one) where they interpret praise for Sony as bashing of Nikon and people pooh poohing the technological advances/move to mirrorless in general who interpret excitement about those things as DSLR or photographic skill bashing. I imagine business wise Steve's bread and butter is mostly (by a lot) with/via Nikon users so erring, policy wise, on the side of their feelings makes sense. All that said I imagine they'll be an upsurge in Sony posts when they make another leap.
 
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Stephen Berger said:
You know I was curious about this and poked around a bit. A couple of things I noticed... during the main wave of people hopping on the A1 train there were a lot of Sony threads including a lot of A1 specific threads, including by Steve as he covertly and then overtly revealed that he'd been happily using it. As the Z9 release kept being delayed and then it was announced but deliveries were delayed the main discussions were around frustration with Nikon by those waiting and happiness with Sony by those who'd switched. Once Z9's started getting into people's hands through til now the wave of Z9/Nikon centric posts has grown and grown (Steve's Z9/800PF thread has thousands more views than his A1 setup guide thread). I mean it really has always been primarily a Nikon forum. As for brand bashing the 2 things I've noticed the most has been defensiveness by Nikon loyalists when people praise/post excitedly about their Sony's (most especially if those people switched from Nikon and are comparing their new experience to their old one) where they interpret praise for Sony as bashing of Nikon and people pooh poohing the technological advances/move to mirrorless in general who interpret excitement about those things as DSLR or photographic skill bashing. I imagine business wise Steve's bread and butter is mostly (by a lot) with/via Nikon users so erring, policy wise, on the side of their feelings makes sense. All that said I imagine they'll be an upsurge in Sony posts when they make another leap.
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Very well said and spot on. I feel like some on this thread just keep poking and making comments that aren't necessary and IMO the thread needs closed!
 
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