As in many industries, we the consumers of musical instruments and software have a symbiotic relationship with the manufacturers of keyboards/software/sound systems, etc. They want us to buy their product and we want them to create products that we want to buy. They work on determining what features we might want and we want them to provide us with a wealth of information about their products (features, specs, reviews, pictures, videos, demos, ...) so we can determine what will work best for our particular needs. They want to talk to us, we want to ask questions and be listened to.

I am in full support of manufacturers participating in a BBS forum like Synthzone by responding to posts about their product as a valuable resource of accurate information about their product and by starting their own posts to provide new information on their product. All the related discussion that ensues is of great value. The Synthzone BBS forum is, and should continue to be, a conduit between the manufacturers and the consumers.

All that being said, I am getting a little frustrated lately with how some people on Synthzone that have some kind of professional affiliation with a manufacturer feel free to interject an infomercial about their product, whenever they see the opportunity, in the middle of a post about another topic or discussion about another manufacturer's product. It's the "look at me too, look what I can do" insert that I am finding to be a distraction. We all know you exist, we are just not talking about you at this moment. These kinds of entries often causes the post to go off in another direction. Synthzone, like other BBS forums, can have an ADD (attention deficient disorder) quality to it as posts can go off on many tangents. Many times valuable conversations result in the freeform flow of ideas. Other times, the conversations degrade into playgroundesque brawls.

IMHO, I would like to request that manufacturers stop using the middle of someone else’s post on Synthzone as a marketing opportunity. I would like to extend this to people who may not have a professional affiliation but have a very strong allegiance to a particular manufacturer’s product. However, I might be asking too much for people to attenuate their personal enthusiasm. Although, it sure would help. I do not think my request is an unreasonable request for those who have a professional affiliation. I have purposely not mentioned any particular manufacturer by name as my request is equally to them all.

I wanted to give my opinion on this issue and invite others to comments.

[This message has been edited by RobertG (edited 04-10-2007).]

To be honest, Robert, I don't mind the manufacturers interjecting in non specific threads, hell, we do it ourselves all the time! But what I WOULD like to see is a 'Manufacturer' or 'Dealer' tag to their names.

We deserve the right, as print articles do, that when something is posted by a dealer or rep or manufacturer, that it be clearly labeled as such. You all see the little 'Advertisement' label in magazines, even for things that LOOK like a regular article.

We deserve to have the knowledge of whether information and opinion being posted is free of commercial pressures or not.

Diki: I also don't mind vendor contribution on non-specific threads. It's the hijacking of specific threads about other products that bugs me.

Sure, we get off topic all the time. Doesn't mean we can't do better. Like encouraging people to start a new thread instead of completely going to a new topic within the same thread.

I don't think the vendors have been deceptive at all in identifying their relationship. However, Your tag idea is great, something like member-vendor. Something for Nigel to ponder if it is possible/desireable.

I really don't like solicitations here either. We all agreed to use the "For Sale" section for our own gear - I think the manufacturers should too.

Pertinant comentary on features are always welcome, but sales pitches ........ naw.

Agreed!

I agree wholeheartedly.

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I'll order two. One for the house, and one to take to the gig....

Maybe a bit OT but...

I would not be surprized if OEMs had 1 or 2 'users'
on these boards we just don't know it.

In other areas (A/V) its done all the time!

I hope they have several users on this board to get unjaded input on their products and competitors products. Even if they just lurk and never respond. It would be of value to us all.

I'm glad to see others agree as to reducing the infomercials. Now it's up to us to respectfully let vendors know in the future if they step over the line.

Robert,

I don't know who you are refering to in this sentence:

"I would like to extend this to people who may not have a professional affiliation but have a very strong allegiance to a particular manufacturer’s product."

Personally I think that this forum would be very boring if we could not speak passionately about the keyboards we own ourself. This forum is the only place I know where you can discuss and compare arrangers from many different manufacturers. I hope it can stay that way.

Kind regards,
Tommy (Korg fan)

Tommy, I feel that as long as you have NO commercial ties to a dealer or manufacturer, you should continue exactly as you have done. But 'shills' need to be identified. And labeled (but not silenced).....

I enjoy much of what is posted here, whether from a dealer or rep, or just a plain consumer. I don't feel that they in any way should be hindered from posting. Just have the common decency to identify yourselves as in the pay of the product you are posting about.

Be proud, you probably won't get any LESS respect. In fact, it might give a little MORE weight to your post, you certainly know enough about it to get hired by your company! There are already several people on this site that acknowledge their commercial status. George Kaye is still one of the more respected posters here, despite (or maybe even because!) he is a dealer... But his reputation comes because of the fairness in his postings. When some arranger has a flaw, or less than stellar sound or features, George doesn't try to hide it.

But I have my doubts about some of the posters here that can't admit that an arranger they use is anything less than perfect (well. until the NEXT model from their manufacturer comes out!).....

If you can't find something to improve, something you wish didn't work the way it does, something that is just plain dumb, in the arranger you have now, you either are in the pay of the company, or you are just not trying hard enough!

Thank you Diki for including my name as someone who does identify himself as a dealer with every post I submit, but I would also like to say that if we, as a forum that's been going strong for so many years, start to limit who can and cannot post on this general arranger forum, we will probably find this site to become boring. If there are too many second and third forums to post information in, many I'm afraid would loose interest. I think it's best to just keep things the way they are.


------------------
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

I wholeheartedly agree with George Kaye...keep things as they are. Most of us here are grown-ups and should be able to adequately discern the veracity and motives of those who post, including the dealers, reps and "brand fanatics". Any attempt to force these individuals to "wear" any kind of label while participating in this forum would be seriously misguided and a step in the wrong direction. Keep it real, people!

Michael

Tommy: I prefer to keep the conversation civil so I will not name names. I am referring to posts were people are talking about the plus/minus of a product from Brand A and some zealot of Brand B feels that they have to chime in that their favorite can do this that and the other thing.

To all: I appreciate and support the free flow of ideas that several of you have listed your endorsement of. The goal of my suggestion was not to censor anyone. It was to make a suggestion to help keep posts more on topic. If the conversation is about brand X, let the conversation be about brand X. If the conversation is about a general issue about any keyboard then it's everybody into the pool. As I stated in my way too long intro, the manufacturers have an important role to play in a successful BBS forum. As do the zealots. Just give it a break sometimes. You can't bully people to come to your side be constantly droning on your message.

[This message has been edited by RobertG (edited 04-11-2007).]

Roland Rules.....

Fran, keep the pistols in the holster cowboy you'z fixin to pick a fight using dat there Roland Ammo

So this isn't really a thread about commercial posters, but a plea for less thread hijacking? Best of luck, mate...

I don't feel that ANYTHING needs changing, other than asking the reps, dealers and manufacturers to identify themselves. No need to censor them, let everything else remain the way it is.

And there is NO WAY I would like to see less 'fan-boy' postings. If you DON'T feel enthusiastic about your choice of arranger, well, you probably bought the wrong one! An awful lot of 'hijacks' come about because one poster is talking about the strength or weakness of one arranger, and somebody chimes in to point out that strength or weakness is different for their arranger. Useful information, mostly...

This isn't a scientific, technical forum. Amateurs, pros and enthusiast gather here to chat about our toys of choice. Just like a REAL conversation, every now and then a non sequitur pops up. And just like a 'real' conversation, if one person constantly harps on about the same thing, over and over, well, he eventually just gets ignored.

Kind of like my thread about whether anyone 'doubled' here.... It went along quite swimmingly until I posted about how easy a Chord Sequencer makes playing a secondary instrument alongside your arranger. Then everybody went away! I guess they have heard me bemoan the loss of this arranger feature enough!

(Mind you, not one of them posted about how they DID manage to play the double and the arranger at the same time. Guess they just didn't care about it enough.....)

But, all that aside, the informality of this forum is fun (if a little cantankerous at times!), and I wouldn't want to see anyone discouraged from posting what they feel, when they feel (but with civility, PLEASE!). Just let the dealers and reps and demonstrators and manufacturers (the people who have something to gain from what they tell you) have the honesty to identify themselves, preferably with a 'tag' to their name......