Hi ChrisBinMI:
It's nice that Mr. Krause and Oceanic sponsor this board - I think corporate support is great and as a frequent diver I appreciate it. However, this is supposed to be an OPEN forum.
That is exactly what it is - OPEN. Oceanic's sponsorship of the board came after the formation of this forum (the first such dedicated manufacturer forum on the board btw), and is if nothing else, our way to "give back".
As a marketing consultant myself, I think Mr. Krause and Oceanic would be better-served by paying close attention to what people have to say and treat it as "qualitative research" regarding their products, competitors and the Aeris / Oceanic brands. This would be much more productive than Mr. Krause and Mr. Vincent bashing freely-contributed opinions from members that don't fit with their promotional objectives.
Take a quick look at as many of the Oceanic forum or, specifically my posts on the board - I'd be quite amazed if you'd find a case of me "bashing" anyone. My response to the post that started this interesting diversion was obviously a poor attempt at humor - I forgot to add the
. And, I may be wrong, but Mr. Vincent doesn't have any "promotional objectives" - he is simply a supporter of our brand - which I believe, has been achieved through the experiences that he has had with our gear and customer service. Believe me, I think that after you take a look around you'll find that I and others have gone out of our way to provide and receive "productive" value.
By the way, how many positive responses on Oceanic products on this thread are real and how many are "shadow contributions" from Oceanic marketing?!?!
You got me. I have an increasingly difficult time keeping up with the posts on this forum - not because of all of the responsibilities that I and my one direct report undertake on a daily basis - but because we have undertaken a coordinated effort to manipulate a public forum. Again, read some more threads - there are plenty of "less-than-positive posts... I have never, not once, edited or deleted any of them - I have simply tried to resolve the issue - either with an immediate customer service solution, or a longer-term product design or modification.
If ScubaBoard is selling the rights for sponsors to adjust the freely-contributed threads to suit their own promotional purposes, then they've gone too far and this board has now become "advertorial"...
I won't speak for ScubaBoard - but, just that it's clear, as it applies to the Oceanic and AERIS forums - I'm not paying a dime for being here - never have and never will. We all have the ability to moderate our manufacturer forums as we see fit. I decided early on that if I needed to do so, the value of the forum would be diminished tremendously. I guess that we can agree on that point.
