Thanks folks!
What's happened here SHOULD cause a furore. And I can't understand why the majority of ordinary cruiserheads out there (those without vending interests) have abstained from voicing their concerns.
I think it is fair to say that most people on this site live in countries where "freedom of speech" is valued. Yet so many people seem happy with the idea that we (the ordinary cruiserheads that form the basis of ih8mud) should NOT be able to freely discuss the products we install on our cruisers.
Perhaps it was the threat by Brownbear to throw this thread into chat for "vendor slamming"? (And people don't want to be seen as "upsetting the ih8mud administrators"?)
Clearly I was "product slamming" and not "vendor slamming".
Now in this case the vendor chose to stock an unbranded item so the only way for me to identify it was through using the vendor's name. (Shouldn't a vendor realise that if they stock an unbranded product they are likely to get tainted when it turns out to be faulty?)
The whole process of "go back to the vendor first" is about protecting the vendors interests by keeping news of faulty products away from the ears of other potential purchasers.
I've been posting on mud with REAL ENTHUSIAM because I felt I was able to help others who are just like myself. I strongly resent my threads being used as bait to lure innocent victims into a web of "vendor-spiders". (I wouldn't place myself up on the same level as them but I wonder how mudders I really admire like "M5driver" and "Henry James the 47th" feel. If M5driver finds his Rustbullet peels off the frame no matter how well it is applied - Shouldn't he be allowed to tell you so without incurring the wrath of those with the "sort it out behind closed doors with the supplier first" attitude?!!
)
If I was happy luring victims into vendor-webs I'd try to become a contributor to that dominant Aussi 4WD magazine. Then if I succeeded at least I'd get paid in the process
.
In retrospect, I now feel I was wrong to contact Roodogs over this. And I was also wrong to go back over my threads trying to remove most of the vendor details and brandnames.
Hey. Just thinking off to one side.....
I wonder why it is that there are seldom objections when people attack Toyota salesmen, SOR (commonly referred to as $OR) etc. Clearly some targets are acceptable to MUD even when people decide to slam vendors directly.
And I'm starting to notice that some people on MUD give lots of advice and purport to be cruiserheads - yet I don't see them ask questions of their own or show off their own cruisers. That's interesting to me now where I hadn't even noticed before! But hang on...... I'm becoming paranoid..... (And I am Lostmarbles.)
So I now see that I've got just two choices:
- Withdraw permanently from MUD as a contributor (and ask the administrators to remove all the threads I have started), or
- Continue as I was (if I can - now that I know my views upset so many people that I had respected) with everyone knowing that I WILL REPEAT what I set out to do in this thread - as and when the need arises.
Meanwhile I'm taking a break from starting new threads and from general posting till I suss out what to do.
"Time" tends to make one's position clearer.
