Snowboard Brand Chat
I had such a dislike of Burton gear for many years. Very dyslexic quality control.
Now that Jake Burton is back running things and doing what it takes to create international pricing, AND the useless distributor in Australia has been replaced. I’m on the Burton wagon.
Sims - riden to many good Sims boards to disregard them.
Ride bindings - the best for a number of years but recently other companies have caught up. Same reasoning for liking them as NBG.
Love my K2 board & binding.
T-rice was epic when I demo’d it at last years shred. Would buy one.
As chucky mentioned on the previous page no BW sponsors get priority within the conversation on the forums.
Even myself and the brands I push tend to get less support from members than inferior brands not affiliated with BW - because they are more “popular” to consumers.
Ski companies have close to 100years experience building snow sliding devices, snowboarding has like 20-30 years. It makes sense that a ski company would make a very good snowboard.
Nale is an example; they built the worlds best snowboard factory in Austria, flooded the marked with excellent boards but very quickly pulled the brand because us snowboarders stopped buying Nale boards when we realised it was Elan in reverse.
Salamon stopped producing world class boards because the market didn’t support them.
Yet ski companies lead R&D in the development of tooling the equipment and the materials that is the foundation of the snowboarding industry.
what are you talking about? Salomon still makes world class boards!
Also, when Nale boards were announced, everyone knew that it was Elan. They had no us sales.
Salomon still makes world class boards!
True, as do K2.
. . . IMO if someone wants to put forward a board brand that is a BW sponsor that information should also be put forward in the same breath/sentence/post.
If someone with a financial interest in Boardworld suggests a sponsor’s brand, they “could” make it known that the brand is a BW sponsor - but there’s no imperative, morally, legally or otherwise, to dictate that they “should”.
. . . no one wants to feel after the fact that they have been pushed towards a product because of a commercial interest.
When has that EVER occurred on Boardworld???
. . . the following posts are usually mroe than adequate to dispel any stupid claims.
Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of evidence indicates otherwise.
Apparently, even if someone stated a fact as straightforward as “water is wet”, some people would STILL insist on “proof”.
Chucky as I said, In My Opinion I think the vested interests in products should be disclosed as IMO it really isn’t much more than an infomercial otherwise. If people are upfront about the interest there is no future opportunity for someone who takes that advice to feel like they have been taken for a ride. Maybe I’m in the minority or otherwise strange but I like to receive impartial advice and information on products I am considering purchasing.
My posts in this thread have been based in the theoretical world, I am not saying that it has ever happened on BW, perhaps I should have made this more clear. My purpose in my posts has been my views on ways to keep BW as a forum that is known amongst other things as a good pace to get impartial and unbiased advice about product. I like this ploace and do not want to see it go down the hole of meddling commercial interests and censorship of opinions that conflict with the commerical status quo of sponsors.
I still think that ridiculous claims are always called out on here, they may not be resolved to the point of a clear cut “win” but to the casual reader with even the smallest grasp of common sense, it’s easy to work out that the spurious claim being made is perhaps at the very least not a view shared by many.
A forum in my view is a place to share, comment and debate ideas and opinions usually about a particular subject, BW seems to be serving it’s purpose well on the subject of board sports.
I’d say the most “ridiculous claim” that could be made on here is that in relation to Boardworld’s “vested interests”, anyone asking for help on Boardworld has ever, or would ever, receive advice that’s anything less than “impartial”.
I did not make a claim that anyone has ever received anything other than impartial advice on BW in relation to product. If your intent is not to insinuate that’s what I’m doing perhaps you should have made it more clear like I should have done originally and made it more abundantly clear I was talking theoretically and not factually. In fact always dealing out impartial advice actually wouldn’t be true, members have done the opposite of pushing and bagged out specific brands at various times.
To be honest I knew nothing of YES supporting BW until the last couple of days other than one of their staff occasionally posts on here from time to time I think. I have no idea how many other members knew of that arrangement in whatever format is may take, maybe I’m slow on the uptake in this instance.
To even suggest that some sort of disclaimer is at all necessary calls into question Boardworld’s integrity. To me, that’s “ridiculous”.
Lib Tech also sponsors Boardworld - should we expect a disclaimer every time you mention how much you enjoy riding your board?
If BW removes posts which may not shine a bright light on a sponsor as you mentioned they should, then yes, that is a failure of integrity and calls into question the open nature of this forum.
Not to say they do, but your suggestion is way over the top. Brands need to be able to deal with all types of criticism, at all times.
Lets face it, nobody posts impartial comments. But that’s why they are asking us. If we are swayed a bit by the sponsors providing us boards to demo well then that’s good for them since they put in the time and effort to let us demo these boards.
If I ride a Yes board because I demo’d one over a say Ride board which I’ve never had the chance to ride, then I know which one I’d promote.
I promote my scallywag because it is still my favourite board I’ve ever ridden. Does that mean it’s right for everyone? No. But I will tell them how I feel about it.
If BW removes posts which may not shine a bright light on a sponsor as you mentioned they should, then yes, that is a failure of integrity and calls into question the open nature of this forum.
Not to say they do, but your suggestion is way over the top. Brands need to be able to deal with all types of criticism, at all times.
What an absolute load of bullshit.
Considering the fact that it’s done all the time in virtually every other aspect of advertising-driven media, it’s not “way over the top” at all.
Editing inaccurate information is just good business sense, and there’s nothing underhanded or morally wrong with it whatsoever.
It’s in the best interests of not only Boardworld’s sponsors’ brands, but every single brand ever mentioned on Boardworld, that all information contained herein is as factual as possible. This, in turn, is also not only in the best interests of Boardworld, but every single person who comes here seeking information.
There’s a saying which goes, “People will question all the good things they hear about you, but believe all the bad without a second thought”. The same goes for many subjective opinions on internet forums.
Chucky until you posted that I was of the opinion that Lib’s involvement with BW was on the same level as YES in that an employee of the brand was a member of the forums and posted occasionally.
Chucky I never said a disclaimer was necessary, a disclaimer brings to mind legal jargon, terms and conditions etc. That is not in the spirit of what I am trying to get across. As I said before the easiest, least obtrusive and IMO the best of way of doing things is too mention that if you do buy product X by brand Z you will be supporting a BW sponsor, one the companies that help make BW possible.
TJ is correct in saying that no advice is ever impartial, everyone has their own opinions flavoured by their own personal experiences, a good sponsor will provide demo boards for people so they can test ride them and make thier own decisions, let the product speak for itself.
In regards to deleting criticism or negative comments about a forum sponsor, IMO that is denying a sponsor the chance to really shine and prove themselves to the BW community. If a sponsor is able to take the criticism on board and do whatever they can to address the issue to the members satisfaction that really speaks volumes about their customer service and after sales support as well as their professionalism.
There should be a Deja Vu Section on Boardworld?????
I tend to like the brands that build their own boards, not exclusivly, but I find with most things that if someone has hands on experience in what they are doing then they know the product a bit better and probably more importantly back it up.
Signal and lib both make a pretty good product, Endeavor in Canada make some of the best boards ive ever used, Ive had a Catalyst board made in aus the last few years and rate it. Nidecker and Elan both make great boards, but no one seems to ride them! (well unless there on a OEM out of their factories)