Shep
08-11-2012, 10:46 PM
...for the very friendly atmosphere here. Everyone is accepted that isn't a blatant troll, and the only time I see harsh words being exchanged are when new guys start trolling or someone breaks a rule or something along those lines. Anyone that needs help, wants to learn, or even is just trying to understand our obsession is treated the way everyone should be treated. I have asked my fair share of stupid questions, made my fair share of stupid comments, and have been flat out wrong without a doubt on multiple occasions, but no one holds it against me. Instead, it becomes a learning experience for me and anyone else that thought the same thing. Everyone's treated like equals, the admins and mods are real down-to-earth, and vendors help out those that aren't even their customers.
The reason why I even feel compelled to mention any of this is because tonight I just went to another special interest forum. I had shared this interest for about a year now, and finally decided to get into the hobby a few months ago. It's one of those things that comes in kits that you assemble yourself. Long story short, the place I got it from has since closed up shop, I only realized the product was unusable now after I had almost completely finished assembling it, and I've been looking elsewhere to get into the hobby again. I figure instead of building it myself, I'd buy one pre-assembled, except these are hard to find. So I did my research, shopped around, and narrowed it down to options from three vendors. I already came across two in the past, both of which had sub-par quality in certain areas, and the third I knew nothing about. After extensive google searches, I discovered zero reviews on them, but I knew full well they had been in business for a while since I had seen them when I bought the first one.
So I posted a thread in the "official" forum asking what everyone's thoughts were on this seller. I knew there were a handful of people on there that had purchased from this seller, but never talked about it. Less than a half hour later, I get a response back basically saying "why the hell are you considering them if you know nothing about them? You already bought a botched product once, are you that careless to do it again?! Don't you know we have a for sale section of this forum?!?!" Jesus H. Christ, I was just asking, what the hell is the attitude for? The whole reason I was asking in the first place was so I could LEARN about them, and give deserving people some business if they make a good product. And if they don't make a good product or screw people over, then I could LEARN about that and decide to buy elsewhere. I'm considering them because it's an option, not because I'm genuinely convinced they're the undeniable best place to get the damn thing. Even sadder is I waited an hour or two for another response, and no one else said anything.
So I looked in the for sale section. The first five pages date back to May of this year, which includes quite a few posts from much longer before that because people bump the threads asking if they're still for sale. And in those first five pages, only TWO were pre-assembled. Yes, five pages and TWO options, even less than what I had narrowed it down to (which was AFTER I filtered out some of them). One looked like ass and was pretty much guaranteed to fail (but seemed to generate fall-through interest), and the other had been on sale since June with zero interest shown, so lord knows what the hell is wrong with that one. Honestly, is being a giant douchebag because I asked a simple question about a vendor that has no affiliation with the forum the norm over there? Bloody hell, apparently you have to be a respected member to get anywhere over there.
People ask the same damn questions over here on DMCTalk, and we actually HELP them! We steer them away from scam artists, give them confidence when they've chosen a good vendor, and give them other options when what they've found isn't quite what they're looking for. That's what I love about this forum, any serious question about anything, whether stupid, crazy, uninformed, misguided, or spot-on accurate and intelligent, is given an honest answer, perhaps with a joke in there, but certainly in the friendliest way possible. If someone is a dick with these questions, I have yet to see it. Eccentric and/or strange, perhaps, but never have I seen a question garner a demeaning attitude here.
So thanks for making this a warm and welcome place to be, enough that I took it for granted and now see how fortunate we as a community are. I only hope that the same holds true when/if I finally meet some of you guys in person. Now someone come up with some whippersnapper wisecrack so I don't sound like a pansy. :)
The reason why I even feel compelled to mention any of this is because tonight I just went to another special interest forum. I had shared this interest for about a year now, and finally decided to get into the hobby a few months ago. It's one of those things that comes in kits that you assemble yourself. Long story short, the place I got it from has since closed up shop, I only realized the product was unusable now after I had almost completely finished assembling it, and I've been looking elsewhere to get into the hobby again. I figure instead of building it myself, I'd buy one pre-assembled, except these are hard to find. So I did my research, shopped around, and narrowed it down to options from three vendors. I already came across two in the past, both of which had sub-par quality in certain areas, and the third I knew nothing about. After extensive google searches, I discovered zero reviews on them, but I knew full well they had been in business for a while since I had seen them when I bought the first one.
So I posted a thread in the "official" forum asking what everyone's thoughts were on this seller. I knew there were a handful of people on there that had purchased from this seller, but never talked about it. Less than a half hour later, I get a response back basically saying "why the hell are you considering them if you know nothing about them? You already bought a botched product once, are you that careless to do it again?! Don't you know we have a for sale section of this forum?!?!" Jesus H. Christ, I was just asking, what the hell is the attitude for? The whole reason I was asking in the first place was so I could LEARN about them, and give deserving people some business if they make a good product. And if they don't make a good product or screw people over, then I could LEARN about that and decide to buy elsewhere. I'm considering them because it's an option, not because I'm genuinely convinced they're the undeniable best place to get the damn thing. Even sadder is I waited an hour or two for another response, and no one else said anything.
So I looked in the for sale section. The first five pages date back to May of this year, which includes quite a few posts from much longer before that because people bump the threads asking if they're still for sale. And in those first five pages, only TWO were pre-assembled. Yes, five pages and TWO options, even less than what I had narrowed it down to (which was AFTER I filtered out some of them). One looked like ass and was pretty much guaranteed to fail (but seemed to generate fall-through interest), and the other had been on sale since June with zero interest shown, so lord knows what the hell is wrong with that one. Honestly, is being a giant douchebag because I asked a simple question about a vendor that has no affiliation with the forum the norm over there? Bloody hell, apparently you have to be a respected member to get anywhere over there.
People ask the same damn questions over here on DMCTalk, and we actually HELP them! We steer them away from scam artists, give them confidence when they've chosen a good vendor, and give them other options when what they've found isn't quite what they're looking for. That's what I love about this forum, any serious question about anything, whether stupid, crazy, uninformed, misguided, or spot-on accurate and intelligent, is given an honest answer, perhaps with a joke in there, but certainly in the friendliest way possible. If someone is a dick with these questions, I have yet to see it. Eccentric and/or strange, perhaps, but never have I seen a question garner a demeaning attitude here.
So thanks for making this a warm and welcome place to be, enough that I took it for granted and now see how fortunate we as a community are. I only hope that the same holds true when/if I finally meet some of you guys in person. Now someone come up with some whippersnapper wisecrack so I don't sound like a pansy. :)