First, the image has nothing to do with the post. But I wanted to put something in, so a notebook. P.S. My Cherry-covered Field Notes notebooks have held up quite well at media events.
The other day, in my post about the new Lenox tool cabinet, I manually approved a comment that was somewhat agreeable, but a little snarky if not critical of Stanley Black & Decker. Something about the comment made me dig deeper, and I discovered that it was made by someone affiliated with another tool brand that competes with SBD in a number of major product categories.
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I wrote:
How would you like it if Stanley Black & Decker associates replied similarly to posts about your brands’ products?
I have zero tolerance policy for this type of commenting.
Maybe I overreacted a little bit, but it seems some people missed my point completely, thinking my response was to the comment itself when it wasn’t.
It’s inappropriate for someone from one brand to comment about a competing brand unfavorably while omitting or masking their affiliations.
While the comment in question is maybe a 0.5 on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being completely harmless and 10 being the worst anti-competitor comment you can think of, I have to be robotic when it comes to my response.
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In this case, the email address used was so silly I thought it was fake and made up on the spot.
I’ve been duped before, and a couple of times at that. When I’m duped, you’re duped.
Once, an OEM for a retailer’s hand tool brand posted numerous praising comments for a gimmicky holiday season tool.
Another time, a rep for a company that makes certain tools for a major tool truck brand slammed competing products in a discussion post about them.
There was a time when a marketing rep for a company pasted an extremely favorable “testimonial” that I saw was also posted on numerous other blogs and forums, verbatim.
There have been many “insider comments” that share information, details, and advice. I’ll usually know that the comment is from someone at a tool brand, but if they’re helping in an objective way, I leave it alone.
But when someone affiliated with a tool brand or retailer is overly praising, or critical about competing products or companies, I have to be robotic in my response.
Most offending comments are meant with the best intentions, but there are some that are misleading, maybe even deceitful.
Someone who works at Brand A might really believe that their product is superior to Brand B’s. But there’s an inherent bias there. I am obligated to call out comments that cannot be taken at face value. Everyone has personal opinions, and these experiences can be drawn from experiences, preferences, and even biases.
But if there’s the chance that there’s a professional bias?
Even comments that are true, or could be true, can be problematic. I can’t have comments sections turning into marketing wars.
Can you imagine if competing brands’ engineers and product managers started arguing with each other in comments?
Helpful information is absolutely allowed. Sometimes an engineer or product manager wants to chime in with or about a detail, and that’s okay.
I’ve been talking with the commenter – and apologized for what might have been an overreaction.
I handle every discovered comment in different ways. Sometimes an “admin note” is added in bold red text within an offending comment. Sometimes it will be deleted. In this case, I wanted to call them out, but without identifying the brand connection.
There’s no manual on how to do this job, and I’m not immune to making mistakes.
When I investigate a comment on the spot, sometimes it’s just a new or regular reader with a strong opinion. But if I can find a corporate connection? If I ignore it, I risk emboldening the commenter to continue such behavior in the future.
If someone is telling you how much they LOVE Brand A’s tool, or how Brand B’s tools are vastly superior to Brand A’s, wouldn’t you want to know if that person worked for Brand A or B?
The comment that sparked all this was about as harmless a post as can be, but there’s no telling what professional bias could have been in there. Maybe the brand wanted to be bought by SBD but was turned down. Maybe their products were not picked up by a major retailer that instead chose to stock a competing SBD product.
I read each and every comment. (Sometimes it takes me longer to get to comments to Ben’s posts, because they go to his email and not mine.) Every now and then I will discover an affiliation long after a comment is written.
Here’s how to get under my radar:
1: Don’t excessively praise your company or their products without making your affiliation known.
2: Don’t talk smack about competitors or their products.
There are some fun times, though.
There was once a comment that I left alone, where someone affiliated with a tool brand said bad things about their own product. They said:
Horrible [redacted]. More like “[redacted]”. Typical crap [redacted], nothing new.
Ha! That’s about their own company’s product! A reader replied to the comment, defending the product. I would say that self-deprecating comments are allowed, but then there’s the question about why this person is bashing their own brand’s stuff.
As mentioned above, there’s no manual on how to do this right. Sometimes I do take “insider comments” personally, as if they’re trying to get one by me. And there were times when that has been the case, where there were undeniable efforts to try to trick me into thinking comments were made by real readers.
I’m on alert for these kinds of things, and am always on alert. If someone replies to someone else in a comment “I wonder if you work for Company A,” chances are I’ve already checked it out 3 different ways.
John Albien
Why you mad bro?
Joe J
People can be pretty tribalistic about brands without having anything to do with said companies. It has always been that way. In my opinion we are lucky to live in an era where cordless power tools are so good. Even the mid-tier brands are adequate for a lot of people. There are so many options and very few of them are truly bad.
Go back 30 years and tell me 70-80% of my power tools will be cordless(with that number growing if you include lawn care equipment) and I would call you nuts.
It’s not so simple when it comes to hand tools. There really are some vast gulfs in quality. Some brands truly do produce a lot of crap and some are just plain superior. This is usually reflected in the price and country of manufacture though.
Gordon
Quality can also change very quickly. I know Harbor Freight is never a shining example of quality, but the most recent cordless Earthquake XT seems to be very well made with some high quality components. But you can bet that after all the reviews are favorable, HF will switch to cheaper internals to increase profit margins. When doing research review of the “old” version will come up, but people will unknowingly be buying the “new,” cheaper version.
Craftsman is a great example of negative change over time. Some people hold onto the idea of the 80’s Craftsman despite their recent issues.
Joe J
That’s a fair point Gordon. Brand perceptions often last far longer in people’s minds than the real world state of a brand. And can be colored by one good/bad experience decades ago that is entirely irrelevant to whatever is being sold now.
Stuart
Agreed, opinions are good, even dissenting ones.
Let’s say the discussion is about grills, and someone is making all kinds of negative remarks about charcoal. Wouldn’t you want to know that they work for a propane company?
Joe J
As the proprietor of this website anything you can do to improve the signal-to-noise ratio is probably a good thing. But don’t fall into the trap of thinking anyone who seems to have an agenda actually does. Some people just like one brand or product over another and wouldn’t even be able to explain why if you asked them.
Michaelhammer
It’s strange to me me that you thin that the gulf in quality in the world of power tools is somehow smaller than that of hand tools. I can assure you it is not. There is a vast difference between Ryobi and Milwaukee or DeWalt. To ask, “what? They all drove the screw,” is completely missing he point.
Joe J
The point is that the bar is higher for power tools. Not that there is no difference.
Cr8on
Get em!!! Seriously I enjoy reading the comments as much as your topics. Keep up your great work.
Jim @ Rite in the Rain
Field Notes?!? let me tell you about their notebooks… haha
You do you! I’ve always found the discourse here to be civil, interesting, and most importantly, genuine. I think that a little bit of ruthlessness from you is welcome and important to keep the site the way it is.
Nathan
FIrst off I have no issues with the way you’ve run things so far or the comment spiral of yesterday. I thought it was handled well by both parties.
I would maybe go so far as to say perhaps anyone associated with a tool brand/corporation might should illustrate such in their naming or commentary. But I know if their people are like mine you aren’t supposed to comment using the company name on social media etc etc. For transparency here I am not nor have ever worked for a tool brand/maker I do work in the transportation industry. fast transportation.
But again I agree with your thought process.
firefly
I thought that both parties handle it in an amicable fashion as well. It’s a fine balance to walk for sure for both side. From a poster perspective even if somebody work for a certain corporation it doesn’t mean they’ll speak positively about it.I would think that a typical corporate worker doesn’t care that much to purposely smear a competitor. Unless it’s a higher up that have a vested interest in the financial of the company or somebody that have been paid solely to run a negative campaign about the completion. Though I would think that the later would purposely hid their true identity.
The yeti
I would not have known she was affiliated with any brand had you not pointed it out .
I like this page and I think you do a good job .
The yeti
To be fair. Let her bash Stanley all she wants. . Just out her brand and it will go both ways ?
alex
I hate astrosurfing so please keep being strict about it. I like this blog and don’t want anyone trying to use it to promote their stuff in a dishonest way. Keep up the good work.
Patrick H
I second this opinion. I personally would like to know about someone’s affiliation when using reviews and information here to help make decisions on purchases.
z2w
It can be helpful to have brand affiliates commenting in a public forum, as long as it’s done in the open. I think you handled it appropriately. I can imagine it would have been tempting to respond less gently.
fred
Thanks Stuart for sharing.
The fact that you often share your thinking and processes with your readers Is one of the many things I like about this blog. As you and others have pointed out, readers comments and perspectives are an important reason that many of us (I for one) keep coming back to this site. The thought that the comment process would be hijacked to any great extent is distasteful – so your efforts to keep it in check is much appreciated. I usually take comments (my own included) with a grain of salt – recognizing that we all have individual biases, proclivities and experiences. I would hope that most comments are based on genuine experience not commercial motivation.
Thanks again for what you do
A W
Agreed.
Patrick H
I definitely appreciate Stuart’s transparency.
firefly
Totally agreed. I love Stuart transparency as well.
Darrin
I had an old boss that would stop sales reps in their tracks if they started bashing the competition. He always told them to sell there product and let it stand on its own. If it was better or worse than the others, it would be evident soon enough.
The yeti
There is wisdom in this comment. . Thank you for sharing
Don
At the end of the day its still up to the end user of this blog to decide for themselves what to buy into as far as opinions of the writer goes.
mattd
I agree with your decisions. I have purchased several items specifically because of your blog, and so I do agree that there should be an ultimate goal of keeping the comments as free of any attempts to bamboozle the readers as possible.
Brian A
Oh come on it might be fun to have a royal rumble of brand prod mgrs or engineers fighting in the comments lol. GJ being objective and fair, very very rare in todays media
Hang Fire
“Can you imagine if competing brands’ engineers and product managers started arguing with each other in comments?”
“Let’s get ready to Rumble!” LOL
Seriously Stuey can run this site any way he wants, as he pays the bills. Perhaps hosting wild west shootouts are not his style. We keep coming back (for some reason) so he must be doing something right.
Most corporate reps know better than to trash competitors in Internet forums. (There are better ways to do that!) Stuey also relies on reps for his samples (nothing wrong with that, he can only buy so much himself) , so maintaining some form of order is surely appreciated.
Stuart
I appreciate test samples, but I wouldn’t say that I rely on them. Review samples, advertising, or any tangible or intangible things of value are not a part of the reasoning in the least bit.
So why?
Because I try to run ToolGuyd in a way that appeals to me, if that makes sense. When that’s in question, I’ll often post about it, asking for feedback.
For instance, the holiday season might be a good time for a lightbox email newsletter box (those annoying overlays). But if so, we’re going to talk about it first.
Joe
I say just post a comment after hers and say who she represents..or whoever it is…that alone will prompt reactions from this forum and from the people she / he represent……”hey so you know “Sam” works for “x” , simple enough…..I’m confident the users on here would remedy that situation, better then you give us credit for…..
Stuart
That is one way I have handled some of the more offending comments.
For example: https://toolguyd.com/dewalt-flexvolt-answers/#comment-826270
In this case, it wouldn’t have been justified.
Yadda
Keep up the good work. Reading the articles and posts here are a highlight for me every work day and occasionally on the weekends.
GMA15R
Re-reading the comments from both sides, I can only wish that our elected officials would carry on their discussions with such thoughtfulness and erudition. As usual, well done Stuart and, Marissa – thank you for understanding.
RKA
I think generally conflicts of interest can be present in all kinds of situations. As long as it’s disclosed up front, I think the readers can decide for themselves. If it gets to the point of brand bashing, moderate and take the discussion offline.
So for commenters that work for manufacturers of tools, put that somewhere next to the screen name so it’s readily identifiable. If they don’t want to be identified as such, oh well, Stuart’s house and rules.
And for the ones that want to be sneaky and skirt the rules, Stuart is on the watch.
As for that specific situation, maybe the response was harsh in retrospect, but how could you know? Had it been right out in the open, the subsequent response might have been different as well.
It’s simple, the goal is just be transparent. Just like you’re doing!
Stuart
That’s not always possible.
Large companies have policies in place that prohibit public commenting.
A few weeks ago, an R&D person posted some objective details about a product the post was discussing, and then later emailed me, telling me that their colleagues informed them they could get in trouble for it.
So I deleted the comment and repackaged the objective details because it constructively contributed to the discussion.
As for being sneaky and skirting the rules, sometimes the intent is to deceive, but most times it’s innocent enough.
Some brands know that they CAN comment, and they have in the past. But it can also be a can of worms.
There was a jerk of a Kickstarter project person, and he started arguing with readers. I eventually blocked him. I was also very convinced he was committing some kind of fraud in attempt to sell his product to bigger companies.
Jason
Was that the crazy knife edge bit guy? The prices were insane if I remember. Did the ColeHammer ever end up shipping I remember that going around the tool news sites and blogs.
Stuart
That was a whole drama that it’ll just frustrate me to get into.
The last thing I heard about the ColeBar hammer was in March 2016. The inventor’s daughter reprimanded me and demanded a retraction for quoting her father’s words from a production update.
I was very polite, but thorough in my response, and never heard back.
Jim Sutter - (Rock Hound)
I spend a large amount of time teaching about evaluating the reliability and credibility of sources. I approve of all of the points that you made in this post and how you handled the original incident.
Stuart
It’s a long story, but we definitely need more of that. A LOT of people take too much at face value, especially when the product is outside their wheelhouse.
ktash
Most of the internet is garbage, imho. I want to find a review for product X. I search “Product X review”. What comes up are a whole lot of very suspicious-looking sites with reviews that are clearly product placements, or something. Takes some work to wade through. Lost in among them, if I’m lucky, are some genuine reviews of people who have tested and/or used the product. Then there are sites that are decent but the comments are really a mess. You can tell many aren’t legit comments. I just don’t read the comments. But what a shame.
Your site, on the other hand, is refreshing. People may disagree on brands or specific tools, but I can learn something from all these comments because I assume they are on the up-and-up. I wouldn’t even bother to wade through comments that are a hodge-podge of commercial interests/disrupters and real commentors, even if there was gold in there. Not unless I was desperate to find something.
Thanks for sorting out the wheat from the chaff. I think a little abruptness is called for when someone is breaking the (unwritten) rules of useful discourse. Calling someone out takes some work, but I’m glad you do it, lest the site get overrun with trollish special interests. I’m not interested in seeing reps duke it out in the comment section, unless there was a special post for that. Too much to do as it is.
A W
Thanks for running a fantastic blog, Stuart. I appreciate you enforcing the rules but in this case doing so gently and not calling out the name of the company.
Bill K
Stuart,
Thanks for this candid review of this incident. When I initially read your comment, I was a little surprised by your comment…. but thought I understood your motivation, despite actually completely missing the background explained today.
Now knowing the complete background, I commend you for getting it right and maintaining integrity to what we readers see in ToolGuyd comments.
I’ve witnessed a non-profit board eliminate their member website forum and the Consumers Reports, eliminate their reader comments on their “Consumerist” website, all because no energy was spent providing oversight and support to the readers comments. These organizations just took the easy immediate way out, elimination, but in doing so, they both lost a valuable asset for their members/readers.
Thanks for doing what you do, to maintain the superior website, ToolGuyd, that we readers really enjoy and appreciate!
Stuart
Thank you, and everyone, for the kind words!
I can definitely understand the elimination of responses or comments on broader topic websites. Comments can get out of hand.
ToolGuyd posts typically receive from a few, to a few dozen comments. Bump up the number of visitors and comment count up an order of magnitude or two, and there’s going to be a much greater time and effort commitment.
With Consumerist, I think they tried switching things over a few years ago, and then just gave up.
Hang Fire
Yes, thank you Stuart, and good point Bill, I applied to be a Consumerist commentator and was completely ignored, and then they promised to comment system never launched. I no longer read that site.
msergiob
I read this website almost daily, and english is not my native language. The comments section is, by far the most usefull of a lot of (tool related)sites.
I did not understand Stuart´s reaction at first, but now i do.
It´s incredible the amount of work he puts here.
So… thank you for that.
Fazal Majid
I would not disqualify outright someone from a competitor pointing out objective flaws or omissions in a competitive product, but disclosure is a must.
mizzourob
Glad to see you had insider information, it didn’t make sense on the surface the context of the comment, but this does shed some light. Glad to see you’re watching out for us even in the comments!
Robert
Stuart,
I’m a fan of this blog…to the point that when i visit another site that starts with T, I usually then come to Toolguyd just to make sure it stays at the top of my list…probably shouldn’t admit that.
I saw your response yesterday and thought it was a pretty big overreaction so I assumed there was maybe more to the story behind the scenes. I also thought the original poster did a very admirable job in their response.
While I appreciate the effort you go to to make sure the info on here is as unbiased and fair as possible, I think you will wear yourself out trying to “over edit” the comments. I also think it is unreasonable for people to expect that the comments have been scrubbed. At this point, we’ve all used the internet enough to know that there is a lot of misinformation.
To be sure, it is definitely your responsibility to make sure that the actual Toolguyd content is free from bias and I think you do a better job at that than anyone I’ve seen. Beyond that, I think a warning that the comments are the person’s opinion only and not Toolguyd’s would suffice. I think anything beyond that is an impossible job.
ToolOfTheTrade
One of the many lessons that I learned from my dad is that if something smells like s__t, let it be known that it stinks. That way you can get rid it before it gets worse. So cheers to handling it in a righteous way. But let’s be honest, how many of us have posted an opinion on something that we don’t know anything about? I’ve done it. We’ve all done it. Viewer discretion advised. Opinions are like you know what’s, everybody has one. In some cases, I may get a little carried away, but I’m an opinionated dude, and if something smells funny, then I let it be known. Whether I’m right or wrong. But if we were to sugar coat everything, how could anyone make a objective decision on whether something is good or bad? But it’s good to know that individuals who work for the brands you’re posting about are reading what’s being said about the brands they represent.
Pete
HA! My assumption was correct! Anyways policing comments is terribly difficult at times… i owned a forum for a couple years before i sold it. I would hate to have your job stuart, Its a tough position to be in. Having to police comments from sneaky dishonest competitors intentionally trying to sabotage a competing brand/tool. No matter which “side” you take, because every “incident” is always polarizing, as a moderator you’ll always “offend/piss off” one of those sides, thereby alienating them. Best to just ignore it(work its own self out) or delete it. Just remember- Opinions are like butt holes, everyone has one but you dont have to listen to it if you dont want to. Goodluck stuart!
Phil
You also risk driving away people who otherwise add a lot to the community.
Nathan L
Thanks for your diligence in monitoring the comments section. I’ve learned so much from the comments, and would feel pretty disillusioned to discover that any significant proportion of them were subtle guerilla warfare. It would be nice if more company reps posted in their capacity as such.
I remember finding verbatim copied reviews in Amazon and some other retailers, and it wasn’t even obvious what the motive was (didn’t appear to be to inflate reviewer’s ranking OR for bumping product rating), but they were clearly copies of reviews supposedly posted by other reviewers on other products and/or sites. I think i concluded they were probably to lend validity to the reviewer so that the truly fraudulent shills by him were less obvious.
Mickey
I find Field Notes graph paper to be the best graph paper available, far superior to any other graph paper
Mike McFalls
Affiliations should be disclosed. Many of us use this site for unbiased decisions on how to spend our hard earned money. If there are any biases or potential conflicts of interest- we have a right to know. As the forum moderator, it’s your role to enforce those rules, and as you’ve done, be transparent about how you do it.
One final comment, You’ve set the example by disclosing in your posts who your advertisers are, when you receive a sample or have a business arrangement with a brand/store. Companies and their reps must do the same
Keep up the great work!
firefly
There is a lot of gray area here. Overall I think Stuart is doing a great job. You have a right to know but other poster also have a privacy right.
Having worked as a software engineer for many large corporation in the past. Personally I don’t have a problem to look at a corporation objectively even if I work for them. Perhaps I’ll have more inside information. Perhaps I’ll become more passionate about certain product but that doesn’t mean I won’t be able to look at thing objectively. Secondly just because I worked for certain corporation doesn’t mean that my post is on their behalf. I suspect this is the case for most people. I have worked in the government before and the rule are similar. A lot of what I do or say is as an individual and not as a corporation or entity. Because if I need to release something official I must run it through an official channel. In short, there is a lot more involved when I need to act on behalf of an entity. There is a lot more risk involved. There is a lot more work involved. So I usually don’t bother. So if I am acting on my behalf as an individual why does affiliation matter?
Now obviously if I was one of the higher ranking official whom have a major vested financial in the company then maybe it matter. But a lot of time I suspect that a majority of people just want to act on their individual capacity. Secondly, just as lock are there to keep honest people honest, if somebody wanted to run a negative campaign about a competitor it’s not that hard to hid their true identity.
At any rate I appreciate what Stuart is doing. It’s a lot of work doing moderation and making that judgement call. It’s not an easy job and I don’t envy him a bit. All I am saying is there is no hard and fast rule about it but I think majority of people are honest and most would appreciate a head up, like Stuart have done, before having their affiliation disclosed.
Tyler
I always liked when browsing comments and forum posts at Spiceworks that a company name was part of the username [ex: Stuart (ToolGuyd) , John Doe (Brand X)]. I know it’s tougher in this setting since you don’t require registering to post comments (would that help spam and some trolling?), but then you don’t have to question affiliation and motive. You will still have those that will try to hide, but when you do discover it you can manually put it in and then have a warning icon next to their name. Yellow = “This user attempted to post without disclosing” and have it disappear after 30 days. Red = “This user attempted multiple times to post without disclosing” and make it permanent. Not only do I want to know who they are affiliated with, I want to know if they were trying to be a jerk and hide.
Steven Mclachlan
Stuart I love this site and the comment sections but I have a question.
Why don’t you name and shame the offenders?
“Once, an OEM for a retailer’s hand tool brand posted numerous praising comments for a gimmicky holiday season tool.
Another time, a rep for a company that makes certain tools for a major tool truck brand slammed competing products in a discussion post about them.
There was a time when a marketing rep for a company pasted an extremely favorable “testimonial” that I saw was also posted on numerous other blogs and forums, verbatim.”
I am very interested in the identities involved there. I’m sure others are too.
Thanks, Steve.
Stuart
I did, at the time.
These offenses were in the past, and haven’t been repeated after being responded to and dealt with.
It seems a little unfair to punish them again for incidents that were already resolved to my satisfaction.
Steven Mclachlan
Ah great to hear. Keep up the excellent work! Thanks!
JoeM
Question: What if we don’t CURRENTLY work for a brand we’re loyal to, but our comments catch the eye of said company, and they reach out to us? Would you like us to update you with any Jobs/Offers/Gifts they send our way, in the spirit of full disclosure?
Example: I’m a DeWALT and Dremel fanatic. If the Canadian branches of either company say, offered me a job in a plant somewhere, or even so much as sent me a sticker, T-Shirt, or full on Tool set, for being so loyal to them… Does that count toward your bias radar? (I’m calling your process of looking out for Corporate Bias “Bias Radar”… feel free to use it if you want. It’s just a short form.)