Abhorant advertising

[charlielangridge]

Ok, I thought i'd put up a post cos I am soooo bored of every single question on this board asking for advice being spammed by certain members - who insist their product is the best for the job, where 9 times out of 10, it isn't what the post has asked for and it looks like they haven't even bothered to read the post!!

Now, i know that people want to sell their product, but it's getting beyond a joke!! Can we put a stop to this and get back to responisble product information and real vjing and video art stuff.

If peeps are so determined to sell their product to absolutly anybody, then they should put their sig to "Use my product - X - that can do everything and anything and is really great!"

[elbows]

Got links to recent examples? Where to draw the line, as its often quite grey, oftentimes the tools that are being plugged are suitable or at least maybe suitable for the mission. People arent usually so specific with there needs, we dont find out the details of their project (eg budget) till they post again later to say NO, these tools arent suitable for my circumstance. Also I would say that it is certainly not always the people who actually profit from the tools who are posting frequenctly to recommend those tools, users can be more vocal about the software than the developers sometimes, and really most VJ softs I know have no real marketing drive (thankfully!)

So I dunno, I dont think its that clearcut when it comes to "solving" this issue. If it comes down to the idea that poor advise is being given, best way to beat that is to post better advise!

I cant honestly say that I see perfcet unbiased comparisons of suitable software given when someone posts asking about this stuff. But thats not surprising, most people reading the posts will have experience with a few VJ apps of their choice that they know well, and will thus feel confident enough to talk about. If you see someone wondering how to do such and such a thing, and you think "I could do that using my X" then you are bound to reply saying "X will go the job" no matter if x costs loads and there are other alternatives.

I would guess that technology can solve this problem more likely than the chances that people will change. Given that I dont want anybody to shutup, that I would like more talk not less, I dont favour attempts to define rules on this subject. Rather it might be better to build a product matrix with feature comparisons. A chart that listed software & hardware, price, and features, much as you see with some commercial software that has standard and pro versions - tables comparing features.

Even having had the luxury of time to try dozens of different PC VJ apps due to being VJ nogigs, I wouldnt consider myself up to the challenge of giving the best advice any time someone asks what is available to do such and such a thing. Show me someone who could.

[sleepytom]

its not an issue when people talk about their own setups and how they have achived their end result with certain tools

it is a problem when developers / fans (and its much more the fans that do this) offer their product as the best / only solution to a problem without any explanation of how / why their product is usable in the circumstances

this leads to a very low signal to noise ratio as a lot of poor advice is offered by newbees based on the marketing hype of software / hardware manufacturers (read any of the multiscreen threads for classic examples of advice based on zero experience)

other issues come up when developers / fans simply insist on repeatedly making claims about their products that are not true or are irrelevant to the thread due to practical considerations such as cost / size / reliability.

personally the only way i can see for this to change is for the more knowledgeable / experienced members to start making tutorials based around the methods they use personally. this will provide some better quality info that is tried and tested rather than pure theory. I aim to produce a few of these articles over the next few months that will look into some of the methods we use to create content and technical setups for larger shows.

ultimately the newbee fans and spammer developers will always be around (often the will turn up spamming and then calm down a bit when they realise its not the way top gain respect here - err anyone remember the early VJOhovah??) but their advice and marketing will hopefully be ignored in preference to advice and articles by more experienced / longer term members

[sleepytom]

for examples of the kind of articals we need to create see http://www.channel4.com/learning/microsites/I/ideasfactory/pixnmix/masterclasses.html