Where did the new Neversummer review threads go?

[Cr0_Reps_Smit]

Originally Posted by EatRideSleep

Just wanted to point this out; I am not interested in getting involved with the current state of things but feel it's important to mention:

I happened to be on the forum when the OG NSDT introductory thread was first posted clearly on the Active Topics page. I believed it to be authored by Vman, as it had such things in it like, "(anything else to add here, Scott?)" and seemed to be more of a private rough draft than completed intro, which I found to be odd. Days later it appeared to be revised and completed by you, Snowolf. It was cleaned up and edited to reflect more of an official intro.

It may have been leaked by a forum member, but not binarypie or anyone not affiliated with the NSDT as thought.

If it was a mistake by Vman or a glitch, that's one thing. But it wasn't leaked by anyone else not involved. At least not the way it came across when I first saw it.

I noticed the same thing and didn't understand what was meant by "leaked" because I feel like I saw the intro thread for the NSDT a week or so before all this went down.

[sabatoa]

Originally Posted by Cr0_Reps_Smit

I noticed the same thing and didn't understand what was meant by "leaked" because I feel like I saw the intro thread for the NSDT a week or so before all this went down.

I've heard that too from the guys in the Michigan thread but never saw it myself. I believe binarypie said that he/she found it via google alerts. I think for a lot of people (including me), the thread about NS hype was the first time they saw that "leaked" thread.

Not that it even matters at this point.

[ARSENALFAN]

The bottom line is that there was nothing "sinister" going on. I completely agree. It seems as though it was a comedy of errors and ill-timed posts that brought on this crazyness. This is a great example of how the internet and e-communication can have shitty consequences as opposed to good old face to face communication. I can already see it now. Schools will soon offer courses in "how to talk to people face to face."

[kctahoe]

Originally Posted by Cr0_Reps_Smit

I noticed the same thing and didn't understand what was meant by "leaked" because I feel like I saw the intro thread for the NSDT a week or so before all this went down.

I read that thread too, I'm pretty sure it was posted by vman, saw before snowolf or anybody posted about the design team.

[boarderaholic]

Originally Posted by ARSENALFAN

I can already see it now. Schools will soon offer courses in "how to talk to people face to face."

I do believe that will be the day my grandmother rolls over in her grave. *shudder*

[Leo]

Look guys, it was a glitch. The thread was set to hidden by the admins. But the way this site is programmed, that hidden post showed up on that active posts thread. Something has to be fixed there.

Here's the thing, you couldn't navigate to that specific thread from the top forum page.

What gets me is the fashion in which it was copied and pasted. Sure, a lot of you already saw it, but only one of you went out of your way to post it in a thread that just so happened to be about Never Summer hype around here.

I called Binarypie out for being out-of-character here. That is not like him. He was also voicing his opposition to the DT move on this forum.

So to me, the word "leak" still works here. There was an intent behind copying and pasting that link that slipped through a loophole in the system in that particular thread.

[Leo]

Honestly guys, this is getting to be too much for me too now. Somewhere during this shit-show, several of us forgot that this is snowboarding.

Now you're killing my stoke. I've been doing this for over 3 years now and have enjoyed the hell out of it. I get stoked every time someone thanks me for some gear insight I gave them. I get stoked each time someone tells me how awesome their new setup is.

And yes, I get insanely stoked when I get free gear that I ACTUALLY LIKE. You can hook me up with a Skate Banana and I guarantee that bitch will be up for sale the same day. Hand me a Burton Custom X and I'll sell it before you hand it off to me.

I get it, I really do. You guys don't like the hype and a section dedicated to a single brand looks shady. All right, the point has been made and it has been pulled. So why continue with this drama?

The NS DT can disband here and never post again and I guarantee this forum will still be stoked on Never Summer for quite some time. What will you do then? What would all this drama have led to? A forum hyped on NS without the presence of NS themselves or any one of their reviewers inputs.

[hktrdr]

Originally Posted by david_z

To Nivek's point I don't really know WTF is going on here and the amount of drama I saw late last week frankly was mind-boggling and something I haven't seen on this forum but rarely -- and Sabato you and I discussed this briefly on Saturday -- the problem was in the perception. And then of course the magic passions of internet butthurt magnifies this and completely blinds people to reason.


I knew about this several weeks ago because I ride with Leo and talk to him all the time, so this design team thing was no secret to me -- yet I FULLY understand why the timing/presentation/etc. could give the appearance of impropriety and/or impartiality.

My day job is customer satisfaction research for a company you have all heard of. Our research is impartial and independent and we take great pains to ensure this. But the #1 question I get from people who don't know my line of work is always about companies greasing the wheels, paying for promotion, buying a certain score/rank, etc. I don't know why people are skeptical like this, but they ARE and the blunders/mistakes/miscommunications all center around the appearance of playing favorites, impartiality, etc.


It's really a great concept and it's too bad that the delivery/presentation went sideways like it did. I hope the forum can recover and involve more brands in this sort of venture in the future -- but if this NS debacle is any indication, I'm not holding my breath for that.

Agree with most of that. I stayed out of the debate on purpose, as it was a shitstorm waiting to happen.

Fundamentally this was an interesting marketing concept, but the execution was terrible - as a result the project got killed.
Whether there will also be a permanent impact on the forum in general remains to be seen. All the emotions that were generated, wolfie's reduced role, NS stepping back from direct involvement (and maybe other brands following), etc. are bound to have some effect on this community.

[crash77]

This is crazy. I sent Snowolf a PM today regarding NS and never got a reply. And now I see why. As I was telling him I'm a black guy from the inner city, AND BEFORE THAT GETS TWISTED, I'm simply stating that because I am the ONLY guy I know that has a passion for snowboarding. My oldest son has a growing passion for the sport and that is only because I introduced him to it. We have one small local shop, so this forum, honestly was my Holy Grail of snowboarding information. This is a LOSE-LOSE situation.

[BurtonAvenger]

Lets take all the emotion we can out of this situation and look at this objectively. Can everyone agree with this idea or should I just go nuclear and make poor Gary have to play cleanup? OK now that we can get past this point lets look at how this went down.

Before anyone jumps to conclusions I was in Denver at a trade show completely detached from the Internet as I refuse to get the VS App on my phone and get sucked into any drama that transpires here. I even ran into Vince from NS and none of this was mentioned to me. So once you all realize I had no clue what went on we can move forward with this.

What did happen was I came back from SIA and was attempting to play catch up on my website bullshit as well as seeing if anyone had posted up news on 2014 product and what have you. Basically just checking through the forum as usual. That's when I sat down and read through the countless pages of SBF vs NS vs Snowolf vs Rationality or as it should be called, "How I Learned To Hate The Forum and Start Loving Power!" So I read through it and there were just a ton of complete and utter bullshit responses in there and a few great points made by people not personally attacking people but attacking the idea of the concept. There were also a slew of horrible responses by people that should have been better stewards to the brand/site. Once again can't stress this enough, I was not involved but I had formulated some serious opinions after the fact on it and my consensus was potentially awesome idea with poor implementation and serious repercussions.

So I wrote a tiny post stating this has bad idea written all over it and then sent a PM to the head of the program. Now if you people are so inclined and want to see the actual message I'll post it I suppose, but it was sent in confidence to help the situation. Now why this is even being brought up by others that shouldn't have seen it should be more indicative of other factors involved. Or it's a sign that the person that was running this program realized the implementation was bad and decided that when shit went south to look for a scapegoat. Hell for all I know bits and pieces of my original message were pieced together to form a whole other interpretation. I can't make people decide how what I said in confidence to one person should be interpreted all I can do is question why I'm even in this conversation or having to devote my time to it.

The only people that ruined this and pulled the plug are the people directly involved. Contrary to popular belief by members that have an agenda against me I didn't call up the company and say don't do this nor did I tell the guy putting it together to kill it off. It's strange to me that a conversation I had in private suddenly is the topic of discussion and others know about it and is being used as the reason for this ideas demise. Evidently assuming someone you've talked to for years and even gone riding with as a friend goes out the window when they're Internet persona is struggling. So lets say a bridge was burned. It's more pathetic than anything, let alone if I had anything to do with NS they have my number and know how to call me they're big boys. This concepts demise were damaged from the very start due to implementation and then the pathetic nature of the people defending it touting their power to "delete/block sections" and "get the fuck out of here". Not exactly what a brand should want from someone putting a program together for them. Basic logic would say if an idea goes south like this pull out to preserve the brand and re-evaluate the situation.


What everyone emotionally involved with this site is failing to see is the bigger picture. The simplistic beauty here is the lack of influence by brands, albeit there are bias's, and a few players have hook ups. When you enter into a program like what they attempted you change the dynamic. Essentially you are paying for reviews with free gear. Sure there's the premise of good, bad, indifferent being allowed but eventually the wild beast becomes tame and doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds if you catch the drift. Complacency sets in and you're going from reviews to advertorials, something that has been to prominent in snowboarding for years (Good Wood). Then there's the whole who controls what you say, you are now whether the company or yourself admit it become a representative of the brand.

The only thing I can say about this is don't bother trying to help people because their weakness will get in the way and you'll be the one getting thrown under the bus. Pretty much sick of having to spend my day dealing with this due to the fact a bunch of pathetic people are offended their bad idea is now going to hurt them getting freebies. Like others have said the damage is done to this forum and the effects will be remain to see for the future. One more thing I will say is maybe people should take a look at the people pointing fingers and realize they've done this before to cover up their short comings. Anyways this is my take on it flame away I'll be off snowboarding as usual.