Don't think I've ever met you, but it appears to me like you're a weapons instructor and possibly you own the training business.
My first impression when I read your post is it was just counter marketing. One vendor taking a swipe at another vendor to put them down. As I read your post, here's some of the things I was really curious about...
If you want to take it that way, you certainly can. I can't stop how you think about things. On the other hand, someone could read it and clearly see that I never mentioned by name either the instructor OR the training facility. And the post was about how often people rate/recommend instructors or courses without actually having any basis or comparison for the recommendation, as opposed to talking about all how another particular instructor is all horrible and people should come train with me.
I'd say most people aren't having trouble telling the difference.
If I wanted to directly disparage that particular group, it would be much easier than writing about ignorant people posting reviews about classes.
As a licensed instructor, if you personally know Bob's classes are unsafe and you personally have proof that Bob's classes are unsafe, don't you have an ethical responsibility to work with the State Patrol to get Bob's instructor's license revoked?
How do you know I haven't informed the State Patrol? Along with all the other certified (not licensed, certified) instructors on this forum? Oh, wait, this was just an attempt to get a dig in at me.
If you weren't in the class and you if don't know any of the people that took the class, I'm more than a little lost how you're able to know anything about those folks experience or inexperience from a web post that say nothing more than "I thought the class was great."
Hm. Considering the pictures from the class posted by the instructor on their website and their Facebook, given the extremely unsafe conditions, the poor grips, the poor stances, and having heard excerpts from that particular instructor's attempt to talk ENGC into hosting his classes, I'm thinking that if a particular student thought that the class was very good, very informative, and helped their technique, then there is no way whatsoever that the student was anything than a beginner.
Or perhaps you missed the pictures posted in this thread?
So you want to script how people post reviews to the web? Honestly, doesn't that seem more than just a little bit controlling.
Hm. I think---that you didn't read what I wrote. (Since that was obviously not at all what I said.)
This, however, doesn't surprise me, since a post out of nowhere from someone who has only posted twice on this forum including this one (but has been a member for months, even though that person has only spent a total of 33 minutes online here) taking what I wrote out of context to make veiled attacks on me isn't really something that I take seriously, particularly when they attempt to make my article about something that is separate from the actual topic I was discussing.
(And perhaps you missed the thread awhile back when the pictures of this class first came to light, and the denunciation that occurred from a number of different state-patrol-certified instructors? Do you think everyone just said a couple of things, then ignored the issue?)
If you happen to think everyone's opinion is equally valid, then that's fine. I, on the other hand, would really like to make decisions based on the thoughts and opinions of people
who actually know what they are talking about.
That doesn't mean that new shooter's opinions aren't also important---if someone is taking an intro class and has a good time and likes the instructor, that's good to know. It would ALSO be good to know that the instructor is teaching a good curriculum safely, and most new shooters don't have the knowledge base necessary to rate that accurately.
I think it WOULD be nice to have an area where people can post their experience/knowledge base, and also freely post their opinions about training classes, so we could decide what we wanted to read and believe based on subject matter expertise. This of course does not stop anyone from saying whatever they like.
If you take that as "controlling," apparently we have different definitions of that word. That's okay, we don't have to agree.
I am amused that you think this entire thing was an attempt to disparage another training company. I don't need to do that---they did that to themselves without any outside help.
And since I didn't list any names, and spent much of the article discussing the
real topic (in which this instructor's reviews were merely an example), I'm thinking that considering the tone of your article, your point was merely to attempt to make me look bad by making insinuations about me, as opposed to actually having any real issues with my actual topic.
