Those pictures didn't include shooting at water did they?(http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa61/LJUnaTIC/class5.jpg)
No, no. It's okay. Those guns were not loaded.
Makes me think we should take some pictures of all the care we take when we host TWAW pistol disassembly and cleaning clinics.Yes , we need to show the world what safe and effective training looks like
I hope those students took some more instruction. I cannot imagine those people out on the street or around family members or friends.
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Instructor Bob's classes are known to be highly unsafe. So much so, that he actually used pictures demonstrating incredibly unsafe gun handling as part of his advertising on his website and Facebook page--and didn't see any problem with them.
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But I don't want to hear it from a bunch of people who have no idea what they are talking about, with regard to someone who is teaching absolute crap.
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If 20 people (with no experience) say a class was great, but the two people who HAVE experience in that topic say that it was at best a very basic class, and the instructors weren't that solid on their technique---you should ignore those 20 people. They have no idea what they are talking about, and are simply telling you that they thought the class was fun, and they liked the instructor, and he was convincing.
They literally CAN'T tell you if the content was any good.
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Example: Zeeb runs a GREAT class in Legal Aspects of Lethal Force. A number of us who actually spend time thinking about and teaching legal aspects of use of force for firearms have taken the class, and uniformly think it is very well-done, and that people should go to it. That is a set of ratings and comments you should pay attention to--particularly since we aren't making any money off of it.
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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."
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...
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?
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."
So you want to script how people post reviews to the web? Honestly, doesn't that seem more than just a little bit controlling.
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If I wanted to directly disparage that particular group, it would be much easier than writing about ignorant people posting reviews about classes.
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How do you know I haven't informed the State Patrol? Along with all the other certified (not licensed, certified) instructors on this forum?
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Oh, wait, this was just an attempt to get a dig in at me.
Or perhaps you missed the pictures posted in this thread?
That makes your initial post even more confusing. You believe "Instructor Bob" poses enough of a life threatening danger to his students that you've reported him to the State Patrol (or at least you seem to be implying that), but instead of actually warning people that might attend his classes of the danger, you make up a long story "about ignorant people posting reviews about classes" (your words).
If you're concerned that being in Instructor Bob's classes poses a threat to his students lives, why would you write that story instead of just coming right out and saying something along the lines of "From the photos on the CCW Training Academy website (use whatever their real name is), as a professional firearms instructor I'm very concerned about the danger Instructor Bob (use whatever his real name is) seems to be placing his students in. Here's the photos and here's what I'm concerned about...."
For real??
I saw them. Since it was your thread, I thought it was odd someone else posted them and not you.
Honest and serious question... Does the State audit the business besides doing undercover when a business is being investigated?
Does the State audit the business besides doing undercover when a business is being investigated?
NSP may (and has) enroll a trooper anonymously as student in a class.I've herd that but is that because of complaints or just a random drop in?
Honest and serious question... Does the State audit the business besides doing undercover when a business is being investigated?
I witnessed a NSP Trooper show up to audit a class that was being brought to a range that I was just finishing up at. He was there because of complaints from previous students regarding this particular instructor.
I witnessed a NSP Trooper show up to audit a class that was being brought to a range that I was just finishing up at. He was there because of complaints from previous students regarding this particular instructor.
I witnessed a NSP Trooper show up to audit a class that was being brought to a range that I was just finishing up at. He was there because of complaints from previous students regarding this particular instructor.
Does that instructor still have their certification?
Fly
I hope was at least "professional enough" to know a good class from a bad one. ::)
Some cops don't even know what model gun they are carrying.
Just adding a post to note that "ziggy" hasn't even logged in to NFOA since his last post castigating me in this thread--which means that he didn't even log back in to check the response to his last post here.
Oh, wait, this was just an attempt to get a dig in at me.
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your point was merely to attempt to make me look bad by making insinuations about me
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attempting to make me to be something I'm not.
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What a surprise, it seems likely to me that "ziggy" was a fake account set up for someone to use...
...That's okay, we don't have to agree.
So, yeah, you've got to really read through Internet reviews and key in on the ones that sound like the reviewer may have a modicum of intelligence and discernment. That goes for all products and industries.
I'm curious if you understand how forum software works. On this forum you don't need to log on to read posts. Unless you've pulled the web server logs for the last couple years and analyzed all the web hits, you have no idea how often I've read posts on this forum.
folks who drove into "the big city" (SNIP) from the double-digit counties (where Pizza Hut is the only game in town) you'd think they had been served a meal by Jamie Oliver.
folks who drove into "the big city" (SNIP) from the double-digit counties (where Pizza Hut is the only game in town) you'd think they had been served a meal by Jamie Oliver.who is Jamie oliver? this whole thread is over my head somehow!
who is Jamie oliver? this whole thread is over my head somehow!
WOW! There is so much snobbery in that simple thought it boggles my mind.
... I guess we don't need those damn hicks from the "double digit" counties voicing any opiinions. Good thing we are also invested with thick skin or it might start a riot.I started to laugh then I remembered that Sarpy is 59 county. :D
Honest to God, I saw a lady going clockwise in a roundabout last weekend.
And a bit of that was sarcastic to make a point
Maybe she was from England or some other country.......
Growing up out that way there was always the legend of some "Northern 1 County" guys who came out grouse hunting, and later proudly showed off the trunk full of meadow larks they bagged.
True, it never occurred to me that someone wouldn't simply set up an auto-login for the forum, and come browse without being logged on.
Or ever posting.
I ask again: Did you even READ the article that I wrote?
People who are reading stuff like that? You are going to want to disregard those, and look for after-action reports or class evaluations from people who actually know what they are talking about.
People who say stuff like that? Please stop, at least until you have enough knowledge to make a comparison to a class that had a good curriculum and was competently taught.
Make sure you pay attention to the ratings and commentary from the people who CAN tell you if the content was any good.
Example: Zeeb runs a GREAT class in Legal Aspects of Lethal Force. A number of us who actually spend time thinking about and teaching legal aspects of use of force for firearms have taken the class, and uniformly think it is very well-done...
There's a common counter marketing approach called FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). When a vendor is having difficulty competing and isn't attracting customers with the value of their product/service, they use FUD to try to drive customers from other competitors. At the end of your blog post you said...
If that came from the "person on the street," it'd be an interesting opinion. Coming from a vendor, that's FUD. Instead of articulating the value you're bringing, you're creating doubt about someone else. It may not have been your intention, but that's FUD.
I'll say what I said in my first post in this thread. That sounds incredibly controlling. Who made you the judge of who's knowledgeable enough and who's competent enough to be able to express an opinion?
How are you suggesting identifying those people? By how they write their reviews? Unless you actually know the people posting the comments - all web reviews have an equally low value. Not zero, but really low. If you don't know the reviewers, it doesn't matter if someone says "It was a great class" or they go with your "Zeeb runs a GREAT class in Legal Aspects..."
There's no way to know what the reviewer's background or experience is. Even if they list experience, just because it's printed on the web doesn't mean it's true. There's no way to know if the people in a web photo are the same people that wrote the comments, even if they say "that's me in the photo." There's no way to know if someone making an individual comment ever even attended the training (companies hire "specialty" firms to create positive web images).
What you can do is look at the gist of all the comments and see if overall they are generally positive or not. You can also assume reviews were mostly written by people the class was designed for.
Pretty unlikely Paul Howe will be taking and commenting on a Nebraska Basic CCW class. More likely to be a new shooter.
This is getting weird and troll-like. The blog post was so innocuous, that I don't know how anyone could take offense to it (unless one were in a competing business in the same industry, and had low quality standards.)
If jthapkido is the Honda of trainers,
This is getting weird and troll-like. The blog post was so innocuous, that I don't know how anyone could take offense to it (unless one were in a competing business in the same industry, and had low quality standards.)I have been staying out of this discussion since I had nothing to add, but The FUD comment was quite off base. I work with Microsoft products and THEY are the Kings of FUD so I am quite famliar with what FUD is when I see it.
The whole "FUD" thing a couple posts back could be a Philosophy 101 textbook chapter on logical fallacies. The only thing the OP is championing is high quality standards. The only thing the OP is denigrating is low quality standards. No specific competing business was named.
An analogy would be if the Honda dealership near me ran an advertisement encouraging new car buyers to consider reasonably scientific and credible sources (e.g. JD Power, Consumer Reports) when considering quality and longevity of your next new car. No other make or model is mentioned by name, so nobody should get their panties in a bunch. And hey, it's logical advice. I as the consumer am better off if I ignore social media reviews like, "My frens un I LUV my new Volkswagon .. its soooooo cute 'n kool LOL" and I go to Consumer Reports and discover that, indeed, Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt should be foremost in my mind if I'm considering buying a Volkswagon! (My mechanic refers to them as, "absolutely the nicest car in which you'll ever be stranded by the side of the road.")
If jthapkido is the Honda of trainers, he has every right (and maybe the moral duty, in a safety-related industry) to shout from the mountaintops that his is a serious industry, we should all have the highest standards, and we should eschew trainers and student reviewers who don't take the issue seriously.
[sigh]
Could I at LEAST be the Porche? BMW? Audi? Lotus?
If you want to be known as wildly overpriced, pretentious, completely unnecessary, and break down daily, I guess you can... ;D ;D
So yeah, darn right I'm going to roll my eyes when I read Susie Sorority's post on Yelp that thus-and-such place has the best bartender in the WORLD because they make the awesomest appletinis. And I'm going to tell a bartender to throw it out and do it over the right way if he shakes rather than stirs my Manhattan.
Hm. What an interesting idea. Two people say the exact same thing with the exact same meaning (and the exact same level of truth) and yet, according to you, one is FUD marketing, and the other isn't.
What an odd idea.
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1) If I was "Instructor Bob", I'd be dialing my attorney to talk about defamation. I don't know who "Instructor Bob" is, but everybody else seems to. Not an attorney, but I'm pretty sure in Nebraska you can't use not naming someone as a defense against defamation if others understand who you're talking about. People on this forum seem to understand clearly who you were talking about. They understood well enough to know his Facebook page and post an image of one of his classes. I've seen there are attorney's that are members of Nebraska Firearms and post to the forums here. Maybe they could weigh in with a precise answer.
2) In any of the other licensed professions in Nebraska that I'm familiar with, if you had made a public blog post that took a swipe at a business competitor like yours did, it would be considered unethical business conduct and you'd get disciplined by the licensing board. I'm pretty sure that's true from hair stylists and real estate agents all the way to physicians and attorneys.
3) In your blog post, you use the terms "not knowledgeable" and "not competent" to describe people reviewing CCW training classes. The proper synonyms for those terms are "ignorant" and "incompetent." First, calling some large group of people you don't know ignorant and incompetent, no matter how nicely you try to phrase it, would seem to me (maybe only me) to be arrogant and rude. Beyond that though, is that your business strategy for attracting potential customers to take your training classes? You want to attract them by insulting them?
4) Here's the irony of your original post to this thread.
{snip discussion in which to dissimilar things were compared irrationally.}
You spent a third of your blog post discussing how you don't want people to post reviews when they aren't knowledge and competent to make them. Then as your example of the right way to do things you use a review of the content of a legal aspects class. Using the standards for posting reviews you outlined in your blog, unless you were an attorney with that specialty you wouldn't be knowledgeable enough or competent enough to make that review. Just a guess, but I don't think you see the irony in that.
If firearm instructors weren't allowed to be rigidly dogmatic about safety, fanatical about proper technique, or intolerant of fools, the world would have never been blessed with Jeff Cooper.If they weren't all that I would not want to have them as an instructor. If he can't be safe and demand that we, the students, be safe then I don't want to be around the class at all.