Are we talking snake oil here?

[gene]

Mitch,

Thanks for informing us about this. Enough is enough and it may be time for us to pursue some legal action. We have captured screen shots of these events just in case they get deleted again (this is the second time he has posted that bogus thread).

 

[jaxvon]

Just out of curiosity, what is he talking about? Was there ever some article that was similar to something Secrets published? Every article and review I've seen here is credited to some source (be it a writer for AH or another site like Impact Acoustics).

 

[gene]

Jaxvon;

This so called "Plagiarism" was a picture of a midrange from a speaker one of my new reviewers (from 3 years ago) captured from a google search for his review since he didn't have a digital camera at the time.

After the site owner rudely requested (with many colorful metaphors) us to remove it we complied and considered the matter closed despite the inflammatory email exchange that took place in which their site administrator acknowledged got out of hand and declared a truce. With the permission of the manufacturer, we than replaced the pic with their PR shot.

Apparently their site administrator slander of us continues both in a public forum medium and beyond these forum discussions listed herein. Thus we have now decided to get our corporate lawyer involved. Going forward we will not comment on this matter until it is resolved legally.

 

[jaxvon]

Alright, I was just wondering. Hopefully this can be resolved peacefully

 

[Buckeyefan 1]

Audioclowns?

Alright, I was just wondering. Hopefully this can be resolved peacefully

I just spent the last half hour on that site. I'm not impressed. There are very few discussions going on, and that thread about plagiarism is very sophomoric - especially from the Editor! They never even published the plagiarized subject. Had they, the members would (or should) have jumped down the editors throat and told him to can it. A photo? Unreal. Get a life. Then they complain about how "Audioclowns" splits up review pages to boost ratings. Had they thought about getting more advertisements per page, they may have done the same thing. But it seems they are too worried about the competition to come up with a marketing plan. To me, it looks like the Editor could be in serious trouble for slander. He should keep his trap shut before our Editors copy that thread.

To give them credit and avoid "plagiarism", here is a post from the Editor from "Secrets of Home Theater and Hi Fidelity."
After we saw what Audioclowns had fraudulently posted on our own ratings page, wow, someone returned the favor. Boy, did Audioclowns scramble. They put lots of positive reviews in, to bury the negative one way down the line. Funny thing is, that people I have spoken to about the problem say that they are waiting for Audioclowns to finish packing their ratings page with positive reviews, and then - whoops - another negative one may just appear, right at the top of the reviews list. I wonder how Audioclowns likes eating some of their own medicine.

It is actually now amusing to see Audioclowns, which is run by two-digit IQ editors, trying so desperately to play cheap tricks in order to produce some falsely positive impression about their own website.

Any comments from the peanut gallery?

 

[jaxvon]

I'd like to, but I think we should move this over to the steam vent. Besides, we don't need to stir the legal pot even more...

 

[Stuart Wright]

I've had a brief look at that thread. People do get upset by plagarism, although if it was just an image and you removed it upon request then it's hardly something to get upset about.

However the posts made on there by 'Admin' are very emotional, childish and extremely unprofessional. He's deliberately stirring up bad feeling by referring to plagarism. Any readers of that site with any intelligence and maturity will not enjoy reading posts of that nature.

All significant websites have their detractors. Specially if there is a forum involved and admin have had to ban people. For example, the admin of a small but noisy UK competitor to the AV Forums has an ongoing campaign of insults and criticism against us. He is joined by a few moderators and a few members who were banned from the AV Forums who insult us (me, the moderators and our members) regularly. We give their comments the amount of attention they deserve - very little - since their site is insignificant.

Does the Secrets of Home Theater website get any significant traffic? Because their forum is as dead as a dodo. Which means comments made on there are being seen by very few people. And childish antagonistic posts should probably be ignored. I would recommend you rise above it.

However, as soon as representatives of that site start contacting your sponsors in an effort to damage your business, you should, in my opinion go after them with all legal guns blazing.

 

[hifiman]

This guy is so vain he thinks I'm actually an employee of www.audioholics.com. Rest assured, I am not an employee and have no afiliation with the audiholics site other then as a member. I will be sure to let other readers know about the unprofessional behavior of the editor of the secrets web site.

When someone asks me for recommendations of good audio/video information sites to visit I will be sure to steer them to this site and warn them against frequenting the secrets site.

The secrets editor can be described in one word "Childish"!

I posted my support of Mitch's statement just after his post that was subsequently deleted. Though the Admin on that site did not say so, he also deleted my post at the same time, probably because I quoted from Mitch's post. I am a long-time reader of that particular site and have enjoyed it and made many good uses of its information, but something is seriously wrong over there. On that particular plagiarism thread I posted my complaints regarding that site trying to recruit its members to engage in a childish game of words on this site's forum. I too have been accused of working for or being a friend of someone from this site. I am not, but the Admin over there obviously does not believe it and resorts to insults. I still visit that site's forum out of curiosity, but the behavior by the admin has prompted me to make this site the one of choice for me. I have found that I prefer this one.

 

[mitch57]

I posted my support of Mitch's statement just after his post that was subsequently deleted. Though the Admin on that site did not say so, he also deleted my post at the same time, probably because I quoted from Mitch's post. I am a long-time reader of that particular site and have enjoyed it and made many good uses of its information, but something is seriously wrong over there. On that particular plagiarism thread I posted my complaints regarding that site trying to recruit its members to engage in a childish game of words on this site's forum. I too have been accused of working for or being a friend of someone from this site. I am not, but the Admin over there obviously does not believe it and resorts to insults. I still visit that site's forum out of curiosity, but the behavior by the admin has prompted me to make this site the one of choice for me. I have found that I prefer this one.

Not only has he deleted your post and my post but he has also deleted his own posts which reference the dialog that the three of us had (Admin, Mitch57, and you).

The Admin of the secrets site definitely needs some therapy. Something just isn't right over there.

 

[gene]

It seems the situation is now under control. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

http://hometheaterhifi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2957&highlight=audioclowns