[quote]tom63 wrote:
It was a dumb idea back in the day and it still is. BTW, I was an original dog pound member.[/quote]
I would much prefer an ignore feature than some elite type of board. I don’t find it annoying with silly newbie questions and silly posts. I respond at times in a sarcastic manner, but it doesn’t ruin my day having to read stuff.
As for who gets in, that’s the sticky point. do you go by professional qualifications? Strength level? Being a nice guy poster who might say the right things but be full of crap on how much he lifts, etc?
As for me, I’m about a class one level to master level powerlifter. I’m a chiropractor who has ART certification through biomechanics. In fact I was in Leahy’s first biomechanincs class. I’ve done ART for ten years, working at 6 Ironman races and five Arnold classics on the medical staff.
I answer injury and rehab related questions for Dave Tate over at Elite.
But who really cares, I could be making this stuff up for what everyone knows. And that’s my point of a Dog Pound. What’s really the point? The same could be accomplished by having an ignore user feature were you don’t even see the posts.
You can chose not to respond to a post.
On the plus side, doing something like this does take people back to the day when the gym was like a apprentice, journeyman, master situation.
When I started lifting in about 1975, you had the Sears Ted Williams plastic and cement weight set. All 110 pounds. If you were lucky you had the bench that would support maybe 300 total pounds.
You followed the program of ten exercises, 3 sets of ten. If you stuck with it, you might have had the confidence to enter a gym. With a big boy, or olympic bar. and if you had this opportunity, you did what the big guys said, if they even noticed you.
You made progress and if you could contribute to the overall good in the gym, you were accepted. If not, well, you probably didn’t stay on your own accord anyway. But you have to realize is that serious people have an outlet other than this website.
So what good does it do really? The good info is here and the nonsense. If you want really serious stuff you can find it.is why Dave Tate never started a forum. He asked his Elite contributors if they would be for it. We all said no. What’s the point? Headaches, but no real increase to your business.
But Dave sells equipment. T Nation sells supplements. The supplement market is a tougher market with a wider base of appeal. And to their credit, they do try to get out good products. they also pay their contributors better than average in this industry.
A forum to get people talking is good for Grow! or whatever sales. It wouldn’t work for high level gym equipment and more sales of Supertraining.
But other than responding to a perceived customer need, what would it accomplish and add to the companies bottom line? It wouldn’t really make the site better for me. And I doubt it would really make it better for anyone else.
If you can’t find the good info in a post here or an article here, I would doubt you’d apply anything if it was put right in front of your nose.
- but it may be worth a try.