Comment on "Have Hornby lost it?"

[Guest dilbert]

If you had a dispute with your neighbour, say, over parking, overhanging branches or whatever, what sort of approach would you respond to best? You know he has a point but hey, you dont do it deliberately, and you've got loads on your mind. Would you be more likely to co-operate if he gently took you aside and said 'can we have a word?', or would he be more likely to impress you by striding into your back garden and calling you all the useless w*nkers under the sun?

 

Aka chainsaw diplomacy ?

 

A critique or criticism implies 'finding fault with something' - the reasons can range from superficial to serious. In the end a critique is the opinion of an individual and if not balanced with suggestions for improvement (rather than barking out orders to get issues fixed), then don't expect much. You should not base your opinion either on the wisdom of a critic - that critic could end up defining your opinion in indirect ways.

 

It's all to easy to sit back, scream from the rooftops and wait for someone else to fix the problem, in this instance, nothing generally happens in the way that the crtitic anticipated... dilbert

 

PS I dislike the term 'constructive criticism' - it does appears to be an in-vogue phrase

[gordon s]

PS I dislike the term 'constructive criticism' - it does appears to be an in-vogue phrase

 

 

It's a little like 'no offence, but......' as someone slides a stiletto between your ribs.

 

Of course I've had occasions where a model has fallen short of my expections and had to return it, but somehow we have to look at the bigger picture. About 10 years ago, the buzzword at the the time was TQM (Total Quality Management) and I went on several courses to understand how I could incorporate this into my business. Of course it was aiming at 100% quality in everything we did and our suppliers did. Did it solve everything? No, but it sure as hell bought improvements in our business and made us aware of the need for quality at that time. These programmes are great and certainly have improved the quality of products we receive, but listen, we are all human and no amount of checks and counter checks will ever make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time.

 

I'm in my '60's and have been involved in this hobby for most of my life. A few weeks ago I bought a Hornby 8F at Ally Pally and have just fitted a Zimo decoder to run on my DCC layout. Apart from that, I have done nothing and still have the bits and bobs to add to this model. If anyone had told me 10 years ago that RTR could be this good and have slow running capabilities like this, I would have laughed.

 

I know in the heat of the moment when we have a model that falls short of our expectations we probably feel miffed, but in reality we are light years away from where we were even a few years ago.

 

Every so often we need to stop and smell the roses...............and listen to the birds when no planes are flying.

 

[trisonic]

I'm a rock musician, I'm also on several Music and Music Gear pages (take a look at "The Gear Page").

Unwarranted or even warranted but insulting remarks on such bulletin boards have resulted in several threats of legal action against the Owners/ Administrators (not the PO that started it....).

Just because it's the "internet" does not absolve one from Libel Laws - democracy and or Free Speech does not come into it on a privately owned site (which would be a benevolent oligarchy at best ) depending on your point of view....

 

Best, Pete.

[Dave777]

Got it in one. There's nothing more to it than that. Try to not to over-analyse it.

 

I think we can take that as a gentle 'no need to discuss this further' suggestion...

[7013]

I hope so, that 8F was like watching paint dry, my Hornby 5F is like that as is my Fowler, superb motors I guess.

[johnstuck]

I have no wish to stir up a nest of Hornets, and I agree that the first course of action should be to take faulty goods back to the shop they were bought from, if like the OP there appeared to be a batch problem then recourse to the manufacturer should be the next step. I did not think that the OP was whinging, he was just commenting on his experience. I firmly believe we should not be bashing the manufacturers but by the same token pointing out what was clearly in in the OP's opinion poor goods does not constitute whinging. If the problems with models are not brought to the public domain then sometimes they are missed. I believe the problems with the Original WD and more recently with the T9 may not have been addressed so quickly and I might say very impressively by both manufacturers. If we are to have a site that does not allow us to bring these potential problems to the notice of others via this (excellent) forum then how can we share experiences, take for instance the front bogie on the T9 many of us were glad the problem was aired, shared and repaired with the help of RMweb? This is not a whinge, just an observation.

 

Hi, I have just spotted this feed … I would like to say that I was the original poster of, Have Hornby lost it. After deciding that I should never post anything on here again in case I say the wrong thing by accident, I just wanted to say …........ I would like to apologise to everyone for posting this and never thought that it would cause a problem or upset or even cause so much interest, I have been quite upset with the response of the post, mainly having the topic locked and wishing that the admin team would have deleted it and I can truly say that I haven’t stopped thinking about it, it’s the first time I have ever been in trouble! I also want to point out that the shop where I bought it from were as good as gold and changed the product with no questions asked and I never indicated any different. SORRY TO EVERYONE!

[Mod2]

Thank you John, for coming back to do that. You'll have taken in, I hope, the comments and consensus in the topic and now have an idea why your post was ill-advised.

 

As a final word and in case it's not clear from posts above, criticism as such is not outlawed as long as it's expressed in a suitable manner. Contrary to what you might read elsewhere, neither the forum's sponsors nor the manufacturers exert any undue pressure in this respect; in return, we do feel that rational discussion of any problems is a more productive avenue than a rant or flame war.

 

Thanks.