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How to handle retail product discussions?


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#1 Crepulance

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Posted 20 December 2008 - 09:47 PM


If Anthony's always on here eager to answer questions etc about RevGen, why are the CEO's or anyone else from Longevin not on here answering questions about their product. It seems really one sided. I'd love to hear them come on and defend their product, it's given dosage, etc. so we can have an intelligent open debate about it. I don't know much about them, but someone said Bill Sardi was a founder? Is he on these posts? Does anyone know of anyone on these posts that works for Longevin?


Crep

Edited by Mind, 20 December 2008 - 11:28 PM.


#2 Mind

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Posted 20 December 2008 - 10:50 PM

Here at the Institute we have tried to keep the forums focused on the science and not the individual retail products, because discussions about different products/companies invariably devolve into hissy fits and flame wars. We have had our share.

Lately, I have not been able to monitor this as much as I like. More and more retail product discussions are showing up and this is not a good thing (by the way, Anthony has been around for a long time and for most of that time has been very cooperative with not mentioning his company name and following the admittedly somewhat nebulous rules).

What we need is a different set-up that will make it easier for the Navigators to keep the science first and the retail flame wars in the background. One of our former sponsors suggested having a forum area (not on the active topics list) where advertising sponsors could answer questions/concerns about their products and interact with the Imminst community. All other discussions that did not revolve around the science of supplements or longevity treatments would be deleted.

Navigators/concerned members, please comment (again...I know this topic has come up before).

Edited by Mind, 20 December 2008 - 10:51 PM.


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#3 Brainbox

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Posted 20 December 2008 - 11:30 PM

Mind, I think it's a good assertion. In general, the level of scientific discussion is decreasing and moving towards "ventilation of opinions". There are several topics in which the questions raised are very valid, but in a lot of cases not accompanied by good references.

We could make the move you suggest to split off the retail discussions to separate area's and in parallel carry out a more pedantic moderation in general? The splitting of the retail discussion could be a good moment to announce a "promotion of scientific discussion campaign" in which we try to enhance the awareness. We could use the wikipedia guidelines for (scientific) references.

Edited by Brainbox, 20 December 2008 - 11:31 PM.


#4 Shepard

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Posted 20 December 2008 - 11:55 PM

I think it's a good idea. In the majority of the forums, it'd turn a currently grey area to black and white. We'd still have to police in that section for our sponsors, but it should help the discussion quality in the other areas.

#5 suspire

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 12:07 AM

Here at the Institute we have tried to keep the forums focused on the science and not the individual retail products, because discussions about different products/companies invariably devolve into hissy fits and flame wars. We have had our share.

Lately, I have not been able to monitor this as much as I like. More and more retail product discussions are showing up and this is not a good thing (by the way, Anthony has been around for a long time and for most of that time has been very cooperative with not mentioning his company name and following the admittedly somewhat nebulous rules).

What we need is a different set-up that will make it easier for the Navigators to keep the science first and the retail flame wars in the background. One of our former sponsors suggested having a forum area (not on the active topics list) where advertising sponsors could answer questions/concerns about their products and interact with the Imminst community. All other discussions that did not revolve around the science of supplements or longevity treatments would be deleted.

Navigators/concerned members, please comment (again...I know this topic has come up before).


I noticed Sardi is claiming ImmInst is a front for RG (http://www.longevine...sp?story=E-mail Regarding Competition Comparisons). It looks mostly like a rant and as if Sardi has gone off the deep end, but it may not be a bad idea to have some sort of forum for the various supplement providers where they could discuss their products. I'd have ImmInst send out official invites to a number of the major supplement companies, asking them to participate. I wouldn't necessarily limit it to sponsors, because I think the community as a whole would like to hear from non-sponsors too and it'd help undercut any accusation of bias from ImmInst.

Just my two cents.

Edited by suspire, 21 December 2008 - 12:08 AM.


#6 Shepard

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 12:09 AM

I wouldn't necessarily limit it to sponsors, because I think the community as a whole would like to hear from non-sponsors too and it'd help undercut any accusation of bias from ImmInst.


I'd love to be able to allow all supplier discussion. The problem Navigation faces is discriminating between honest discussion and indirect advertising.

#7 Mind

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 12:23 AM

My intention would be to have only sponsors have the right to an open (but not active topic) discussion area, not just any major supplier. Imminst derives a good chunk of revenue from sponsors and they deserve special treatment in my view. It is an incentive.

Say we have sponsor #1 who has an ad (banner, front page, or global text) for a number of months. During that time period, their board rep could interact in the specially designated forum for their company. Once they stopped advertising, their forum would be locked.

#8 suspire

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 12:23 AM

I wouldn't necessarily limit it to sponsors, because I think the community as a whole would like to hear from non-sponsors too and it'd help undercut any accusation of bias from ImmInst.


I'd love to be able to allow all supplier discussion. The problem Navigation faces is discriminating between honest discussion and indirect advertising.


Yeah, I definitely understand that you guys are overworked as it is. Hard to keep up with all the noise and that forum, specifically, would certainly become a hotbed and draw a lot of interest, while needing a lot of Navigator supervision.

That said, ImmInst is definitely one of those sites that have become a hub for interest in discussions of these sorts. I came to ImmInst originally by accident, looking for info on supplements. You pretty much cannot type in a supplement's name without hitting ImmInst as one of the top ranking sites on Google. So we're drawing a lot of folks in because of it--and there will definitely be a huge audience for such a forum--but it will also be a serious workload.

Got to weigh the pros versus the cons.

#9 suspire

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 12:27 AM

My intention would be to have only sponsors have the right to an open (but not active topic) discussion area, not just any major supplier. Imminst derives a good chunk of revenue from sponsors and they deserve special treatment in my view. It is an incentive.

Say we have sponsor #1 who has an ad (banner, front page, or global text) for a number of months. During that time period, their board rep could interact in the specially designated forum for their company. Once they stopped advertising, their forum would be locked.



Hmm. Well, that'd be one way of doing it, though you'd get the claims that ImmInst isn't allowing free and open discussion from competitors. And therefore, we the forum members, aren't really getting a lot of unbiased discussion/debate. This problem is compounded if there is only a few forum advertisers. I mean, unless I miss the advertisements, only RG advertises for resvertarol. Is this because RG is the only resveratrol supplier interested in advertising, or because we only allow one supplier-banner per forum (as in RG's case, the only advertiser in the resveratrol forums)? We may end up locking out all discussion from others, depending on what ImmInst's policies are.

EDIT: I do understand the revenue issues for ImmInst. I wonder if there is a way to balance things. Can maybe non-sponsors pay to have a discussion area for their products? I dunno. There has to be a model that is workable that allows a larger, and more diverse set of companies to discuss their products and answer questions: We should find a workable model that still brings in revenue for ImmInst (and with the right model, increases revenue), while having a broader and wider range of contributors to the discussion.

Edited by suspire, 21 December 2008 - 12:31 AM.


#10 Mind

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 01:30 AM

Right, I am sure there is a workable solution. Just have to hash it out.

#11 FunkOdyssey

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 02:00 AM

What we need is a different set-up that will make it easier for the Navigators to keep the science first and the retail flame wars in the background. One of our former sponsors suggested having a forum area (not on the active topics list) where advertising sponsors could answer questions/concerns about their products and interact with the Imminst community. All other discussions that did not revolve around the science of supplements or longevity treatments would be deleted.


I like this idea. Ensuring this special area does not show up in the Active Topics list is an important condition, to reduce the advertising impact. That way, you'll only be subject to the company's promotion of their products if you deliberately look for it.

If Anthony's always on here eager to answer questions etc about RevGen, why are the CEO's or anyone else from Longevin not on here answering questions about their product. It seems really one sided. I'd love to hear them come on and defend their product, it's given dosage, etc. so we can have an intelligent open debate about it. I don't know much about them, but someone said Bill Sardi was a founder? Is he on these posts? Does anyone know of anyone on these posts that works for Longevin?


Good question crep. Why isn't Sardi here defending his moderate dose resveratrol + quercetin approach to resveratrol supplementation? He would certainly be free to discuss the scientific rationale for that approach provided it did not degenerate into direct advertisement. Invite him to make an account and talk some science with us.

#12 Anthony_Loera

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 03:51 AM

Here at the Institute we have tried to keep the forums focused on the science and not the individual retail products, because discussions about different products/companies invariably devolve into hissy fits and flame wars. We have had our share.

Lately, I have not been able to monitor this as much as I like. More and more retail product discussions are showing up and this is not a good thing (by the way, Anthony has been around for a long time and for most of that time has been very cooperative with not mentioning his company name and following the admittedly somewhat nebulous rules).

What we need is a different set-up that will make it easier for the Navigators to keep the science first and the retail flame wars in the background. One of our former sponsors suggested having a forum area (not on the active topics list) where advertising sponsors could answer questions/concerns about their products and interact with the Imminst community. All other discussions that did not revolve around the science of supplements or longevity treatments would be deleted.

Navigators/concerned members, please comment (again...I know this topic has come up before).


I noticed Sardi is claiming ImmInst is a front for RG (http://www.longevine...sp?story=E-mail Regarding Competition Comparisons). It looks mostly like a rant and as if Sardi has gone off the deep end, but it may not be a bad idea to have some sort of forum for the various supplement providers where they could discuss their products. I'd have ImmInst send out official invites to a number of the major supplement companies, asking them to participate. I wouldn't necessarily limit it to sponsors, because I think the community as a whole would like to hear from non-sponsors too and it'd help undercut any accusation of bias from ImmInst.

Just my two cents.



I think having company folks on forums is the future of this business... Biotivia has recently made some changes, and is buying a forum outright from another "health related" forum, along with forum spokespersons that seem to push the product as part of the marketing. Not a bad arrangement really.

I believe visiting these forums, participating, and allowing folks access to myself is beneficial. I see it as a new method of being visible to folks, and developing a history of posts that can be searched, read, and saved for informational purposes. It allows folks to ask questions, and have them answered by companies. If there is a method to do this without much fighting I am all for it.

Others call it schlepping when I answer questions, I call it being available to the public. Besides, every time we are mentioned on our competitors websites, we then get the opportunity to answer questions from people who never knew we existed. I simply can't be angry at any competitors, because in the end all of our customers get a product we all believe in... which of course is resveratrol. We have different opinions about amount, absorption, pricing, and marketing methods... but in the end our customers benefit regardless of who they get resveratrol from. Everybody wins, and I think thats the really the goal to aim for.

It's interesting that Crep asked this question regarding retail discussions, when he is the same person initiating the "RevGen vs Longevin" post. I have to say that when I saw that "RevGen vs Longevin" thread, I was thinking... "this is going to get messy again...". The post pushes for a comparison which will create conflict of sorts, as it asks folks to state who is better. I think it's really a post to try to bait me into saying something awful, and because of Creps history of posts that certainly lean a certain way, it certainly continues to feels that way to me.

Again, I think rules are necessary if forums are opened for particular competitors to be open to the public, otherwise fights are likely to break out. Initially in 2007 I was trying to stay fair when we were in discussions with another competitor. Eventually the other competitor got other anonymous logins to appear as multiple people trying to argue with me. Not very fair, but It eventually got out and folks realized what was happening which made the competitor appear bad (at least in my opinion).

I believe anonymity is key for folks asking questions, but not for company folks regardless of who they represent. IP addresses for company folks maybe a requirement so navigators can kill these kind of issues.

I think there are alot of other issues, but for now I believe I will continue to come by here for questions...

A

Edited by Anthony_Loera, 21 December 2008 - 04:25 AM.


#13 maxwatt

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 04:41 AM

What we need is a different set-up that will make it easier for the Navigators to keep the science first and the retail flame wars in the background. One of our former sponsors suggested having a forum area (not on the active topics list) where advertising sponsors could answer questions/concerns about their products and interact with the Imminst community. All other discussions that did not revolve around the science of supplements or longevity treatments would be deleted.


I like this idea. Ensuring this special area does not show up in the Active Topics list is an important condition, to reduce the advertising impact. That way, you'll only be subject to the company's promotion of their products if you deliberately look for it.

If Anthony's always on here eager to answer questions etc about RevGen, why are the CEO's or anyone else from Longevin not on here answering questions about their product. It seems really one sided. I'd love to hear them come on and defend their product, it's given dosage, etc. so we can have an intelligent open debate about it. I don't know much about them, but someone said Bill Sardi was a founder? Is he on these posts? Does anyone know of anyone on these posts that works for Longevin?


Good question crep. Why isn't Sardi here defending his moderate dose resveratrol + quercetin approach to resveratrol supplementation? He would certainly be free to discuss the scientific rationale for that approach provided it did not degenerate into direct advertisement. Invite him to make an account and talk some science with us.


Sardi was posting in the supplements section two years ago for about two weeks; He got mad and left when his interpretation of scientific papers was challenged by some doctoral students, biochemists and biologists who were also posting in the forum. He wanted to be the only expert. I had some correspondence on some of the studies with him. He would not alter his position in light of contradicting facts, and would change the subject, or restate his position, and finally refuse to engage. He uses rhetoric rather than rational discourse. I don't feel he is a source of reliable information. He does come up with interesting findings, but his interpretation can be completely off the wall and invariably twisted to favor his product and theories. The man was not trained as a scientist, he was a journalist who was one of the first to interview Sinclair, and parlayed that into a supplement company selling a single product. But you probably know that. Geddarkstorm has pointed out the flaws in his press releases elsewhere in this forum for example. FWIW, I think he is sincere but insane. Just my opinion.

Another resveratrol supplement maker did post here for a while, and so did some of his sock puppets and employees. His approach was to talk down, shout down and to imply falsely that his product had been used in Sinclair's studies and invite flame wars. While he had and still has an apparently well-made product, his behavior and posting style alienated many members, who on whole are very well educated and more perspicacious than average. When he was challenged and called out on these things, he left. It is a shame he was so hot headed, because he was knowledgeable and could probably have contributed a lot. I had coffee with him once; he is nothing like that in person. I suspected he was new to internet posting (middle-aged and based abroad for decades) and the intemperate posting was a newbie flaw. Either that or he's a sociopath ;) ;)

Anthony has been tolerated because he is calm, level headed and rational. He respects others' opinions without necessarily agreeing. He has in fact, developed his product based on the consensus that was reached by the knowledgeable posters in this forum in an interactive process, engaged in the pursuit of knowledge: how are we going to use this resveratrol stuff so we might possibly live longer, or at least age more slowly? This is not to say we all agree with everything he is doing. He is a businessman, and some of his formulations are driven by marketing.

As to how to have a forum for manufacturers to discuss the scientific basis for their products, it will invariably turn into marketing. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But if you sew up a bunch of cats in one bag, they are going to fight. If there is just one cat per bag, it will be boring and uninformative. To mix metaphors, if we put them all in the same ring, we need rules. It might be useful to have a tool like the Firefox add-in, SpinSpotter, to automatically monitor the posts -- if it worked -- you can tune it.

#14 Anthony_Loera

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 05:28 AM

I like Maxwatt's post, and he is correct.

I also believe if the forum folks had a consensus when it came to a formulation they liked, I would probably throw out most of the other capsule products as I feel we may have too many, and it maybe confusing for the average person. Max has been a great resource and one of the experts we listen to regarding resveratrol, so I appreciate his knowledgeable comments.

I think rules are necessary for the same reasons Maxwatt has mentioned.

I have to say, that I do appreciate the feedback of the forum members.
Without their knowledge, and continued challenging requests, we would not be the great company I feel we are growing to be.


Cheers
A

#15 niner

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 06:15 AM

I'm a bit late to this discussion, but I appreciate what Maxwatt has just said. I think he has covered the issues. I would love to see a rational, scientific discussion among different vendors, or, rather between various vendors and the rest of us. The problem is that some vendors seem to either have personality defects that prevent them from posting calmly and accurately, or their lack of a true scientific background gets them into trouble, or they are so terrified of losing market share that they can't refrain from using a forum like this purely for marketing purposes. I think Anthony is a rare individual who can pull it off. I understand that AOR has had a person here in the past, though not for a while. They seem like an organization that could contribute, or at least could have. I'm not sure where they are at today as an organization. I have a feeling that the very people who would complain about ImmInst being some sort of RG private club are the ones who would have a difficult time adhering to posting guidelines. I wonder what sort of response we would get from some of the larger and more established supplement companies if we invited them to participate? I really don't know what they would do. I can understand that we need to offer something to the sponsors, but limiting discussions to sponsors opens us up to criticism. I would certainly hate to tell AOR or Jarrow that they weren't welcome. There are other companies where I would expect things to devolve rapidly. If we did put together a system for vendor participation, I would lean toward a non indexed, possibly members only forum, where posting rules included: No references to competitors products, no marketing, and probably no responding to competitor posts in order to avoid flame wars and the like. This last rule is a tough one because it would also inhibit potentially useful discussion. Vendors might be allowed to respond through an ImmInst proxy, i.e. one of us, but that involves work on someones part. Could compensation for such a thing make any sense? Free drugs? Raises immediate conflicts of interest. It's a tough situation; could be very useful, but fraught with potential problems. We probably have a lot of vendors lurking here. I know for a fact that people in the pharmaceutical industry have been known to read forums like ours, although the one case that I have specific knowledge of only mentioned a bodybuilding forum. I think there's a pretty good chance they were here as well. Sorry for the stream of consciousness format.

#16 Brainbox

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 11:38 AM

I also appreciate maxwatt's contribution. He's right. The mister B. issue did cost a lot of effort. ;)

But I also see a challenge in facilitating vendor discussions. It should be neutral and without financial issues attached to it.

Biotivia has recently made some changes, and is buying a forum outright from another "health related" forum, along with forum spokespersons that seem to push the product as part of the marketing. Not a bad arrangement really.

This is certainly not the model I would suggest! Bad idea for imminst, were we want (or at least have the strong ambition in a real-life environment) to be neutral. Sponsor linked vendor forum area's, for single sponsors to present their FAQ and answer questions would not be a good model, since this looks like a buy-out.

The current challenge is to deal with the perception of the lack of neutrality that developed, since only the open minded vendors did stay at our forums. Natural selection worked well this time. :)
We could invite the others back in, present them our initial rules, and start a discussion about the practicalities involved to come to an agreement.

But what do we do when part of the vendors do not want to comply? Or vendors misbehave? Misbehaving, subsequent banning and other niceties could very well be used by vendors to camouflage lost scientific arguments. After all, there's a lot to lose for these guy's. At the end we will be in the same situation we are in now. Prone to being judged as being biased on commercial grounds.

My initial late-night enthusiasm did decrease somewhat to be honest, but I still see a nice challenge in it.

What about the following model as a first rough outline? We create one vendor forum area for all vendors alike with the purpose of discussing their products, e.g. for refining them or "testing" formulations against the imminst population. Or to answer questions of imminst members about formulations and products. It would be a member-only forum. Vendors should identify themselves as paying member. The vendors would be responsible for the contents of this area themselves, they will moderate their own forum area. If one of them makes a mess that is not correctly dealt with by the vendor community itself, they are all out. End of experiment.

Anthony, or others, do you think such a model would be feasible? Would vendors be interested?
It's a web 4.0 approach regarding customer - vendor interaction. ;)
(Sorry for my Dutch Sunday morning humour)

Edited by Brainbox, 21 December 2008 - 11:52 AM.


#17 maxwatt

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 01:24 PM

I also appreciate maxwatt's contribution. He's right. The mister B. issue did cost a lot of effort. ;)

But I also see a challenge in facilitating vendor discussions. It should be neutral and without financial issues attached to it.

Biotivia has recently made some changes, and is buying a forum outright from another "health related" forum, along with forum spokespersons that seem to push the product as part of the marketing. Not a bad arrangement really.

This is certainly not the model I would suggest! Bad idea for imminst, were we want (or at least have the strong ambition in a real-life environment) to be neutral. Sponsor linked vendor forum area's, for single sponsors to present their FAQ and answer questions would not be a good model, since this looks like a buy-out.

The current challenge is to deal with the perception of the lack of neutrality that developed, since only the open minded vendors did stay at our forums. Natural selection worked well this time. :)
We could invite the others back in, present them our initial rules, and start a discussion about the practicalities involved to come to an agreement.

But what do we do when part of the vendors do not want to comply? Or vendors misbehave? Misbehaving, subsequent banning and other niceties could very well be used by vendors to camouflage lost scientific arguments. After all, there's a lot to lose for these guy's. At the end we will be in the same situation we are in now. Prone to being judged as being biased on commercial grounds.

My initial late-night enthusiasm did decrease somewhat to be honest, but I still see a nice challenge in it.

What about the following model as a first rough outline? We create one vendor forum area for all vendors alike with the purpose of discussing their products, e.g. for refining them or "testing" formulations against the imminst population. Or to answer questions of imminst members about formulations and products. It would be a member-only forum. Vendors should identify themselves as paying member. The vendors would be responsible for the contents of this area themselves, they will moderate their own forum area. If one of them makes a mess that is not correctly dealt with by the vendor community itself, they are all out. End of experiment.

Anthony, or others, do you think such a model would be feasible? Would vendors be interested?
It's a web 4.0 approach regarding customer - vendor interaction. ;)
(Sorry for my Dutch Sunday morning humour)

One thought; make said forum open only to members, but post "teasers" visible to registered users. Second, I meant two thoughts. Second, no product names can be mentioned, only formulations; we once almost had a nice interesting discussion between Mr. B and Mr. A concerning the virtues, or lack thereof, for micronized versus regular resveratrol. Third (I meant three thoughts), we can give away a certain amount of free advertising, maybe google style, in the forums to the advertisers to encourage them to participate, and give them a "reduced rate" for further ads. Lastly we should assure advertiser/contributors that they won't be subject to the Spanish Inquisition.

This last riff is based on Monty Python, for those poor souls who've never seen it.

#18 Anthony_Loera

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 02:36 PM

Brainbox,

I didn't mean that B's arrangement with another forum was the proper thing to do here, it would definitely be the wrong thing to do here as it would open a can of worms for Imminst and would likely deter folks from considering this forum as a source of information, because the "moderators" are all pushing products themselves.

I would hate to see that happen here.

As for the idea you have, I am open to it.

A

#19 suspire

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Posted 21 December 2008 - 03:51 PM

Here are a few suggestions:

1) First, create a new forum for suppliers to post. Call it "Suppliers" or some such. Impose the type of rules you guys want. All discussions pertaining to suppliers go there.

2) Create a new type of membership called "Suppliers"(different from Full Member, Lifetime Member, etc--and in a different color, too--so that is very clear that they are a different breed of Member). That way all members know who the suppliers are and whenever they post, even in other forums, we'll understand that they may have another agenda in mind motivating their positions. That way, it's full disclosure. The "Supplier" membership costs X amount of dollars per year to have and gives said Supplier the right to post on behalf of their company in said Supplier forum. Our Sponsors get the "Supplier" membership for free each year they are signed up as a Sponsor as part of their Sponsor-package. Any "Supplier" who breaks the rules of the forum faces the same consequences of any other member who breaks the rules in any forum--warning(s), temporary banning(s), then permanent banning. If everyone sees the progression of these open and clear warnings and bannings, it becomes harder for Suppliers to claim ImmInst is a front for X company or partial to Y company. This isn't to say it won't happen--just harder to make said claims, because the evidence will be in a series of documented and openly available posts.

3) Do not make these new forum available to members-only (this isn't my bias because of my own lack of paying member status). A) ImmInst gets a HUGE amount of traffic from anonymous Guests. More than members by multifold on any given day. The motivation for Sponsors to advertise is because of them (my understanding is that paying members go ad-free so Sponsors get zero from members in terms of their banners). Same with the new 'Supplier' members and the forum: If you limit it only to paying members, you may motivate a few people to move to paying members. However, the vast majority of the large amount of traffic will stick to the Health sections or what have you, which is the main reason they came in the first place. Suppliers lose out on the traffic that would have motivated them to poney up in the first place. And the more you make ImmInst a pay-for-service organization, the less it becomes the non-profit it initially started out as; members pay, not because they want access to the member-only forums, but because they believe in the cause and/or want to support and/or other motivations. Finally, any public "disagreement" between Suppliers and ImmInst that forces ImmInst to ban a Supplier will be hidden from the vast majority of the public and cripple ImmInst's ability to claim we are impartial, if the disagreement is hidden behind a veil of secrecy. Moving the forum into pay-only would, I think, be bad for business on a few fronts.

Edited by suspire, 21 December 2008 - 03:58 PM.


#20 Brainbox

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Posted 22 December 2008 - 11:56 AM

Lastly we should assure advertiser/contributors that they won't be subject to the Spanish Inquisition.

This last riff is based on Monty Python, for those poor souls who've never seen it.

In my proposal they can be inquisitive among themselves. ;)

Btw., I think most supplement vendors have decent businesses and practise a sufficient level of ethics. So, my proposal for a separate forum area is based on trust.

#21 maxwatt

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Posted 22 December 2008 - 01:22 PM

Lastly we should assure advertiser/contributors that they won't be subject to the Spanish Inquisition.

This last riff is based on Monty Python, for those poor souls who've never seen it.

In my proposal they can be inquisitive among themselves. ;)

Btw., I think most supplement vendors have decent businesses and practise a sufficient level of ethics. So, my proposal for a separate forum area is based on trust.


Actually flame wars between supplement maker would be kind of fun to watch. It might attract a wider audience. With sufficient disclaimers and occasional sage and measured comments from our senior members, it could be an asset to ImmInst.

#22 Anthony_Loera

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Posted 22 December 2008 - 03:37 PM

Lastly we should assure advertiser/contributors that they won't be subject to the Spanish Inquisition.

This last riff is based on Monty Python, for those poor souls who've never seen it.

In my proposal they can be inquisitive among themselves. ;)

Btw., I think most supplement vendors have decent businesses and practise a sufficient level of ethics. So, my proposal for a separate forum area is based on trust.


Actually flame wars between supplement maker would be kind of fun to watch. It might attract a wider audience. With sufficient disclaimers and occasional sage and measured comments from our senior members, it could be an asset to ImmInst.



Maxwatt,

I would agree with you, however...

We have been threatened with lawsuits because of our opinions on this forum. So flame wars might be entertaining, but unless competitors can agree not to sue folks behind the scenes, it will likely not happen very often.

Cheers
A

#23 Crepulance

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Posted 23 December 2008 - 09:08 AM

The idea is good, but not so sure about the execution. To limit discussion to one sponsor at a time wouldn't be very productive in terms of what the plan would set out to do. This would limit members from cross questioning the varying companies and conflicting data. If Longevin official says something, we would now have to wait a month before RevGen could dispute it and vice versa. Or if little pertient informations came to light, we would be hindered in only being able to ask one side of the story per month, and would lose track very quickly of all the points and questions wanting to be asked or rebutted by the other sponsor. I like the idea of having multiple at a time, so there is a better and more accurate, streaming cross examination. Now, not to belabor the point, but isn't the only banner that's ever up on imminst the RevGen banner? Also, I understand the idea behind the incentive, but maybe there is another way to go around that, because I believe that might subvert what you would be trying to do. If you don't give the major companies whom people are curious about a chance to speak, then the questioning will still continue and persist in the active topics, people will still want the answers and will try and get them. Which would make this whole concept for naught. You make a good point though about the incentives, but maybe you can just make it that the sponsors get priority, or top billing in the forums, or something of that nature.


Crep

My intention would be to have only sponsors have the right to an open (but not active topic) discussion area, not just any major supplier. Imminst derives a good chunk of revenue from sponsors and they deserve special treatment in my view. It is an incentive.

Say we have sponsor #1 who has an ad (banner, front page, or global text) for a number of months. During that time period, their board rep could interact in the specially designated forum for their company. Once they stopped advertising, their forum would be locked.

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#24 Crepulance

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Posted 23 December 2008 - 09:10 AM

Ha, who'd have ever thought we'd agree on something.


Crep

My intention would be to have only sponsors have the right to an open (but not active topic) discussion area, not just any major supplier. Imminst derives a good chunk of revenue from sponsors and they deserve special treatment in my view. It is an incentive.

Say we have sponsor #1 who has an ad (banner, front page, or global text) for a number of months. During that time period, their board rep could interact in the specially designated forum for their company. Once they stopped advertising, their forum would be locked.



Hmm. Well, that'd be one way of doing it, though you'd get the claims that ImmInst isn't allowing free and open discussion from competitors. And therefore, we the forum members, aren't really getting a lot of unbiased discussion/debate. This problem is compounded if there is only a few forum advertisers. I mean, unless I miss the advertisements, only RG advertises for resvertarol. Is this because RG is the only resveratrol supplier interested in advertising, or because we only allow one supplier-banner per forum (as in RG's case, the only advertiser in the resveratrol forums)? We may end up locking out all discussion from others, depending on what ImmInst's policies are.

EDIT: I do understand the revenue issues for ImmInst. I wonder if there is a way to balance things. Can maybe non-sponsors pay to have a discussion area for their products? I dunno. There has to be a model that is workable that allows a larger, and more diverse set of companies to discuss their products and answer questions: We should find a workable model that still brings in revenue for ImmInst (and with the right model, increases revenue), while having a broader and wider range of contributors to the discussion.



#25 Crepulance

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Posted 23 December 2008 - 09:12 AM

Wouldn't know how to do that. If you do, please invite him.


Crep

What we need is a different set-up that will make it easier for the Navigators to keep the science first and the retail flame wars in the background. One of our former sponsors suggested having a forum area (not on the active topics list) where advertising sponsors could answer questions/concerns about their products and interact with the Imminst community. All other discussions that did not revolve around the science of supplements or longevity treatments would be deleted.


I like this idea. Ensuring this special area does not show up in the Active Topics list is an important condition, to reduce the advertising impact. That way, you'll only be subject to the company's promotion of their products if you deliberately look for it.

If Anthony's always on here eager to answer questions etc about RevGen, why are the CEO's or anyone else from Longevin not on here answering questions about their product. It seems really one sided. I'd love to hear them come on and defend their product, it's given dosage, etc. so we can have an intelligent open debate about it. I don't know much about them, but someone said Bill Sardi was a founder? Is he on these posts? Does anyone know of anyone on these posts that works for Longevin?


Good question crep. Why isn't Sardi here defending his moderate dose resveratrol + quercetin approach to resveratrol supplementation? He would certainly be free to discuss the scientific rationale for that approach provided it did not degenerate into direct advertisement. Invite him to make an account and talk some science with us.



#26 Crepulance

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Posted 23 December 2008 - 09:20 AM

That's not fair Anthony, what could I have possibly said in that forum that is baiting you into anything? I said I was taking your product, and went out and bought quercetin so I could continue to take your product by compensating for what yours lacked compared with Longevin. My discussions on these forums are not biased by anything other than wanting to find the best product to take, as do most people on here. I'm an advocate of yours Anthony and as I stated on the other forum, I'm the one responsible for you using your Nitro caps, so I help you. When people ask me what I take, I say RevGen since I'm currently taking it. I think the fault you might find is that I'm one of the few people that says the word Longevin on these forums. I'm fair and balanced between the two products, I'm the one calling for someone from their company to come here so we can have an intellectual debate, but in a heavily biased board, anyone who leans towards fair and balanced, is accused of the opposite bias.


Crep

Here at the Institute we have tried to keep the forums focused on the science and not the individual retail products, because discussions about different products/companies invariably devolve into hissy fits and flame wars. We have had our share.

Lately, I have not been able to monitor this as much as I like. More and more retail product discussions are showing up and this is not a good thing (by the way, Anthony has been around for a long time and for most of that time has been very cooperative with not mentioning his company name and following the admittedly somewhat nebulous rules).

What we need is a different set-up that will make it easier for the Navigators to keep the science first and the retail flame wars in the background. One of our former sponsors suggested having a forum area (not on the active topics list) where advertising sponsors could answer questions/concerns about their products and interact with the Imminst community. All other discussions that did not revolve around the science of supplements or longevity treatments would be deleted.

Navigators/concerned members, please comment (again...I know this topic has come up before).


I noticed Sardi is claiming ImmInst is a front for RG (http://www.longevine...sp?story=E-mail Regarding Competition Comparisons). It looks mostly like a rant and as if Sardi has gone off the deep end, but it may not be a bad idea to have some sort of forum for the various supplement providers where they could discuss their products. I'd have ImmInst send out official invites to a number of the major supplement companies, asking them to participate. I wouldn't necessarily limit it to sponsors, because I think the community as a whole would like to hear from non-sponsors too and it'd help undercut any accusation of bias from ImmInst.

Just my two cents.



I think having company folks on forums is the future of this business... Biotivia has recently made some changes, and is buying a forum outright from another "health related" forum, along with forum spokespersons that seem to push the product as part of the marketing. Not a bad arrangement really.

I believe visiting these forums, participating, and allowing folks access to myself is beneficial. I see it as a new method of being visible to folks, and developing a history of posts that can be searched, read, and saved for informational purposes. It allows folks to ask questions, and have them answered by companies. If there is a method to do this without much fighting I am all for it.

Others call it schlepping when I answer questions, I call it being available to the public. Besides, every time we are mentioned on our competitors websites, we then get the opportunity to answer questions from people who never knew we existed. I simply can't be angry at any competitors, because in the end all of our customers get a product we all believe in... which of course is resveratrol. We have different opinions about amount, absorption, pricing, and marketing methods... but in the end our customers benefit regardless of who they get resveratrol from. Everybody wins, and I think thats the really the goal to aim for.

It's interesting that Crep asked this question regarding retail discussions, when he is the same person initiating the "RevGen vs Longevin" post. I have to say that when I saw that "RevGen vs Longevin" thread, I was thinking... "this is going to get messy again...". The post pushes for a comparison which will create conflict of sorts, as it asks folks to state who is better. I think it's really a post to try to bait me into saying something awful, and because of Creps history of posts that certainly lean a certain way, it certainly continues to feels that way to me.

Again, I think rules are necessary if forums are opened for particular competitors to be open to the public, otherwise fights are likely to break out. Initially in 2007 I was trying to stay fair when we were in discussions with another competitor. Eventually the other competitor got other anonymous logins to appear as multiple people trying to argue with me. Not very fair, but It eventually got out and folks realized what was happening which made the competitor appear bad (at least in my opinion).

I believe anonymity is key for folks asking questions, but not for company folks regardless of who they represent. IP addresses for company folks maybe a requirement so navigators can kill these kind of issues.

I think there are alot of other issues, but for now I believe I will continue to come by here for questions...

A



#27 Crepulance

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Posted 23 December 2008 - 09:25 AM

Good post Max.


Crep

What we need is a different set-up that will make it easier for the Navigators to keep the science first and the retail flame wars in the background. One of our former sponsors suggested having a forum area (not on the active topics list) where advertising sponsors could answer questions/concerns about their products and interact with the Imminst community. All other discussions that did not revolve around the science of supplements or longevity treatments would be deleted.


I like this idea. Ensuring this special area does not show up in the Active Topics list is an important condition, to reduce the advertising impact. That way, you'll only be subject to the company's promotion of their products if you deliberately look for it.

If Anthony's always on here eager to answer questions etc about RevGen, why are the CEO's or anyone else from Longevin not on here answering questions about their product. It seems really one sided. I'd love to hear them come on and defend their product, it's given dosage, etc. so we can have an intelligent open debate about it. I don't know much about them, but someone said Bill Sardi was a founder? Is he on these posts? Does anyone know of anyone on these posts that works for Longevin?


Good question crep. Why isn't Sardi here defending his moderate dose resveratrol + quercetin approach to resveratrol supplementation? He would certainly be free to discuss the scientific rationale for that approach provided it did not degenerate into direct advertisement. Invite him to make an account and talk some science with us.


Sardi was posting in the supplements section two years ago for about two weeks; He got mad and left when his interpretation of scientific papers was challenged by some doctoral students, biochemists and biologists who were also posting in the forum. He wanted to be the only expert. I had some correspondence on some of the studies with him. He would not alter his position in light of contradicting facts, and would change the subject, or restate his position, and finally refuse to engage. He uses rhetoric rather than rational discourse. I don't feel he is a source of reliable information. He does come up with interesting findings, but his interpretation can be completely off the wall and invariably twisted to favor his product and theories. The man was not trained as a scientist, he was a journalist who was one of the first to interview Sinclair, and parlayed that into a supplement company selling a single product. But you probably know that. Geddarkstorm has pointed out the flaws in his press releases elsewhere in this forum for example. FWIW, I think he is sincere but insane. Just my opinion.

Another resveratrol supplement maker did post here for a while, and so did some of his sock puppets and employees. His approach was to talk down, shout down and to imply falsely that his product had been used in Sinclair's studies and invite flame wars. While he had and still has an apparently well-made product, his behavior and posting style alienated many members, who on whole are very well educated and more perspicacious than average. When he was challenged and called out on these things, he left. It is a shame he was so hot headed, because he was knowledgeable and could probably have contributed a lot. I had coffee with him once; he is nothing like that in person. I suspected he was new to internet posting (middle-aged and based abroad for decades) and the intemperate posting was a newbie flaw. Either that or he's a sociopath :) :)

Anthony has been tolerated because he is calm, level headed and rational. He respects others' opinions without necessarily agreeing. He has in fact, developed his product based on the consensus that was reached by the knowledgeable posters in this forum in an interactive process, engaged in the pursuit of knowledge: how are we going to use this resveratrol stuff so we might possibly live longer, or at least age more slowly? This is not to say we all agree with everything he is doing. He is a businessman, and some of his formulations are driven by marketing.

As to how to have a forum for manufacturers to discuss the scientific basis for their products, it will invariably turn into marketing. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But if you sew up a bunch of cats in one bag, they are going to fight. If there is just one cat per bag, it will be boring and uninformative. To mix metaphors, if we put them all in the same ring, we need rules. It might be useful to have a tool like the Firefox add-in, SpinSpotter, to automatically monitor the posts -- if it worked -- you can tune it.



#28 Crepulance

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Posted 23 December 2008 - 09:32 AM

I agree with Max on the flame war, let them all blow it all out there, and we'll be the jury. I believe we are adept at filtering out the garbage. I think discussions need to get fierce before we can get real answers, otherwise it will all remain topical. Strip those boundaries and show some truth. Rules of course would restrict non productive behavior such as defamation of character, etc. etc....the lawsuit stuff. But I think other than that, no holds barred. We can even have something set up where anyone from any company signs a disclaimer which dissallows prosecution or litigation due to statemtns made in the forums. That's just some simple legal paperwork that can protect anyone who offers opinions in the forum. Safe haven.


Crep

Lastly we should assure advertiser/contributors that they won't be subject to the Spanish Inquisition.

This last riff is based on Monty Python, for those poor souls who've never seen it.

In my proposal they can be inquisitive among themselves. :)

Btw., I think most supplement vendors have decent businesses and practise a sufficient level of ethics. So, my proposal for a separate forum area is based on trust.


Actually flame wars between supplement maker would be kind of fun to watch. It might attract a wider audience. With sufficient disclaimers and occasional sage and measured comments from our senior members, it could be an asset to ImmInst.


Edited by Crepulance, 23 December 2008 - 09:33 AM.


#29 Anthony_Loera

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Posted 23 December 2008 - 06:31 PM

Crep,

I have been here answering questions for a while now. Anyone that wants to be here on equal footing merely needs to spend time answering questions. There is no restrictions on this board, anyone can join, be a free member, and answer questions, and even be anonymous. I prefer not to be anonymous, and I use my real name.

As far as the banner... that spot was auctioned off among various competitors, and I happen to have won the auction. If anyone states that they can't advertise here or are on equal footing, they simply haven't tried hard enough or have been creative enough.

So if Crep wants to come out with a new product and tell us about it here, expect a large amount of questions. If that turns you off, then you lose out on some important feedback that can make your business much better.

Cheers
A

Edited by Anthony_Loera, 23 December 2008 - 06:36 PM.


Click HERE to rent this advertising spot to support LongeCity (this will replace the google ad above).

#30 Crepulance

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Posted 24 December 2008 - 03:26 AM

Anthony you keep responding to me as though I don't agree with you. You may have confused my questions. I agree with you. I like that you're on here. I think it's a good thing. And I think others from other companies should join as well. I don't disagree with any of your points.


Crep

Crep,

I have been here answering questions for a while now. Anyone that wants to be here on equal footing merely needs to spend time answering questions. There is no restrictions on this board, anyone can join, be a free member, and answer questions, and even be anonymous. I prefer not to be anonymous, and I use my real name.

As far as the banner... that spot was auctioned off among various competitors, and I happen to have won the auction. If anyone states that they can't advertise here or are on equal footing, they simply haven't tried hard enough or have been creative enough.

So if Crep wants to come out with a new product and tell us about it here, expect a large amount of questions. If that turns you off, then you lose out on some important feedback that can make your business much better.

Cheers
A






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