I had to give a eulogy for my grandmother in the middle of a stupid family fued between my sisters (twins). It was shameful. I have been doing some reflection lately as to my role here at the forum (many of you have seen me pretty much make a case I should have a second persona and screenname) and well... this all kind of got me thinking about things, this forum, and my experience with other forums.
I was going through some things at the house AND I found a cd marked "biz" I had seen this disc many times but thought it was about the car biz. It had my old Stoker Video that the other National bbq forum forced me to actually remove from youtube (the balls huh?) in return for allowing me to stay a member. This was a long time ago. They had Rocks as a vendor and were very upset that I posted a video about a third failure of the system even though I did not link it there. Thats right, they had an issue with a video I posted in youtube outside of their forum about one of their vendors... quite a reach huh?
As the story goes Rocks refused to replace the control box and kept saying it was fine. Mostly because the sensors and fans would come back screwed up. I spent 3 months or so until I had a working unit. At that time the company was abysmal at returning calls or emails and so I went on to the other forum to ask about what I should do. The thread created interest, some simular complaints would arise (mostly about contact) and the thread would be scrubbed. So... I created a video, which was never linked in their forum, as proof to the owner of the process we went through when the unit failed.
I received a series of emails in which I was given two ultimatums. The other forum's mother hen wrote "remove the video or leave the forum." The owner of Rocks said "remove the video of I will not fix your unit."
I tried to explain that if we kept the videos and add them to the ones I showed after it was fixed (
Stoker Test IV has over 49,000 hits eclipsing Rocks own Web Channell ) it would show the company to be good to its customers but Rocks wanted it gone.
I complied.
As you can see I am giving props in the video to the owner for trying so hard (i had to twist his arm to give me all new stuff but eventually after all the shipping back and forth I got it) but the real goings on were less than diplomatic, being yelled at over the phone by him at one point.
In any case, as I
reflect and a somewhat satisfied stoker owner... (it still cannot use extenders with a 25cfm fan but works fine with extentions with my 10CFM fan) I realize... this was no way to run a business or a forum. I am so glad that incident led me to this forum and well, and maybe I should respect it a little more. No.. strike maybe.
I will never forget my discussion with the last forums owner, to which I still retain the emails... their position was to
"not allow complaints on our forum until a vendor has a pattern of problems... until then we will be deleting any complaint postings from you or others (and there were others) until a pattern can be proven on the forum." A self fufilling prophecy if I ever saw one.
And now here are those old Videos from Connecticut... the first shows the unit working fine... the second was the failure.
There is some good detailed footage also how the unit works.
God Bless this forum.
Pitmaster Donnie T
YouTube - 3rd Rocks BBQ Stoker Failure - Lost 2007 Video - Part 1
Part One - Some Good Details and video of the parts close up
YouTube - 3rd Rocks BBQ Stoker Failure - Lost 2007 Video - Part 2
Part Two - The Unit worked fine in Part one, which was originally to show the unit working, then the unit did the same thing again.
YouTube - STOKER TEST III a - ON STICK BURNER
Part Three is the Video I did to Appease the Owner of Rocks at the request of Saiko I just posted it. This has been online for a few years and depicts me waiting for something to go wrong. I never got a thanks either. There was another problem with the stoker right as it came out which caused it to foul up if the connectors were like under 30 degrees or something like that. Test IIIb shows that was fixed. So my vids sort of despelled old rumors Rocks product still had problems.
