Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum How Would You Rate Pianos?

I don't know Steve , but the quality of his posts and his industry knowledge rank high with me. The piano ratings in PB represent my experience over the past 25 years. Larry Fine has done a superb job. I have not seen any bias in any ratings.

Here once again is one way camera lenses are rated at a retail stores web site. If a "unbiased" rating method is desired someone might want to start a piano ratings site where the public, teachers, techs, salesman can all contribute.

Visit: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...mp;is=REG&si=rev#anchorToReadReviews

Steve, I think the typical consumer would be better served by having someone report on those issues who is not consulting to some of the (undisclosed) manufacturers whose products are being reviewed and who is not a dealer selling some of them.

I'm sorry but you're indicating that you don't really understand the basis of conflict of interest policies. Your multiple roles create the conflict of interest-- whether actual bias happened or not. Nobody is suggesting that you and Larry sit down and calculate your ad revenues or consulting fees and then adjust your content accordingly. Bias hardly ever is so blatant or obvious. The answer to the question of how the conflict of interest affects what is in PB is : we don't know-- and that's part of the problem. You and Larry don't know even though you may feel strongly that you do, and that is also part of the problem. People rarely think they are biased in these kinds of situations or are aware of the subtle ways this happens. That is why COI policies were developed. As AJB said, this is basic law, business and research ethics 101.

I have not “accused” you of anything – I and a number of others here have pointed out that there is indeed a conflict, that it erodes the credibility of PB, and changes the nature of the publication from the earlier versions of the Piano Book. Methods to mitigate conflicts, like having a firewall between those in charge of content and those involved in advertising, and full transparency about relationships that could influence practices, don't seem to be happening here, as far as can be seen.

As I said in a previous post, this is not life and death stuff, and I like pretty pictures of pianos as much as anyone around here. Piano Buyer has lots of fun stuff in it but I no longer consider it an objective guide to piano comparisons.

You and Larry will run your businesses as you see fit and that is of course your right. As a thoughtful consumer, I have the equal right to see Piano Buyer as less credible, objective and independent as a result.

Sophia

Can there ever be such a thing?

In fact, Piano Buyer has never pretended to be anything other than a subjective guide. You only have to read Larry Fine's own words in PB (bolds mine):

"Any such rating system is obviously not scientific but subjective, the product of my contacts with dozens of piano technicians, dealers, and other industry personnel, as well as my more than thirty years of involvement with the piano industry. My sense is that most knowledgeable people in the industry would agree in broad terms with this comparison, though many will disagree with me--and with each other--about the details.

The key to proper use of this chart is not to cling to it too tightly but to understand that, given its subjectivity and simplicity, it should be used only as a learning tool."

If you ever thought it was an objective guide you are probably in the minority.

Perhaps "noncommercial" might be a better term then than "objective".

David - you accuse others of being naiive yet you say things like this: "The presence of advertisers is a confirmation that the industry does trust that publication".

The industry (in fact any industry} places ads because it raises their profile and helps them to sell more pianos. Thats it. It has nothing to do with trust and everything to do with dollars.

Steve feeds the advertising machine because that is what he is paid to do - ramp up traffic to support the advertising dollars.

The two threads have generated much PM and email traffic. I have presented one side of the argument, Steve's cheerleaders have tried to defend him. I am not persuaded by the defence and I am well aware that many others think that Steve is blatantly conflicted an that pb is less objective than it was.

As to the point in a post above that pw belongs to Frank and he can do what he wants. Steve made this pert justification to me at one time too. To me this misses the point. Piano World is nothing without its content. For that, and its continued life, it required lively discourse and an active membership. The active members collectively are the most important feature.

The time difference does create a disconnect in these threads at times. It is early here! Counsel for each side has presented its arguments and the jury is out. The ones with something to lose are Steve and Larry. They either take criticisms on board or not. It is their business model that is having its value damaged.

Kind regards

Adrian

This is written by someone who understands the problem completely and can see the larger picture. With conflict of interest it is not the bias that is the problem. It is the “perception of bias” that the rest of the world will have. This is the “optics” that I referred to earlier.

I believe this is a fortunate thing for this to have come out here even though this is a public forum. Remember as I mentioned in an earlier thread, this forum represents.0001% of the total population on this continent.

Because we are a world community of people who share a common interest (pianos) we can share our opinions, bicker, disagree, argue, and still come to a resolution/solution to take to the rest of the world.

Better to get this all out in the open previous to going forward.

Too many decimel points.
Unique visitors in 2009 = 5,172,840

Approx. population of U.S. = 303,000,000
Approx. population of Canada = 33,500,000
Total population of the two = 336,500,000 (ok, it isn't the entire continent, but you get the idea).

5,172,840 is 1.5372481426448738% of 336,500,000

Sorry, couldn't help it.
My other job is SEO/SEM/Internet Marketing consultant much of which
is based around site analytics.

I now return you to the original topic of rating pianos (that was supposed to be the original topic, wasn't it?).

Frank

Are you trying to say that over 5 million individual human beings visited this site in 2009???

With emphasis on trying.

Not trying, fact.
Keep in mind they didn't all visit the forums.
There are over 1000 other pages to Piano World and they get a lot of traffic.

Google has 75,300 pages indexed, Yahoo has over 615,000 indexed.

I think that is exactly what he is trying to say.

Staggering, isn't it?

My mistake before coffee. Allow me to rephrase then. I meant to write the membership being 45,000 approximately and with 360 million between Canada/US/ Mexico. The percentage of the total population that is a member here is what I was referring to.

I am sure there are a lot of people who just read and are not members..........

Better?

Tell me ... Do you have anything good to say about anyone or anything?

It must be hard going through life thinking everyone is wrong but you.

Well, as I write this there are just over 300 people on this Piano forum. And normally the number on this forum rarely exceeds 400 at any given time.

I daresay of the 300+ individuals on this forum now worldwide, 200 are most likely "regulars".

Or am I wrong about this?

Back on topic:

In 38 years of this business, I have never read the PB and I am not ever going to be interested. I form my opinions of musical instruments based upon each one as an individual case. I don’t view JD Power or any of the other consumer guides mentioned previously.

However let us take a look at something by comparison.
Consumer Reports, carries NO advertising – it is funded entirely by subscriptions and donations. If a product is rated highly in their reviews, and the product manufacturer decided to advertise this fact, Consumer Reports will promptly take them to court.

One of the most highly respected consumer magazines on the planet. This one I do read.

"If a product is rated highly in their reviews, and the product manufacturer decided to advertise this fact, Consumer Reports will promptly take them to court."

Huh? They do???

Very much so. Check out my posting history over the years.

However, I also have a low tolerance for self-serving BS.
Pianoworld unfortunately suffers from a lot of BS and particularly from too many people earnestly believing their own BS.

Finally, I am not the one making wild claims about the reach of this site, I am not the one poo poo-ing genuine concerns about the appearance of conflict of interest at piano buyer, I am not the one giving special treatment to favored posters on a supposedly public forum including unilaterally deleting posts and having different rules for those who buy their way through money or consideration into special treatment, and I am not the one claiming that just because pianoworld is privately owned that it is not subject to generally accepted standards of propriety consistent with its purported public function.

Consumer's Report reports on such a wide range of products and services that it can attract enough subscribers to support the publication. This is not so for the piano industry.

If anyone feels they have a better business model than PB, they can try to convince Larry to shift to it, or try it themselves.

Someone once said that democracy was a lousy form of government, but it was the best one out there! We don't think PB's model is "lousy", but we maintain that it is the best we (or anyone) has come up with in the piano industry.

Steve Cohen wrote: "If anyone feels they have a better business model than PB, they can try to convince Larry to shift to it, or try it themselves. "


How about at the very least having full disclosure and transparency about any financial relationships you and Larry have with industry and having a firewall between advertising department and editorial (content) functions?

Sophia

Like communism, this is good in theory, but the fact that Consumer Reports, which reports on many products, is the only one to do this proves it's not good in practice for any specialized review company.

Faulting a specialized review company for not following an unattainable standard is silly, especially if we can't prove that there's anything different if they did obtain that standard.