Responding to Stephen Brown's 'suggestions' video

[lpbh25]

One of the things that I encounter when looking at online stores for fountain pens is that so many of the companies that supply stuff are based in the US. What about doing a feature on companies based in Europe or the UK. There are some great stores, such as Cult Pens and Tiger Pens in the UK; there must be others as well. What about covering UK or European pen stores?

Also, more features on lettering and calligraphy would be good.

[KrazyIvan]

Why not send him the message directly through YouTube?

[ilangai]

Why not send him the message directly through YouTube?

I can't talk about Ipbh25's reasons, but some (like me) don't have a YouTube (Google) account.

[KrazyIvan]

That makes sense. Had not thought of that. You can also send him a PM here.

[snedwos]

Maybe this is just me being outrageously touchy, but I do think there is a slight tendency to forget that FPGeeks doesn't have an exclusively American audience.

To anyone outside the US, "Made in the USA" isn't a particular perk, and we never see "Made in Germany" or some such listed in the Pros column.

The reason it bothers me is that always listing "Made in the USA" as a Pro, and never listing "Made in Whereverland", feels to me a bit like implicitly adding "Not made in the USA" to the cons column of every other pen.

It of course makes absolute sense for Americans to want to support American businesses, just as I like to support Spanish and British businesses (God knows they need it). I just think that FPGeeks should try to eliminate all forms of bias from their reviews, including national bias. The country a pen is made in should be made prominent in the reviews so that readers can decide for themselves whether or not that is a good thing.

The pros and cons should be limited to what the pen is like as a pen. Country of origin is a secondary concern when evaluating it.

Overly sensitive nationalist rant over.

[tandaina]

Maybe this is just me being outrageously touchy, but I do think there is a slight tendency to forget that FPGeeks doesn't have an exclusively American audience.

To anyone outside the US, "Made in the USA" isn't a particular perk, and we never see "Made in Germany" or some such listed in the Pros column.

Nope you are right! I'm the abberation: an American who collect vintage German piston fillers... So "Made in Germany" gets my ears all perked up.

[woosang]

Maybe this is just me being outrageously touchy, but I do think there is a slight tendency to forget that FPGeeks doesn't have an exclusively American audience.

To anyone outside the US, "Made in the USA" isn't a particular perk, and we never see "Made in Germany" or some such listed in the Pros column.

The reason it bothers me is that always listing "Made in the USA" as a Pro, and never listing "Made in Whereverland", feels to me a bit like implicitly adding "Not made in the USA" to the cons column of every other pen.

It of course makes absolute sense for Americans to want to support American businesses, just as I like to support Spanish and British businesses (God knows they need it). I just think that FPGeeks should try to eliminate all forms of bias from their reviews, including national bias. The country a pen is made in should be made prominent in the reviews so that readers can decide for themselves whether or not that is a good thing.

The pros and cons should be limited to what the pen is like as a pen. Country of origin is a secondary concern when evaluating it.

Overly sensitive nationalist rant over.

Lol I'm with you. It means nothing to me that it's made in the USA or anywhere really.. :-)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[thagbert]

Maybe this is just me being outrageously touchy, but I do think there is a slight tendency to forget that FPGeeks doesn't have an exclusively American audience.

To anyone outside the US, "Made in the USA" isn't a particular perk, and we never see "Made in Germany" or some such listed in the Pros column.

The reason it bothers me is that always listing "Made in the USA" as a Pro, and never listing "Made in Whereverland", feels to me a bit like implicitly adding "Not made in the USA" to the cons column of every other pen.

It of course makes absolute sense for Americans to want to support American businesses, just as I like to support Spanish and British businesses (God knows they need it). I just think that FPGeeks should try to eliminate all forms of bias from their reviews, including national bias. The country a pen is made in should be made prominent in the reviews so that readers can decide for themselves whether or not that is a good thing.

The pros and cons should be limited to what the pen is like as a pen. Country of origin is a secondary concern when evaluating it.

Overly sensitive nationalist rant over.

You're right, American are sensitive about Made in the USA. The reason for this is that this country was built on manufacturing innovation in the twentieth century. We led the world in manufacturing for most of that century. In the last two decades we have been eclipsed in manufacturing by countries in the east. It would probably be safe to say that over 95% percent of consumer goods that were once manufactured in the US are now made in other countries. We have seen the export of jobs and income to these countries. There used to be a comfortable middle class that worked in those factories. Those jobs vanished in a very short period of time. I have witnessed this in my own community. The economic effects are far reaching and can have a domino effect.

Now we are a country of consumers and don't actually make much of anything. So if something is made in the USA, we take pride in that because not much of anything else is.

[snedwos]

I wasn't criticising the sentiment, in fact I admire it. It's true about just about everywhere in the "Developed World". But, when evaluating a pen to provide information to an international audience, it's not particularly fair to grade a pen on its origin.