Mike,

By same token...if you read all 600+ reviews I am sure you cannot say that every single review here glows throughout. Many point out lots of negatives and some are fairly brutal of the likes you would never see in any print magazine. When you get 600+ articles running the gamut of products and variety of writers you are going to slide through many ends of the scale. Some may be brutal, some may be average in their assessment and others might be glowing and be deserved of it or some may not deserve it. Alot depends on the writers and the product.

For those who write for rcu (and this can be ANYBODY who can write, take good digital pics and do video...there is no secret club here...I urge anyone to submit reviews to us...the more the better...we want members to participate) they can tell you that my instructions are to tell it like it is. If there is a problem they can and should point it out. If the issue is serious we contact the mfg and give them a chance to address it (i.e. was this a one off defect, is there a solution, tech bulletin, etc). We note this in our reviews when applicable.

Ultimately I believe you have to have transparency on these reviews or they lose value to the members and readers here. If a few of these appear to fall short of that from your perspective (or anyone's) I apologize but can say that it isn't by my editorial pen. Another thing I insist on is video for products that can be "shown" performing. Seeing is believing and you cannot fake a video. A magazine could tell you anything about the performance of a plane/heli/car/boat/truck but on RCU we show you what it did and you draw your own conclusions about performance if you want to disregard all the writers interpretations. Again I understand this only applies to certain products and perhaps not some noted here.

I appreciate your comments, feedback and criticism and I am glad we can all discuss these sorts of things in such a mature fashion with an eye towards constant improvement of the content we publish here.

Marc