I guess ill shut this one down now as the point has been made.
However being the grand nerd... I wont disappoint the handful of self exiled geeks that love to take any opportunity to dig by not leaving the last word.
I hope this is the last time I have to stick up for the hard work that has been put into this site to defend it against those who insist on carrying self imposed chips on their shoulders.
The Nail Geek is not about what products you use, what training you had, what colour your hair is... it is about a community of nail professionals that want to learn, teach, share, grow, and evolve new and old friendships.
Claiming that this site is biased toward a particular product range is moronic, short sighted and completely unfounded in reality. In the past when this claim was made, countless geeks all came to bat to say that they use a variety of differing systems and approaches and that it was untrue there was any bias existing on the site. Old 'chip on shoulders' love to ignore these facts, they also love to ignore that discussions generally reflect the market in general. In other words: they simply ignore any fact at all. They may as well be saying that 'The Nail Geek site address is www.buttcheese.com' (come to think of it, maybe thats where they are going which seems to explain a bit).
Of course I get rather touchy about this subject for a variety of reasons.
The biggest being that I would chalk this site up to being one of my 'life's work' kind of things. One of those things that people may remember about you long after you have shuffled off this mortal coil. That means I take a crap load of pride in what this site has done for the industry and therefore touchy when when losers take pot shots at it.
The other thing is that as Education Director for a major professional company, I could actually warp the hell out of things on this site to make it specifically benefit myself and the company I work for. Its pretty obvious to anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together that I don't do this in any way shape or form (at times to the chagrin of others).
Why? Because I don't need to twist things nor do I want to. Is it so freaking hard to believe that I do what I do (like many others here) simply because I think it helps?!? It gives me a buzz to think that I may have helped someone, somehow, somewhere in their chosen profession. Thats what giving, sharing, teaching and learning is about. That can not happen if there are ulterior motives.
There are biased sites out there. They aren't very hard to pick out. Sites that are bankrolled by companies that manufacture and/or sell products. thenailgeek.com isn't one of them as this site is bankrolled by me. Premium subscriptions help to offset some of those costs, GeekMart does too and when I can get time to finish up the advertising system (instead of writing posts like this), I hope that it will no longer have to be floated from my pocketbook.
Not everyone will find our community perfect for their needs. Those looking for a home to be biased, mean, unfriendly or unhelpful wont find much to do around here and are best pissing off. Thankfully, those negative nancy's generally do this which is unfortunate for other nail forum webmasters. To those other webmasters I offer my empathy - but ask for a little more respect regarding something that means so much to so many.
To everyone here, all I have to say is
Geek on! While to those angry, bitter few (I call them
Team NAG for you old timers out there),
Geek off!
GMG out