Since everything is made by just anybody, especially in the Third World, and then labelled by various supposedly respectable brand or bigshot names (which names have been bought by faceless multinational corporations owned by Saudis and Japanese trillionaires), how do we know if we buy Goodyear tires, for instance, which I just did, that they are any better than Firestone, and there will be another big so-called “scandal” that will die down and leave the same rich trillionaires still laughing all the way to the bank
in one of their thousands of limousines, while we peasants
(aka Mr. Bills) barrel down the highways in our flimsy goods, made by poverty-stricken laborers?
We don’t.
Think about this: We take a vehicle, which costs tens of thousands of dollars and could weight upwards of a ton and a half, and park it on a set of ABLATIVE TIRES, each of which grips the road with a surface area slightly larger than the palm of your hand, and drive it down the freeway at 60 miles an hour.
Have a nice commute.
My answer?..
“We, as consumers, don’t know.”
The best that we can hope for is that the company’s history, our gut instinct, our research, the advice from our mechanic, etc. is all sound.
And how do we know when we are posting in the wrong forum?
Capitalism, my friend. Simple capitalism.
These guys that put their names on the tires you buy, since they are greedy, would love for you to buy another set of those tires; it’s in their best interests to satisfy you as a consumer. So, the guys putting their name on those tires should have in place a system to ensure you receive satisfaction for your purchase. Quality controls, advertising & marketing and service and sales are all part of this formula. Satisfaction would, I suppose, include making as certain as possible those tires don’t explode. That would tend to make a consumer a bit miffed.
This system in turn should flow down hill to the greedy manufacturers as they must compete to sell their tires to somebody by convincing that somebody their product is worthy of their good name.
The next step down the hill takes us to the labor level. The individual worker, since he’s also greedy, needs an income. So, it’s in his best interest to produce as good a product as possible, so his employer is better able to sell that product.
At least that’s the theory. And even this only gives you what should be a range of good selection. So …
How do you know the set you bought is better than, say, Michelin’s. Quantitatively, you can’t, until after you’ve purchased and used them. Then you might have a rough guideline to base “betterness” on, such as wear, gas mileage, and other measurable parameters. Qualitatively, well, you can’t know that either, since ultimately it’s a subjective, rather than objective measure. If you can define and measure quality, there’s a whole buncha industrialists and marketing guys that’ll beat a path to your door and throw scads of money at you.
Now, I expect you didn’t really wish to place this topic in ATMB. Why don’t you pop me an e-mail at rseaney@teamsigma.com and I’ll move it to the correct forum. I suspect this is probably best suited for Great Debates.
[Edited by UncleBeer on 06-11-2001 at 12:38 PM]
I was wrong when I used solid capital letters in my subjects, then I stopped that and I just got notice that somebody didn’t even like the capitals on the first words of my subjects. I never post in the right forum most of the time, it should all be in Great Debates. Someone complained that one of my questions sounded drugged. Many must make some remark or other, about 78% condescendingly kindly and the rest sarcastic or even brutal. So my next question which I will put under New Threads is When Will People Stop Being So Censorious I Mean in Life in General–or Why Must I Live in Such a Judgmental Society - or Why Is Almost Everything Everyone Thinks and Says not Just in this Forum but in Daily Life Some Kind of Judgment or Evaluation - or Does Anybody Know of Anything to Say in Response to a New Experience Other Than to Judge it? Or Why All the Whining All Day Long? signed, Mr. Ever Incorrect to the tune of the Pet Shop Boys’ IT’S A SIN song: “Everything I ever wanted to do, they said, ‘It’s a sin’…” I feel we live in a prison society of constant mutually censorious surveillance.
signed Mr. Paranoid
All right. Lemme see if I can explain this.
First, I’ll address these comments:
Whatever any individual says, these are more a matter of style, general “netiquette”, or even personal personal preference, rather than a concrete right or wrong. As such, anyone giving you too much crap about capitals, seriously needs to lighten up. While I prefer to see capitals used in the same fashion as conventional writing, that’s all it is, a personal preference. Don’t worry 'bout it.
Next, let us discuss the issues of forums. The Straight Dope Message Board has several forums available for posting. Below you’ll find each of them listed with a brief description of the types of topics appropriate for each. These are flexible guidelines to allow for a bit of subject cross-over and enforced mainly by moderator/administrator preference. You’ll note though that while the topics appropriate to each forum are a bit flexible, there are specific types we target to each forum.
[list=1]
[li] About This Message Board[/li]This forum is designated for technical questions about how we operate this board. (By “this board,” I mean the entire group, or set, of forums). Much like what I’m trying to do with this post; instruct posters on how the staff determines which forum is appropriate for any type of post. It is also designated as the place for test and practice posts.
[li] Comments on Cecil’s Columns[/li]This should be self-explanatory. If you would like to post something concerning one of Cecil Adams’ newspaper columns, that would be the proper place for it. Whether you are seeking additional information, have an objection to an article, or have more data you’d like to make available to the community, all of it would go there.
[li] Comments on Staff Reports[/li]Again, this should be self-explanatory. The same guidelines apply there as for the Comments on Cecil’s Columns, except this forum is reserved for topics concerning the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board writings.
[li] General Question[/li]This forum is reserved for questions of fact from the members of this community. Anything placed in here should have a concrete answer, or be reasonably provable. The questions we encourage here are of the same type Cecil himself would propose to undertake.
[li] Great Debates[/li]This forum is a bit more grey, but the summary on the message board home page is a pretty good guideline. It says, for long-running discussions of the great questions of our time. This is also the place for religious debates and (if you feel you must) witnessing. These are typically not questions that can be answered factually. Here we debate truth.
[li]In My Humble Opinion[/li]This forum is intended to be the place for “not so great debates.” Discussion of best automobiles, large vs. small breasts, and crunchy vs. smooth peanut butter are typical topics appropriate to IMHO. It is also the place for simple polling of the members.
[li]MPSIMS[/li]Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share. This forum is for, well, general inanity, jokes, games, and whatnot. It’s the forum for stuff that doesn’t fit any of the others.
[li]The BBQ Pit[/li]Flames. If you wish to take exception to another poster’s remarks and do so heatedly, this is where you will go to do that. That is called flaming. In theory, since flames are unavoidable, this forum helps up keep all the others free from such types of comments. It is also the place to go if you have a general rant against your local businesses, or governments.
[/list=1]
I need to address this comment, too:
which I see you’ve already posted in ATMB. What this leads me to believe it that you do not fully understand where a thread is placed when starting a new topic. Let me see if I can help with that. You will see, just above the "new topic button, the name of the forum you are currently in, in this case, of course, it says “About This Message Board.” That is the forum your new thread will be placed in. As stated above, ATMB is not the correct forum for a post of that type. It seems like a mild rant to me. I’m going to move it to the BBQ Pit, our assigned forum for ranting. If I thought it were a simple proposition with no acrimonious backlight to it, the proper forum for it would probably be Great Debates. However, since I’m aware of the root causes of that post, it belongs in the Pit. If you wish to debate that topic, feel free to re-post it in GD, keeping in mind, vitriol is very much frowned upon in there. Rational, enlightened and civil exchanges are sought for that forum.
Finally, this thread is quite polluted with side issues, now that I’ve hopefully explained the operation of out little board here. As I suggested in my previous post, your original topic probably should have been posted in the Great Debates forum. Again, if you’d like to discuss this topic, please repost it there. If you choose to, I’ll get the on-topic posts to your new thread somehow.
I hope this helps clear up our guidelines for you. Should you desire additional information or clarifications, please e-mail me at rseaney@teamsigma.com, or post in this thread. I’m going to leave it here and open for the time being.
Here’s me planning to steal that phrase: 
just a test
[list] one item
two items
three items [/list}
Redboss
oh dear
[ul]one item
two items
third item [/ul]if I don’t leave a space how does it look?
I would just like to say that this thread in this forum is kinda surreal. That may be because I’ve only had about four hours of sleep in the last two days.
But maybe if “tires” is a metaphor for bandwidth, “scandal” means slow response times, “rich trillionaires” is a code for the *Reader,*and “peasants (aka Mr. Bills)” represents us nobody average posters, it might all make sense.
Yes, it IS surreal. But y’all DO get to ATMB territory so I’m sorta hesitant to move it now.
This is one of those situations where a mod has trouble signing in to the board for a few days in a row and stuff just plain goes to hell. 
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Your problem the first time was the } (curly bracket) instead of ] (square bracket) at the end of “[/list}”, not the space.