Stop Deleting Topics Because You Don’t Agree (Garmin Employees)

I don’t know if this was done by Nate or Heath but deleting a topic because you didn’t like what was said about your Garmin Descent is immature and childish. 

Garmin should be motivated to not only improve their products but also improve the relationship that they have with customers that spend $1000’s of dollars with them, specifically the Mk1 which has a base price of $1k. 

You didn’t like someone complimenting another manufacturer for their quality, problem resolution and customer service? Maybe that topic was made in hope that Garmin would one day be like that.

Maybe look yourselves in the mirror before you take it out on your customers...

Delete that...

  • How many guesses do I get which thread.............

  • Well that will not help my recommendation when a student asks me about the Descent. My concerns were always about the slow pace of updates, and poor support for the Descent. Deleting criticism that is accurate and proven is very immature, and will not improve my reviews of the Descent.

  • Everyone, I wanted to step in here and clear up any confusion. Garmin and Garmin Moderators are happy to take productive feedback, but when things are posted that are not productive, offensive, has priority information or none product-related information then yes, those post will be removed from the forums.

    The forums are here to allow users to share and talk about the Garmin products they love and use. When there are none product-related issues like users getting into personal fights or just wanting to say that it is not fair that their post was removed due to the issues stated above, then that is just more time that we must take away from working on getting issues fixed.

    I understand being passionate about the Garmin product that you love. I am the same way about the products and even the forums that all of you use. That is why I am here, working with all of you to get your comments to the people that they need to go too. That is also why my door is always open for any of you to message me directly so that you can express your views or issues to me directly.

    So, help me, help you, let's keep the focus going. Let’s keep this environment professional and productive. If you want to vent, yell, ask for suggestions on how to get some focus on something, or just talk about your day, then just message me directly and I would be happy to talk to you. This will not only help me help you, but it will also help when others from Garmin look at the forums and they see how productive and useful the feedback from the forums is. A post like this just hurt our cause to make the products better and for us to grow the influence of the forums on future product development.

    So if any of you have any comments about this, positive or negative, please message me personally so that we can talk about it and lets let the forums get back to what it should be doing, which is helping new users learn the device, find issues for people like me to report, and to talk about new features that would be useful for us to add to feature product development.

  • Heath,

    I now know why it was deleted as I was messaged by the person who did it (even though one post could have been deleted, not the entire thread). That said, I believe the spirit of the deleted topic was to show Garmin (main decision makers) how other dives companies operate and resolve issues. Unlike most others threads, the Mk1 forum usually remains quite civil and while the criticism is warranted, it never gets out of hand here.

    In my 20’s, I played a lot of online games and was a moderator for several sites/forums with a community much BIGGER than the one here (with a lot of stupid kids posting). Unless there was a completely obscene topic or post, if I had to close it, I would make one last post explaining the reasoning and then close it, so people understood why and hard feelings weren’t held in only to come out at a later time. That doesn’t happen here at the Garmin forums and it should.

  • Noted, and do we all have room to grow? I know I need too personally, and a few of you have even told me where I need to grow too over the years here. Grinning

    Plus your point of view has been taken, and we have personally talked about it here too, but next time, message us directly so we do not clutter up the forums with none product-related threads. That way, if a new user, active user, or just a random Garmin Engineer decides to come to the forums to see what we are talking about here in the forums, they don't see forum drama that isn't related to the product.

    Going into the future, let's remember what the end goal is, to make a product that we love even better then it is now and enjoy this great community of fellow users that shares the same passion and love for a device as you do. In my vision, I want the forums to be a useful and professional place where we help new users with their questions, report issues in ways that we can reproduce them here at Garmin so we can fix them and share our thoughts on what would be good things for us to look into adding or making in the future.

    So if I am sitting in a meeting, the forums come up, I can say 'let's take a look at the forums together' and I can show them how useful the forums are to find, reproduce, and fix issues. Plus this would allow me to show all the threads about new suggestions for features or products. Also, how many of you are here and sharing your passion with new users when they ask questions and you answer them.  We already do this, but I honestly can not due that now with subjects like this.

    So if you want to express your views about things like this, message one of us directly, and let's keep the focus here in the forums and show the world how great this community really is!

  • We were trying to show Garmin how a great company supports its products. Shearwater has a minor issue on their dive computer and they have a software update out in a week that is fully tested and works. By contrast, it took Garmin almost 18 months to get the compass to point in the right direction. The goal was not to bash anyone at Garmin, I know the Tech Support team is not making development decisions and assigning resources. We were trying to express our frustrations at the glacial pace of development, the complete lack of communications from Garmin as to what will be fixed and when it will be fixed, what I can only describe as poor testing (tested software updates should not cause new issues), and to show what level of support will give a manufacturer loyal customer support.

    There are forum members that are dive instructors, and dive shop owners, who Garmin is alienating. These are the people that will help drive sales of the Descent, instead a lot of us are recommending other manufacturers products due to the issues with the Descent and lack of transparency from Garmin on the plan for addressing the issues. With the latest software update, the Descent is working reasonably well, but it took 18 months from the product release to get there. Garmin had a chance to gain a solid foothold in the dive industry, but keeps fumbling the ball. As I said in the the deleted thread, Garmin either needs to be all in on a dive computer, or all out, the half in approach is not working. 

  • Wow! JUST WOW!

    If these forums were actually productive you might have a case but generally they are not.  Not even nearly.

    The vast majority of questions asked here are answered by users.  Some are not even answered at all.  On the rare occasion a staff member answers a question is is usually days later.

    Don't worry, even if you delete our posts, users coming here will see how little activity there is and how unproductive it is.

  • Here is a perfect example of what I'm talking about:

    https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/descent-mk1/171067/still-no-update-to-v-8-0

    A Garmin Staff member should have been on this immediately but a month later still nothing.

    You clearly do not understand!

  • Spot on.  This site is run, managed and owned by Garmin.  They DO have a responsibility, technically, legally and morally.

    Can you imagine if a rival, global, smart-watch manufacturer, say, Apple, behaved in the same way?

    Time to grow up Garmin and get in the game if you want to stay there and be a player.

  • Can you imagine if a rival, global, smart-watch manufacturer, say, Apple, behaved in the same way?

    Actually, Apple do.  Spend some time in the Apple fora and see how many long term problems go unsolved!  I have a bunch of problems with Apple products that are frequently discussed but never solved.