
Interactive DVD-ROM
The Panther Project
Addendum
by Terry Ashley
Addendum:
Since first publishing the review of this DVD back in 2007 I have been subjected to the worst example you could find of "shoot the messenger" where a producer not liking what is said about their product going to extraordinary lengths to try and discredit the reviewer (me). It is also the worst example of what I referred to in my blog entry of August 28 where a person with nothing of substance to add just resorts to insults, name calling and twists anything said to fit in with their agenda.More disturbing is this is also an example of blatant cyber bullying which has been on the increase with mobile (cell) phones and SMS. If we are not careful this type of outright bullying could become the normal when person can't accept plain simple facts (aka the truth) and resort to this behaviour. Do we really want a situation where people are simply too scared to say anything for fear of being subjected to this nasty and vindictive bullying?
No amount of insults and name calling has the slightest bearing on the contents of the review as it doesn't address any of the issuers raised with the DVD, something the producers steadfastly refuse to do.
I have added this addendum to the review so people can see for themselves what lengths some will go too while at the same time refusing outright to actually point out any errors of fact in the review itself.
First off I would encourage everyone to go and read that blog to see what can happen when a feeding frenzy gets going unchecked.
Just look at the language, the nastiness of it all, the name calling and presentation of warped “facts”. The way the simplest action is twisted into something sinister.
This is classic bully behaviour from two individuals with a history of abusing anyone who doesn't do their bidding, be it site owners or individuals and I am not the first to have all my sponsors spammed by these charming people. Added to this is a history of dishonesty in the form of posting on forums using false IDs and alias, something that has bought some prominent hobby people down in recent history, be happy to elaborate if need be.
So please go and read it, all of it if you can, especially take note of the number of anonymous “comments” added to the blog entries which have even more insults and name calling. If you read these carefully you can see most of these anonymous “comments” are actually written by the authors of the blog, not visitors, hence the anonymous tag.
A few points to consider.
- First and most important is no one has yet to point out any factual errors in my review.
- I will state categorically once again:
I wrote the review myself, no one else.
I had no knowledge to the existence of the private forum referred too in that blog before all this blew up with the posting of the review.
As a consequence I had no knowledge of any discussion that took place between the members of that forum until after the posting of my review. I was briefed not only on the forums existence but also some previous history on the two individuals from the Panther Project once the review was posted and the consequence reactions from the Panther Project duo.
I have already conveyed to Mr.Balkwell by e-mail two years ago that I didn't know of this private forum and that if I had of known of these issues previously I would not have lent the DVD to Jon, but Mr.Balkwell seems to have conveniently overlooked these facts as they don't fit in with his accusation theories.
There are reviews on PMMS by other people including Jon Bailey and these are credited to the authors of those reviews, being the appropriate thing to do.
- If I am guilty of anything it’s after the DVD was returned to me by Jon of going through this with a finer tooth comb than I may have if not been threatened by these people. But having said that I go back to what is almost to the point of nausea.
Just show me any factual errors in my review, something I have said that is not correct, anything, please and stop this raving and ranting, why won’t the producers of the DVD just do that?
- It is claimed Jon Bailey has some pathological hatred of Alasdair Johnston and because of that he influenced me in my review?
- Mr Balkwill and Jon Bailey have never met nor ever communicated in any way, so how does Mr Balkwill come to this conclusion of this supposed hatred as well as using some of the most insulting and inflammatory language towards Jon. Surely it’s not due to the influence of his friend Alasdair Johnston?
This is actually confirmed in the postings on their own blog where they admit to preconceived prejudice about Jon and others, here is the quote from their blog;
“All the way up to publishing the DVD, Alasdair told me to leave his name off of it because there were a group of people out there who would make every attempt to cause trouble for it, due their history with himself. And you know what Terry? - he named them.”
And again with this;
“After the massive public row on M-L, after he and his friends formed a private forum with the express intent of keeping Alasdair out, after at least 3 attempts since 2002 to slander Alasdair via private email to forum moderators (yes Terry they all immediately informed me), after their own written statements about their feelings about Alasdair”
This is the reason for this tirade and the reason they have twisted comments made in various e-mails to arrive at the most sinister outcome possible to fit in with these preconceived prejudices. Please check this on their blog to ensure I have not quoted out of context, providing they haven’t changed it already?
For those interested in this ‘massive public row on M-L’, here is a link to a posting on ML from 2002 by Jon Bailey to Alasdair Johnston who not for the first time was caught out posting under an alias.
- They also now claim the Jon authored the review, not me. Well this is new and not in the original tirade. The story keeps changing, but after claiming this we see this entry in their blog.
“Posted by Brian Balkwill on Friday, 16 October 2009
Me banned from forums? Nope - thats a lie - Never have been banned from a forum”
This relates to comment I made on Armorama on 16 October about Alasdair Johnston, not Brian Balkwill being banned from various forums.
Surely this blog entry wasn’t written by Alasdair and posted by Brian, hence the first person phrasing especially after accusing me of doing the exact same thing with the review, surely not?
But I will address some of the other issues raised in the various Panther Project blogs to hopefully put peoples minds at rest regarding these.
- Mr Balkwill goes on and on about giving the DVD to someone without permission. What is he taking about "permission"? Since when does any reviewer receiving a review item have to get permission to do anything with it? This is just an example of trying to make something sinister out of something that isn’t.
Contrary to some comments when a review item sent arrives on my doorstep it becomes my property, otherwise I'd have to return every review item ever received, wouldn't I and every reviewer for that matter.
- Also isn’t that what just about every review site does, receive review items and send them on to someone else. Everyone does it, Modelarmour.com, Armorama, Hyperscale, Track Link, everyone. Do all those people get the permission of the supplier to forward these review samples on? I think not.
- And to the other question "how many other review items do I show people" (or similar, can’t remember the exact wording)
Well the answer is "hundreds". Is Mr Balkwill actually asserting that as I get a lot of stuff hot of the press and meet with modelling friends or someone comes around my house that I’m not going to show them the latest and greatest? Of course I’m going to show it to them, this is another example of trying to make something sinister from normal events.
- He claims there was some conspiracy going on, yet I voluntarily advised Mr Balkwill I had lent the DVD to Jon Bailey because he’d asked to see it and I was busy on another review at the time.
Why would I volunteer this information if there was some conspiracy, isn’t a conspiracy supposed to be secret?
Yet again he twists this voluntary admission on my part as some sort of self incrimination, to what?
- This twisting of things to arrive at their preconceived prejudice is also evident in the so called "evidence" used with the claim that I didn't author the review. These people have basically played a game of scrabble by taking a bit of this e-mail, a bit of that e-mail, maybe part of a forum comment and merged all these to come up with some "evidence" to support their preconceived prejudice.
- Mr Balkwill also claims I said I was "working on the review" at the same time Jon still had the DVD and this may well be true.
But on many occasions people say if asked by their boss for example if they have done something and will say "I'm working on it", meaning not right now but will get onto it just so they don't have elaborate further, it's something nearly everyone has done at some point in their lives. But this comment by me has been taken literally to the minute by Mr Balkwill who seems to think any timeline mentioned is set in stone and can't possible change for any reason, hence the fabrication of some timeline graph again to support their preconceived prejudice.
- Jon may very well have thought he was going to write a review when I lent him the DVD but I fact this was returned to me and I wrote the review as published and as I have stated repeatedly, but apparently the "evidence" gained from this game of scrabble says different according these people on the other side of the planet from me.
- Mr Balkwill also makes something sinister out of me contacting Wings & Wheels regarding the inappropriate use of their images. Well there is no bibliography or any accreditation at all on the DVD to the source of any of the material used on the DVD, so what was I supposed to do to verify the image use. I contacted the publisher direct so that I would not make any unfounded accusations in the review. Seriously how unprofessional can you get not to include a bibliography in any published work using other source material.
And why did I check this? Nothing to do with any conspiracy, it was because it had been mentioned to me previously there was some concern regarding the unauthorised use of images from W&W books (not referring to this DVD). And as there was no bibliography on the DVD, it checked directly, simple as that.
It is interesting that despite assurances to the contrary, there has been nothing on any of these blogs advising anyone that Mr Balkwill had to make restitution to Wings & Wheels for the unauthorised use of the images. We see this often when someone is caught out; they try to attack the “whistleblower” instead of taking responsibility for their own actions.
Had this DVD had a normal bibliography or any accreditation at all there would have been no need to contact anyone, it would have been there for all to see.
- Let’s step back in time a little to 27 April 2007 and an e-mail I received from Brian Balkwill.
“Hi Terry
I have a DVD in print which should be out in about 10 days. I am looking for reviewers who will look deeper than the price tag. You can get an idea here www.thepantherproject.com - would you be interested?
Regards
Brian”
Isn’t that exactly what I did? Looked deeper than the price tag and they didn’t like what I found?
- Also of interest is he said in this e-mail the DVD “should be out in about 10 days” but it wasn’t published till later. Yet he claims when I said in an e-mail "I was working on the review" but in fact I wasn’t posted for quite a few weeks due to various holdups I was branded “a liar”. Are we seeing a pattern here with the demonization of things that can happen all the time to everyone?
- It was only after I volunteered the info of lending the DVD to Jon did Mr Balkwill arc up and threaten me with blackmail (“warned what would happen”, as he puts it) if I posted the very review he had asked me to do in some depth.
This would again indicate a preconceived prejudice towards Jon by these parties more so than the other way around as being alleged. (see point 4 above)
Further indications of the sheer depth of the vindictiveness and hate within this person can be gleamed from his own words:
In his blog he states in response to a question if my review effected the sales of the DVD? His reply "I don't know"
Again in another blog entry he says "I have not had a single complaint on the content of this product from any customer"
So if my review didn't have any noticeable effect on sales and no one has complained, then just what is all this outpouring of vindictive bitter hate all about? You really have to feel sorry for someone in such a dark place.
- They claim this latest “Flame” blog is due to me updating the DVD review on September 7 2009, here is the reason I updated the review.
For a few weeks in August 2009 Mr.Vinnie Brannigan took it upon himself to add on his forum signature a link labelled “Dishonesty” which led to the Panther DVD site and the original tirade against me from two years ago.
This link was seen by quite a few people, some quite notable in the hobby, should anyone wish to deny this.
I thought, seeing as he wishes to label me dishonest on his own site with this link I best update the review with events that had, or in some cases not happened over the preceding two years so people get the full story.
Again Mr Balkwill tries to make out its some sinister act on my part when in fact he should direct the question to Mr.Vinnie Brannigan?
- I have no intension of debating this further with these people as there is no point. I have learnt from experience you can’t argue with drunks, fools or the mentally challenged.
They will just continue to twist any comment to suit their demonstrated preconceived prejudices while adding the most nasty and childish comment, so why bother. People who want to believe that rubbish will do so irrispective of what I say as there are those who will believe anything that fits in with their own prejudices.
Return to the Panther Project DVD review