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I agree, Dan. Thankfully, most of our staff and members do a pretty good job of giving detailed information rather than bashing the other brand. But, like you said, there is a small percentage who will never “get it”.
I want to clarify my statement. For some reason I’ve rubbed a few people wrong and I don’t think my statement is being received accurately.
What I’m saying is that I think the IDA staff does a good job of answering questions and providing information as objectively as possible. Most of them do a great job and are very professional. But there is always room for improvement.
We also have members who are pro staffers for various companies who offer information here. Most of them also do a good job and provide quality information. However, the are also people who post in way that its obvious that their goal is not to help our members. Rather, it’s clear that they are here to promote their product, their sponsor, and sometimes their own place of business regardless of whether or not the information they’re offering is accurate or helpful to the consumer. These are the folks I’m reffering to when I say the don’t “get it”. The don’t get that they are transparent. The don’t get that the viewing public is not stupid or clueless. And those who my be staffers for these companies, or would like to be, don’t get that these companies don’t want that kind of over-the-top promoting anyway. It does them no good, and may in fact cause them some harm.
Tuck, Scott, and others have offered some excellent comments on how this works in the industry. As Pro Staff directors, they are continuously trying to ensure that we have a staff of highly professional and qualified anglers here at IDA. They do a great job, and overall, our IDA staff does an excellent job as well. They do a lot more good than harm. And I can honestly say to our members that many of our IDA staff do this for little or nothing in return. They tend to be guys who enjoy helping others. They also tend to be guys who end up as a staffer for a product that they already used because they believed in the product or the company and it earned their praise and approval in the first place. Believe me, these guys are fishermen before they are salesmen and if the product doesn’t work for them on the water or the ice, you won’t find them using it. It’s also a lot easier to promote a product when you believe in it, and it really works! 
Again, this applies to nearly all sponsored anglers. But there is that very small group that Dan is referring to in the original post. My advice to Dan and others is to simply ignore it. Be a critical thinker. Do your homework. Don’t take any one person’s word as gospel. Gather data from multiple sources before you spend your hard-earned cash.
But let’s also keep in mind that most of our staff, and most pro staffers in the industry do a damn good job of keeping us all informed and up-to-date on new products and fishing related information. Without our staff and our sponsors, there would be no IDA as it is today. While some of them might deserve a kick in the 
once in a while, most of them deserve a great big thank you from all of us for doing what they do!
