I don't see a problem with any of those posts. It's a learning process and everybody learns differently.

Well, don't take these things too seriously, people are just expressing themselves in their own unique ways, and there are generally others who are also interested in the topic, either that or it dies for lack of interest. Do beware of the fact that your far-far-in-the-future-filter may very well also filter out posts that complain about other peoples' posts, LOL.

" Do beware of the fact that your far-far-in-the-future-filter may very well also filter out posts that complain about other peoples' posts, LOL."

Agreed, and it seems to me that fretting over what someone else posts is sillier than fretting over rust in a new sink or imploding glass.

Oh, did Mari_joan's oven glass not break? That's would be great if actually turned out to be a stray wine glass that fell off the counter and she mistook the glass for an oven issue..... but I didn't see that update. She said there was glass on the floor, from the oven door. I didn't realize that was normal. I guess normal is different depending on your life experiences. Funny, I don't see any mention of this norm on the Kelly Ripa commercial.

Should Mari_joan just accept this problem and run out and buy a new oven? Heck no. The MANUFACTURER needs to address it. And if they don't, I hope Mari_Joan lets us all know.

Not to beat up on you, dilly_ny, but you just proved david right.

1. You say it's not normal for tempered glass to shatter that way. It is. This is a fact, not subject to opinion or popular vote. It occurs a certain percentage of the time, always has, and always will until somebody invents better processes.

2. You say the manufacturer needs to address it. In fact, if it is out of warranty they do not. It is not a defect for a material to behave in ways that it is known to behave. The manufacturer did not invent tempered glass. MJ would have to show some additional, unusual defect, which has not been shown. She will indeed have to purchase and install a new door/window/whatever is necessary herself.

Now, this is just a discussion exercise. But this does indeed happen when people raise problems. Commenters who do not know the facts about a material, industry standard tolerance, the law, or whatever, reply with what they "feel" to be true. Why? What value does this add? It certainly confuses the poster and can cause them to lose sympathy from a contractor, vendor or manufacturer that really owes them nothing but might help out if they're nice about it. So why do people do this?

empathy is best when moderated.

Empathy is useless if it gushes spontaneous agreement that reinforces the wrong stuff.
It could be counterproductive too.
When someone posts about something, it may be best to less indulgent.
No matter how bad it seems initially.

Of course, let us agree that we all have other things to worry about and to take care of. Bye for now, while I go do other things.

A far-far-in-the-future-filter could perform an interesting function:
holding initial responses until it receives a balanced mix, and then posting them.

There is a forum I like that has the meta communication on a separate forum.
Meta means the about ourselves talk.

@#$%! I didn't know it is normal for tempered glass to implode. People react immediately to imploding glass, etc. because they lack knowledge about these materials. We can't be experts in everything and the number of products available is too overwhelming for us to accomplish this.
Pyrex dishes now shatter, the older ones do not. Would I expect this if I hadn't read about it ? No. I might post to Home Disasters Forum with a post of : HELP, Sunday Scalloped Supper Shattered !!!! I get upset when things leak, shatter or catch on fire...I'm not alone in this :)
davidro1 & marcolo-I do see your points about jumping to conclusions about the manufacturer's responsibility.

Well...if it were not for threads like those, I wouldn't know that it is now considered normal for ovenware - and (expensive) ovens themselves - to shatter with normal use. What is wrong with us that we now accept such performance as meeting the 'normal' standard?

Normal means conforming to a standard; usual, typical or expected. If exploding glass oven doors are usual, typical or expected, appliance makers wouldn't be using it. It may not be unheard of for tempered glass to shatter, but it certainly isn't typical or usual and isn't something that all homeowners would expect to encounter.

And, my goodness, what in heavens' name is the fuss about someone posting about it in dismay and others responding with sympathy and the quite "normal"...and I use the word advisedly...reaction that it must be a defect which manufacturers should be responsible for during the warranty period. The information from more knowledgeable members that tempered glass can occasionally shatter helps all of us learn, but it's hardly the only reaction that's valid.

Have members here become so high-falutin' that only high-minded design threads are welcome and more prosaic concerns aren't tolerated?

the word normal technically does not mean common or frequent.

It may be a red herring.
It's not normal in the average sense of normal to most people.
Disregard that term.

Focus on the core concept: people posting to emote to empathize and to support, immediately, instead of waiting until they see first what others might have to offer.

I liken these posts/threads/comments to a dinner conversation with friends. I try to remain polite and pleasant and also recognize that we have different strengths and weaknesses in our base knowledge and we all have different degrees of hand-holding required. Sometimes we're looking for answers or knowledge or advice and sometime we just need to vent.

The oven shattered door is a perfect example. The poster knew nothing about the fact that this is now considered "normal" for this to happen (I'd love to know what the industry standard for acceptance in this occurring is) and so was incredulous that this should have occurred. At the dinner conversation I would have commiserated with her and said (being in a past life an insurance underwriter) "Good thing your grand-children weren't there because that is a real liability issue", meanwhile my engineer friend would have said "Tempered glass is known to explode. It doesn't happen very often but it does happen" and my accountant friend would have said (because she's very anal about this stuff) "Are you out of the warranty? And even if you are you should still let them know because maybe there has been a recall notice on the doors".

And perhaps if it had been another incident the poster wouldn't be here (Maybe a crack in her granite) because she may have known, from reading other posts about this very issue, what to do. Knowledge is gained in a variety of ways and the post about the oven-door shattering may prevent someone else from posting and getting all those "horrible" empathetic remarks.

You can't stop people from empathizing and heaven help us if that ever does happen - even on something like a kitchen forum.

Wow, house obsessed, that was unnecessarily snotty.

blfenton, what does empathy have to do with giving bad advice? This isn't a dinner party. If you want an analogy, it's more like a phone call from a friend or neighbor who just had a problem and wants to know what to do. In those circumstances, do you normally just make things up when you don't know anything about them, and present them as knowledgeable? "Oh dear, your deep fryer caught fire? Throw water on it, quick!" Probably not.

Empathy means empathizing. That is all. (I think people really mean sympathizing, but whatever.) So it's fine to say, "Oh dear, how upsetting! I'm glad no one was hurt! I hope someone here can help you!" That is a very good and normal thing to do.

It is not good to tell people things that are flat-out wrong--especially when you have absolutely no reason to believe that you know anything about the matter. I'm not even talking about situations where we think we know something, due to an article we read, or a problem we think was similar but really wasn't. I'm talking about people who respond irrationally in order to appear helpful. They're not helpful. At minimum, they just upset the OP more by telling them they've been wronged when they haven't. At worst, they can lead the OP to take the wrong step.

I am really finding it hard to believe that people are actually defending giving bad, inflammatory advice based on nothing as a good thing.

Marcolo: The OP, and perhaps I misinterpreted the comments, was talking about posts that are about being too supportive, being too empathetic, (his term) or too sympathetic (your term) and not about giving bad or incorrect advice. That is what I was responding to in my comments.

The OP's second comment was also about the over-indulgence of empathetic/sympathetic comments and continues on by referring to a "meta communication" forum not a technical forum.

I think we are talking at cross-purposes here - common at dinner parties. A phone conversation is between two people and these threads are seldom limited to that, unless we're back in the 50's and talking about party lines?

I'm only responding to the comments about empathetic indulgent comments not about poor technical advice.

Was it? Hmmm...guess I was reacting to what I took to be an unnecessarily snotty OP.

blfenton, I speak davidro1 fluently LOL.

He wasn't talking about being supportive--"You can be supportive too."

He was talking about piling on with wrong advice, and specifically with wrong advice that got people all worked up for no reason.

I think! ;)

davidro, those posts sound horrible. I can't believe it happened on this forum. You should email the moderator right away. I can't believe they haven't got a filter that blocks that sort of thing. If they don't support you in this, let us know and we will immediately boycott the forum ;-)

I personally don't think you can rule out a defect simply by saying that some percentage of tempered glass shatters as a matter of course. Tempered glass shatters, among other things, because of nickle sulfide inclusions. While these inclusions can't be eliminated entirely, they can be reduced through controls and inspections. There have been instances where glass companies have been accused of manufacturing tempered glass with excessively high numbers of inclusions. My recollection is that the accusation was that they didn't have sufficient controls to prevent the nickel contamination.

I think it would be interesting to know whether one brand is having a higher than expected number of doors shatter.

"I think it would be interesting to know whether one brand is having a higher than expected number of doors shatter."

An extremely worthwhile perspective, which is completely different from saying any tempered glass that shatters must be the result of manufacturing defect.

For what it's worth, while I agree in general with the OPs perspective, I don't think the linked example "sky is falling" post is really guilty of the bandwagoning it is accused of.

There was only one "commiserating" post, and it said "sounds like you got a defective sink." And to someone familiar with the idea of stainless steel but not the daily use of such a sink, it does sound like a defect. The poster advised the OP to contact the manufacturer and said that it was likely they'd make it right.

When a new product purchased does not behave in the way the purchaser expects it to, seeking other opinions and contacting the manufacturer are completely reasonable things. One would assume Ticor would explain the situation to the purchaser, advise her on how to clean out the rust and avoid it in the future, and it would be done. A manufacturer or distributor that wants a reputation for good service needs to be ready not only to sell a product, but to accurately explain its characteristics after a sale and especially after a perceived or actual product failure.

With regard to the E'lux oven with the shattered door, I wonder if when the owner called E'lux about the door, E'lux representatives explained the same information about tempered glass that the OP eventually got in that thread, or if they just said "That's weird but you're not in warranty so tough luck."

I am bothered by this perspective that anyone believing that a spontaneously exploding door is a manufacturing defect is a "chicken little."

This is my perspective only.

If a piece of tempered glass breaks spontaneously with no external force, I would suspect nickel sulfide inclusions. As I understand it, nickel sulfide inclusions cannot be absolutely eliminated during the process of making tempered glass.

Nickel sulfide inclusions are a defect, whether they are caused because they are naturally occurring in tempered glass or whether because they are caused by a glass manufacturer paying little attention to quality control.

Any company that sells items with tempered glass does or should know that tempered glass can be infected with nickel sulfide inclusions. So they should have built the chance of the glass in their product spontaneously imploding into the cost of the product.

I am actually confident that they have. Unless there has been some external force, an oven door that spontaneously shatters after a self-cleaning cycle has a defect. Maybe it isn't a manufacturing defect in the sense that the fabricator could have prevented it in this particular run of glass (although it could have been if there was a history with this run), the manufacturer knew of this risk.

I haven't had this happen to me. But if it ever should happen, whether one year, two years, or five years after I buy my appliance, I will absolutely assert that the company branding my appliance is responsible should replace it. They chose the glass, and their price built in the possibility of failure. And as much as we can fight over whether it is a "natural" defect or a "manufacturing" defect, it is a defect.

Thus, I think that the OP's assertion that folks complaining about tempered glass failing are "chicken littles" is simply wrong. I think that a manufacture who markets tempered glass that is exposed to heat knows that a certain number of them will spontaneously shatter. They build it into their price. As such, they should pay for a replacement when those few that they expect do shatter.

Laurie35,
you posted twice. It's all good thought.

Before your first post there is a post from marcolo saying, "...piling on with wrong advice, and specifically with wrong advice that got people all worked up for no reason." This is the main thing I seem to have been stating.

What is Chicken Little -like ?

It's the early responders who seem to have great empathy / sympathy. Many of them add (wrong) information, or advise to get all worked up...

It is Chicken Little -like to title your thread in an alarmist statement.
E.g. BrandX Explodes!!! (not even mentioning that it's an oven)
But, it's not that big a deal.

The person who opens a thread might be wonderful about it all, or ... not. But who cares. It would be nice if those who open new threads did a large amount of web searching first, in order to get a more balanced view of the problem. Also it would be great if they chose titles to their threads that did not sound like alarms. But all this is less significant than the not-nice "nice" people who start advising the OP to go down unproductive avenues, or to get upset in a big way. It cheapens the forum for all.

When the first responders talk about raising the stakes against the corporation, it makes me go Wow. It has happened before this week's example of the oven. There were several "piling-on" reinforcement statements posted on the oven thread. I referred to it as an example to highlight the phenomenon. Piling on.

Your position (which is well articulated) might help be useful to convince the manufacturer to send a replacement pane of glass at no charge. Usually it take a few days before the higher quality thoughts get down on paper.

Here is a link that might be useful: BrandX Explodes (with three exclamation points)

Empathy and sympathy are related but quite different terms. To empathize with someone is to understand their feelings. It basically means " I understand where you are coming from. Sympathy, on the other hand, is to share another's pain. That is why we say," you have our sympathy" when talking to a mourner.
It just seems that the issue is that some peole are more "feelings" oriented, and some are more "logic" oriented. One is not better than the other. It is important to respect both types of worldview, certainly this forum is large enough for both fashions of expresi�n to exist.

I've only been able to visit this site very occasionally lately but wonder if you're talking about me, David, since I commented in such a way that you find ridiculous. I've forgotten whether you are in the business--do you sell appliances? If so, then you probably hear stories of defects on a fairly regular basis, but those of us not in the biz do not. I would be very shocked if my oven glass shattered; I'm 51 and I've never heard of this happening to anyone. Appliances are so complicated now that perhaps in order to save a little money there is not enough quality assurance done by some companies. I don't understand why you find a reaction of shock and an expectation of a decent apology and plan for quick repair or replacement after a completely unexpected happening, so surprising.

On the thread about the "X-Company explodes!!!" appliance it only took minutes before each new post came in.
That says a lot.

It took hours before the several fact-based posts came in.
That also might say a lot to you.

What might be the moral to the story? This might be it: wait a little while if you are shocked when you read about a problem that sounds shocking to you. It probably also sounds shocking to everyone, but wait. Don't be trigger happy. Don't indulge yourself by typing out your feelings. Wait. Someone will post some kind of fact-based response within a few hours.

Or, do the opposite. It isn't anything to change if you feel right about posting immediately to share your feelings. Whatever you do is fine.

Well, I could never agree with you on the subject. The point of these forums is for discussion, questions and give and take, not long and thoughtful research over someone else's angst. The fact remains that this should not have happened and the company which manufactured the oven is responsible. Period.

Most of the time when people freak out (self included) they are talked down off the ledge gently by others, it all works out in the end and much is learned by all through the discussion. I hope GW doesn't go the heavily moderated route.

Naw, the Kitchen Forum has been a truly phenomenal success. There's nothing else that even approaches it. Would a somewhat more analytic approach benefit some users? Yes, but that's just what they eventually find here. There's just no real need or justification for that kind of censorship. If it ain't broke...

While this may be considered empathizing too much... if my oven door exploded across my kitchen floor, I'd be on the mnfr in a heartbeat. While the mnfr may know and expect their oven doors to fail in this manner, I would expect that that was not disclosed to the buyer prior to or at the point of sale. If it is possible to make a non-exploding oven door, I'd like to know why they didn't for my unit. If the material is not suitable as an oven door material, then why would they sell it to an unsuspecting consumer?
Warranty or not, I'd make sure to get restitution from the mnfr one way or another. I'd be persistent and if that was not enough, I'd get a lawyer to do so for me.
Saying that an oven door can blow glass on the kitchen floor at a young age, but past warranty, is absurd. I have a stove from 1940s in my kitchen and is still can function. An oven door should work for decades without failure. It is not a motor or electronic part. If the consumer used the product as intended, then the failure of the door is entirely the mnfr's responsibility.

I have recovered money for repairs on many an item past warranty in my life. If there is a manufacturing defect, then I'll be damned if I don't follow up and stake my claim. I am fair and honest, but like a pit bull. If it is morally the responsibility of the mnfr, then I will get compensated fairly. I do not return worn clothes or try to get one over on anyone, but no one is going to sell me inferior quality goods that fail prematurely.

Maybe the OP on the oven door thread needed some of us to keep her pumped up enough to pursue her claim. The companies who sell products that fail count on consumers eating the loss much of the time, and paying off those who don't go quietly. It is calculated in when they decide whether to recall something or not. If an oven door explodes during the self cleaning cycle on a fairly regular basis, at minimum, they should advise all consumers not to use the self clean cycle. Failing to do so, puts the onus on them to replace the door. There should even be some sort of compensation for loss of some of the function (not being able to use a feature that was touted as a selling point) and also some token of compensation for the hassle and loss of use of the product between the breakage and the repair. A heavy discount on a future purchase of their brand would be a smart choice on the mnfr's part.

Strange thread. Talk of censorship? From whom? Who is threatening censorship?

More defense of bad advice--just voice a strong, inflammatory opinion on something with no experience or research, even if it proves wrong or harmful, and that's good???

I think people are so stuck in their entrenched positions they're now saying some things that don't even make any sense.

Product liability is determined by product liability law. Not by casual opinion on the way things should be. If a product fails, even spectacularly, absent negligence, warranty or other guarantee, then depending on the law in your state you are often S.O.L. That's the law. No product is guaranteed to work 100% of the time forever. Accidents happens and a manufacturer is not held to be an insurer.

davidro...just gotta say....IMO....much ado about nothing.

Whatever might be wrong gets corrected later.

Not worth "ado." joaniepoanie, you are right. I don't need to make more ado about this.

Within a day or two the other posts come in, on any thread that starts out with a batch of posts showing supportive feelings. No big deal if it looked like a number of people were all promoting strong action without having any new factual knowledge added to their current situation.

My position was about bandwagoning, posting to restate feelings that had already been stated, posting to reinforce, posting to encourage "taking action". My position was never to say that supportive feelings are bad or need to be censored. Re-read it if you don't believe it.

My initial position was paraphrased by marcolo several times. Several people have made a big ado about it. Marcolo pointed out why it is good to ask for information first. Wow. What a new idea. Ask around. Get new input.

Some people just don't get it, but who cares if they post only to show a supportive stance. There is nothing wrong with that. Most of their posts are 100% great. This has been analyzed a lot. So much ado; so little done.

talk of censorship? Right here in the OPs first post.
"Far far in the future there may be a filter applied to the first few comments posted. It would prevent commiserating or indulgent emotions, in the initial responses."

Yes, I realize the OP was being sarcastic. But that clearly didn't come through to some readers just as others' offerings of sympathetic outrage seemed inappropriate to the OP.

Sorta seems to me that everyone could benefit from being either more precise in their tone and verbiage (unlikely given it's a casual, conversational medium) or more forgiving of the imprecision and emotional reactions in some posts. As my DS would say, "chillax".

There is a difference between a product not working out of warranty and a product defect that could potentially cause some harm or danger.

Look at the iPod nanos. The version from 2005-2006 is having battery problems and the battery can overheat and be dangerous. Apple is recalling these well-out-of-warranty iPods because there was a manufacturing defect that could lead to potential liability for them. Likewise, people sue when their Toyota floor mat gets stuck under the brake pedal and causes the car careening out of control. This, too, is not a warranty issue and Toyotas with this problem still were recalled -- separate entirely from their warranty status. These are just few of many examples.

One exploding oven does not a defect make and does not a recall require. However, if something in the product or process is making these oven doors explore more often than other oven doors or often enough to create a hazard or if it creates a special risk that these oven doors will explode, then that is a problem for the manufacturer to handle, warranty or not. The only way a manufacturer can know of these problems is reporting of such problems.

Aside from which, anyone coming here for legal advice is coming to the wrong place.

Finally, I am afraid I really don't get the point of posts like this one, other than to create controversy.

Also, I came back to reread and I just wanted to make a quick correction- it isn't actually true that if a product fails, you are SOL absent negligence, warranty or a guarantee.

The vast majority of states apply strict liability to product liability cases, which means negligence does not have to be proven. If you can prove that you were using the product as intended, and that some defect in the product caused harm when you were using the product as intended, you can generally recover damages irrespective of the negligence of the manufacturer. Not only that, but you can recover from the manufacturer of the defective part, the manufacturer of the defective product, or anyone along the distribution chain in most cases.

Product liability law is actually fairly pro-plaintiff, which is why you see excessive warnings about not folding the baby up in the stroller or drying your hair while sitting in the bathtub.

As the the OOP(Original,Original Poster) who seems to have generated this discussion, I just wanted to answer a couple of comments:

We did mention to Electrolux that there might be a defect in the glass but were advised to pay a service person to come to the house and look at the bag of glass pieces that we had saved. IMHO, ridiculous.

"It is Chicken Little -like to title your thread in an alarmist statement.
E.g. BrandX Explodes!!! (not even mentioning that it's an oven)" As I explained in the original posting, the way to get a discussion going on this thread is to get attention. Perhaps it would have worked with "My Glass Broke" or "A lesson about cleaning Electrolux ovens". I was admittedly emotional at the time.

I also added, several postings down in my orginal, that we had googled and found numerous stories of shattering glass. Somehow that didn't make me feel a whole lot better.

We have since ordered and replaced the glass and the broken plastic clip that held it in. It cost us $175. Electrolux told us that they knocked off 10% and shipped for free. These things are difficult prove so I might have to take their word for it. I guess I thought that as a reputable company, Electrolux might care a little more about their name being bandied about on a forum such as this.

i think the big thing that no one has yet rejected or counter-argued is the bandwagoning that can happen within a mere matter of minutes. Throughout history it has been recorded that the buildup of emotional reactions is what delivered an angry mob onto the scene.

So, the dream service is to have a filter seek facts first, not to be so dumb as to enable a pile on and a powerful buildup in the initial reaction period. Forums are a private service, not a democracy.

Bandwagon. Jump on. This is terrible. Sue the ba$$trds. Get the Prez on the horn. Sic your husband on him. Threaten. Go for it. Take this action I know I would. = . = OTOH, no forum in the world is required to let people say whatever they choose to say. Supportive feelings are good. But I'm not against supportive feelings. Bandwagon, bandwagon, people. The sum of several posts seems a lot stronger than something friendly and calming. Some of the followup posts recommend taking action before getting better informed. What the wha...?

(What about: "wait a day or two, to see if anyone knows about this." ??)

I sympathize with all the emotions. I look for a little more understanding of the physical situation too.

Usually, manufacturers don't want to explain all the facts to the public. It's just a burden if they have to be the ones (and not all their competitors) to sculpt the ideal explanation of physical reality.

This does not take anything away from the position that one might insist on redress. I have often gotten excellent service when I complain. I know a lot before complaining, in most cases. This is because I have both my emotions and my other faculties, both at work, both looking for ways to make progress.

I hope this horse is in his stable now.

beagles, strict liability doesn't apply to products that only damage themselves. No blood, no strict liability.

I know marcolo. That was what I tried to express with this:
"if the product caused harm when you were using the product as intended, "
There has to be a compensable, provable injury that you must directly link back to the product defect. Proximate causation.

Not trying to disagree, just trying to be clear for the subset using GW for legal advice instead of sympathetic and non-factual emotional responses :)

Also, to be clear, the threat of strict liability can lead manufacturers to recall products even when the product did not expressly cause harm if the products have a high fail rate and are likely to cause harm that could lead to liability /injury (e.g. ipod battery problems). In this case, it would not apply unless e-lux had high levels of failure on their ovens due to some defect and thus determined that they needed to recall before the shattering glass led to bloodshed. Which is why such things SHOULD be reported. How else is E-lux to know whether the product has a high rate of explosions if everyone who has an exploding oven were to say "oh well, there's glass on the floor, better get the broom and tell no one".

This is an open forum. At times I'm sure we have all felt that a particular post or thread is silly, uninformed, emotional, repetitive, what have you. But is it really worth getting your knickers in a knot over? If you're annoyed by what you're reading, just move on....no need to be judgmental or self-ritcheous because at some point someone will probably think YOUR post is stupid, uninformed, etc.

Incidentally, if my oven door shattered/exploded I don't think my first inclination would be to run to the local library to spend a few hours researching "shattered oven doors" before making an "informed" query on GW.

1st paragraph: ditto.
2nd paragraph: ditto.

If anyone posts that your 1st paragraph proves your own point, will you respond or will you decline to respond? Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous posts or to take arms and by opposing end them.

"...you frame the season for your own harvest." from WS's "Much Ado About Nothing"

Good news. I think we can safely assume that most people who post their problems on an open, anonymous internet forum are not expecting expert advice in return, or even much in the way of wisdom, reason, or facts. They are thus unlikely to run screaming in the streets or phoning expensive lawyers based on the responses of strangers. Thank goodness, yes? Whew!

Turkey Lurkey

What might be the moral to the story? This might be it: wait a little while if you are shocked when you read about a problem that sounds shocking to you. It probably also sounds shocking to everyone, but wait. Don't be trigger happy. Don't indulge yourself by typing out your feelings. Wait. Someone will post some kind of fact-based response within a few hours.

Isn't there a Supreme Court Justice who subscribes to this theory of conservation of personal (his) initiative? He doesn't believe in "indulging himself" by vocalizing any thought processes, either. Of course, I don't recall his reserve having garnered him many plaudits for holding his curiousity or opinion in check.

My initial position was paraphrased by marcolo several times. Several people have made a big ado about it. Marcolo pointed out why it is good to ask for information first. Wow. What a new idea. Ask around. Get new input.

(MARCOLO! Paging Dr. Marcolo! Need Davidro-to-english translation help here, please.) Assuming I understood the point of the post, isn't that what a post on the Kitchen Forum is about? Airing personal experience, making correlations, getting opinions on similarity or dissimilarity of experience? I don't believe that posting is an automatic ticket to litigation-city.

That said, while I don't disagree with David that the massive haemorrhaging of personal outrage on the KF can be a trifle wearying, the instances cited here that have apparently motivated this thread are ridiculous.

For one thing: "exploding glass doors" vs "exploding glass doors that way". Yes, tempered glass explodes "that way" but to think that anyone should be expected to be blase and off-hand about the fact that their oven door blasted itself open in the course of its "normal operation" (I'll hold my opinion on self-clean in check here) is asking for the moon.
It doesn't matter than tempered glass breaks a certain way - it does matter that it spontaneously imploded without a clear and discernible impact to trigger; that makes the data noteworthy and the event really should be publicized.

Yes, perhaps the glass was subjected to stresses beyond normal range a while back - or even undetected anomalous events at the time of high drama: bird strike, pellets, surface scratches, edge impact - and now the smallest minor perturbation to the nominal took it beyond its elastic limit, so to speak. But if a certain product has a habit of shattering (multiple reported such outcomes) - well, the likelihood that there should be such a high correlation between purveyors of that item and 6-sigma beyond norm events that shattering glass should be an expected outcome, is statistically insignificant. More than likely then, there is indeed a manufacturing defect - either in the glass manufacture process, or planarity of the door frame into which it is inserted, its tensioning or some other assembly process. Tempered glass might shatter safely, but it doesn't have a habit of shattering so much so that anyone buying ovens or doors or whatever should expect that after the 3year/5year/7year window that they should expect to walk upto an imploded door. This is just silly.

It is absolutely the right thing to do to air the fact that E'lux's oven door shattered in self-clean mode. If many E'lux ovens do that, it is likely an E'lux problem and won't be known until such complaints are aired, collected and documented. If many oven doors shatter in self-clean then either ovens will get to a point where they won't use glass in self-clean ovens or self-cleaning will be outmoded (yesssssss!). Whatever. (regardless that as far as I know, self-clean temps are well inside the tolerance regime of tempered glass). None of this happens until the user airs this. & others aren't edified until they happen upon such reports.

The only factually incorrect, if that, information I ran across on the e'lux oven thread was the moral outrage about the health risks of someone walking into the glass shards. Fact is that shattered tempered glass is safer than regular shattered glass but it's no bowl of tofu, chaps.

So, while I think that keeping a bit of a tamp on the emotional quotient isn't a bad idea, the motivating example has even me arguing against this thread and I certainly don't support the idea of filter's eliminating posts that exceed some imagined emotion threshold or pass someone's idea of fact-filled posts. If the last was the case, I doubt that the OP's post (top post, this thread) would have made the cut .... Hmmmm, come to think of it ....

beagles, strict liability doesn't apply to products that only damage themselves. No blood, no strict liability.

Marcolo, that is the reason that KitchenAid has been able to get away with their ovens with problem fuses that fail on self-clean. Graceful degradation and all that. On the other hand, if they shattered themselves off their hinges everytime they are self-cleaned, you and I would have a parade of attorneys snaking between our homes from every afflicted party cleaning glass off their kitchen floors. It is a misnomer to think that because glass is tempered, its shattered shards are a child's plaything.

Personally, I'm waiting for the forum that administers a reading comprehension test before it lets you post.

LOL marcolo. Could be doable. If gmail has "mail goggles" to stop you from sending drunk-emails, don't see why a forum couldn't have a reading comp test!

Course, I think GW has a shockingly amount of literate people given some of the drivel you read in other forums on the Internet- I don't have the right dictionary to understand most of those!

OMG I didn't even know about Goggles! That is hilarious. If only it could be deployed on a phone.

Thank you beagles and others.
I did not urge the OP on the oven thread to rush to an atty's office, but stated that I'd expect Elux to make things right. It is not reasonable to expect consumers to know that an oven door is going to fail if you follow instructions and use the self clean mode and that any and all repairs should be borne by the consumer.
I have had plenty of experience in getting remedies from mnfrs over the years when their products failed out of warranty. It has never come to needing to contact an atty as I make a reasonable request and get my way up the food chain if necessary until someone makes it right. If we all told the oven OP to just suck it up and buy a new door, that would be shoddy advice, IMHO and based on prior experiences. Let her be outraged. This is not an oven just not working, but a glass door shattering. I don't care if it was safety glass or not, it is still a rotten thing for an oven to do and is not the responsibility of the consumer morally. Legally, one would have to check with an atty in their own state to see if they have a claim, but I think that if one persists with most companies, you can get reasonable results. I usually expect the first one or 2 customer service people to say "no", but I persist until I find someone who can authorize a "yes".
Mentioning GW and the potential thread about an appliance shattering under normal use can work to your benefit if you aren't getting heard any other way. Use your fellow Gwers' outrage as a help to get your voice heard. Frankly, unless I heard that they did everything in their power to take care of it for you, I'd never consider an Elux product again.

I'm waiting for the forum that administers a reading comprehension test ...

Agreed. KF probably wouldn't have shot off on the tangents it has, had such a thing existed. We seem to have gone from

Person A: Hey! I walked into the room and found my oven door in a million pieces on the floor!

Person B: Oy! Instead of creating a hue and cry over the fact that your oven door's on the floor, why don't you attend a seminar series and get yourself a PhD in glass shattering phenomenology before you post about it here!

to
Person C: D'oh Person-A! Are ya stoopid or some'n? Tempered glass always shatters to that pattern. This is the signature of tempered glass. Noone claimed that tempered glass doesn't break that way. That's just the way the cookie crumbles er onion peels er tempered glass shatters. Nothing the manufacturer can do about it. Because don't you know, tempered glass always shatters "that way". Always will, too.

and:
Person D: Look here, I'm giving you empathy. Person E is just giving you sympathy. Here's the Concise Oxford Dictionary's definitional distinctions between the two. See, I'm empathic er empathetic uh pathetic.

Three different vectors and meanwhile, a week later, poor Person A has still got glass on the floor / rust in the stainless sink ...

marcolo, I bet there's an app for that! ;)