I think that speaks more truth to the membership here than anything else I’ve read on this forum.
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Or it speaks to how irritating your behavior was at the time. How do you think people who love something are going to react when you trash it constantly? Did you think you’d get hugs and hearts and candy?
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Your post was harassment. You should have been banned as well, in almost every situation what you said would be considered a physical threat.
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A post was merged into an existing topic: National Puppy Day (Pls Do Not Leave Pup on Freebie Shelf… 
)
A post was merged into an existing topic: National Puppy Day (Pls Do Not Leave Pup on Freebie Shelf… )
Let me clarify then. I’m speaking to the actions of the Board. With respect to you, so sorry, you were and are the aggressor here. You established the negative tone of your following posts with Walter, with statements like this one, which started the whole thing:
That was the first blood, and you’ve self-servingly styled Walter as the aggressor here, and while Walter does suffer from “need the last word” syndrome (a trait which you evidently share with him), there is nothing aggressive or threatening about the man, nor in his posts. He states and strongly supports his positions, and sometimes won’t let it go when he should. But you, a new member, introduced yourself to us, by angrily arguing over the lift fee (several of us agreed with your issue, but not the way you pursued a resolution). You’ve continued that posture right through today. And for the record, I did read the private messages you complained about, and found your complaint to be unfounded and bullshit. Walter had the class to take it private, and he tells it like he sees it. But there were no threats.
And I would suggest, with respect to “Excellence”, you remove the log from your own eye, before picking the splinter out of Walter’s or anyone else’s for that matter.
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We are members of a self-governed, voluntary organization, not employees in a faceless corporation.
But … since we’re on that subject: How would your employer react to the implied threat of your very public post? Not very well, I suspect.
I agree with @Tapper and others. You’re a new member, and many have noticed that you seem to feel like you know what’s best for us. While we accommodate your views, we’re certainly not bound to agree with all of them, and some of us have been around long enough to realize that the “noob” is rehashing an old issue with no new ideas as to how to solve it. Boasting that you’ve been involved in “leadership roles” for more than a decade is a drop in the life-experience bucket to some of the DMS membership, so I wouldn’t be overly proud of that, either.
I do hope that you’ll learn from this encounter and apply a little self-moderation, especially when more than one person tells you that you’re being a bit of an annoyance.
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Walter contributes a significant amount in many ways to the Dallas Makerspace. This is not in question. However this doesn’t exempt him from consequences related to his other activities. Several board meetings ago I asked the room if anyone thought Talk was better with Walter. Nobody responded of the 30 or so people in the room (this was noted in the minutes). Dozens of times I’ve had people tell me how appalling Walter is on Talk and how helpful he is in person. Hence an action taken that affects Walter on Talk and not in any other way. If it would make you feel better we can remove more people from Talk for various reasons.
Several people have thanked me for voting in favor of blocking Walter on Talk. Until this thread, I haven’t heard a single objection. If the membership is indeed in favor of having Walter’s block removed that’s of course a possibility. Nothing in the resolution said forever, it was left open ended.
For what it’s worth I felt this would be no surprise coming from me. In my statement in 2016 I said “Fostering a culture of friendliness and helpfulness.” Messaging new members tell them you’re tired of their bitching is the exact opposite of that and is completely unacceptable (along with a history of complaints on Talk form others). I haven’t done much on this front unfortunately and I’ve let the membership down in many other ways. Sorry.
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Set Walter free !!! This is unfair.
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Until this thread, I suspect no-one knew that Walter had been blocked. There is no member-visible indication that his account has been altered. If I had not forgotten to go to the meeting, I would have raised my hand to your question about Walter and Talk.
I, for one, have found some of your comments on Talk lacking friendliness (and verging on agressive). Should I push the next BoD to ban you? No, I wouldn’t, because I know everyone has their own communication style. Walter likes to debate things to death. Eh, well, he’s still a good fellow and I think he contributes positively to this community. Others apparently feel the same.
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I hope you will consider this perspective:
What if I were generally a good member, but even though I was trained on the lasers, I still made a mess of many of the projects I tried. I didn’t understand the importance of matching the beam strength to the material. More than half of my projects flamed up. In fact, three times I left things in such a mess that three different people made unique formal complaints against me to have me removed from laser approval. On the third complaint, would the board just hope I got better at using the lasers?
Like it or not, this forum is an important tool for DMS. Considerable time and resources are used to maintain it. In many ways, it is the spine of the organization. If it’s not being used with respect, then a member needs to be removed from the list of approved users.
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I just opened myself up. You’ll go at me like you have the other guy. But guess what? It’s not just me anymore. Things are changing at DMS. Maybe that’s because they needed changing. I’ve been very blunt about my goals for this forum. It needs to be a reliable tool, not someplace where a new member risks being smacked in the head during an unexpected round of verbal dodgeball. The group of you who agitate are at least consistent. I drew that map weeks ago.
(And yes, seeing @lukeiamyourfather’s comment pop up, I thank the board for their decision. I will add my complaint to the list if they take up the issue to unblock Walter. I’m growing more confident in who and how to approach such an issue.)
Luke, no one voiced an objection? Really?
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Obviously we need a watchdog group to make sure that items such as this are noted on the forums - not just the wiki - well ahead of time. I had no idea such a thing was going on or I too would have been at the meeting and spoken on Walter’s behalf.
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I was in the meeting and remember this moment differently. It was not an honest question to the group, instead it was a serious lack of tact on your part. The board had just spent a few minutes talking trash about Walter with Brooks and a few others chiming in. So it was obvious to the room where the board stood on the topic. Then you raised the question and the room went silent. I CRINGED hard with others in the room. Silently making eye contact and taking note of the situation.
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I would also add that I’m against blocking anyone from talk without due process. There should be very clear cut rules about what lines may not be crossed. And rubbing people the wrong way should not be included in that list.
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You might want to take a look at this thread, and who’s posting in support of Walter, and against the recent actions of the Board. Included are a fair number of the hardest working volunteers in the place, many of whom contribute far more hours a week than you do. More than a few of them are Ladybird folks - pretty much the folks who elected you. So posting up that you had all this invisible support for the action, isn’t very convining. The support is right here.
The Board was out of line, and overstepped. It happens. Put it right, or don’t, but don’t expect us to forget it.
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Personally, I would prefer that discipline was handled by the membership instead of the board. We spend too much time on mitigating interpersonal issues. In the process get blamed for either way it goes. If you are displeased with the outcome of the last meeting, please run for the board and you will learn what we see.
To my knowledge, we have provided everything Walter has asked for. So far he has asked for a list of the regular membership (voting). The issue was how much contact info to include. The law only stipulates the members address:
Sec. 22.158. PREPARATION AND INSPECTION OF LIST OF VOTING MEMBERS. (a) After setting a record date for the notice of a meeting, a corporation shall prepare an alphabetical list of the names of all its voting members. The list must identify:
(1) the members who are entitled to notice and the members who are not entitled to notice of the meeting;
(2) the address of each voting member; and
(3) the number of votes each voting member is entitled to cast at the meeting.
Walter wanted emails and phone numbers. Not sure that is cool with the membership.
Lisa bears the brunt of the criticisms on talk moderation. Thank you Lisa! Unfortunately the talk moderation experiment by members fizzled out to just a few of the same people.
Bradley at least deserved that same treatment as Walter in this case.
I don’t expect anyone to forget, but please handle your interactions yourself. The BoD spends way too much precious time on this stuff. I’d rather be putting together budgets for 1, 3, 6 months out for DMS’s future plans.
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The moderator team will be working on rules which will be posted as I mentioned before. The lack of posted rules is basically what caused the issue to be handled at the board level instead of via moderator action - because we had nothing to back us up if we restricted specific actions. It is not my intent to have to use said rules except for (hopefully) rare occasions when needed. It will help set expectations and will allow us to follow through in a fair and consistent manner… The challenge is setting rules that will fall in the “Happy Medium” of the wide range of views that members across the spectrum hold. Please review my previous related posts regarding this. Thx!
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There’s probably one or two people who would be in line before Walter if “rubs me the wrong way” were a reasonable thing to mute someone for.
Edit to add: I am for Walter in this dispute, and was not aware until this thread that he had had action taken against him.
Ninja edit der zweite: it might be reasonable to ask Walter to be less combative, but enforcement should wait until consistent and enforced rules come into place. Even then appropriate levels of warning / escalation ought to be used. Jumping straight to the banhammer lacks reasonableness.
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