Somewhat related question for Robert-
What wouldn’t you do to help DMS?
Would you leverage any connection to help DMS?
Would you take advantage of any seemingly good opportunity to help DMS?
How much of your personal life do you spend trying to arrange things to sustain and help DMS?
You are also fully employed and have been for the last few years, correct? So your personal time is limited to non-work hours?
It’s a little like being in an internet chatroom back in '07 and people getting banned for reasons as trivial as “Not loving H.P. Lovecraft enough.”
Or since it is all about some threat clearly these guys haven’t spent enough time on SomethingAwful.
As the old saying goes, the internet is srs bsns.
Here. We should all strive to be as chill as this guy.
Some people actually choose to live their lives not in a garbage dump.
“because it’s the internet” is a weak excuse for poor behavior.
That’s fine. But this is a public forum.
I prefer the stoic approach to life. I can’t control what other people do, so I don’t lose sleep over it. Only thing I can do is control my own reaction.
Look at all the crap gumming up the threads devoted to this thing? I don’t want to live in that either. 
But what choice do I have, eh?
It’s not. It’s the DMS forum, and we can choose what goes on in it.
Why is there a members only section then?
Maybe I am confused.
“public forum” implies something like yelling on a street corner.
Even then, you are not free to incite violence, throw unfounded accusations (well, you can be sued for slander anyway) or assault people (ie death threats).
This is not a public forum in the sense that any posters are invited to participate unless they break the house rules. Then they are no longer ‘invited’.
Some of this certainly feels like watching two drunks fighting on a sidewalk.
What violence? What riots or assassinations have come out of this? Do you really think any of this is lawsuit worthy?
This has been blown waaaaay out of proportion and we keep giving it inches of the thread like it is somehow meaningful.
I heard that Walter was going to retire and move away to enjoy himself, and he wants to stay for this? I can’t believe it. None of that would be worth changing plans over. I’m truly fascinated by everyone’s emotional stamina.
Are you going to stick to a concrete argument or a theoretical argument?
Your cited article is about death threats on the open web and how that is a prevailing culture in some corners of it. I’m saying that even though that may be be how it is there, it doesn’t even meet the standard of public free speech (the 1st amendment kind), WHICH IS NOT EVEN WHAT THIS FORUM IS.
Sadly it is true. Originally I wasn’t retiring but relocating to Florida to help a colleague out with his business (I ‘retired’ six years ago). When that was no longer needed (learned that in February) I decided to continue cleaning house and was planning to put my limited remaining goods in storage and taking my easel and paints and travel the US painting.
The boards actions, convinced me that DMS needs someone to insist (and has the authority to not be silenced) that DMS start acting like a corporation earning $600,000 annually and obey Federal, State, and local laws not to mention our own laws. I love this organization, and I don’t want to see lax attitudes to such things place it in jeopardy. In my opinion, that is something that is worth the considerable sacrifice in time and risk that being a board member would entail. That said, if our members don’t agree that these issues are important (by not electing me to the board) then I will accept that judgement and leave them be. I would certainly prefer to be traveling the US and painting then spending 40+ hours a week dealing with these issues, and members leaving messes for others to clean up…
Daniel, my only argument is that this whole thing is what Hollywood comedies are based on.
Walter, it’s your time and energy so I’m not gonna even try telling you how to spend it. If I were in your boat I would rather travel and paint.
The best thing about DMS to me is that it is not a Fab Lab or tech shop. We have rates as low as we do and the membership numbers we do because we are not a business. We didn’t start as a venture capitalist company. It was a handful of people that wanted to do neat stuff with shared space and tools. I was around before we had 300 members. People around here get mad about stuff we didn’t even blink an eye at back then. Change is change I guess. I’m staying the hell out though. Resurrecting dead committees and running them for years has burnt me out to cinder. I just want to build neat stuff. Period. I wish that was our only motivation.
Cheers.
Amen to that.
1234567890
Wish @wandrson and @Robert_Davidson would go have coffee, grab some waffles, or maybe go bowling and work this whole thing out offline. Hashing it over and over in Talk is just not productive for anyone.
Also wish we had a policy or macro where, at some threshold, Talk just stops accepting more comments about a subject and everyone just has to break down and meet in person over it.
Or forget it ever happened.
More interesting stuff surely must be happening.