As someone who has been using internet communication forums for 30+ years, I will remind folks, especially new members that one of the long term etiquette principals was that newbies should do what is termed ‘lurking’, which basically reading the forum (without posting) for a while to learn that backstory and institutional knowledge
Further, to use this thread as an example, no one ‘dismissed’ the OP, we simply gave him a shorthand explaination of that backstory and a link to just one of the many threads where it was discussed.
BUT, the OP’s comments and general attitude is one of an unhappy customer. Which is precisely the problem Alex. As you know we don’t have customers, we have members. If the OP felt that some information was missing, he could have either just added it or he could have asked how he could have added it.
Pay your dues, don’t ask questions, and kindly lurk. I actually had someone tell me I’d like being insulted after awhile. (Of course I just paraphrased that.)
Well DMS, good luck with that. Hope it ends well, yadda yardda yadda.
OTOH, you’re not likely going to have to worry about needing extra space anytime soon if you keep kicking new members to the curb.
Equipment breaks, last sprint I took a clay class out at Northlake Community College, I was hoping
to do some raku, but the raku kiln was down, They have several electid kilns and onely one was
working, They had a repair man out and he didn t fix it, they had to find a new liln prepairs person and the
get the school to approve him, took almost all semester, The higt firing was
all done in the gas reduction kiln, I lived with it and adapted,
I had plans to print something on the wide format printer, oh well, If I has had to have it
I would have had it done commercially,
I’m in no way saying that op went about his concerns in a perfect manner but yours, and others, responses are not perfect either. You should know this as you have been using Internet communications for 30+ years.
I’m well aware of the customers vs members problem but responding back with fire to their fire doesn’t help anything. When something comes up, try to step back instead automatically thinking “it’s they who are wrong” and not something that we could have done better as an organization or even yourself.
OP is not the first person to claim that expectations were not set correctly. Whether it is time till a class is available or that a certain item has a charge. In the past I, along with others, have looked to improve this with handbooks, signage, consistent info in tours, and just maybe a helpful talk post every now and then.
Can we not simply put a link on the website on the fees page to a per class charge for long standing costs? Like the CNC, woodshop, 3d printing, lift, and so on? Just a table would be enough I imagine, just to give people an idea of what they’re looking at.
Frankly I was shocked at how much the CNC class costs but hey, it’s a big ol’ piece of expensive equipment that I can’t really find anywhere else and I’m sure cost the space a ton of money, so I swallowed it and went on. The lift is a little bit of a different story in that it didn’t cost the space much, but it’s still a big ol’ piece of expensive equipment. But I was flabbergasted at the cost of the lift class. I now understand why since it’s there to churn out revenue for automotive, but honestly I figured it’d be free or like, $10 or so prior to learning its purpose. It’s discouraging that it costs so much and I’ll never pay that to use it myself, but then I don’t do much in automotive anyhow so more lift time for everyone else I reckon.
Just having a table that can lay this all out on the website right by where all other costs (monthly) are discussed might help remove some of the sticker shock and give people an idea of oh, they actually need to pay $100 to start using the lift, not just $50.
Some of that cost was engineered so that members would not join for 1 month, pay the $50 training fee, use the equipment with little care, and then stop their membership after they’d done all they came to do. This sort of use case is something we’d like to avoid. People who want that should go to Jack Junkies (and see the real cost of lift bay time).
If someone misuses the lift, They could be hurt or killed, othets could be hurt and killed and about the least that could happen
is a car gets totaled, I wonder how much of that our insurance would cover?
Well then I suggest a mandatory class be attended and a test passed as a prerequisite to allowing them to join.
Shouldn’t take much more than 6 to 8 hours to cover the basics of where everything is, what major policies are, what member’s expectations are, why training is required even if you say you’re experienced - training also covers policies.
I’ll be glad to help create this course and teach part it. I’m sure there are a number of other people that would to.
I think such a course would separate those that have a “customer” vs “member” attitude towards the space.
When I see someone complain that they have 30 or 40 years experience, complain training isn’t offered enough, but aren’t willing to contribute by teaching a class to help solve the problem and share their experience, I think I’m hearing a customer.
I have no expectation that people help or invest as much time as you or I do … or as many others also do (that’s our choice and nature) but just paying $50 and expecting everything is not what we are about or ever were.
Nope. Nothing to hide, as it was discussed on here in a public forum. Just trying to give you some color on the discussion that led to the current rules.
Sure, however a new member interested in joining probably isn’t going to look through all that. That’s fairly well buried within the website.
You could argue that that’s their fault, they should do their research and dig as deep as needed to find what they want, but seems a case of they don’t know what they don’t know. If it’s mentioned on the Join page that there’s additional fees or even a fee table, at least they know they need to search for something else.
Full disclosure and all that since we’re not trying to hide anything.
(edit: Hey, looks like there’s already a request for something like this. You should contact @clk75201 to see if she wants to help you work on the page/table of fees.)
This should be up-front. I understand, DMS came from a long line of frontierspeople and outdoor types (Raising Arizona) who had to pull together to get stuff done. I get it. There are “long timers” here who have hashed out every possible argument and have firmly dug their feet in. Again, I get it. I’ve been in the same job for almost 10 years and I’m still the “new guy” to some people here.
But that is not DMS now. There are plenty of people, like myself, who have most of their own stuff. I may have a project I want to do for which the single tool I don’t have is a table saw. I could rig up a straight edge and use my circ saw and finish with my router, but I’m old enough to know I don’t want to mess with that. So I may want to pop over to DMS to rip my stock, and while I’m there I’ll go ahead and use the miter saw to size my pieces. Then I’ll clean up after myself, put stuff away, and GTFO so I can glue up with my dogs under foot, a beer and (if my wife isn’t home) do it all in the living room with Saving Private Ryan on.
Yet to read the vocal minority on Talk, if that’s why I’m a member, I’m a bad member because I don’t want to come hang out, shoot the breeze, and get around to my project eventually. And sometimes I do have time.
I have no problem “being excellent.” If I see something that needs picked up or thrown away, I’ll do it. If I see a committee chair or member that I recognize I’ll ask if they need help. But expecting every member to come be part of the community is unrealistic.
So, to get around to what I quoted again, if the expectation is for members to “really belong” (my phrasing) before benefiting from DMS, I honestly think DMS has grown to big to expect that. If you don’t want people to come, pay their fifty bucks, get trained, use the one tool they don’t have for the one project they might need it for in a several-year span, (edit: and then never come back) then I’ll say DMS needs to change its membership structure. There are lots of ways that can take place, whether it’s making the first month (or 3) cost $75 (but include some of the more universal classes), require a starting three-month membership instead of one, assigning new members to a committee much like Congress does, and require them to attend a committee meeting before they can use any training-required tools.
I don’t know the solution. But I do know that continually repeating, “this isn’t the kind of member we want,” while the rules allow just that kind of member, is counterproductive.
Not really. This was once partially true, but it isn’t really any longer. Talk is the ONLY method we use to report issues, so effectively when that decision was made, talk became mandatory for members.
Talk and Wiki is how, we as an organization, have decided to communicate our rules and our culture So their use, at least at a cursory level is required. Each person has the responsibility to know our rules and culture and adhere to them. And yes, once they grasp them, they can influence the modification as they think we should.
I haven’t seen a single long time member state we do everything perfectly, nor did I see anyone attempt to ‘silence’ the discussion. What I did see was subtle (apparently) and finally not so subtle suggestions that before trying to change things, one has a responsibility for first understanding why we as a group have the current policies we do. It is a fact that those who join an existing group have a responsibility to first learn the groups culture and rules, in particular why those rules exist, before they start with “Well this is how we did it…” or “That’s great, but you really should be…”
I also disagree that telling folks, “This isn’t the kind of member we want.” is counterproductive. Just the opposite, we know that we don’t want ‘customers’. We have years of experience that allows us to arrive at this conclusion. We are not a tool collective, we are an educational non profit with a primary purpose of teaching. The access to the tools is incidental to our primary purpose. Further, we exist solely because our members are expected to contribute to the operation and maintenance of our greatest tool, the DMS organization.
The fact is that our membership has continued to grow despite everything we are doing wrong. That real world evidence seems to indicate our basic culture works.
We do have some churn and for a broad range of reasons. But having 1400+ members does not indicate they are stupid or misinformed.
We are building the best community we can with what we have. True, some members are abrasive or cultural vampires. We have to listen best we can and attempt to do a good job of moderating the dialog.
I’m a pretty snarky person but I do realize that it does not help when others read into my message something that is not there. I suggest that everyone try to think about the other’s position before ranting on.
