Not good enough for honorarium- Milking the space for less than a

Not the first time I’ve seen hurt feelings like these. Crazy idea, what about flipping the system on its head? Let teachers choose whether to call their happening an event or class. Classes go to the HA queue and some are chosen to receive honararium. I see this having several benefits:

  1. Rather than a stinging rejection when withheld from “bad” classes, it becomes an “honor” bestowed upon particularly worthy offerings.
  2. No need to enforce rules about lead time, scheduling earlier just increases your chances of getting attendance and being seen in the auditor queue.
  3. DMS spending on honarariums becomes somewhat decoupled and can be adjusted to fit a budget without immediately impacting class offerings.

But…you are completely wrong. Here is my response to you for the class I rejected (and I repeat, the title was “How to Make Money at the Makerspace”:

Joe, the other classes you have submitted have been great. This one is qualitatively different, and for a few reasons does not qualify for honorarium. It can be resubmitted as non-honorarium if you wish to do so. -marshall

So, YES, I signed it. Also, can you point specifically to the part where I was insulting?

The class description was also somewhat deficient; it can be reviewed here: https://calendar.dallasmakerspace.org/events/view/4306

Members can come to their own conclusions if this is the type of offering they would like their membership dues going toward, but for now, the actual decision remains withe the Honorarium Auditor team.

Get over yourself, please.

–Marshall (there, I signed it again)

(edit: I meant to point out that there is currently no requirement for HAs to sign or identify themselves; this was probably made a policy, i.e. not built into the system, because 1) the decision is not necessarily made by a single person, and 2) HAs are essentially moderators, and similar to moderation of an online forum, if everyone that was all hurt feelings and “Ive been Wronged!” was able to call out the individuals for doing their job, pretty soon no one would want to do it. At least moderators for an online community can shut down the nonsense. Honorarium Auditors unfortunately cannot.

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This sounds like an experiment.

@team_science ?

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Slowly walking into the storm.

Hey @worldcloud,

I too understand your feeling as I have held and still do hold some of the opinions you have shared here.

Here is how I’m guessing things went from reading the posts above. This is only my guess and please correct if I’m way off. You seem to be a member that has in the past been able to fit the honorarium system as you stated you have had multiple successful honorarium class. I’m guessing due to that success you then tried to increase your offering and also improve the style of your classes to keep them more entertaining or attractive to members. At least that is what I would guess from your example of the joint class as the description sound like a fun class to attend with not only education but entertainment at the core. At this point you submit multiple classes and get hit for pushing the model a bit too far. So the work you put into building the classes and making them extra special this time around feels like it has gone out the window. You could resubmit with changed verbiage, but your not sure how you went wrong and as sign of this thread feel you did nothing intentionally wrong. Now we are at the creation of the thread, because there really is no other way to air out grievances with the honorarium system as it is handled secretly among a small group in DMS.


Now let me try to guess @mblatz side. Marshal is one of the chosen HAs, this group in the past has not been open to all members, but in more recent history has been getting more open. Your class was rejected, because the class seemed like it could be an event due to the emphasis on the entertaining test scenario and not much description of the direct teaching. Marshal is already bucking the curve of the Honorarium Approval Process, by signing his name to rejections and also willing responding to public complaints. This is special as the system is setup to keep his identity and approval process completely private and gives no one the ability from the outside any view of the process.


I thank Marshal for signing his name and responding publicly and you should as well, because if he followed the guidelines, he would just respond with “rejected” and your complaints would have no where to go from there. But, he did respond publicly, so you now have a contact in the honorarium approval process.

So lets take advantage of the access Marshal has given you to adjust your class rather than attack his position as a HA. I would suggest starting a PM with Marshal to ask where he feels like the class became more of an event than a class. From there change your description to highlight the traditional education aspect of the class and resubmit already having someone willing to explain the class to the other HAs. This would give it the best chance of getting approved.

I know it may sound like I’m suggesting working with the enemy here, as Marshal has deflected some of your concerns and slapped you with the “How to make money at DMS” class you submitted, after members have suggested teaching solely for the $50 honorarium shows some kind of sub-standard morality on your part. Personally, I find it laughable these suggestions of moral superiority over those that take their portion of honorarium. By teaching you are fulfilling the educational goal of DMS, rather than paying $50 a month and just using and breaking the tools, which is by far the majority of the membership. You are actively a part of keeping DMS open to all of us. So thank you for that. That said, please take this moment to grow and take advantage of the opportunity to work with Marshal on getting your class accepted. Marshal is a good member and I feel would be open to work with you given a cooler climate than the public Talk thread. But, he has a temper and can flare up and it would seem you do as well. So keep that in mind as there may be no apologies exchanged. But, you may get your class in the long run if you can eat part of the EGO on this.

Good Luck Joe, I wish you the best in your experience at DMS and I hope this comes to a conclusion that all parties can be happy with. Also, thank you Marshal for sharing, you bring light to a dark part of our structure at DMS.

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I don’t know. From the descriptions people are right I think. It sounds like a BYO joint and try and break it. Not as much a class piece.

And because it’s BYO I am not sure where your fees come from.

If you want to do the class- just do it man. As you’ve mentioned the honorarium isn’t much. And as I’ve mentioned it sounds like the woodworkers were supposed to bring their own.

You’ve organized it and that’s time I agree. But your argument is tantamount to if I build a joint for us to try and break I should get paid too. Because I also bought materials and spent my time and showed up to contribute.

I do also agree that there should be an explanation of the rejection and a description of what could be done to improve the quality or scope of the class to better fit what they are looking for.

As an expert in rejection, rejection sucks. But I think we should try and be constructive in our feedback and rejection.

Unlike the woman who told me she was really impressed by my work and interested in luring me away from my current job to a much better one. Which I let slide at my current job when I felt it was unfair to be working 6a to 10p and weekends every night. But now she won’t respond to my emails. Oh well.

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So building 21 joints with three different types of joints & glue doesn’t have any merit and can be done without any materials. I guessing that you could build these 21 pieces simply by snapping your fingers, but working with a couple of my student, we took hours to create these. Explaining each joint and the pros and cons does not have any merit. I invited others to bring their own joints because student participation is welcome in my classes, but I have been told that ‘there is no educational benefits to your classes’.

I don’t expect everyone at Makerspace to have the same interest as I do, but to tell me that my classes have no educational benefit and that I need to stop posting classes and only post events, because my courses don’t have any educational benefits is not only rude, but it pisses me off. If you come to one of my classes and you don’t care for my delivery or my content, then don’t come back. If I break a rule, then show me that rule and I will do better; but to tell me that I need to only host events because I suck so much, then I’m going to take offense at that. I’ve had three classes in a row rejected and even though I have asked repeatedly, I have been giving no explanation why, other than to say that my classes have no educational benefit.

You suggest that I should be constructive about rejection, which i have. I’ve asked repeatedly for the ‘rules’. I’ve asked for the reason my classes where rejected, and those who rejected them have yet to provide any reason. I don’t have an issue with a process, but when I ask a valid question- I feel I have the right to a reasonable answer. I also expect for those who reject to have enough guts to sign their names.

The rudeness and the lack of respect is what pisses me off. I had to raise a fit to discover who rejected one of my courses and I still have not received any sort of answer as to why.

I have done 5 Cabinetmaking classes with about 15-20 people in each class, but was not permitted to do one last Sunday evening— without reason, even though I’ve asked repeatedly. That class didn’t request an honorarium, but yet it was still rejected. The Cabinetmaking students have paid repeatedly, so think that I small part of those fees could go towards materials is simply doing what I said I was going to do, but apparently integrity is a common strait for all.

This isn’t about the money, it’s about jerks being rude, and when I ask, they become more rude. Rude people suck!!!

Dude. You seem to be really reading into the honorarium rejection, it sounds like they just wanted you to explain your class better in the submission.

Would you mind posting the rejection email you got that has you so riled up?

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He did so above, but it was burried in the post, so I extracted it above.

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It seems like it could be a class if it was better defined, but I see why they felt like it looked more like an event. I see quite a bit of complaining about honorarium rejections, and a common thread seems to be that the submissions lack a clear class agenda. If you had spelled out that you would discuss limitations of various glues and joints, then use destructive testing to demonstrate the limitations of various joints, I think you would have gotten a different result. The way you presented the class, you were going to break some stuff, see whose joint worked best, and talk about what happened. It lacked a clearly defined educational component.

Additionally, I think your methodology could use some work. Many glues take several hours, or even days to fully cure. It would require multiple days and multiple sessions to effectively test.

It is a great idea, but I think you need to flesh out the education component if you want to qualify for honorarium. If you wanted reimbursement for materials, that would be a different matter entirely, and you could still get reimbursed for materials if you provided proper documentation of expenses.

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Here is the link to the class submission: https://calendar.dallasmakerspace.org/events/view/4376. The HA that rejected it speak on their own behalf if the choose. And members can come to their own conclusions if this sounds more like a contest or event or a class, and if it is the type of offering they would like their membership dues going toward, but for now, the actual decision remains with the Honorarium Auditor team as they plot against the 'Space in their dark, dark underground lair.

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Where the Dark Elfin Lords reside.

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That was from the name of the class. Look at the link @mblatz posted to the class listing above yours.

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3 rejections in a row… 2 where traditional classes… and one was a repeat of a previous ‘well-attended’ class… My issue isn’t the money or the rejection- it’s the rudeness and the lack of explanation, rules, or common respect.

I have never told a teacher that there class had no educational benefit, and when I reject an idea at work and then I’m asked for an explanation, I provide a explanation and attempt to find a resolution. This event had already been funded with fees from the Cabinetmaking classes, so it was never an issue of ‘getting paid’.

Being told that I’m not ‘good enough’ and that I should do not anything but events which do not require approvals is rude. Not answering my questions is rude. Calling me a penny pinching money grabber is rude. Saying that my classes have ‘no educational value’ is rude. Rejecting three classes in a row without cause and explanation is rude.

My classes may suck, and maybe I shouldn’t teach; I just think that there is a place for a bit of respect at Makerspace, and I don’t like rude people. Not everyone in this thread is guilty of being rude, there are some reasonable suggestions which have been made, but as I noted before; I know of at least two people which now refuse to teach because of the grief they took trying to serve.

I just hate rude people… it the best way for me to serve is by sweeping the floor; then I will sweep the floor; but all I ask is you answer my questions and don’t be rude.

This is not the first time a ‘smackdown’ has been on the schedule at Makerspace. Kee did a Aspire vs Fusion Smackdown and apparently his use of the word was not childish, but mine is. If your going to have ‘rules’, just let us know what they are; and if that is the reason it was rejected, then simply say so.

This is not difficult, just don’t be rude… and treat everyone the same- fairly and with respect…

Marshall cited his response, not the other two. I don’t know who made the other comments, thus why I am venting here. The person which told me ‘I wasn’t good enough’ didn’t have the guts to sign their name. Transparency and communication is never a bad thing.

This doesn’t seem to coincide with the facts presented here. We see the class you complained about in the original post, and the response email you provided does have an explaination, even if you don’t agree with it.

As to a second rejection, Marshall has provided that, politely, and also linked to that class description.

As a former HA, I can assure you that a rejection was rarely the act of one person, for marginals, we usually debated the outcome. Further, the perceived rudeness is largely a result of the software. It does not provide a lot of space for the response.

Also, while I don’t think the rejections should be anonymous, I do understand why. Several folks get quite upset over a rejection. I know of at least one case where the rejected person came close to being considered legally harrasing.

What no one has mentioned, afaik, is that if you disagree with a rejection you can appeal to the board of directors at their next meeting.

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I didn’t say smackdown was childish, etc… I corrected another member who thought the auditors use of the term was unprofessional, when in fact it was just the software the auditors use inserting the class title into the message.

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Why would not a show and tell which type of joint is better be not educational?
Wouldn’t it help would be makers in knowing beforehand, rather than discovering for themselves, which type of joint is more desirable or which types of joints aren’t going to be worth doing for their projects?
It would save anybody who knows a lot of time and effort on their projects and is a worth while class, wouldn’t it?

Joe,

I see lack of actionable information in the rejections, but not rudeness. I understand the frustration in having no clue as to what needs changing based on the responses.

I don’t understand the claims of rudeness. it seems you are your toughest critic here and the challenges you are facing seem self inflicted based on yours and other’s posted communications on the matter. At this point continuing to ignore the help of others and continuing to slam the HA group for not responding when a member of it has publicly reached out to you in this thread is confusing. This is looking like harassment on your part at this point. I understand frustration, I deal with a lot of it at DMS. But, many are trying to help and you seem too angry to see it.

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Allow me to just point out that from a knowledge generating point of view this question is a settled issue…

http://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/pockethole.html

http://woodgears.ca/dovetail/strength.html

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It might be, or it might not. Which is perceived by the HA is largely going to be a matter of the class description. From the description for the class in question, I would describe it more of a event then a class, largely because it doesn’t explain well what the curricula or learning objectives are.

An important point is that nothing prevents the OP from rewriting a better description and resubmitting the class for honorarium. Or just charging a fee and submitting as a non-honorarium class.

Our current system for honorariums is not perfect, but it does work much better then anything else we have tried to date. This is evidenced by the massive increase in honorarium classes since the new system came into place. We now have more honorariums per month then I believe we had per year under the old system.

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