*sigh* Walter has been muted on Talk

DMS General
#21

I don’t always agree with Walter, but then I don’t think anyone agrees with anyone else all the time either. One of the greatest things in this country is the ability to speak your mind. Censorship is to be avoided at all costs. Perhaps criminal activity merits some form of censorship, but I don’t think Walter committed a crime.

Who’s to say that the BOD wouldn’t censor others to silence them? Clearly, Walter has other options. He can trash DMS on any number of other forums, he could masquerade as another user on this forum, or he could antagonize people in person through other means (legal). None of which are the outcome we want.

Walter is a reasonable guy and I think a very valuable contributor to DMS. My personal experiences with him have all been very good. None of us are perfect and certainly we can all use a little coaching from time to time, but I feel that censorship was too strong an action for Walter, I admit I don’t have all of the details nor did I attend the BOD, but I feel his right to post on Talk should be reinstated promptly.

Perhaps, however, these actions will draw more attention to Walter and get him elected to the BOD. So maybe it will end up in Walter’s favor after all. It is widely believed philosophy that all publicity is good publicity since it draws attention to the candidate, product or service.

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#22

bring back Walter.
987654321…blast off

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#23

Note: I moved this back to Infrastructure (Andrew Lecody moved it to Members Only). Since we are talking about an action which affects Talk as a whole, not just DMS members, I think it is the appropriate forum for this thread.

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#24

I consider Walter a friend, and vehemently objected to the last attempt to ban him from Talk. I object to this one as well, but I think for the broader audience, it helps to kind of understand Walter.

Walter is the kind of person who will help you for hours with a project on the lathe, and say the only reason he did it was he didn’t want you to break HIS lathe with YOUR stupidity. He’s just a bit spiky in his verbal communication, but I don’t think he’s a bad dude from his actions, and I think he genuinely loves DMS and some of his prickly behavior is in defense of DMS. I am considerably more easily offended than nearly everyone at DMS, and I didn’t find the specific message he sent offensive, nor do I think it was by current DMS community standards.

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#25

Could someone look up the # of members to make quorum for the next membership meeting? It would be greatly appreciated.

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#26

Walter was not banned, he was blocked.
There’s a huge difference between the 2 terms.

Everybody please keep your terms straight.

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#27

Given that folks are activating their voting rights, this could end up being a large number.
Get your proxies lined up.

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#28

a quick search of the WIKI says 1/3 of voting membership. As @artg_dms pointed out that # is growing daily as we approach the board election. After the voting reset it seems to drop quite low as some quorums have been met with as little as 14 members in the past.

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#29

The next member meeting is going to be the election so you’re​ going to have quorum there.

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#30

A motion of the board, which passed, instructed Infrastructure to block his member account here on Talk. In my book, participation in Talk is an integral part of the DMS community. To wit: He cannot report problems via the Issues and Requests category, nor participate in discussions in the Members Only area which directly influence the direction DMS takes.

This is, in effect, a partial ban.

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#31

Right On!
1234567890987654321

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#32

As of this moment, there appears to be 111 voting members (based on the AD group “voting members”, which I think is the “official” repository).
That makes it minimum 37 for quorum, if my math is right…

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#33

All very valid points.
However on a topic like this terms and semantics do matter.

Blame this observation on having too many discussions on a broad range of legal topics.

For example the membership moves to have the ban on Walter lifted.
The BoD comes back and says “We didn’t ban him, we blocked him. Next item.”
And so it goes.

And right now someone out there is smirking…:smirk:

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#34

I still argue that if Walter wants to change the situation, Walter can make the request of the board and membership. I’m certain he will figure it out.

Also, apparently he’s not blocked completely - he’s using likes and emoticons.

#35

The primary merit of a membership at DMS isn’t the tools. It’s the community. Otherwise it would be called Dallas Toolspace. I don’t see a single thing wrong with the community making their feelings known. Advocacy is incredibly important.

#36

We’re here to argue a point on behalf of someone else and to prevent the issues that a ruling like this may cause in the future. You may remember a similar situation of a non included party coming to the defense of another member recently.

No one told you not to defend Brandon. We told you why you didn’t have the full story.

#37

That’s an interesting point, but mainly because it’s the opposite for me. My first love is the tools. Ya’ll are just along for the ride as I try to figure out how to gain access to the tools. (I’m getting there, by golly. Currently in love with the Shapeoko 2.)

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#38

You might as well ignore the ignore function on Talk. It really doesn’t do anything remotely like you would want it to do.

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#39

I learned a lot in that thread btw.

Walter is off replying to Talk, not locked out of DMS. He still has access to the tools, board, and other members. He’s tossed his name into the hat for the next BoD election, after all.

But I’ll unfollow this thread and let you all plot without me.

#40

Two more thoughts on this matter:

1.) This action is the kind of thing that undermines confidence in leadership. From the transcript of the board meeting, I do not see anything in the discussion that warrants a blocking or banning. Yes, Walter can be a bit abrasive. Some of that is because he often says things that many do not want to hear, but which are none the less important. His calls for more savings for a potential move of the space for example.

2.) This is an interesting choice of time to implement such a block/ban. Walter is excluded from out discussions in the run up to board elections. Terribly convenient to have him out of the way at this time.

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