Walko Workbench DRAW sign up (ON HOLD)

[butzla]

So....we're not having the drawing?

 

[sw1211]

Holy crap, Nick restricted, threatening to leave again, what the F? Not sure why he's restricted, but after all he's contributed, it's hard to figure that out.  Maybe if I read all the posts it would be clearer. How could something so well intentioned come to this?  If the drawing isn't going to happen, delete the thread and lets move on. It serves no purpose of remaining on the forum other than providing a very LOUD distraction. This is just out of control, don't care who said or did what, MOVE ON!!!  Get over it.  Everyone, go hug your Domino or sand something.

 

[sw1211]

As I said its not a threat.

And you are mistaken as even in SMF which I do know , it is a real hassle to delete all my posts because I started so many of the threads. So how do you go about deleting my posts when I started the threads. Those posts I would have left as that is mayhem and all the posts in those threads I started would make no sense.

So in SMF or Vbull it is a little more complicated than you say.

Just let this thread die or lock it. I am resigned to the fact that I am not welcome here by the persona that obviously matters. Anyone can read my posts , even the one up for less than 2 minutes and decide for themselves if I should be restricted. I do not see anything that warrants it at all. If someone else does fine, I do not see it. I only see a trol pissing off a contributor and the contributor got restricted, the total opposite of what should have happened.

I know a bunch of my friends here may defends me, please don't. I know it's hard to take sides don't. Just keep your comments off the thread. I already know who dislikes me, hates me and I also know who my supporters are. There is no sense in drawing out this thread when nothing relevant to Festools is going to be discussed. I will respond to any negative comments about me though as I am not going to say nothing. But no one else need to. If know one else dis's me, I will not post in this thread  at all. If I do get neg posts against me I sure will respond.

I have never seen a thread locked here, if one ever should be locked it should be this one. I'll be lurking around the threads that have some interest for me, but outside of responding to negs against me I really can not participate much when restricted. Since I disagree woth the label placed on me I am not going to cooperate with waiting months to get off that label. In short unrestricted me now or I just will become a lurker.

Might as well just scramble all the threads, they'd make as much sense that way, just as much if your posts are deleted.  Not sure why you're restricted, although having your name in Red is kind of cool.  Hope this gets sorted out.  If I could get Blue for my name that would be appreciated.

 

[Ron Dunn]

Hey Nick, I'm sorry. I shouldn't rattle your cage when I know you're "excitable".

To the current theme in this thread, when I first saw the Walko offer on the site I thought "Here's trouble!" because I've seen other, similar, offers in other sites go through exactly this process. People just don't want the risk of legal and/or government problems. I kept quiet at that time because I thought it was a generous offer, and that its legal implications were none of my business.

I realise that you had a legal opinion, but remember, a legal opinion isn't worth a pinch of excreta until it is tested in court. In every legal case there are two legal opinions, and one of them is ALWAYS wrong. The only opinion that would have counted was a written authority from the relevant State and Federal government agencies, stating that this offer was authorised to proceed. I don't think it is reasonable to expect the forum administrator to go to the trouble, and possible expense, to make that happen.

I'm sure your heart is in the right place. Just don't let it over-rule your head all the time

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Good Evening,
As I have been saying all along, what happened with this drawing is unfortunate, but it is no one's fault that it got cancelled.  I really tried to find a middle way to keep it going.  All of us who were involved had a headache of one kind or another we had to deal with.

Online and offline, I tried to soothe the apparent frustration by apologizing for the situation and asking for Nick and others to put their energy into some other effort that would be constructive to the community.  You can see this in my posts throughout this discussion.

Apparently, one party was sending off a wild frenzy of offline communications saying that I intentionally destroyed the drawing for some personal reason.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It upset me a great deal to have to suspend the drawing.

I let that go.  But I did not like waking up yesterday morning to this:

...So Matthew you are so totally wrong and off base and so cheap you could not even call an attorney as I did, so nothing you say carries any weight with me anymore. You canceled this with absolutely no reason and still have never given a concrete reason. I did my homework, you did not...

This was followed by posts calling another member the kinds of names that would incite a bloody brawl in the "real" world.  That led to Nick's "restricted" status.  I can't think of a forum administrator on the planet who would have acted differently.  On Sawmill Creek, for example, I'm pretty sure this behavior would lead to a permanent ban.

Let's take a breather here and get back to something constructive.  I'll remove Nick's "restricted" status soon.

On a positive note: I'm working with dealers right now to develop some fun new elements for the forum.  I'd be really happy to hear from other members about ideas for moving forward.

Again, let's appreciate the intent of all involved.  Everyone meant for this to be a good thing.

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[PeterK]

A question for you all---

Have any of you found anything like this "drawing - raffle" for lack of a better term on any other forum? With the various interests here, as a group we must be participating in a wide variety of online forums. Seems that someone might have made this concept or something similar work on a forum or two - automotive, hunting, etc. Just a thought that we might be able to borrow a success story elsewhere.

I totally love the concept that was tried but like some others felt there were some potential tax or legal risks.

Pete

 

[longwood89]

Tools-Plus.com has been doing regular internet based drawings lately, maybe the folks there can provide some insight.

 

[Ron Dunn]

Don't forget that this exercise was originally referred to as a "lottery". That is a highly regulated term in most countries. Its use, although probably accidental, would have set off alarm bells in any government corridor.

The fact that the name changed later would not have removed the possibility of investigation.

 

[meldgaard]

Tools-Plus.com has been doing regular internet based drawings lately, maybe the folks there can provide some insight.

Lots of e-shop/producer draw-of-the-months or whatever around. The big difference I guess is that we had paid for 'a lottery ticket' to participate in the draw and therefore it is probably in another (gambling ?!) league which is probably much more restricted or regulated.

I have lived from the internet professionally since 1996 and in the past 13 years I have never seen anything like this in all the forums or even bulletin-boards before that. Neither in unselfish generosity, 'forum helpfullnes' or construction. The landing bashing on the other hand is unfortunately not a first-timer ..

 

[James Watriss]

This was followed by posts calling another member the kinds of names that would incite a bloody brawl in the "real" world.

I think that's fair to a point... except on job sites. I think Ron's incessant needling and jabs at Nick would earn a few such epithets from any frustrated tradesman I know. Coupled with his (justifiable, but probably unnecessary) level of frustration at such treatment, given how hard he was trying to find a way to be helpful to someone else, it came out in anger, and thus became a wholly different thing. But you're right, of course, it's conduct unbecoming in a web forum.

But I felt the need, after running across this thread last night, and thinking about it for a few hours, to say this. For myself, I think that anyone who's ever had a younger sibling would read Ron's responses, pull out their Mary Poppins tape measure, and probably come up with the same measurement that Nick did. But for a few fractional lines, my own tape measure was reading something similar.

 

[marrt]

Of the forums I follow, this forum always seems to have a lot of "drama".  Members leaving to start counter-forums, etc....  I think the problem is fundamental, ether you moderate the forum strictly, or not at all.  Frankly, I don't care much for strictly moderated forums.  They tend to "run off" all the good contributors (in addition to the bad). 

When someone invests hundreds of hours contributing to a forum, they have a sense of ownership.  So, if they are moderated, even when justified, they will feel it's unfair.  After all, shouldn't they have "credits in the bank" for all their hard work building the forum?  It takes a lot of time and effort to make worthy posts.  That should count for something.

Maybe it's time to consider adding something like Karma to the forum.  Members who have no Karma get "moderated" more aggressively than members with good Karma.  It also puts a lot more power in the hands of the forum members.  Could be one approach to tackle the problem.   

 

[Matthew Schenker]

Of the forums I follow, this forum always seems to have a lot of "drama".  Members leaving to start counter-forums, etc....  I think the problem is fundamental, ether you moderate the forum strictly, or not at all.  Frankly, I don't care much for strictly moderated forums.  They tend to "run off" all the good contributors (in addition to the bad). 

From the beginning, I've always stressed the goal of having the FOG be more democratic and self-monitored than most forums.  For a while, it worked great.  As time went on, some high-profile problems were caused by a small number of people, and I've had to build more moderation into the forum.  But I still think the basic idea of a democratic forum has worked: the community usually knows exactly how to respond to things.

When someone invests hundreds of hours contributing to a forum, they have a sense of ownership.  So, if they are moderated, even when justified, they will feel it's unfair.  After all, shouldn't they have "credits in the bank" for all their hard work building the forum?  It takes a lot of time and effort to make worthy posts.  That should count for something.

We had this debate early in the life of this forum.  The consensus was this: just because people post more does not mean they deserve more "ownership."  Sometimes, the number of posts does tell you something; sometimes it does not.  Bottom line: the number of posts does not necessarily determine someone's value. 

Maybe it's time to consider adding something like Karma to the forum.  Members who have no Karma get "moderated" more aggressively than members with good Karma.  It also puts a lot more power in the hands of the forum members.  Could be one approach to tackle the problem.   

I know many forums use the "karma" feature.  It has been discussed at length in the FOG before.

At the request of numerous members, I activated Karma last summer.  But it turned into a bit of a nightmare.  The forum was essentially evenly split, with half for it and half against it.  A couple of people received such negative scores that it really caused some problems.  (Before last summer, there had been a general discussion about the feature.)

You can see the previous discussions about karma here:
Activate Karma?
Peer Rating?

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[glass1]

OKAY EVERYBODY START OVER  CALL THE EVENT A RAFFLE CHARGE 15 OR 2O PER RAFFLE AND DONATE THE MONEY AFTER THE COST OF THE RAFFLE TO A CHARITY. ANYBODY CAN RUN A RAFFLE FOR CHARITY  JUST GO ONLINE GOOGLE RAFFLE AND FOLLOW THE CORRECT RULES FOR YOUR STATE.