There used to be some SPIRIT on this forum... Pt2

For title reference see
http://www.groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=47465.0



Hello All

I entered the White Market recently with the best of intentions and stated them clearly. "I wanted to give back"  by offering just a few items at little to no profit that we as members have never been able to pull a source together.  I started with two clear products that fit this category.  The elusive Neve Red winged knob and the Dale M7 capsule. I wanted the knobs for a 32 channel PM1000 rebuild I still haven't gotten to and waited forever for someone to offer them. As well after speaking with Dale Ulan about the M7 for my own purposes we both agreed I should start making them and he helped(mentored) me in the transition for over a year on that.
After a while I wanted a Shock mount for my Skylar U47 body and Skylar's crew wasn't selling them. So I asked the China OEM for one, they didn't have it available either. I sent them photos and explained it would be a simple change to what they were making already. So they made some for me and I put them up on the WM. I figured if I needed one just like the other above items.

The same thing with the U67 body occured last fall. I wanted to develop a new mic for my own brand (Cathedral Pipes) of a solid state variety and need something like a U87 look. I approached Jenny at Shuaiyin and went over some design changes I had in mind for a new body style. It took forever (about 6 months) and they still  would not do the switch board for me.

Dany and I spoke when he was looking for suggestions on a donor body for his new designs. I offered the U67 one as a candidate since it seemed this was another part that fell into the above unavailable category.  Then sent him a couple to try out. Together we did the switch board, which I admit I completely screwed up twice.  He posted photos of the protos and everyone was excited.

Soon after that photo was posted opportunists moved in and did what they did. I got really mad, said some things etc. It undermined my efforts and my ability to even do this at all, since I put up the capital with my own money the risk would be too great to continue. It just seemed not in the spirit of the forum I joined back in 04 when we all left Recording.org over the forum owner wanting to making money via publishing a book using the content of our posts.... Yes that is why groupdiy is here today.  We had an issue with someone being opportunist.

Now I am just finishing up some new M7s this week and it seems the same thing is occurring on that front as well. Geesh, I don't even make and money on those parts so good luck to the guys moving in on that!

The justification of these opportunists is really sad. For the record I do not blame the WM. I thought it was a good idea.

Like Peterc, Scenaria, Darius, Olaf and many more each year; I feel disillusioned with what was once a special place on the internet. My online store will stay up (M7s, Shockmounts, Neve knobs, spare parts) until everything is gone. However I will be stepping away from GroupDiy and not answering any more posts or PMs. Thanks to everyone who helped with builds and came up with really great fun audio projects even if they all didn't work! That was the fun of it.

Good Bye
ChuckD

I'm feeling disenchanted Chuck, you're not alone.

I've been bit too, it sucks.

I've also been the benefactor of more than one kind soul who took the time to help me out.

When I see pcb's along with a few minimal parts and some metal work being offered for a kilo buck, I've got to shake my head to make sure I'm not having a nightmare. You see the same guy gloating about how he doesn't have to 'babysit' his build threads. Makes me ill.

For what it's worth...

There are still good guys and I consider you definitely among those.

Mark

I genuinely hope you reconsider Chuck...but best of luck either way.

Cheers

ChuckD said:

Soon after that photo was posted opportunists moved in and did what they did. I got really mad, said some things etc.
Good Bye
ChuckD

Click to expand...

Maybe I missed a chunk here but I am not at all clear who these opportunists are and what they did. Are you referring to the unnamed WM people who complained the Ethan or is it something else?

Cheers

Ian

This is the internet . Whingers, naysayers and trolls are king. Sooner or later a place gets found out and filled with part timers or people who don't understand the 'true' motives of the place.

I post this 100% aware of the fact that I'm a 'noob' not a big contributor, though I've done my share to help people out while I've been here.

It's exceedingly sad to see the biggest and best  contributors here disappear but unless this forum starts operating an invite only admission policy, nothing is going to change.

What I will say is that I think its a bit naive to operate a 'little to no profit' business model and not expect that sooner or later someone's going to jump in and take advantage. You wouldn't  expect to get away with this on the high Street right? Why expect for it to happen here...?

If you wanna sell stuff, maybe build in enough profit that it makes these annoying situations a little bit easier to swallow. If there's one thing I've learned from being here for a few years now it is that the 'good' people know what a great deal they're getting, and they wouldn't feel resentful about having to pay a little more to stop the 'little or no profit' sellers from feeling like they weren't being taken advantage of.

Just IMHO of course...

Chuck dont leave.
This forum needs people like you.

Im sad i cant do more DIY than i am right now.

Good luck

Wow. Sad to see someone that hurt over events that have taken place on this forum. What has happened?

To WM or not to WM post again. What happens with all these people? What's the reason to leave and to wipe out all shared projects?
We have ability to sell and we have ability to share for free. And nevertheless we blame opportunists.
To me the spirit of groupdiy is a real diy projects free for everyone. And all the people who can help.
Now there is more "secret" projects, less support = less things to DIY, less spirit.
Everyone is responsible for the spirit of the place. Do a good deed and throw it in the water...

PS: What's the reason for leaving?

I think you are to be congratulated  for stepping up where others wouldn't [ until they saw you making it work ]
Dale is a clever fellow who doesn't have time to be around here , but carrying on his work is admirable .
it seems like many are taking the lessons of the chinese [ fwiw the other fellow offering mic parts and another trying to sell capsules aren't particularly good prices . I don't have the stones it takes to take on a venture so it is positive to the grp that you did .
I think the grp has become good at producing businesses and not sure we can stop evolution [ or devo ] or momentum
though we've probably lost a few designs already with people no bothering with the nonsense , I usually buy to support and part
of that has me overloaded with things I can't get to [ or afford cause I over bought or trying to catch up ]
Thank you for your [ greater than mine ] contribution to the grp , I hope you can stick around and at least make things work
for yourself .

Hi Chuck,

like Ian, I had trouble to understand what this is about and took the time to read the 19 pages on your WM thread. it seems to me you had like 17 pages of excellent comments, buys, wishes, questions and replies - pretty much what I would expect. then suddenly you seem to have hit a rock with the car at 100 miles an hour and your tire exploded trashing the car, injuring you quite badly. not whether or not there is somebody responsible for that rock lying on the road i can't tell, so I will not take any side.

I found this forum a few months ago and joined asap and try to be active as good as I can because special people are here with competent advice, helpful, trying to teach the more unexperienced guys (no girls by the way?). I found people sharing their knowledge and experience as well as selling stuff difficult to find like your stuff, great! there will always be new guys around knowing little or nothing, thats part of evolution, we all grow up and learn this way. this is an exceptional place, and man, I only hope you'll come out of hospital (referring to the accident allegory), get well soon and find back to your old strength, go though the 17 first pages and: 'don't give up' (as per kate bush's song).

on the topic of spirit: you guys have no idea how bad the internet forums are in german language.... really! so I hope young and old can keep this a special place of knowledge, politeness and good faith.

kind regards,

michael

This is sad Chuck...I'm not on here that often, recently just getting back into this great hobby and the forum due to the trials and tribulations of life, but I have gleaned enough info to understand whats happened and why you've taken your stand. 

Unfortunately, whether it's on here or on another site, people are going to enter into commercial competition and and not fully understand the ethos for providing goods and services in the first place. There are people on here who I don't know but I can tell by their activity that they just love this community and spend a great deal of free time helping, whether its' providing and sharing many years of technical expertise freely or opening the door to new and exotic projects, many of which the professional let alone the enthusiast could dream of owning.

Just remember that I and many others would put you into the above category and this is even without knowing you personally. Vendors will come and go, especially those who don't have the real expertise to back up their offerings. You're not just a store keeper, you make things, this is what you do and love and why you're here in the first place.

Anyway, all the best, whatever you ultimately decide.

I believe the forums has fallen into two main categories.

There's people who use it for educational reasons only (and maybe some personal projects) and then there's people who their primary aim is profit.
Of course, I would prefer if only the first category existed but unfortunately that's the world we're leaving in (and to be honest I believe that's since groupDIY has become so popular, there's no way back to the old nice forum)

Personally, apart from a few PCBs I have never sold/bought anything else and I very rarely visit WM/BM.
So (unless I'm missing something), I don't feel that the second category interference with my purposes.

If some people only care about making 'cheap' clones (paint by numbers, full kits, etc.) and some others only to make money, well...
I guess I don't interfere with their purposes either.

BTW, that's just my opinion and I'm not a very old member so take this with a grain of salt.

But most important of all...

Just remember that I and many others would put you into the above category and this is even without knowing you personally

Click to expand...

go though the 17 first pages and: 'don't give up'

Click to expand...

Thank you for your [ greater than mine ] contribution to the grp , I hope you can stick around and at least make things work
for yourself

Click to expand...

and so on...

 

Sounds like you gave some good advice to some chinese microphone manufactures and they took it.

Chuck,

As much as I know you from your posts and a couple of transactions we had between us I like you and consider you to be a fine person but I think you are burning the blanket because of a few flee. And if there is any.

I have been reading various threads that crop up every so often about wm or not wm, or this or not this, or the posters grieves, or their views how this forum should be or not should be and so on. Which is all good and fair. Howevever, I might be mistaking and if I am then please correct me but I am still to see a post where Ethan is asked what he wants from the posters in this forum and where he wants this forum to be. Wouldn't that be an idea? Asking high calibre contributors like Abbey, PRR, John what they think of the forum? I don't get much chance to reply to a post because they are firstly greatly more knowledgable than I am and secondly they are there in the speed of light

If you don't like people coming here and start selling stuff after a few posts then don't do business with them. I do not intend to pat my own back here but I chose no to sell hundreds and hundreds of pounds worth of stuff on the bm purely because the buyers had no or very little posts, let alone buying from them.

Tarring the entire wm sellers with the same brush is also not fair because "some" are into profiting. What is wrong with "profiting" as long as you receive a good service? Isn't it good that somebody is laying everything down for you to benefit and making few bucks for his efforts?

Also a lot of folks are helping each other without any financial gain, and because they are not bragging it does not mean that there is no spirit left in this forum.

Indeed soon after I became active some high calibre people have left but some joined too. That's how it works. Some get tired and look for something fresh, but you can discuss the nitty gritties of audio design for so long. There is a saturation point and we just have to let it take its course even if we end up replying to posts on how to wire a diode. (Yes how to wire a resistor would definitely qualify a smack on the head.)

Every time I read a poster describing their DIY experiences or replying to questions with freely offered knowledge, I see the SPIRIT of the forum writ large.

Each time someone offers parts or such for sale, at a profit or no, I think 'more power to you'.

Happy for people to offer goods and services whichever way they see fit as long as whatever id offered is fulfilled and the dues owed the forum paid.

Unfortunately sometimes the world plays not by the rules one might wish for.

In my former engineering career, there wasn't a day where it wasn't a struggle to achieve personal and corporate goals.
That's just how it is in the commercial world. One just keeps on truckin'. Thats the immutable fact of business.

Taking the decision to cease and desist one's efforts is an individual's privilege.

But please doan trash the community spirit of the best audio tech place I know to hang.

To say there is no spirit is just wrong.  It just isn't so.

Good luck in your future endevours.

As a young child, I spent many hours building model airplanes out of balsa and tissue paper. I did learn a lot about how the real things were designed, built, and flown but I never became a pilot nor an aeronautical engineer.
I spent many more hours building model cars but I never became a Formula One driver or Crew Chief.
Model boats, military vehicles - what else came in kit form? Even more time than all these combined I spent building and launching model rockets. And, believe me, I am definately not a rocket scientist.
I built my first electronics project, a power amp in kit form, when I was in high school many years ago and went on to build several things available from PAIA. And so on.
Some of us, at least I, enjoy following instructions and building kits. I am in awe at those of you who can design & build ( electronic ) things from scratch. I can't, but I get a LOT of enjoyment being able to come here to this site and read about all of the things going on, much of which I don't understand. And I appreciate that I can buy and build the projects that are available in kit form. Not really DIY? OK, but the finished projects that I can do because of this forum bring me a lot of satisfaction, as does the time I spend here simply reading and learning.
So thanks to everyone who contributes here, the theorists as well as the kit-providers. I'm grateful for all of you.

Spiritworks said:

Some of us, at least I, enjoy following instructions and building kits.

Click to expand...

I have to agree there...I love assembling and putting things together for whatever reason. I think it all started with Lego...

I'm not sure what went down as I see a lot of posts edited.  But hey if you feel the need to split, do your thing. Thanks for your time and for the parts and items you provided. Sad to see you go but such is life around the diy with people.

Hi all,

I wanted to respond to this thread mainly because I feel the need to defend myself. "Now I am just finishing up some new M7s this week and it seems the same thing is occurring on that front as well." I can only assume Chuck is referring to me with that statement. If he isn’t oh well. Here goes,  4 plus years ago I joined this forum after doing an internet search for a DIY tube LDC microphone. It was out of pure interest and the need to have a good microphone. I quickly built a G7 and after loving it so much, built a second. Right around that time, Dale Ulan started selling his M7 capsule. After seeing what Dale had done, I thought to myself “this is something I could do” so not long after, I went down the rabbit’s hole and attempted my first M7 capsule. I hand-drilled it with the help of Dale’s documentation. It actually worked but didn’t sound very good. Hand-drilling was a huge pain so I thought why not try and build a cheap DIY CNC machine to help drill all the holes. 2 years later, and close to $4,000 spent, I finally have a capable and accurate machine. I wouldn’t recommend trying it yourself by the way! I decided to make K67/87 capsules after seeing that Chuck had already started to manufacture an M7 based off Dale’s design and no one in the DIY community was making the K67/87 style. I’m not sure if you guys know this but the most difficult part of building these capsules is finding a source of gold coated Mylar. And not just coated Mylar but with a 23mm target!!  Seeing that a fellow DIY nerd had done this already (ChuckD) I reached out to him via PM asking if he would mind sharing the name of the company that did the coating for him. This received no response at all, nothing.  So I sent a second PM a few weeks later assuring Chuck that I had no intentions of competing with him on the M7 front. That message also received zero response. Chuck completely ignored me.  I thought, OK whatever; this guy doesn’t want to help me. So I moved on and figured it out myself. And to be honest it is a better situation because my supply is local.
  I’m not doing this to make money this is and always will be my HOBBY!!!! Including my CNC machine I’m pretty far in the hole. It takes a lot of time and energy to make these capsules by hand. Consider this my contribution to the forum! I can’t make or design circuits but I used to be a jeweler and I can work with metal. It’s very insulting to group me in with these so called “opportunists” members.  And again, I am not making any money!!!!!!  Now simply because I posted that I was working on making an M7 (for myself by the way) and that I would re-skin a Flea k47 back plate, Chuck posted my PM from 9 months ago in his WM thread. The best part is it’s one of the messages he never responded to!! Give me a break!  Seeing this I responded to him privately, and he posted that too!!  If he had simply responded saying hey man sorry I would rather keep my source to myself, but good luck or something like that. But geesh how would you guys have felt?  So here we are many months later and Chuck is talking about the DIY spirit. I find it a bit ironic.
Thanks, TSKGUY