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

[Echo North]

I'm relying on some amount of common sense and good faith among members...

Absolutely.  This is going to be the key to any solution no matter how well thought out it is.

I'm glad this was addressed because I believe groupbuys for hard to find and or costly in small quantity parts, should not suffer.

 

[Ptownkid]

This discussion is a perfect example of why this place is great! For the record, you are truly doing a great job Ethan and the majority of us realise that you can't please all of the people all of the time.

 

[mitsos]

can we get this back on topic? This is turning into a *** ****** ****. (edited cuz I wrote this sort of angry last night, but happy to say I slept it off)

I believe groupbuys for hard to find and or costly in small quantity parts, should not suffer.

I don't doubt your sincerity, I just don't think most share it or even understand it. Even Jeff made a heated comment about making GB invoices public, in the context of his post he is calling people who run group buys liars.

It's not even about group buys as such, it's about the fact that we have stupid rules and stupid people tattling to teacher about stupid things.

I don't see why anyone cares if someone is selling stuff in the BM or WM or on their own site, or not at all. 

Peter made some comment that he and Ethan came to an agreement about letting him finish up his lot of PCBs. What if he sells out and then someone decides they bought 4 too few? Or some new member signs up, gets interested and asks to make more?  With these new rules, Peter has to open a WM thread, ask people to express interest, wait until he has enough people on the list to pull the trigger, then wait some more until the PCBs come in, pack them all and ship them. All the while paying $20 a month, just to do that first guy a favor. 

Oh yeah, he might make a couple bucks a board when all's said and done. What a profitable venture.

classy.

 

[Matt Ward]

I don't understand the discussion / relationship with "clones".
Didn't all this start with Gyraf projects?
Aren't all those long active projects (at least simplified) "clones"?

Sorry if this is off-topic with the original thread...

This didn't all start with Gyraf projects.  IIRC it started with the Tech Talk forum at Recording.org forums which was way more than just  Gyraf projects; it was a general studio tech discussion which included projects and people sharing info.  Many of those long standing projects were / are clones and the Gyraf stuff.  I personally never cared too much for that side of things and the number of times I've entered The Lab since The Drawing Board was created can be counted on my fingers.

Like I say, I have no attachment to all the cloning that goes on; but I don't begrudge any that is fair.  I do, however, get very frustrated when people's IP is infringed and with the way some brilliant people have been treated by members of this forum when they have tried to protect their IP.  I have also got very frustrated when personal friends of mine have brought me clones obviously made from instructions on here that they've been fooled into paying money for and that are just downright badly built and dangerous.

I also think that one should bear in mind that whilst the majority of forum discussion is r.e. cloning expensive audio equipment there will be a lot of commercial activity.  A significant proportion of the footfall attracted to cloning (largely read but not post members)
- will see it as a way to obtain something of value affordably by sacrificing time
- will probably not be hugely knowledgeable and
- will probably lean towards kits. 
One cannot criticise those for exploiting this market; it's certainl not a way that I would choose to earn a living.  Of course, when commercial enterprise gets involved things always get more sticky, in this case someone got upset about Peterc not paying for a service they pay for, without really getting why Petyer shouldn't have to pay and they should.

YMMV

 

[jsteiger]

...Even Jeff made a heated comment about making GB invoices public, in the context of his post he is calling people who run group buys liars...

I was a little heated at that point but this is not exactly what I said Dimitri. I did say that I thought 98% of GB's were profitable ventures under a GB disguise. To be honest, I rarely visit the BM these days and can't say for sure about the GB's that have been going on recently. There are a handful in particular that I do remember vividly though. After I started my store, my stomach turned a little when I found out some of the pricing an particular items. That's when I realized a somewhat prominent member here made a healthy profit running a so-called "Group Buy". I was actually shocked since said person presented the GB like he was doing everyone a favor. I guess it just goes to show how naive some people can be and how some will take advantage of that, even here where people think most everyone is there friend.

I would choose any day to buy a product from a WM business over a bogus GB. I am not saying all are bogus but like anything, buyer beware.

Besides running a WM business, I also feel I do my part in supporting other WM businesses. I have many of the fine kits that are presented there including a pair of your Pultec EQ's (well, soon!). I truly hope you made or make a profit from it too. I am not asking, I do not want to know. That's your private business, just saying.

 

[Jean Clochet]

if the same person keeps organizing the same group buy repeatedly, I think that would be cause for some concern.

I'm just wondering who exactly would be concerned and why?

What if the person offering the ongoing group buy is doing so purely due to demand?  That demand might come from folks who bought into the first batch and decided they would like more of the same. Might be because someone is coming late to the table for whatever reaason. 

It seems that, with the new system, it's expected that the organiser is supposed to jump to the WM after his/her initial offering. And, on doing so, either mark up the price of his parts to offset the WM costs or, run the thing at a loss.

And who are the GroupDIY police that have the right to say whether a group buy is a profit making venture or not?  Suppose the GB organiser decides that they would rather have some PC boards made in the UK or the US (or wherever they happen to be loctated) in order to support local business or cleaner business practices rather than in China at a possibly greatly reduced price?  Is there a committee that determines what the fair price of a GB PC board should be? 

Other than  a possible organisational benefit from seperating things out more, are there parties that will benefit financially from the new scheme and its rules?

Lastly, is all this really stemming from Peter's grievances?  If so, it seems that a sensible and amicable solution would be to allow Peter to run his buys wherever he sees fit, he's done enough for this place to warrant it.

 

[ruffrecords]

And who are the GroupDIY police that have the right to say whether a group buy is a profit making venture or not?

Do do that you would have to first define "profit" and I guess that debate would last longer than this one.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Jean Clochet]

I would agree Ian.

If someone pays £5 per PCB and sells it for say £7 per in a GB, is it really turning a profit after all has been factored in? 
I don't know as I've never done one, but I doubt many organisers come away making anything at all when it's all tallied, maybe a few make some pocket money for pizza and beer and others end up with a bit of a loss.

I can't say I'm too heavily invested as I don't frequent any of the "Markets" myself but I can't help feeling a little uncomfortable with the idea that some people were, as Mitsos, put it, "tattling to teacher" behind  closed doors.  And that changes are being made, partly in response to this.

Again, I wonder who exactly are the people that were so concerned about the perception of turning profits in the BM?


Edit for spelling

 

[sahib]

Late in the day but better to be late than never.

I wondered if PRR offered a PCB of his say, compressor design in the BM at a "nearly rock bottom" price would any of these guys complain to Ethan? Considering his contribution Peter deserved a courtesy and to be contacted in person to clarify.

By the way, I used PRR as an example not because as an easy target but because I believe he should be paid for his services to this forum. I am sure you'll agree that he is an exception. However, I also believe the moderators should also be paid if they are not already.

I don't believe this forum should be a paid forum as it contradicts my (and many others') belief of spreading information as free as possible. My uncle is an actor and I worked in his theatre as a techie/musician at some point of my younger life. He once said " even if the entire audience is being crap, you still get on that stage and give your best shot for the possibility that one of them may appreciate". Few years back when I was exhibiting in Chicago a college student came up and bought one of my controllers. Later I sold him some spare robot parts and gave quite a lot free. Monetary value was under two hundred pounds. He e-mailed me probably twenty times a week for months until he completed his project. He passed with merits and sent me a huge thank you e-mail. This is what I am talking about. There will be trawlers and time wasters but we still have the choice of not responding to them. As I also said to Peter we can't burn the blanket because of a few flee.

If I am not mistaken the forum is owned and operated by Ethan. Dealing with a forum in this magnitude requires a pretty much round the clock attention. Whenever I PMed Ethan I received a response in return in spite of the time difference between the UK and US. I don't think he is out at the beach while the forum is running. Therefore if the forum is facilitating a monetary gain to those who sell their commercial or personal items, then he should get his cut to at least cover his and the moderators' expenses which include their time. I am one of the three project partners in 511 racks and I pay 1/3 of my share for the WM happily. It is a bargain. You can blow a year's WM fee in a single advert in any of the audio magazines and next day you are yesterday's news. Here you have an exposure 24/7.

However, for a fairer solution I think following deserves a consideration;

1. WM stays the way it is for commercial offerings. As I said the fee to me is fair.

2. BM also stays the way it is for personal items. Any listing is subject to Ethan's approval anyway and he can decide whether the listing fits his criteria or not. I say his criteria firmly because I don't believe in too many chiefs. Plus this is his lawn.

However, I wouldn't like to see an auction/feedback system similar to that of e-bay in this forum. Particularly the feedback system to me is meaningless. I was robbed a lot of cash a couple of times on e-bay by the sellers who had the sparkling feedback. They timed their sting very cleverly. Same can and will happen here. By the way I was surprised to see an individual to re-appear in the forum and be welcomed when the individual in question was accused of stinging many members.

I also do not agree with the proposed fee structure for the BM. I think a modest single fee if the item sells would be fairer. As Doug pointed out you never know if/when the item sells.

2. GB as the name suggests is for group buys for non profit. Ethan again will be policing it and can respond to any listing which does not fit his criteria.

Finally, I have thrown above ideas on the table without any expectation of a response from Ethan. If he does then I'll know they fitted his criteria.

 

[mitsos]

Jeff, I wasn't trying to misquote you, I didn't even want to quote you, so I paraphrased it the way I read into your comment. It know how the last GB I did was run, and no one made money on it, unless individuals took the parts, built preamps and sold them at a profit, which may well be true, but I have no control over that nor will I lose sleep over it.  I did it all as a favor to some people here as well as to some local friends who have helped me out a lot with various things, DIY and otherwise. For the record, the only thing I charged more than cost were the PCBs, I charged $12 and paid about 3.50 in China, but once you factor in the 3 prototype runs I had to do locally (about $250 a pop because of minimums), not to mention the time it took away from other things and my family,  the "profit" is hardly worth it. I personally helped many different people complete their builds through email, in much the same way Sahib helped that college student. And the gratitude was worth much more than anything I could have charged for the PCB.  I don't know about the group buy you guys are referring to, but I remember quite a few I took part in, like Ed's 1176 trafos, the state tpads, some other small parts stuff, etc.

As for the pultec, I'm happy you bought in, I'm not a kiss@$$, I just know you'll actually use it. That's what I want most of all, for people to use the thing, I'm sure it's the same for you and others and the preamps and other stuff you put out there.  I wish I were making a profit on it, but I'm not naive enough to think a project with so many expensive custom parts would make money the way it's offered it here. 

I moved the thread to the WM after having the same experience as PeterC.  When Ethan gave me a choice, it was running at a huge loss and I didn't want to deal with the drama of BM/WM.  So I figured I'd buy some extra parts and leave it up there until it breaks even but from the looks of things we'll have to raise the price considerably once the unpaid parts start shipping cuz we're going to have to pay for them out of pocket.  Anyway, it is now running at a slightly lesser loss, whether that is due to WM exposure I don't know, but I am still not happy with the way it was brought to my attention.  It just reminds me of grade school, hence the tattle-tale comment. 

(side note: even at the price it's at, one guy posted repeatedly that he wished for a lower price, and IIRC, it was PeterC who stuck up for him when others started telling him off.  I think Peter's point was that he was not a native English speaker, and there was some humor, intonation, etc lost in translation.  He was right, and I just thought I'd point out one more lesson Peter gave this place).

So where that leaves me I don't know, the $20/month is small change compared to what I've gotten from this place, but I am still hoping for a more broad change in the forum's "tax law." No I am not a socialist, but I do believe in fairness to all, so to me a "membership fee" maybe a voluntary one is a much better way to run this place than mandatory taxes on businesses, which reminds me of government, and in this case of non-democratic choices becomes "taxation without representation."  I thought we put an end to that, on July 4th, 1776.  (how's that for drama )

Maybe make it a voluntary WM? I don't think any of the current members would opt out, I could be wrong, but if it's seen as advertising, shouldn't it be optional anyway?  This whole "shouldn't this be in the WM?" questioning opens up possibilities for people to judge others when they have no place or need to, which I think is especially exemplified in Peter's case.

if the same person keeps organizing the same group buy repeatedly, I think that would be cause for some concern.

I'm just wondering who exactly would be concerned and why?

A good point and a question left unanswered.

I think I am no longer concerned with any of this, I just hope this place doesn't go the way of Head-fi.org, an uber-commercial forum which started with things like the CMOY (whose own headwise forum is now defunct because, well, he didn't go commercial). So there we are, a double edged sword. Remove commercial backing and die, or keep promoting commercial activity and become a mess like headfi.

How to walk the fine line?

 

[abechap024]

I have some thoughts as regards to "Group Buys". Are people saying the the organizers of the group buys shouldn't be compensated for their time? Reasonably?

Most "Group Buys" seem to be PCBs, and when you consider the time it takes and the effort to ship everything, its pretty crazy.

I started the PRR176 group buy, 25$ a piece, shipped. I ended up paying 14.50$ per PCB. Then bought packaging, Paypal fees, gas to the post office, and my wife and I spent hours and hours filling out addresses, organizing addresses, customs forms, and then between school I went to the post office about 5 different occasions. Shipping costs were anywhere from $3 - $10 dollars depending on destination.

When all is said and done, did I make a profit? Does anyone have the right to tell me what I should charge? Does anyone have the right to tell anyone what to charge?

IF the price is too much then people don't buy. Who's going to sit there and say, this group buy price is ok, and this group buy price isn't?

I think we are all on very icey ground here...

I have a store, a "commercial" enterprise (haha). But that doesn't mean the prr176 was a commercial venture (not saying anyone said it was)
Just saying is someone starts a group buy and wants to charge 200$ per PCB, then whos going to tell them they can't?? Would it be ok if they charged 199$ or 150$ or or or??

I think its not for us to decide. Let people be people. Some will want to do it out of good will, others will feel like they need their time compensated by monetary gains.

If you offer a service people want, let them pay, otherwise don't!

I don't have a white-market thread personally because I don't want one. Am I going against the rules here? I had one for a while, but didn't have the scratch one month, so I never renued. especially having to retype everything again. If I have my own store, but still post on this forum, does that mean I am obligated to also pay 20$ a month for a whitemarket thread that I don't want? Not trying to be inconsiderate here, I do donate money to the forum when I have it, I just don't want a whitemarket thread.

Sounds like people want their hands in other people proverbial pie. If person X wants to make a group buy with amount x profit, or x amount of loss. Then good for him! Whos trying to stop him? Who has a problem with it?

 

[Rochey]

the "profit" is hardly worth it.

I feel the same way with a WM thread and Expat Audio 

I think I can say that for most of us in the WM, we don't do it for a living, or even for holiday money...
I do it because it makes this hobby much more accessible for beginners.

In fact, when Keith and I started ExpatAudio, any profit made was poured into prototypes and developement tools for the next project.

Cheers

/R

 

[Rochey]

I started the PRR176 group buy, 25$ a piece, shipped. I ended up paying 14.50$ per PCB. Then bought packaging, and my wife and I spent hours and hours filling out addresses, organizing addresses, customs forms, and then between school I went to the post office about 5 different occasions. Shipping costs were anywhere from $3 - $8 dollars depending on destination.

Thats exactly why I ship in batches every 2 weeks or so... the time to get everything ready for shipping, the forms etc is a nightmare.

 

[abechap024]

Also, were  talking about people needing to show GB invoices (which proof is nothing, anyone with Photoshop could "make" one) just saying there is no sure way to control everyone.

We all talk about "supporting" the forum. Isn't contributing with our projects and info a good step? I mean donating money is great, the money goes to help the supports of the forum, but "donate" implies non-profit. Is this forum really non-profit? I mean with the ads and everything, how much does it actually cost to keep this website up? How much do these Ads bring in? I'm just curious, likely none of my business.

My brother programs Linux and is way more savvy with these things than I ever could be. I talked to him about how much it would cost to host, and about how much ads would possibly bring in.

Is it none of our business to see the Invoices per month on the cost/capital gains of this website? I mean it sounds overboard but is it no different than people wanting to see everyone else invoices?

Just trying to see this from both sides of the equitation. Not trying to ruffle any feathers.

 

[Ethan]

I'm getting really tired of this.

If you want to do a group buy, great.
If you don't want to do a group buy, then don't.

If you want to use the Black Market, great.
If you don't want to use the Black Market, then don't.

If you want to use the White Market, great.
If you don't want to use the White Market, then don't.

I asked for some common sense and good faith among members.

If you're doing a group buy, make it worth your trouble. But don't abuse the system by setting up shop under the cover of a 'group buy' title--once again, exercise common sense and some good faith judgement.

The White Market was created by popular member request. Looking back, if it wasn't created when it was, running this community would have been very tough. Yes, the White Market pays for the majority of running this site, but I ask everyone to play by the same rules.
We run 2 servers, one for the application pool and storage and another for SQL. Each server has a 2-disk storage array, and a separate back-up disk. Infrastructure like that isn't cheap, but I put it in place to make sure that we have 99% uptime, fast page loads, reliability, and room to grow without taking the site offline for several days each time we need to upgrade hardware. 

As I said before in this thread, I respect everyone's unique perspective, but I can't make everyone happy.
Life is too short to spend hours, days, and weeks arguing about things on a forum.