Forum Under New Management!

[Kurt at VR-FX]

Yes - you read it right! I'm the New Mgmt of this forum. I have been passed the baton by Mark the MakerGuy - who has completely removed himself from the world of 3D Printing - including the fact he no longer has ANY 3DP's!

Now - the deal is - Andy the Podcast guy - he created a new forum like this one - back last Sept. - and I would like EVERYONE to move over to that forum. Now, I could supposedly Add everyone to the new forum - since I am Admin in this group. But, problem is - it would include a lot of inactive people - which makes NO SENSE to add them!!!

As such, I am ASKING - although, in a way - almost DEMANDING - that EVERYONE here that is Active - and wants to stay active in a forum like this one - PLEASE join the New forum! Here is the link to the new forum:

    https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/3d-printing-tips--tricks

I will, soon - possibly VERY Soon - Lock down this forum so that no further postings can occur! But, I won't do that quite yet. I wanted to give everyone enough warning before doing so.

Thanks for your Understanding in regards to this Public Service Announcement!
Kurt - Alias VR-FX - Alias the Bot-Guy - Alias Dragon-Meister

[RanchRifle]

Good to know.

[Kurt at VR-FX]

Is it Really - Mr. Rifle Guy?

:-)

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricks...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com.

[James Holmes-Siedle]

Kurt - AKA Alias Guy!

[Kurt at VR-FX]

Touche!

Of course, for some years - my postings come across as "VRFX" - and a Lot of people knew me only as that- which was weird. It was just a strange setting in the forum. Then, a while ago - I finally got it worked out - so my name comes across as my name. Of course, I have used the moniker as Bot-Guy, which I initially came up with for my 2nd year exhibit at NYC World Maker Faire. And, of course, I also became known as the guy doing the Dragons - 1st the 4.5 foot long one, then the 9 foot long one! Thus my humorous usage of multiple Aliases...

:-)

L8r,
Just Kurt...

--

[Baha Baydar]

Any particular reason to force the switch? If it's not broken why "fix" it?

[Kurt at VR-FX]

Hello Baha,

The answer is not that straightforward and simple. And, it's not about fixing.

 

Are you familiar with Andy the podcast guy who does the 3D printing Today podcast??? Because, therein lies the guts of the situation.

 

About six months ago a fight occurred here on the forum. To the extent that the form administrator actually removed an entire discussion thread! And this kind of problem harks back to about 2012, when MakerBot did the same thing to a forum that it was running! That one thread started being removed and edited by MakerBot trying to silence the masses, when it didn't like people's opinions, then that caused Mark the Makerguy, who was the administrator of this forum, to open up this new forum! And so this form has been active for a good number of years now since about 2012.

 

So, move forwards about 6 years, and the guy who created this forum - did it because a thread he wrote - Removed by MakerBot. Now, what did he do, he decides he did not like something that was being said by one of the members here, and he removed a thread! Which is counterintuitive considering that he started this forum because a thread  he wrote was removed!

 

How long have you been active in this form? Because that does beg the question. Truth is, this forum has gotten quieter and not as active over the past six months. And, since Mark went and removed a discussion thread that was started by Andy the podcast guy, then Mark said go make your own forum, and so Andy did exactly that! And turns out, now, that forum of Andy is now more active than this forum. And these are the only two 3D printing forum that I follow. So at this point, there's too much overlap between these two forums and people are posting at times the same thing on both forms. That includes me, as well as Ryan, as well as maybe one or two other people.

 

So I put a message out asking for help and regards to administering and moderating this forum. Because, as I wrote in this thread, Mark the maker guy, who created this form, no longer wants to be involved and wanted to dump it. So he dumped it onto my lap. He asked me and Jetguy, but Jetguy is way too busy and cannot take the time to help out with the Forum much less respond or post in the forum anymore. As you and other people know he has been silent for nearly six months!

 

When I put out the request to a bunch of guys asking for help to administer this  forum, the suggestion was made that I simply shut down and lock down this forum. And advise & suggest people join the other forum. And, I felt that the suggestion was a pretty good idea. I had actually suggested about taking all the members and literally adding them into the new forum, for all the members that currently exist in this forum. The downside is, there are many people in this form who are no longer active. There are maybe about a group of approximately 25 to 30 active members in the past 6 months, whereas, this forum, actually has a total of about 1600 registered members. So we are talkin nearly 1,500  inactive members. As such, with so many inactive members, and the another form that already offers the same content, there's no point in keeping this one alive. I will however not kill it completely, so that instead it can still be used as a great resource such that people can search The Archives and search for messages for answers to their questions.

 

 I know this is a long-winded answer, but hopefully now this answers your questions. As well as giving some other folks here a little bit more insight as to why I have decided to essentially lockdown or shut down this forum.

-K-

--

[Ryan Carlyle]

Google Groups activity is falling, so I definitely think we should be moving in the direction of combining groups rather than splitting groups. 

Also, no one has "reviewed" a printer in this group for like a year or two, so maybe "tips and tricks" is better than "tips, tricks, and reviews"  :-)

[Brandon A.]

Moving my browsing over to the new forum.  I think this is the right call, thanks for managing it Kurt.

On Friday, March 1, 2019 at 12:37:40 PM UTC-6, Ryan Carlyle wrote:

Also, no one has "reviewed" a printer in this group for like a year or two, so maybe "tips and tricks" is better than "tips, tricks, and reviews"  :-)

To be fair, it can be incredibly intimidating to review a printer in front of an audience of folks that know a whole heckuva lot more about the subject matter than yourself. 

[Kurt at VR-FX]

Excellent point about the reviews - and thanks for confirming I'm going in the right direction with the changes to the forum!

-K-

On 3/1/2019 10:37 AM, Ryan Carlyle wrote:

Google Groups activity is falling, so I definitely think we should be moving in the direction of combining groups rather than splitting groups. 

Also, no one has "reviewed" a printer in this group for like a year or two, so maybe "tips and tricks" is better than "tips, tricks, and reviews"  :-)

[Kurt at VR-FX]

And - Thank you Brandon!

-K-

[Baha Baydar]

Thanks for the explanation Kurt. I've been lurking for quite a while, but haven't posted much. I've been a bit more active on the Delta group though. 

I do know a lot of chatter has moved to various Discord servers and the like so consolidating traffic does make sense. 

Regards,

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/3dprintertipstricksreviews/ets0TNAuX8o/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to 3dprintertipstricks...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com.

--

Baha Baydar
bba...@gmail.com

[Joseph Larson]

On Friday, March 1, 2019 at 9:39:05 AM UTC-7, Baha Baydar wrote:

Any particular reason to force the switch? If it's not broken why "fix" it?

This. 

This forum has a longer history, more archived information, the new forum was made as a knee-jerk reaction to what the old mods did in this forum and they both have practically the same name. Why not make Andy a mod of this forum and close down that one?

[Kurt at VR-FX]

Hey Joe!

Will admit - that's a rather creative thought. Fact is - I wrote to a bunch of guys asking for help to Mod this forum (and I did include you if I remember right). And, one guy suggested shutting this one down and suggesting people move over to Andy's forum. Then, Andy also suggested that was a good idea.

Keep in mind, part of the reasoning was that this forum has gotten VERY Quiet the past few months. I did a quick peek at both forums. I had my email open - and was viewing about 12 emails at a time. So - if I paged backwards about 5 times - each a set of 12. I found that in the New forum - it went back a few days worth of time - lets say 4 days. But, in this Old forum - the same thing revealed that it went back nearly a Month! So - the activity is SO Low here - that's why it was suggested to close it down.

Now - that being said - its not a Bad idea - to have Andy take over this forum, and maybe shut down his new one. But, not sure if he would like the idea. I will, however, send this reply his way - and see what he thinks. As I am trying to keep an open mind as to the options...

-K-

--

[Steven Butterfield]

Good idea Joe. There is a lot more info and history on this forum. Is it possible that it would get shut down or erased if people don't use it after a period of time? If Andy became a moderator and people switched back that would be cool. In the end in good with either one.

[Petr Ptacek]

Hey, new manager, pin the post! :-P

[Kurt Wendt]

Yeah right! Dang, I'm not even sure I know how to do that!

:-)

-K-

--

[Kurt at VR-FX]

What I really should have said was...

OK Sub-ordinate forum member whose not a newbie - I will try to do that!

:-)

-K-

[Joseph Larson]

So after thinking about it for the weekend, I'm not sure I'm still holding to my position that we need to keep this one around for the archive. There's a lot of out dated information, a good chance to start the archive from scratch, and this forum is just kinda dead. Maybe it's time to let it go and move on.

On Monday, March 4, 2019 at 7:23:25 PM UTC-7, Kurt @ VR-FX wrote:

What I really should have said was...

OK Sub-ordinate forum member whose not a newbie - I will try to do that!

:-)

-K-

On 3/4/2019 6:08 PM, Kurt Wendt wrote:

Yeah right! Dang, I'm not even sure I know how to do that!

:-)

-K-

On Mar 4, 2019 5:49 PM, Petr Ptacek <pjp...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey, new manager, pin the post! :-P

On Saturday, March 2, 2019 at 10:05:30 PM UTC-8, Steven Butterfield wrote:

Good idea Joe. There is a lot more info and history on this forum. Is it possible that it would get shut down or erased if people don't use it after a period of time? If Andy became a moderator and people switched back that would be cool. In the end in good with either one.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to 3dprintertips...@googlegroups.com.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "3D Printer Tips, Tricks and Reviews" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricksreviews+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

[Kurt at VR-FX]

I beg to differ - there's A LOT of info here. And, newbies should Search here before answering questions! Since, many times - the questions were already asked  & answered! Including Many, MANY Responses from JetGuy!

-K-

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricks...@googlegroups.com.

[Ryan Carlyle]

My two cents on the archival question. When was the last time any of y'all went back to the old Makerbot Operators group? It's still available after being closed 4.5 years ago. Do you still search it?

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/makerbot

[Darrell jan]

I search it a few times a year. Not often, but sometimes.

[Darrell jan]

The other thing about saving this group is that it general, the responses are so much better than the stuff you find on Facebook. So if you want someone to see examples of thoughtful discussion, direct them here. Brainless discussions, go there.

[Kurt at VR-FX]

+1!

-K-

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 3dprintertipstricks...@googlegroups.com.

[Hugh Johnson]

Not all 1500 people who don’t reply are inactive. I personally mostly just read and don’t post.

I did sign up for the other forum though. 

Hugh

[Kurt at VR-FX]

Hello there Mr. Huge Johnson!

Sorry - your posting was caught in the SPAM Filter by Google - and I just found it - and allowed it to go thru. OF course, Maybe Google thinks you're from a Porn co. with your name!!! (Although - I know its a Nickname/Alias - and not a REAL Name - based upon prior emails with you!)

As for the Inactive 1500 - that's purely a Guestimate!

You may be in the New Forum - but, you sure have not posted! You must be the Biggest - I mean - the HUGE Lurker!!!

:-)

-K-

[Perry Cain]

The forum needs to remain available for searching.  That is necessary.

[Kurt at VR-FX]

Agreed.

On 3/8/2019 5:29 AM, Perry Cain wrote:

The forum needs to remain available for searching.  That is necessary.

[Ryan Carlyle]

No reason to think it’ll go away if we just lock it. The Makerbot Operators group is still searchable 4.5 years later. Which is an eternity in 3DP time.

[Kurt at VR-FX]

An eternity indeed! Although, I thought your point with your last reply was that that MOGG forum (where I began my 3DP endeavors) - wasn't really useful since you figured nobody searches that forum even though it was locked down 4.5 years ago. But, I see you really tried to make TWO Points - the second being that its still around after all these years!

FYI - I have now Passed the Baton again - Andy the Podcast Guy is our new fearless leader of this forum!!!

-K-
aka Interim Forum Owner/Mgr.
aka The Bot-Guy
aka The Dragon-Meister