Laser cutter out of order

[Henry Sands]

Laser cutter isn't behaving very well so has been put out of service until myself or one of the other maintainers can get in and have a look at it, which will probably be Friday at the earliest.

Please don't pester us for updates, as soon as we know something, we'll tell you.

If anyone desperately needs cutting done, there are a number of commercial places nearby, check the suppliers page on the wiki.

Yetifiasco
On behalf of the laser cutter maintainers.

[Stefan Sabo]

With time running and our LC is still out of order, there coming more and more often questions on-site, how it looks and when probably could be next attempt to fix it...

Can we get update, at situation, as more then 3 weeks is Laser Cutter Down (with 3 days gap, when working, before was again put to red), how it looks?

If we waiting for some part from China, it is shame, because all people know, as it take time.

If we waiting for change some parts, which we already have at reserve, it demand probably only on free time of maintaners.

Or we waiting to get more maintaners, in situation when summer times should be very busy for lot of us?

Can I suggest "Spider"?

p.s.: do not kill me, I know read and understand message from end of your original message, but amount of people who ask about LC is big, and why not ask, how it looks, and in the case, as it is still worst, go to another hackspace to make necessary tasks...

[Stefan Sabo]

correction: "Spider" = code name of "Hipster" :-)

[Henry Sands]

Waiting for parts, please be patient.

[Andy Tidman]

hi henry any thing i can do to help?

[Henry Sands]

Quick update:

New hinge is on order with JAS, apparently lots of their silvertails are having this issue. They've quoted weeks instead of days but even they're not sure.

In the mean time I'm going to look for alternatives, a decent sized door hinge with enough metal to drill new holes might work well enough in the short run.

This is one of those "don't keep using it in a broken state" things though, if it was earlier before it broke completely, we could have probably bodged a temp fix before it broke all the way.

Update over.

YetiFiasco.

[Stefan Sabo]

Should be something like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Metal-Furniture-Cupboard-Drawer-Length/dp/B00N3ZT104/ref=sr_1_44?s=diy&ie=UTF8&qid=1468837103&sr=1-44&keywords=metal+door+hinge

???

Its only quick search on Amazon. One-Day-Delivery is (if I am right) w/ Prime only for 20+ quids orders, perhaps, without it, it could be under 10 quids delivered within 2-3 days anyway.

I am not sure about size and how heavy should be specific, but as I mention, is only very quick search and believe as on Amazon could be more alternative in price level 10-20 quids, which looks reasonable.

Even, if only this is problem, could be solved quickly.

Laser Bulb have more then 300 hours left, should be ok.

Laser Chip could be problem, if we do not have some spare (which we probably have - by rumours)

One week to celebrate our LC back? :-) (Yes, I am optimist :-))

Dne pondělí 18. července 2016 10:33:15 UTC+1 Henry Sands napsal(a):

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

May I suggest that if you change one hinge you change them all. Then you
won't have the concern of getting the axis of differing hinges aligned.
Particularly with the existing plastic hinges, any misalignment is
likely to bring on failure of the rest quite rapidly.

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[Stefan Sabo]

If we go by plastic hinge with metal axis way, there is plenty of "heavy duty" options on Amazon, with one-day-delivery, sold by piece or by bulk, with really nice and reasonable prices.

Q is, if can be used anything else, then supplied or allowed from JAS / SilverTail, but probably yes, when Henry open this idea...

Dne pondělí 18. července 2016 11:55:10 UTC+1 Sci napsal(a):

> <mailto:london-hack-space+unsub...@googlegroups.com>.

[Henry Sands]

It's whatever fits the current holes on the lid, I'd much rather modify the hinges than modify the lid.

I'll get the measurements of the current hinge and work out whats best.

Henry.

[Stefan Sabo]

W/O guarantee, only quick measure:

"outside size" 54 x 42 mm
One wing size 54 x 14 mm

Median of holes 40mm distance

BTW: It is not mentioned at technical specification of SilverTail machine or when you go to order replacement "original" from JAS? They should probably use more then one type, even w/O care of lid weight and size are installed always same?

Dne pondělí 18. července 2016 16:28:32 UTC+1 Henry Sands napsal(a):

> > <mailto:london-hack-sp...@googlegroups.com>.

>
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Few

[Jim Hayes]

Can the broken part be replaced by a 3d printed plastic part?

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to london-hack-sp...@googlegroups.com.

[Stefan Sabo]

@jim80 teoretically, but I am not sure about durability of some of this 3D printed things at very heavy duty enviroment, which Laser Cutter objective is... And both of our 3D printers at space are currently down...

As I wrote before, Amazon is full of hinges, plastic with metal axe, or full metal pieces... It needs only lookout for it, and most of them could be delivered tomorrow, if you want..

Dne pondělí 18. července 2016 17:13:35 UTC+1 jim80 napsal(a):

> > <mailto:london-hack-space+unsub...@googlegroups.com>.

>
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Henry Sands]

Misquote: A lot of silvertails DON'T suffer from this issue, just a few in heavy use situations.

[Stefan Sabo]

We have now 14 days from last "Out of order" of Laser Cutter and with counting gap about 3-4 days, we are shortly near to 4 weeks, when machine is down

Can we get accurate, expected following steps with time scale from maintainers, following previous investigation by them in person on machine and exact list of what else is wrong on machine apart lid hinges?

CAM we seen steps, which was already made to solve problem of LC (like when was ordered exactly replacement parts, when was made inspection of machine in person last time, etc etc)?

I think, is accurate request, after least of one month when machine behaving wrong, or not working and it's enough time to know what's going on.

Or, followed of IRC public proclamation of one of the maintainers due 15th July 2016 approx 15:49 BST at main channel, we can expect another weeks, or months of machine down, simply, BECAUSE MAINTAINER ENJOYING BROKEN DOWN MACHINE?

seriously?

This behaviour is absolutely unacceptable and can lead to immediately action, which can be only one:

- step-down of minimum one particular maintainer which publicly RESIGN for his duty.

However, any maintainer position at LHS is on voluntary basis, this is shame of whole users of one of the most used machine at space. And also, it's simply wrong behaviour.

I think, and mean, it's not only my own opinion, as coming time, when we need make revision of roles inside Hackspace on positions like Maintainers.

This position, however voluntary, bring not only gace for person, but also some kind of responsibility, which is simply not possible go alongside something, what happened on IRC

This position could better fit to someone, who is at space on daily basis, especially when we talking abuot heavy duty machine like Laser Cutter, where big amount of users potentially can lead to very often out of order.

I would like take this opportunity to open debate, what about

Andy Tidman
Christopher Patton - Hipster

(and there is minimum 2 other people who are able take responsibility to volunteer on this machine and all of them are able to give guarantee as they are at space very often (= quick reaction to problem, good opportunity to make often trainee sessions for new people) and have knowledge necessary to do this)

should jump into maintainers team or will replace one or two existing maintainers

following deliberately unacceptable behaviour on IRC of minimum one of them?

At all, what regularly happened on IRC is at most cases odd and stupid.
There is regular group of people who enjoying embracing and accusing other Hackspace members for long time.
With or without any reason, they always find why to take someone into their sneaky debates.
Sometimes construction which coming there are able to open grievance procedure (sorry at most of times) to give warnings to stop this behaviour.
But this exactly (our IRC enforcement group) are not really important at this moment, they will continue even at other, private channel out if sight and out of public eyes.

[Tom Sands]

Can you just stop posting?

[Henry Sands]

Andy Tidman is already a maintainer.

Hipster is not allowed within 10 meters of maintaining a hackspace machine due to a court order.

I work full time, currently I'm working extra hours too, I have other things to do than slouch around at a hackspace all day to the beck and call of members. Maintenance is done in my free time which I seem to be having less of at the moment. Usually other maintainers come in to fill the gaps, but it's a bit of a perfect storm of work and EMF.

The part is on order, I will be in this weekend to try and bodge a hinge in place, at the same time I will hopefully gangpress some of the other maintainers in to helping me give it a thorough clean and service. Someone has also been cutting PVC in it as well which will be fun to clean off.

I will also sit and remove the grease someone has smeared all over the rubber toothed belts for the second time, I may even have time to tackle the mountains of shit and detritus people leave around the laser cutter because they're too fucking lazy to put it in the bin.

The laser cutter goes down sometimes, sometimes the maintainers can't get in straight away (me and sol have work, russ has EMF, Andy is new at maintaining). If you want to use a laser cutter that badly, use a commercial service.

For your information, we used to have loads of maintainers which just ended up making the laser cutter even more broken and abandoned. Sol then kicked everyone out and took it over himself, Oni was roped in to help and then Russ and myself, and now Andy. We try and keep the laser cutter up as much as possible, but people in the space treat it like shit, though it seems to be hanging in much better than our old cutter.

Regarding IRC, here are the logs:

(this was before we knew the hinge was bust)

[15:44:24] <YetiFiasco> We can fix the laser

[15:44:34] <YetiFiasco> But I'm enjioying it in its broken state

[15:44:45] <YetiFiasco> Its like a postmodern art installation

[15:44:52] <YetiFiasco> I think I'll call it

[15:44:58] <YetiFiasco> "Frustration"

[15:45:14] <tomwyatt> so do we actually have any maintainers atm?

[15:45:17] <oni> "entitlement"

[15:45:56] <YetiFiasco> Its interactive too

[15:46:08] <YetiFiasco> You can stand next to it and join the experience

[15:46:28] <oni> I think you need an arts council grant

[15:46:39] <YetiFiasco> Think I'd get it?

[15:47:40] <YetiFiasco> Someone got it for covering themselves in menstrual blood, so I imagine anythings possible.

[15:47:44] <oni> with enough flowery bollocks yeah

[15:48:37] <YetiFiasco> I could tell them its primary purpose is to piss off art students

[15:48:44] <YetiFiasco> Theyd love thay

Note the satire, this is what we call "avin' a laff", don't try and read meanings out of it that don't exist.

If you take this tone with me again I will put in a formal complaint. 

Yetifiasco.

Speaking as a laser cutter maintainer.

On Wednesday, 20 July 2016 19:05:39 UTC+1, Stefan Sabo wrote:

[Billy]

Stefan makes lots of good points, and as yet, he has received no answers to any of the questions.

We should be getting updates on the progress of how the repairs/maintenance are going, as it would reduce the number of posts on threads like this one.

The lasercutter is a shared tool. It is not the personal property of the maintainers.

If the maintainers will not train other people in the maintenance skills, then they should be removed as maintainers, because they are not doing the longer-term work.

This would not be abproblem as other members who are actually interested in skill-sharing would do the job.

We should all have the opportunity to be trained in maintenance of every tool that we own as a group.

[Billy]

ook.

Cross-posting at the same time as Henry.

I didn't know about the maintainer-glut that happened.

Every time i have asked for maintenance training, i have been ignored, both with the lasercutter, and for the 3d-printers.

[tgreer]

It's probably for a reason....

[Henry Sands]

Update: I have been informed that Andy is not currently a maintainer, ignore any references to him being a maintainer in my previous post.

[deanforbes]

Andy as a maintainer ... This decision was taken as I understand it at a general meeting just after the EGM,  it was also asked that this not be minuted despite this being a public meeting so that to paraphrase "Sol could be managed" - I am curious  if Andy is a maintainer when was he granted these rights and when was he told that this was the case.

The laser cutter has been viewed by many as a tool for personal revenue and power base by Charles Yarnold - preventing competent people on as maintainers just fuels this view, there is a simple way to address this - that is if the compenet people still want to engage after the way they have been treated.

On Wednesday, 6 July 2016 14:10:25 UTC+1, Henry Sands wrote:

[deanforbes]

Just posted and seen latest post /cross post 

On Wednesday, 6 July 2016 14:10:25 UTC+1, Henry Sands wrote:

[Tom Sands]

No, the tool is viewed by you and you only as a personal revenue stream and power base for Charles Yarnold. Please stop projecting your opinions onto the rest of the silent majority.

[Charles Yarnold]

I echo everything Henry has said here.

I've seen people quote this irc exchange as proof of the maintainers feelings, its a bloody joke people. How about if you think someone actually means something like this you talk TO them about it and seek clarification rather than grabbing your pitch forks.

As usual we are waiting on parts and had no update to give, so gave no updates. I've been available to pop in and work on the lasercutter the last few weeks, some days being just down the road working. As it was we were waiting to hear back on things and had planned to meet up to give the lasercutter a good top to bottom scrub and clean up. As usual we aren't waiting for maintainers, we are waiting for outside factors.

We currently have optics and tubes in stock to try and minimise downtime, who knew we also needed hinges.

Stefan, you have shown your ignorance on these matters quite a few times now. Please find another dead horse to flog.

Billy, you haven't been ignored, you have been declined.

--

[deanforbes]

@Tom when did you speak to the general members I suggest you do before making statement like you just did 

@Sol it would be a Joke if the maintainers actions/behaviour did not reinforce it (3 weeks for a hinge) 

On Wednesday, 6 July 2016 14:10:25 UTC+1, Henry Sands wrote:

[Charles Yarnold]

An un-minuted decision that wasn't communicated to the maintainers or talked to for their approval, seems like a royal game someone is playing. Not by the rules of the hackspace or following the precedence set in the past for even handed fairness... but that's ok for Dean if it means it takes a shot at me.

Also, personal revenue? That's a laugh, I didn't start the payment for training in the space and given the amount of supplies I buy for the lasercutter without remembering to keep the receipts I'm not rolling in dough. Hahaha, what a joke, you crack me up :)

--

[Lex Robinson]

Hey now this is all getting very angry. Let's all try to stay calm here, shouting at people on the internet helps no one.

I know the current weather is making everyone all hot and bothered but maybe we should all try to assume good faith? :)

If we could avoid making vague statements and personal attacks I'm sure everything will be better.

[Russ Garrett]

On 20 July 2016 at 23:10, deanforbes <m...@deanforbes.com> wrote:

> The laser cutter has been viewed by many as a tool for personal revenue and
> power base by Charles Yarnold - preventing competent people on as
> maintainers just fuels this view, there is a simple way to address this -
> that is if the compenet people still want to engage after the way they have
> been treated.

Dean,

I consider Charles an acquaintance, but as one of the founders of
London Hackspace it would never stand to have anyone abusing this
organisation. I am sure that Charles has not done so, and I can only
now assume you have a personal vendetta against him, and you are now
publicly defaming him.

I would like you to promptly present any evidence of Charles abusing
his position in London Hackspace to the trustees, or to this mailing
list. If this is not the case, I will recommend to the trustees
(excluding Charles, of course) that you are sanctioned for these false
accusations.

In my personal opinion, Dean, you are intentionally sowing discontent
against Charles because you dislike him personally. This is
unacceptable and is causing significant harm to this organisation
which I founded and I am still significantly attached to.

If it turns out that what you accuse Charles of is true, then I will
resign my trusteeship with immediate effect.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[Billy]

On Wednesday, July 20, 2016 at 11:13:20 PM UTC+1, Solexious wrote:

I echo everything Henry has said here.

I've seen people quote this irc exchange as proof of the maintainers feelings, its a bloody joke people. How about if you think someone actually means something like this you talk TO them about it and seek clarification rather than grabbing your pitch forks.

I avoid the irc channel due to the poor atmosphere, so i can't comment on this part of the thread, as i know nothing about it.

 

As usual we are waiting on parts and had no update to give, so gave no updates. I've been available to pop in and work on the lasercutter the last few weeks, some days being just down the road working. As it was we were waiting to hear back on things and had planned to meet up to give the lasercutter a good top to bottom scrub and clean up. As usual we aren't waiting for maintainers, we are waiting for outside factors.

Then why didn't you tell us this?

The lack of updates, can be seen as a lack-of-interest, rather than a waiting-for-a-delivery.

This form of poor communication is one of the main causes of arguments in the hackspace.

 

We currently have optics and tubes in stock to try and minimise downtime, who knew we also needed hinges.

Stefan, you have shown your ignorance on these matters quite a few times now. Please find another dead horse to flog.

Billy, you haven't been ignored, you have been declined.

Then why wasn't i informed directly?

None of the maintainers has ever said anything about me being refused.

Every time i asked about this, i was ignored.

I haven't been given any reasons for this either. If i had been given reasons, then there would have been something to discuss, and skill-level criteria to meet.

This is not an acceptable way to behave. It's a poisonous form of passive-aggressive behaviour that is one of the primary causes of the disagreements we have here.

To repeat my question, with a hope of getting a clear and direct answer, I would like maintainer training on the lasercutter, as well as the 3d-printers. Can someone please give me clear and unambiguous reasons as to why the current maintainers are not doing this?

Can the current maintainers give clear and unambiguous reasons as to why they haven't set up a maintainer training system, like i requested back in December?

 

[Charles Yarnold]

Billy, I talked to you in person about you not becoming a maintainer and gave reasoning, I don't have the time or mental capacity to go over this again with you. Given you say the same things each time you bring these points up and get given replies (such as the previous glut of maintainers), then bring up the same issues again forgetting the replies you have already been given, I would beseech you to drop this and focus on one of the 100's of other things the hackspace needs.

As usual the peanut gallery of people ready to hound the maintainers that are doing what needs to be done to maintain tools are by far the worst part of maintaining tools.

[Billy]

When did we have this conversation?

I have NEVER had a straight reply to my questions.

Please reply here, so it is clear to everyone what sort of criteria you are using.

Blocking access to learning the maintenance skill-set is totally going against the skill-sharing ethos that the hackspace was started with.

Access to learning the maintenance skills is one of the main reasons that i joined the hackspace, and if it isn't going to happen, it will be the main reason i leave.

[Andy Tidman]

 just to be clear i have never been a maintainer on the laser cutter.
 i am willing to help in any way i can just let me know

[Stefan Sabo]

Ad Hipster & my suggestion for maintenance / training position for him:

Apologies, as I do not have any information as there is legal objection (eg. court order), more of people suggest him on site to this position, looks, nobody have knowledge about this.

Ad joke or not joke on  IRC:

Is really easy NOW, when someone take it on table, say, as it was joke.

There is more then 10 another conversation, which I can suggest to review, which support meaning, as it is wan not taken as joke. May be as act of braving theatre 

At IRC at general:

There is always lot of discussion about real situation at space.

Accusing, blaming and intimidating of other members is GENERAL and OBVIOUS manner, which you can find there at group of 10 people, included both LC maintaners and Tgreer also (have not ban recently especially for it?)

As I am not connected on IRC personally all time (I try avoid this sick place) it does not mean, as I have not there my bot, which grab me conversation with concretely mentions. Also at past days, I get personal emails from couple of people, who send me some part of this conversation (even, it is cross/double, I know it).

It is also obvious, as some people call us, regulars at space, JOBLESS and SHITS on IRC...

It is stand alone reason to take grievance procedure against them. 

Unfortunatelly, I am not lucky as foreign with limited English, to have 50k per annum before tax job. I am lucky, as I was end  my job at kitchen, and after short gap, have now good part time job, with opportunity to change it to full time  after proper training and probation period. And yes, I have more spare time. And if you do not noticed, within last 2 months I try avoid be at space at nights, my obvious time is 4:30 to 11:59 AM, but sometimes, if I have something to do, stay easily 24 or 36 hours and make my own hackaton :-)

It is also obvious, as we are called live-in guardians, or caretakers... 

Ok, I cant protest about it, because if not some of us, level of rubish and dirty place is growing up. Yes, we take care about basic enviroment at space. Anybody try contribute how he can.

But back to theme...

I do not need laser cutter desperately. Only what I need, is cut 15x15cm plates x 3 to make my business cards, which going out of stock. :-)

I have opportunity use another 2 HackSpace Laser Cutters nearby (not really) or in emergency, there is MachineRoom and their 15 quid per first and 10 quids per following hours, which is very serious price.

You are not at space, and can not see lot of people, who  come to do some project on LC, and gone sadly without it. At last 2 weeks it could be more then dozen different people.

Hinge is broken not from 15/7, it is minimum ONE month and it was mentioned  on ML already.

Problem with maintainers and trainers will continue, up to current maintainers will really replaced.

At this moment, anybody who step up with request, as would like be maintainer, need to count with refusal and especially, w/out take any serious reason or explanation.

It is very interesting, as some proclamations above need to be shortly taken back, because it shown as not true.

And, as was wrote above, more transparency and some kind of information continously can help avoid question of people.

p.s.: and now, you can againt blame me on IRC, how you doing it always. It is really nice footage, how this space now running sick. There is regulars, who are attended at space. There is ML monkeys, and IRC enforcement group. Especially last one group goes behind the border lot of times.

Dne čtvrtek 21. července 2016 1:58:05 UTC+1 Andy Tidman napsal(a):

[Henry Sands]

Morning stefan,

The Hipster things was a bit of hackspace humour (again), basically hes been seen as not suitable based on previous experiences from him being a maintainer of the 3D printers.

My public IRC logs are there for everyone to view, I said words to the effect of you're tiring to deal with. If anyone wants the full transcript I will happily email it to them. The "shit" comment was about being a maintainer is a dogshit, thankless job. I never blamed you on IRC, none of my words where to that effect, stop reading injustice into where there isn't any.

The current outage is due to 3 issues that sort of lead into one another. Firstly someone smacked the head gantry into their work, causing it to be bumped out of alignment and knocking the end nozzle off, I came in and readjusted everything and it worked for about a day before the laser stopped cutting, we traced this back to either something with the power supply or something with the interlock, which is when we noticed the bust hinge was actually an issue and was causing the interlock to not lock correctly or lock intermittently.

Throughout hackspace history, the "correct" number of maintainers has always been n+1, where n is the current number of maintainers. There are not 3 separate hackspace groups, please stop listening to Dean.

I'm not going to reply to this thread any more, me and sol will be in on Saturday to fix the laser cutter and you're more than welcome to come over and discuss things with me, I will be happy to talk to you and discuss any matters or grievances you have. 

Again, I will be ignoring any more replies to this thread, any further laser cutter updates will be posted in a new thread.

[A S]

Russ,

You are suggesting that Dean is accusing Charles of abusing his power, but I don't see that, perhaps with the exception of using his powers to prevent competent people from becoming maintainers.
The accusation is that Charles is accumulating power (perhaps to the detriment of the space.)

I don't think that Dean has a personal vendetta against Charles any more than Thomas has a personal vendetta against me, nor that he is deliberately sowing discontent against Charles. This discontent precedes Dean, from members' own experiences with Charles, and whereas many of us don't want the bother of kicking up a fuss and causing a commotion, Dean with his can-do attitude accepts the flak against him from raising these issues in order to try to improve the space's atmosphere, voicing that which many members won't voice themselves.
This is what I have heard from talking to members in and around the space, which I don't come to any more, following certain behaviours from other members.

________
A930913

[Toria]

Dearest Henry & Sol,
Thank you for your continued selflessness. I remember having frustration over cutter downtime, back when I was ignorant about maintenance needs. I also had poorly considered ideas I could be a maintainer, expecting you would have teaching time, without me showing any real initiative through research or self-directed study. Sorry.
I believe the silent majority are grateful for your voluntary and exhausting work to maintain a complex and oft abused Hackspace attraction.
Sometime in August I'm gonna re-clean that gross black fridge and do some BBQ. I hope you will be around for noms.
<3 always.

[Benjamin Blundell]

Charles and Henry are friends, so I'm bound to support them in this but I would hope to do so with some facts.

I used to be a maintainer as well. I stopped because it is a job that is hard to do and I had personal stuff to deal with that meant I had to step back from it.

I think Russ is quite correct - Dean that is a serious allegation which is unfounded,  and doesn't bring us any closer to resolving the issue at hand.

Like Toria I thank the maintainers for all the work they've done in keeping the laser cutter up and running :)

B

[Lewis]

Guys,

This is literally horrible to read, it's such a shame seeing such a creative and interesting place filled with talented people become this bickering mess of disgusting behaviour. I really think it's not the place for it. It should be a place to discuss, share knowledge and be inspired. At the moment it's a very dark place and I for one don't like reading any posts as I know it will turn sour very quickly.

It's a community space with machines to use to create. They. are. machines. Everyone has the same feeling towards misuse, breaks and other issues but when it comes down to it, pointing fingers and abuse is not going to do anything apart from turn people away from the space on the whole. When that happens, the whole place will have to close and no one will have anywhere to create and meet other makers. 

It's difficult but taking a step back and being an adult and approaching this is a direct but more positive manner will be so much better off for everyone, old and new.

Lewis

[Christopher Paton]

Please don't libel me while i am not involved in this conversation. I have no court orders, and thank you for saying so Henry, but why hint as such at the first place?

Done.

Chris

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

> In my personal opinion, Dean, you are intentionally sowing discontent
> against Charles because you dislike him personally. This is
> unacceptable and is causing significant harm to this organisation
> which I founded and I am still significantly attached to.
>
> If it turns out that what you accuse Charles of is true, then I will
> resign my trusteeship with immediate effect.
>

I would like to request that members of the board not make
organisational do-or-die declarations at gone midnight. This isn't the
UK government.

[Charles Yarnold]

On 21 July 2016 at 09:47, 'A S' via London Hackspace <london-h...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

[...]This discontent precedes Dean, from members' own experiences with Charles,[...]

Do you have any proof of this or can even give these instances? Seriously, what have I done preceding Dean to give people these experiences. I'm done with a small group throwing around this rubbish at me with no recourse for their personal attacks. 

[Charles Yarnold]

Again Stephan, and please read this carefully.

This hasn't been due to a lack of time to work on the lasercutter, I have been available to come in at a drop of a hat. Stop this narrative that this is not the case and is due to not having enough maintainers.

[MSRaynsford]

Let me apologies on behalf of Just Add Sharks for the delay in this matter.

Spare parts and laser cutters take 3 months to arrive from China, we do our best to estimate what spare parts we might need and we have a tendency to take any spares required from our stock machines to cover the gaps. In this case the spare hinges we had were taken by Nottingham hackspace (their machine also receives a lot of use) and we have sold all our stock. I ordered additional spare hinges as soon as their was an inkling of a problem on their machine and those hinges should be here shortly, but we are waiting on paperwork to know exactly when (which should arrive today)

Once we know when those parts are arriving we will decide if we need to dhl parts from China faster.

[Charles Yarnold]

This is an obvious strong arm tactic to get the result you want. Given you have been a member for over 4 years, if not becoming a maintainer on one specific tool is a cause for you leaving the space I'm quite frankly baffled.

This seems to be the same argument people new to open source have, "if its open, why can't I have commit access to change the code on the main codebase, the maintainers are obstructing me!". Some people are incompatible with the community around something, you can't expect to demand admin access to something.

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

Small note: Gross black kitchen fridge was replaced in January with a
new one.

[Billy]

I have been requesting this form of training ever since i joined the hackspace back in 2010.

I still haven't had a straight answer about this, just awkward silences, where no-one wanted to look directly at me.

Whenever i asked what the specific pre-requisites are, for becoming a maintainer of the lasercutter, i never got a straight answer, and neither did anyone else. (They may have had personal conversations, like the one you claim we had, but never answers in public, like here on the mailing list.)

I know that being a maintainer isn't easy. I became one of the maintainers of the old mini-lathe, after it was neglected for 5 months back in 2012. I put in a lot of effort to get it up-and-running again, including fabricating new parts from raw materials. It was fun, i learned a lot, and we ended up with a functional mini-lathe.

This is not a strong-arm tactic. This has been an ongoing concern about the long-term viability of the hackspace, due to the bottlenecks that have been created by older members. I saw the way that the lasercutter was out of action while you were filming, back in 2012. This is why i started pushing to learn more maintenance skills, and pushing for the teaching of the maintenance skills.

Yes, i can understand that there are some concerns about the minimum-necessary-level-of-skills, which is why i keep asking for a basic rundown of the pre-requisites. Which still hasn't been answered.

I keep asking for maintenance training sessions for the equipment, not just for me, but for every member. This hasn't happened.

All i am asking for is access to the equipment that we hold in common, that we helped build, and that we as a group paid for.

And you still haven't given me a direct answer to my questions.

Please answer my questions.

[A S]

Proof of other's discontent? Of course not; even if I did, I wouldn't violate their confidence.
As for my discontent, that stems from the incidents leading up to me ceasing my membership for a year, a couple of years back.

I have kept a wide berth from you since then to avoid further conflict, but recently, other members who have had contact with you have privately told me that they have also taken issue. Instead of all of us just avoiding you, perhaps it's time to directly address the issue.

--

[Billy]

Thinking about things a little more, i realised that i hadn't necessarily explained why this situation is frustrating, which is why i'm reacting a little more negatively than usual.

If there was a simple statement of what sort of skill-level pre-requisites you need to have, in order to learn maintenance skills successfully, then it wouldn't be a problem.

I would look at my current skill-set, and work out what i needed to practise next.

The continual refusal to give a straight answer to a direct question is a pattern of behaviour that's straight out of Passive-Aggression 101.

It's this pattern of behaviour that gives rise to the accusations of "clique" and "control freak", which is where the last set of longer-term arguments came from.

While it might be a pattern that is practised with the best will and intentions, in the long run, it's causing damage to the very community that you're seeking to protect.

[A S]

Indeed Billy.
Rule 4 begins with "If something is broken, fix it"
It used to be a case of if a tool was broken, instead of complaining about how the tool was broken you should fix it instead.
Much of this anguish is about members seeing the tools being down, wanting to volunteer their time and experience to fix it, but are being blocked from doing so by tool maintainers.
I can understand not wanting to let any old person bodge fixes, but when we have upstanding members like Andy who already has a proven capacity of being a maintainer as well as a wealth of professional experience, this argument loses its validity.

[Adrian Godwin]

If anyone is in a tearing hurry, Machines Room have started to make their big laser available (it's pretty much identical to the hackspace one) as well as the smaller epilog.

It will cost you a little more than using the hackspace laser and opening times are shorter, but perhaps that will make you appreciate the hackspace facilities more :)

You will, of course, have to do their induction and training before you can use it.

[Russ Garrett]

I am serious. Rolling into this discussion with vague accusations that
there's some kind of conspiracy between the laser cutter maintainers
to keep the machine out of order is both unproductive and profoundly
disheartening for those involved. This behaviour needs to stop.

Moreover, this argument is a straw man. What has happened is that a
part has broken, which is visible for all to see. Anyone could have
looked at the broken part and tried to find an appropriate replacement
- the maintainers would have been very happy if that was the case.

Unfortunately these are not very standard hinges, and as it stands,
the maintainers made the decision to wait for a part rather than
trying to bodge something in. If you want to criticise that decision,
fine, but don't cast it as some kind of conspiracy, which it clearly
is not.

Billy: It's not really a case of skill levels - the reluctance to add
more maintainers really stems from two things:

1) There's no manual for maintaining this machine. A lot of it is
accumulated intuition from interacting with laser cutters and making
mistakes with them for years. We would naturally prefer for the same
mistakes not to be made again. It would be great if it could be
written down, and I have made a start, but it's hard work and people
hate writing documentation. Perhaps new maintainers could be trained
by shadowing an existing maintainer, except if things need to be fixed
urgently it's hard to coordinate that.

2) It's essential that maintainers share what they've done with other
maintainers. The more maintainers there are, the harder this becomes,
and the higher the likelihood that (by mistake or otherwise)
information goes missing and work gets repeated or undone. For
example, the laser cutter's optics are a consumable, with a finite
life. They need to be cleaned regularly, but over-cleaning them would
shorten their lifespan.

For this reason, I think it's right that the number of maintainers are
limited, and I think there is an optimal number (which is probably
more than three but less than ten). I think it is right that the laser
cutter maintainers get to choose who is trained, and I don't think
they have an obligation to explain their choice.

Yes, there is some protectiveness around the laser cutter, but that
protectiveness stems from an understanding of how fragile it is, and
how easy it is to make things worse. I think there is an similar
amount of protectiveness around the other large CNC machines, and I
think that is perfectly reasonable. Rule 4 was written before we had
single, fragile machines costing many thousands of pounds.

--
Russ Garrett
ru...@garrett.co.uk

[deanforbes]

correction regarding the larger CNC Kit

anyone who has helped had the aptitude and expressed an interest in being a maintainer has been offered this role

[Mr Ed]

On Thursday, 21 July 2016 13:17:27 UTC+1, Christopher Paton wrote:

Please don't libel me while i am not involved in this conversation. I have no court orders, and thank you for saying so Henry, but why hint as such at the first place?

It's a hackspace joke! Don't you get it. Ha ha it's funny you see because...

...er actually I don't get it either.


As far as I can tell it's not a hackspace joke, it's an IRC channel joke, or more specifically, some sort of in-joke between the relatively few people who can brave the incredibly toxic atmosphere on IRC. Guys, if you want to make the hackspace seem really cliquey, then publicly bringing up nasty in-"jokes" known only to a very small sub set of the community is a really, really good way of going about it.

Making such "jokes" at the expense of someone is against the code of conduct.

-Ed

[Charles Yarnold]

Again vague notions an woo-merchanting to signal there are issues without actually giving any incidents or proof. You say you cant speak to others discontent, but then don't site any incidents or actions taken by me for your own. Just FUD slinging.

[Charles Yarnold]

On 21 July 2016 at 15:03, Billy <bi...@billycomputersmith.com> wrote:

This is not a strong-arm tactic. This has been an ongoing concern about the long-term viability of the hackspace, due to the bottlenecks that have been created by older members. I saw the way that the lasercutter was out of action while you were filming, back in 2012. This is why i started pushing to learn more maintenance skills, and pushing for the teaching of the maintenance skills.

Oh this again, as usual you have forgotten past discussions with you on this. This was back in the time were we had many many maintainers and training was given by shouting into a room of 20+ people on a Tuesday night. Then when I cane back from filming I took control of getting the maintenance done and giving effective training to keep us with a working lasercutter.

I keep asking for maintenance training sessions for the equipment, not just for me, but for every member. This hasn't happened.

Maintenance of the machines shouldn't be something that every member does, the reasoning behind this can be distilled into 'too many cooks'.

 

All i am asking for is access to the equipment that we hold in common, that we helped build, and that we as a group paid for.

You hve access to it, just not maintainer access to it.

And you still haven't given me a direct answer to my questions.

Please answer my questions.

I have answered your questions multiple times both in public and private, you seem to forget it every time. I'm not refusing to answer your questions, I'm refusing to answer your questions for the umpteenth time!

*fin*

[Charles Yarnold]

This argument only holds weight if the cause of the down time is due to maintainers not being available or not having the skills to make repairs, that is not the case here!

[Charles Yarnold]

It wasn't a hackspace in joke, it wasn't an irc in joke, it wasn't a secret cabal joke, it was just a poor taste joke.

[Mr Ed]

On Thursday, 21 July 2016 18:39:50 UTC+1, Solexious wrote:

It wasn't a hackspace in joke, it wasn't an irc in joke, it wasn't a secret cabal joke, it was just a poor taste joke.

From the person who actually made the joke:

> The Hipster things was a bit of hackspace humour (again),

Like it or not, there are and always will be cliques. It's a natural consequence of human interaction. This very much sounds like a joke common between some group of people. When stuff like that leaks out into more general audiences it gives people not part of the clique a bad feeling.

And if you don't want people to always assume the worst of IRC, then it needs to be held to much, much higher standards than it's held to now.

-Ed

 

[Billy]

On Thursday, July 21, 2016 at 6:07:20 PM UTC+1, Russ Garrett wrote:

Unfortunately these are not very standard hinges, and as it stands,
the maintainers made the decision to wait for a part rather than
trying to bodge something in. If you want to criticise that decision,
fine, but don't cast it as some kind of conspiracy, which it clearly
is not.

That's fine.

It would be better if the maintainers gave more regular updates, like the one Henry made earlier today. :D

 

Billy: It's not really a case of skill levels - the reluctance to add
more maintainers really stems from two things:

1) There's no manual for maintaining this machine. A lot of it is
accumulated intuition from interacting with laser cutters and making
mistakes with them for years. We would naturally prefer for the same
mistakes not to be made again. It would be great if it could be
written down, and I have made a start, but it's hard work and people
hate writing documentation. Perhaps new maintainers could be trained
by shadowing an existing maintainer, except if things need to be fixed
urgently it's hard to coordinate that.

2) It's essential that maintainers share what they've done with other
maintainers. The more maintainers there are, the harder this becomes,
and the higher the likelihood that (by mistake or otherwise)
information goes missing and work gets repeated or undone. For
example, the laser cutter's optics are a consumable, with a finite
life. They need to be cleaned regularly, but over-cleaning them would
shorten their lifespan.

All of these are good and valid points.

Especially the lack of maintenance manuals, which i found when i looked at their website.

And shadowing maintainers is an excellent way of learning the quirks of any specific machine.

Logging maintenance would also be more effective, as there would be a paper-trail. This is normal in industry.

We already have a google-doc that tracks the lasercutter usage, why not one that tracks maintenance?

 

For this reason, I think it's right that the number of maintainers are
limited, and I think there is an optimal number (which is probably
more than three but less than ten). I think it is right that the laser
cutter maintainers get to choose who is trained, and I don't think
they have an obligation to explain their choice.

This is where we disagree.

Yes, it IS right that the maintainers choose who can act as a maintainer. They are the best people to judge how well someone can do the required tasks.

But, No it is NOT right that the maintainers are unaccountable for the decisions that they make.

Transparency in decision making is the only way that you can guarantee that everything is being done fairly.

No one has yet explained why i have been refused maintainer training.

Please note, that i am NOT asking to be made a maintainer instantly, Now! TODAY! :))

All i am asking for is that we set up regular maintainer inductions and training, so that every interested member can have the chance to learn these skills.

This will widen the available pool of potential maintainers, which can only benefit the hackspace as a whole.

 

[Adrian Godwin]

On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 6:56 PM, Mr Ed <edward...@gmail.com> wrote:

And if you don't want people to always assume the worst of IRC, then it needs to be held to much, much higher standards than it's held to now.

-Ed

It's basically pub banter. It can be friendly, it can be amusing, it can be cliquey, it can be offensive. If you like that sort of thing, you'll feel at home after a necessary quiet settling-in period. If you don't, you won't like it and you can safely ignore it.

It's not a primary communication channel, so it doesn't have to be 'on-message'. There also isn't any good reason to repeat comments outside the channel out of context.

You could have a formal irc channel too if you wanted, but it would just be full of stuffy people and short-lived visitors. Because it wouldn't be human.

[Adrian Godwin]

On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 7:09 PM, Billy <bi...@billycomputersmith.com> wrote:

 

Logging maintenance would also be more effective, as there would be a paper-trail. This is normal in industry.

I believe maintenance is logged - it did suffer a short period when it wasn't, but it was resumed. I haven't checked recently : it may have fallen into disuse again -

this is the tendency when the maintainers themselves communicate well, but a historical record is useful too.

 

[Billy]

On Thursday, July 21, 2016 at 6:35:05 PM UTC+1, Solexious wrote:

On 21 July 2016 at 15:03, Billy <bi...@billycomputersmith.com> wrote:

This is not a strong-arm tactic. This has been an ongoing concern about the long-term viability of the hackspace, due to the bottlenecks that have been created by older members. I saw the way that the lasercutter was out of action while you were filming, back in 2012. This is why i started pushing to learn more maintenance skills, and pushing for the teaching of the maintenance skills.

Oh this again, as usual you have forgotten past discussions with you on this. This was back in the time were we had many many maintainers and training was given by shouting into a room of 20+ people on a Tuesday night. Then when I cane back from filming I took control of getting the maintenance done and giving effective training to keep us with a working lasercutter.

I keep asking for maintenance training sessions for the equipment, not just for me, but for every member. This hasn't happened.

Maintenance of the machines shouldn't be something that every member does, the reasoning behind this can be distilled into 'too many cooks'.

 

I am NOT asking that everyone becomes a maintainer. As you said, too many cooks.

What i AM asking for is that the training for maintenance be available to every member that is interested in learning.

The decisions on who is the most qualified to act as an official maintainer is something that the current maintainers are only fit to judge, as they are best placed to know who has the requisite skills and knowledge.

However these decisions need to be completely transparent.

The maintainers need to be accountable to the members as a whole.

 

All i am asking for is access to the equipment that we hold in common, that we helped build, and that we as a group paid for.

You hve access to it, just not maintainer access to it.

Ditto. See above.

 

And you still haven't given me a direct answer to my questions.

Please answer my questions.

I have answered your questions multiple times both in public and private, you seem to forget it every time. I'm not refusing to answer your questions, I'm refusing to answer your questions for the umpteenth time!

If the conversations took place between Feb to August 2013, then it is quite possible that i spoke with you, but didn't remember much, as i was still recovering from brain surgery.

I don't really remember much from that period.

The other conversations that took place on the mailing list didn't give me a straight answer either way, as they all petered out, without coming to a firm conclusion.

Working on the principle that i will remember this thread, could you please publically answer my questions here?

Then if i ask again, you can just refer me to this thread.

[Charles Yarnold]

You seem to think I was defending IRC or the reasoning behind the joke, I was just saying it was a poor taste joke.

The joke, was in poor taste.

[Charles Yarnold]

Yup, we had a full log for the old cutter. When we moved to the new one the amount of maintenance required dropped and we didn't have much to log, so the odd little tweak here and there didn't get recorded, but there is a log on the wiki.

[Charles Yarnold]

The same as Henry, I'm now done with this thread.

The lasercutter is the tool with the most uptime, recorded and communicated maintenance(contrary to the vocal minority on this list, no news is no news, not us with holding news on repairs), trained users with regular effective training, users and projects worked on of all the major tools at the hackspace.

I love working on the lasercutter to keep in in working order and training members to use it. I love seeing what people make with it and helping them do this by answering questions publicly and privately along with refreshers and jumping in to assist people when ever they need it. I even enjoy when it breaks and I can help remedy the situation and bring it back into service so I can see all the awesome things people make with it. Sitting there for 4 hours realigning the optics might get a tad boring by the end, but its always rewarding to see someone happy that its back in service and them jumping on and making something cool.

The part that makes me want to walk away and never set foot in the hackspace again is the peanut gallery ready to throw scorn on any perceived issues they think there may or may not be, that will grind into the dust the changes they think should be made to how its run despite repeated explanations of why it is how it is. Those people who use this as a way to personally attack with a thin veil of "concern trolling" over it to try and skirt repercussions. Stop, please.

[Billy]

On Thursday, July 21, 2016 at 7:53:45 PM UTC+1, Solexious wrote:

The same as Henry, I'm now done with this thread.

The lasercutter is the tool with the most uptime, recorded and communicated maintenance(contrary to the vocal minority on this list, no news is no news, not us with holding news on repairs), trained users with regular effective training, users and projects worked on of all the major tools at the hackspace.

I love working on the lasercutter to keep in in working order and training members to use it. I love seeing what people make with it and helping them do this by answering questions publicly and privately along with refreshers and jumping in to assist people when ever they need it. I even enjoy when it breaks and I can help remedy the situation and bring it back into service so I can see all the awesome things people make with it. Sitting there for 4 hours realigning the optics might get a tad boring by the end, but its always rewarding to see someone happy that its back in service and them jumping on and making something cool.

That's exactly the feeling that i was getting when watching someone use the mini-lathe that i re-built, and watching someone use the casting equipment that we made.
 

The part that makes me want to walk away and never set foot in the hackspace again is the peanut gallery ready to throw scorn on any perceived issues they think there may or may not be, that will grind into the dust the changes they think should be made to how its run despite repeated explanations of why it is how it is. Those people who use this as a way to personally attack with a thin veil of "concern trolling" over it to try and skirt repercussions. Stop, please.

It's not "concern trolling" from me.

I am actually trying to get a straight answer, as to why i have been refused maintainer training.

Will you please answer my questions?

 

[Christopher Paton]

I still dont find this libel funny and was not part of the 'clique' of either irc or mailing list joke. 

awaiting apology! it puts me in disrepute with in the space for people that dont know the 'core' group that i count many as friends.

chris

[Aden]

Acting like a spoilt child that won't take no for an answer is probably one of the many reasons. They are being diplomatic by not making a long list of reasons you are unsuitable.

--

[A S]

Vague notions without indication of when or what, like you're telling Billy? Billy can't recall, and neither can I recall you ever explaining to him why he is not suitable to be a maintainer. I recall him asking numerous times and having it waved away, or otherwise ignored. If you have previously detailed it, I'm sure you'll have no problem linking it.

Here, I'll go first with the specific explanations. The incidents where I was improving the wiki and you kept reverting me, citing vague notions and woo-merchanting to signal there were issues, without actually giving any incidents or proof. (Perhaps there's a theme here.)
Your attitude and behaviours towards me encouraged me to stop being a member, and actively avoid all contact with you ever since.

Your turn for specifics.

[Billy]

If being diplomatic was the issue, i could understand receiving an email that would list the reasons, but i don't mind doing this publicly, as it's a set of questions that have been raised by other members, i'd prefer to do this in the open.

Having an actual list of reasons would be a start, as i would then know what i needed to work on.

[Samb1]

So I think everything that needs to be said here has been said and a lot more besides so in the interests of reducing the maintainer baiting and general toxicity this thread will now be closed.

Thanks,

Sam