Official Luthiers Forum!

Who loves you, John! OLF seems to have become a refuge for the disenchanted and disenfranchised. The more open policy of this forum seems to be more compatible with the personalities of creative people anyway.

Any forum has an absolute right to run their site as they see fit and we have every right to participate under those rules...or not. While our forum may not have the volume of traffic that MIMF has, in 2 years we've accumulated a respectable number of great people of varying skill levels and interests...and it seems that this alternative site is catching on. Even though I occasionally visit the other forums, OLF fulfills my needs better than the other sites.

Thanks, Lance for all you've done to make this a great place to call home.

I hope this means we'll see more of Tippie around here!

_________________
JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Man, first John Mayes and now John Hall...maybe Deb doesn't like "Johns"...well, we've had this discussion before, and I agree it's her b'day party and she's the one in the pink tutu and pointy hat and can do what she pleases, but I'm done there as of today...if we can't exchange info and resources openly then what good is it? Anyone know her shoe size? I'm gonna send her a new pair of jackboots!

Larry

_________________
http://www.presnallguitars.com

    Blues Creek Guitars is a small business but I do supply alot of big name companies. I apprititate your concerns and the support all have shown.
    This isn't Deb bashing. Deb runs a tight ship. rememeber I helped MIMF by pointing people to her site to by linking her site to mine. I can't do that anymore. I do teach alot of people how to build. I sell over 200 guitar kits a year not to mention the machines and jigs.
john hall

Mario said"jumping on another vendor's thread to say you also have a sale"
I don't remember this happening.
We used the same subject name like"orphaned sides" or "insane blow-out sale"
I have the highest respect for all the vendors on this site.
If I did do something like that inadvertantly I apolagize.

As a matter of fact I even mentioned that Steve at Colonial Tonewood has some incredible Carp. spruce.
When I needed some help a couple of times Steve helped me out.

I have also talked with the zootmeister Bob C.
and found him to be a helpful guy as well.

I just bought a mold (very nice) from the "outlaw" John Hall. Thank you, John
I think we have done a fine job of "self-policing" ourselves and I know Lance has and would jump in when things got out of hand.
Brad

John,
Don't sweat it...this is better forum anyway. I like the fact that the builders in this forum leave their attitudes and egos at the door.
SteveColonial Tonwds38581.5116087963

Hey John,
Would you mind if I put a link to your site from mine as a reccommended supplier?

I've had messages deleted for violations of Deb's rules, too. Never been
kicked off the Forum (though if she reads this, she might banish me!), but
I've had ads pulled when they offended Deb's sensibilities.

I respect the work she's done over the years. MIMF has been a great
service to builders and repair people and continues to be a valuable
source of info. My problem is the arbitrary interpretation of her rules.
Even when I read the policies and seem to be in agreement with them, she
can declare a post to be in violation and pull it. I've asked for clarification
but the usually articulate Ms Suran clams up and says something like,
"You know better. Read the rules." End of discussion.

I think that she's caught between her hippie ethics (which are a good
thing, by the way) and her need to make the Forum a successful business.
She's a little out of touch with the current state of lutherie -- I haven't
seen her at shows or Symposia for many years. This is a changing
business/craft/art/hobby, but Deb -- and therefore the MIMF -- are not
adapting well.

I think it is important to point out one thing. I would hate to see everyone pull the links to MIMF off their websites, start trashtalking the site, and generally try to turn folks away from the MIMF.

I have left the link to Deb's site on my website link page even though we did have words (she called me disingenuous) a while back.

The reason I tried to stay calm and left the link up was because of who might see it. A lot of us have websites and newbies who are looking for help often search us out for advice. The link to MIMF as well as the OLF are not there for me, they are there for those who are just getting involved with this and need a place to hang out and learn.

There is an incredible amount of knowledge available on the MIMF, let's not just throw it all away. A lot of that knowledgd is now finding its way over here and I, for one, am very glad to see that happen.

In summary, Deb has her rules and Lance has his. I just happen to like Lance's a lot better

_________________
Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

[QUOTE=Brad Goodman] I just bought a mold (very nice) from the "outlaw" John Hall. [/QUOTE]

Ok, I guess that's John's new Official OLF nickname...

"Outlaw" Hall.   It has a nice ring to it...

                        

I too have had issues with Deb over the New England Luthiers Group. All we wanted to do was post a thread telling people about a meeting with a guest speaker, and she deleted it. There was no commercial content, the group doesn't charge membership fees, and from what I could tell, didn't violate any Sacred Covenants. But, she would only relegate the announcement to a often-overlooked section in some obscure part of the forum. When you only have a couple weeks to get the word out for something like that, you need a visible presence where the people are. She wouldn't allow it. Her loss, not ours, because a lot of us have stopped frequenting the MIMF. I still go there every now and then to see what people are building etc, but I'm no longer a regular participant, and am certainly not putting my money there anymore. If I join an organization, I want value for my dollars. I can't get what I want there anymore. As Rick said, they haven't grown to meet the needs of the luthier world.Don Williams38581.5415277778

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

[QUOTE=rlabbe] Hear, Hear, Mario.

Look everybody, StewMac stated they would pull their funding if Deb continued to allow commercial messages from the posters. That would have killed MIMF. The solution is obvious, if sometimes silly (obvious url) or restrictive (hard to talk about which tool to buy when price is a factor, and you can't mention prices).

I find several of the rules and allowances on this forum either silly or offensive to my religious sensibilities. Would you like it if I went off to some other forum and slagged you off for it? I think not.

[/QUOTE]

So what your saying is it's not Deb's forum at all, it's Stew Macs?

I seem to remember Stew Mac's Erick Coleman posting on a thread in this forum about a Stew Mac product complete with a URL to their site. Now Stew Mac don't (as far as I know) sponsor this forum. There's a saying "What's source for the goose is source for the gander". I've got nothing against Stew Mac, they provide a wonderful service to the world of guitar building, I'd be lost without a great number of their products.

But it does show the problems of being too tied to one funding source.

ColinColin S38581.5647106481

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

I'll add my 3 cents since I agree with both points of view.

The greatest thing on the MIMF is their archieve. In fact, the typical answer to almost any question posted there is a chorus of "look in the archieve before you bother us." Lets face it, their archieve is really old news. Most, if not all of it, is available other places.

I think the policy of limiting commercial messages (and banning political and religious messages, not that I'm against politics or religion but that is not why I come here) is a sound one but when the message is in response to a specific request for help relating to the topic of the site, it limits the usefulness of the site.

For example, yesterday I posted a question (here on the OLF)about a particular product and linked to the page of the company's site. I wasn't trying to sell their products, I just wanted to know if anyone had any experience with that type of product or insight into its usefulness. I don't think this would have been allowed on the MIMF.

If the purpose of the OLF is to sell advertising to its sponsors, it only makes since that commericial messages be limited. If the purpose is to inform its users, and keep them involved, then a more liberal policy makes sense. I think the purpose might be both. So, a middle ground is more practical.

I think it is similar to the publishing business. They make a profit by selling advertising. But, no one would read them unless they had something interesting to say. Product reviews are a mainstay of the articles in the woodworking publications. Many of their articles mention tools and vendors. This info is helpful to the readers.

With a forum like this the only "fresh" information are the posts of the participants. The members are the writers of this publication. So long as the message is relevant and not a blatant "ad" I hope that messages that mention or recommend products are not restricted.

I think this makes sense for the sponsors, too. What good would their sponsorship be if no one came to see the site. If allowing members to discuss new tools, ideas, and sources of supply is prohibited, I think less traffic would be the result. I can see a situation where someone might ask about a particlar product, and a sponsor, that offers the same thing, can offer their input and point out alternatives. The advantage to the sponor probably outweighs any disadvantage they would suffer from allowing competing products being mentioned.

Well, for what it is worth, those are my thoughts.


Joe Volin

Frankly, any qualification of the term, ethics, is a bit hippiecritical in my judgement. (That's no reflection on you Rick, because I do think you've accurately described the attitude reflected at MIMF.) It's a bit like saying, I'll define what is and isn't ethical and everyone else has to live with it. If Stew-Mac is a/the sponsor, she should say so clearly and unequivocally so people aren't led to believe that Stew-Mac is the only supplier in the industry or the only ethical supplier in the industry. They should also allow other companies the same opportunity or clearly state that the site is sponsored solely by Stew-Mac and that other vendors are not welcome. To act as though the forum is entirely non-commercial by banning commercial messages is clearly hippiecritical, as is shutting the forum down as a political statement while disallowing others to make political statements.

Are we here hypocritical? I think not. Allied has posted here on more than one occassion offering members special discounts on wood. They are not a sponsor, but what they offered was of benefit to members and it was allowed. If they did that every week, I could understand how sponsors might become pretty annoyed, but they haven't and all has remained calm and peaceful. If I were a commercial supplier, I might find it useful to post a few things to gauge the response before ponying up the sponsorship money.

Obviously, all these forums are commercial at some level. Most accept sponsorships in some form or another. But to say, we are not a commercial site, while everything in your posts and rules indicates that you are not only commercial, but your commercialism is completely biased to a single supplier is patently dishonest, and certainly hypocritical.

Now, if someone wants to go to another forum and "slag me off" for what I've written here, they can certainly do so, but it would challenge anyone's ethical sensibilities if I were denied an opportunity to reply. And if you have a problem with my praying for the recovery of someone's mother, sister or other family member from a serious ailment, then I suggest you instead pray for my poor misguided soul because I did.

Good on you, John. You're among friends here and I suspect here will grow at a much faster rate than there, so your business will profit from your spending more time here anyway.

I own a take out restaurant. We have it posted outside that no outside food allowed but we do allow customers to bring in their own drinks even thou we sell them. Sometimes we get Easter Seal groups that come in a van. The social workers buy their food here but the people they bring always have their own lunches. We don't say anything to the because they bought something here.
We have probably all bought from one of the MIMF sponsors at one point or another so I don't like her rules about not allowing any other commercial URL's.
We are here to promote idea's about lutherie and related topice. I like it here because you can have multiple URL in one subject to choose from if members care to share them and they do. The part about "porn" and offensive language to me is just plain common sense and you don't need rules for that..
Just my nickles worth..

Gary

Deb did what she felt she needed to do given the conditions she agreed to with her sponsor. I can't take issue with her fulfilling her commitment to StewMac; I do, however, think she was unwise to make that commitment in the first place. And I say that understanding the point Mario has made.

StewMac has a fundamentally different view of the value of sponsorship than the view that seems to prevail among OLF's sponsors. StewMac seems to believe that MIMF users will be more likely to purchase from StewMac if those users are unable to exchange the same level of information about non-sponsors' products and prices on the MIMF. Somehow, they see the information gap about other suppliers as giving StewMac a competitive advantage.

I don't get the sense that OLF's sponsors see it that way. OLF's sponsors tend to be smaller businesses who don't need to be the only game in town to succeed, or anything close to it. Steve at Colonial can be very successful without being my ONLY wood supplier. To Steve, the value of sponsorship is that I now know about him, and will buy from him from time to time. It doesn't make him my exclusive supplier, but it certainly gets him on my "list." (BTW, Steve, I received the AAA Adirondack spruce last week, and it is gorgeous!) If everyone here has Steve, Bob, Brian, etc. on their list, those sponsors will do just fine. And if occasionally StewMac or LMI offers a great deal on a rosette cutter and we all talk about it here, that doesn't hurt any of the sponsors. If anything, it helps them, because the more information we all exchange here, the better guitar builders we become, the more guitars we will be building, the more people will want to build, and the more purchases we will all be making from the sponsors here.

And that is where I think StewMac and Deb were a little short-sighted in the deal they struck. The best way for StewMac to increase its sales is not to get a bigger share of the luthier market, but to increase the number of luthiers out there and the number and quality of the instruments we build. In other words, promote the industry on the theory that a rising tide lifts all boats.

Healdsburg is a great example of this. LMI is promoting the industry and trying to raise the tide. If you want to display guitars at Healdsburg, you dont have to demonstrate that your guitars were made from LMI parts and materials. They don't care. They simply trying to promote the industry. They know that because they are a big player (and confident they will remain one), that means their sales will increase as the industry grows.

I think a bunch of the members of the luthierforum (note the missing "S") were also fed up with the restrictive nature of the MIMF. Each forum has its rules for commercial advertising and sponsorship; Deb at the MIMF simply got into bed with StewMac as (evidently) the sole sponsor that sells wood and guitar parts. To me, the MIMF has a lot of information, but is worthless if you want to find out who the alternative suppliers are.

So far, I think the OLF (and to a great extent, the luthierforum as well), have figured out how to balance paid sponsors and non-paid ads within threads. Seems to me that ALL of the major vendors here have paid to become sponsors. Of course, the three big luthier supply houses in the US will get mentioned from time to time - there's not much we could do to stop that without cutting off our own noses. (I think Allied gives the next column price break both to OLF and luthierforum members - too bad LMI and StewMac don't follow suit.)

Dance with who brung ya! Translation: the OLF's official paid sponsors should be the first vendors that the OLF members check when ready to buy. Why? Because they are providing the financial support to keep this site alive.

Selling products -vs.- selling Information
I'm not picking on the "how-to" DVD vendors, but I do think it would be great if there was a general agreement here that we share information freely, even if some or all of it may be contained on someone's "how-to" offerings. Otherwise, after about a dozen teaching aids (DVDs, etc.) are offered, it would get very difficult NOT to step on someone's toes. You know, someone asks a question, and the answer is "buy Mr. XYZ's video and you'll see how to do that." Buying "how-to" DVDs and books is a great way to learn. I would just hope it is always considered as an adjunct to the forum's free flow of info.

That was probably about $0.03 worth, of which $0.02 was off of John's topic. So, I'll shut up now...

Dennis

_________________
Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Colin, it's not StewMac's forum, because they're also not allowed to promote specific products in writing. Pay for banner ads and the like, yes.

Perhaps Deb acted slightly harshly, but frankly, I'm with Mario on this one. All the way. I visit both sites daily, and get different things from each one.

I think Mattia has a point, the MIMF is not solely owned by stewmac, deb has had lot's of other vendors advertise on the site. Her way of dealing with sponsorship was to restrict the rules on the forums like Mario stated, I never really had issue with the advertising aspect of that because she did clearly state it in her FAQ's.

However that being said, I certainly take issue with the abject way the rules were applied there, I found a number of situations where a good discussion was simply killed for some odd violation of the rules that really never made sense and was never clearly articulated. I also think the view that the MIMF has not changed to meet the needs of the lutherie community at large is very accurate. I also simply don't find any useful information there anymore, it's changed since I first visited in early 2001...

The reasoning behind not allowing a 'commercial' URL on the site and forcing everyone to 'google for xxxx keywords' for the same thing is really kind of comical and sad, I also think it shows a clear mis-understanding of what a good forum based system can be.

Mattia I'm glad you still get good information out of the forum, there are some really great people on there (Mario included). I just can no longer tolerate double standards that are used to run the site and when lance came along was already planning on doing something similar to this site on my own. Thankfully Lance saved me from that headache, at the time the MIMF was too restrictive and the Fret had that terrible forum software (the new one is MUCH better btw) so I jumped here and have never looked back.

Oh and by the way I will say with all seriousness that the characterization of Mayes as anything but an honest guy is pretty detestable. Not many people would call you on the phone to give you your money back on wood that was going to split on him, he really felt bad and I think it spoke volumes about his character. It's too bad that she had to resort to such a base response in dealing with him....

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

I think there is some confusion about who is pulling the strings at the MIMF. While I don't KNOW the inner workings of that machine, I DO know the guys at StewMac, and heavy handed is just not anything I have ever seen from them.

Whether they are the driving source of revenue for the MIMF is hard to say, but I can't imagine that they are working behind the scenes to silence other alternatives. These are some of the nicest folks you will ever meet.

As to the OLF and sponsorship. I think that we have a good balance here, and I would hope to see more sponsors come on board. What happens every time we get a new sponsor? They offer us great savings opportunities, or give us some cool perks. Who doesn't like that.

The community culture needs to dictate what is informational, what is acceptable commercial promotion, and what is going over the line. I think we have that firmly in hand.

Rick had a good point about recognizing Deb's contribution. I don't discount that. She has done all of us a lot of good. But I still disagree with her policies and their implementation (even though she has every right to them.)

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

I agree with Mario and Mattia, when I go to a forum on the web I feel that I'm a guest in their house, so I abide by their rules. I personally do feel that Deb is a little on harsh side but oh well it's her forum and her means of making a living. I am glad that we do have other forums to visit, I think we need to all look at the big picture. We are all trying our best to keep the luthier way of living alive and well.

Some of us are full time builders and others like myself are part timers but we all share the same passion. About a week ago I saw somebody post a negative comment about the OLF's ranking system and I kind of took offense at it because I think of luthiers as a brotherhood. I think it is to our advantage to keep these forums up and running where else do you see such a large group of individuals sharing thoughts and ideas so freely. I feel greatly honored to be a member of the OLF and I too think that this is the best luthier site on the net but let's not forget all the hard work Deb has done over the years. I'm sure Lance and Brock can attest to all the time and effort involved.

I want to thank all the forum moderators and members who have personally helped me out over the years, your a great group of people and I wish there were more of you in this world of ours.

Someone didn't like the ranking system here? Where did you see that post?

That was just in fun... sort of as a way to get everyone to participate. It certainly was not created to be exclusionary.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

I agree with Mario, and well put, Mario.

The rules on MIMF are posted. You got one warning in case the rules
weren't clear to you. You did it again. What did you think would happen?

I've found the MIMF rules frustrating at times, as have a lot of people. I
like the place, so I abide by them. No one is making me go there. When I
do, I accept the rules.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Brock it was in the Jam session under the title "impessions of other forums vs the mimf" maybe I was a little defensive because I had just became a senior member. I agree with you, I feel the ranking system encourages more participation I know it did in my case since I'm a little shy.

StewMac is in favor of all the lutherie forums. They help the entire scene grow stronger as people meet and support each other. We're 110% for that.

We support MIMF and other forums that approach us, and we sure don't ask them not to mention the competition.

Each forum runs it's own ship it's own way.

E.Coleman38581.6937731481

Thanks for stopping in Erick. You should know that nobody here meant any offense to Stew-Mac. You guys have been invaluable to me and to countless others as a resource for great tools and supplies.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Erik,

Thank you for posting. I owe you an apology, as my previous post assumed (apparently wrongly) that Stew-Mac had some hand in the MIMF policies.

At this point, we have two suppliers (John and Erik) who have jumped in to tell us they don't get upset if users discuss competing products in forums these suppliers sponsor. So I'm not sure I buy the argument that this is a reason to prohibit explicit references to competitors' products and prices.

Which means the only other argument for prohibition is Mario's suggestion that it is bad to have threads every time someone has a sale. Frankly, I kind of like those threads, and I'm glad we have them here. I don't know that I would have noticed all the sales and new products we talk about here if there had not been threads on them. If there were 5-6 times as many of them due to heavier traffic like the MIMF gets, I might be 5-6 times as broke, but I wouldn't be upset about it.