Replies to This Discussion

AdminPermalink Reply by Thomas J Coyle III on October 21, 2012 at 9:42am

@Monroe,

I have asked the Moderators to decide what to do about this issue. I am sure that a decision will be forthcoming.

Regards,

TCIII

AdminPermalink Reply by Thomas J Coyle III on October 21, 2012 at 10:08am

Hi Monroe,

I did get Chris to close-out the lost hex thread as it was definitely getting pissy. As a moderator I can close down a thread that is getting out of control. However I always ask for comments on the Moderator's Forum before doing so.

On another topic, I feel that you should continue as a moderator as you are a voice of sanity in what seems to be an occasional insane wilderness.

Regards,

TCIII

ModeratorPermalink Reply by Gary Mortimer on October 21, 2012 at 10:11am

I stand to be corrected but I think folks posting on here own their own words and are entitled to them and must be prepared to justify them.

Things do need to be removed when people are plain offensive though but I know often before some people are warned or stuff is removed there are many many many discussions. 

If I have to chip in about the problems slightly tongue in cheek, two of them can be solved by not using cheap gear. They should be thought about though. I am not a developer, I am a re-kitter of airframes.

Permalink Reply by Ron Jacobs on October 21, 2012 at 2:59pm

I agree with Gary, if you post something...you own the responsibility for its accuracy, relevance and legality. However, the site also has a responsibility to monitor and maintain a respectful place for community discussion. Moderators need to monitor what is possible, and respond to member concerns about the postings that don't get moderated.

There must be some statistical formula that says if one person is upset in a group of 30000 then there are probably X number of other people who are also upset but not saying anything. 

I just suggested ignoring this discussion but I am a moderator (not as active as some) so I feel I have a responsibility to be proactive when I can. 

I do not believe there is a need to discuss why people need to be "slanderous", or disrespectful in order to communicate what may be valid concerns.

There are existing forums for all of the concerns. Discuss them there and leave out personal comments, or if you are really upset feel free to not use the technology till issues are resolved.

Even better, help in solving the issues. 

Sorry for typos, I am on my Playbook and it is being difficult. 

Ron

Permalink Reply by Drone Savant on October 21, 2012 at 8:09pm

Ron, I think you hit the nail right on the head with regard to "responsibility for its accuracy", we ALL share that responsibility. The funny thing that you may all not know was that I too was once a 3drobotics / DIYDrones fanboi. I drank the Koolaid, and I told all my friends to drink it too. I even helped push for a local college to use 3dr gear exclusively for a local robotics competition. I also volunteered at the local 3drobotics distributer (who has since stopped selling 3dr because their needs as a distributer were ignored) to help get customers accustomed to their 3dr gear. 

 

I truly only started being a jerk here after I was ridiculed for suggesting that Zen's chopper could have flown away due to a bad solder joint. As it turned out later a lost throttle signal, either via severed wire or bad solder joint could have indeed triggered a fly-away. That really started my jadedness... rather than stepping up and looking into the potential issue others chose to ridicule  Zen and I both (and a few others like Jake Stew) for a variety of reasons. In the end, we were right. The pack mentality of Mods and Devs on the other hand felt it better to just eat me up rather than investigating. How funny that servo2ppm had a regression eh? 

 

Unfortunately because we thought folks on this forum were trustworthy Zen and I both chose to fly cheap Turnigy 9x radios because we thought it was depicted as OK. It turns out they are poor quality and flat out were not supported by the PPM encoder, even though the Wiki recommended them as a cheap alternative radio for those looking to get started (without pointing out "design decisions" to not support them). Kinda ironic huh? You seek advice where you are told (the wiki! and the forums!) only to be fed bad info. I think I have a right to be jaded in that sense. 

 

This was seemingly the start of a trend... bad info a plenty! Out of date wiki info... and a constantly evolving codebase that is ALWAYS way ahead of the documentation. I signed up for Mighty Mouse to take control of my cockpit, not for me to drill my craft into the ground over and over wasting loads of money as I went. It sucks.. I bought into bad marketing, I now get it. 

 

I fully agree that there is no need to discuss the need to be slanderous... in all honesty Monroe was clearly getting very agitated and bringing the conversation down. We had already extracted some good info from the topic and it was sad to see things start to fall apart. This topic was my attempt at curbing that. 

 

Now on to your point about solving issues. Having been a new user myself over 2.5 years ago, I have seen plenty here. Enough to realize that there is quite a bit of smoke and mirrors and several personas in play. In all honesty I get loud here because I hate seeing new users go through what I have gone through (you know, those things that have resulted in me spending more money!) ... here is a simple example: 

http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/new-to-apm2-5

"Yep! Standard ESCs have a power regulator onboard, which can power both APM and the RC receiver."

 

This response made me want to throw up in my mouth. Why you ask? Well not long after I spoke up and said that there were some additional concerns, THEN and only then did we get this gem: http://diydrones.ning.com/forum/topics/apm-2-5-only-boot-via-usb?co...

"To be honest, I think the days of most people powering off the ESCs are numbered. "

Why was it so hard to be upfront about *known* ESC power issues, including brownouts when the gentleman stated he was confused about powering the APM. IF this guy were to go on the original advice given he very likely would have encountered the brownouts that many others have. #wtf...really? is that what we are about here? giving half a** advice? 

That kind of hasty, half truth answers is what makes me step up and complain. We as a group are giving people bad advice... flat out, plain and simple and it needs to stop. 

I will admit for the 100th time I am abrasive... you all know why. I tried casually asking questions, only to be ignored. I tried commenting on official issues tickets, only to be ignored.  I even made videos of behavior that people claimed did NOT exist, only to be ignored. What do you people want from me? 

"I tried everything I know including getting you on my team to try and help you" - Monroe... give it a rest brother. You were trying to help your own project, not me. If you were trying to help me you would have did your homework before screaming how stupid I was over PPM encoder issues. Likewise with the recent inconceivable watchdog. 

 

"If there is a safety issue it should be properly documented, as I am sure it is and will be. "

I completely agree Gary. Unfortunately getting to that point can be a daunting task. When I originally mentioned my concerns I was told "you have to first convince the community that is a problem, THEN you should convince a developer", when I tried everyone got mad. I'm really confused as to what you guys wanted from me as an end user in the first place. Oddly enough we are STILL having fly-aways from the same issue!

It is really funny to see you guys rally up against certain bugs and make claims like "we will have this fixed in 24 hours", yet others go ignored for over a year even when they have an official issue ticket. http://diydrones.com/xn/detail/705844:Comment:1008438 Cherry picking for the win! 

I'm not really here to be a jerk, I just wanted to fly and hang out with honest people just like Monroe, unfortunately that is not at all what I found. 

It is REALLY easy to shut me up folks... stop telling half truths. Be up front about known issues. Fix the darn documentation! Banning me as you know is a feeble attempt. Email accounts are a plenty, just as talking in proxy is easy to do. Don't waste your time. Do something productive like closing open issues and listening to user concerns. You know I'll be back. A better approach would be to figure out why I am complaining and feeling the need to act on behalf of other less knowledgeable users. It really is that easy...  

I also hope you all know that had not the "Housekeeping note" been made... I *really* would not be on as much of a mission as I am now. You try to make me look like a fool... expect it in return. 

 

"If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything" - I couldn't have said it better myself Monroe. I personally will no longer be falling for half truths and poor information hand offs. I will be standing strong for all of those users that have chopped up fingers and lost craft due to poor documentation and bad advice. 

 

Be wise folks... banning accounts is a futile attempt. 

 

One final note before I turn over for bed: "Do we really want the world of UAV to look like this? I that responsible? Allowing that to be seen by the FAA and such?"

Heck no Monroe we don't! I'd personally hate for the FAA to catch wind of the fact that you guys ignore safety critical bugs. I bet the FAA would love to hear the story about how close Zen's fly away chopper came to hitting an airplane that was passing by all because someone failed to document a "design decision" ;) I truly hope that the folks  that design UAV's steps the heck up when people complain about cutting their fingers or having their gear fly off with understanding why. That is a bad bad place to be.  

Permalink Reply by Drone Savant on October 21, 2012 at 9:19pm

I'm non theistic, so no thanks ;) enlighten me brother ... Help me understand my ways. Break down my self reinforcing disillusion bit by bit for me! Take it apart paragraph by paragraph please so I get it.

Permalink Reply by Tony Heaton on October 25, 2012 at 2:10pm

Drone Savant said:  "I too was once a 3drobotics / DIYDrones fanboi. I drank the Koolaid, and I told all my friends to drink it too"

DS, as much as I like much of the content of your posts, the above statement is where you loose credibility with me.  Being a "fanboi" and drinking the "koolaid" says to me that at that point you lost all ability to think for yourself.  If you can swing so far to one side that you can't think for yourself and you'll believe anything, this leads me to believe you've now swung to the other side and you can't think for yourself and you won't believe anything.  Swinging so far in either direction is not constructive.

I've had problems with 3DR customer service to the point I had to complain on the forum to get service.  I got service and was made whole.  I didn't let my experience blind me to the fact that 3DR and the APM team want to turn out a good product.  Looking back on my complaint, I said something that I now regret.  I implied that Chris was using the "free" services of the community with alterior motives in mind.  For that, I'm sorry.

I've only had one issue with my APM 2.0 so far.  I initiated ALT_HOLD before GPS lock and I my quad lost altitude rapidly.  This was a "bug" in the code and it was also mostly my fault.  I didn't know the quad was going to lose altitude but I had a pretty good idea that initiating a mode that depended on GPS lock without GPS lock would not end well.  I could have let that swing me to the position that the APM sucked or that the DEV team didn't know what they were doing or didn't care.  I didn't do that.  I calmly posted my experience on the forum.  Someone, I can't remember the name at the moment (sorry), answered my post.  They said it was a bug and they had it fixed within days, maybe hours and put it in the next release.

I've very pleased with my APM.  I think it is one of the best autopilots available for the price. I won't, however, let that blind me to future things that could go wrong.

We must realize that some bugs are easy to fix and some are not.  Something that I think should be a high priority feature is not even wanted by anybody else.  Something that many people want as a feature may not be possible for a technical or platform specific reason.  This is an open-hardware and open-source project.  There is nothing stopping anyone from doing it their own way.  There is nothing stopping people from starting there own autopilot from scratch and doing it their own way.

Other than my "alterior motives" comment, which I truly regret, I've never felt the need to be libelous, abusive, or abrasive to get my point across.  I also understand that we are all different.  What might be abusive or abrasive to one is not to another.  For that reason, we must be open about how communication flows.  I would rather the moderators err on the side of openness and not on the side of caution.

 

Just my two cents.

Permalink Reply by Tony Heaton on October 25, 2012 at 3:20pm

Banning is never the answer.  The banned person will just come in other another handle.  You'll end up with banning as a high priority process.

Just my opinion.

ModeratorPermalink Reply by Hai Tran on October 21, 2012 at 10:11am

There are some moderators that think that freedom of speech means you can post what ever you like, can I remind all who post there under the terms of service freedom of speech does not extend to posting "in a manner that is libelous or defamatory, or in a way that is otherwise threatening, abusive, violent, harassing, malicious or harmful to any person or entity, or invasive of another's privacy;"

ModeratorPermalink Reply by Gary Mortimer on October 21, 2012 at 10:55am

Well if the world was a fair place we would all consider ourselves down the pub in front of a roaring fire with a decent ale in hand. Obviously in America you are at a distinct disadvantage right there. More so when I say a wholesome slice of bread and hunk of real cheese are aiding gentle discussion. 

The point I am trying to make and we all know is that people on forums are far far far ruder than they would be to anybody in real life. Often saying something to somebody that you would never dare to another face to face even if you had had a barrel of beer.

So why don't we all try and change that and make this the most polite place about. Remember please and thank you and encourage jokes in posts.

Life is too short to argue.

If there is a safety issue it should be properly documented, as I am sure it is and will be. 

Permalink Reply by Tony Heaton on October 25, 2012 at 2:34pm

Monroe, I could go back through the posts and find several in which you've been rude to people and not just DS.  We are all human and we all will fail at civility from time to time.  You will never live in a world in which you can trust all of the people.  If you didn't have bad friends, you wouldn't know what a good friend was.  Even if we could get rid of all of the "bad" people in the world, we would just caste the rest in levels of good in which the bottom are again bad.  Bad people teach us tolerance.

You are not the best person in the world and you are not the worst. You have friends that think you are better than some of their friends and worse than others.  DS is not the best nor worst.  If our friends do bad things, we put up with them because they are our friends.  If we turn our back on them when/if they do something bad, we were never their friend to begin with.

Permalink Reply by Tony Heaton on October 25, 2012 at 3:16pm

I agree that he is on a vendetta against Chrs and Jordi.  The reasons for a vendetta don't need to really exist, they can start from perceived injustices.  Chris has been more patient with Kevin than I would have been.  What is sad is that Kevin has many valid points and good ideas.  I've learned much from many of his posts.  If he turned his negativity towards Chris and Jordi into positive action, APM could be much better or He could have even started his own AutoPilot and done his own thing.  The only other time I've seen such behavior,  the actions were due to jealousy.  This is only speculation on my part so take it with a grain of salt.  I gave my opinion of the Easter Egg thing in another post. 

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• …
• 5
• Next ›
• Page