Obihai is deleting unwanted topics

[MichiganTelephone]

Ron's contributions were have been not only useful, but highly needed by many of us. In a way he has been providing the level of customer service in certain areas Obihai should, but does not. Obihai would have less customers and worse ratings = less business without him.

I couldn't agree more!
RonR should be on Obhai's Payroll!

I couldn't DISAGREE more. Since you are new, the thing you may not have noticed is that while he tries to present himself as something of a "guru" in this forum, he then goes behind Obihai's back and trash talks them on other forum(s) (on BroadbandReports.com that I know of, and maybe others that I don't).  I have no inside knowledge on this, but I would almost bet that was part of the reason that Obihai might have gotten a little peeved with him.

He has helped many of us.  I sometimes search the forum for "RonR" to read through his very informative and easy to understand posts.

If he would just stick to what he knows, which is Obihai dial plans, and not try to get others to follow his entire philosophy on how an Obihai should be configured, I think that few of us would have a problem with him now.  When he first came into this forum several months ago, he really managed to tick off some participants (including me), but that's water under the bridge.  The problem is that even as his posts became more helpful and less abrasive, he still just couldn't stop beating the drum for not using the Obihai portal.  And that's fine if you are an experienced user and know what you are doing, and more importantly, what you are giving up if you don't use the portal, but I have always said that it's horrible advice for new users, and really for anyone that ever expects Obihai customer support to help them resolve a problem with their device.

Personally, if I had been moderator of this forum, he wouldn't have lasted a month before I would have given him the boot.  Maybe other users would have stepped in to do what he does (after all, he's not the only smart person on this forum) and maybe not, but chances are that no one else would have replied to questions as quickly as he did (often before anyone else even had a chance to see them).  So that's why I say, if he had simply stuck to helping people with their dial plan questions, and not been so doggone pushy about his beliefs on the correct way to configure an Obihai device, he'd likely not be in hot water now.

Then add to that the raising of this "tempest in a teapot" over what he's been calling a "back door" (which is possibly about the most pejorative terminology he could have used among a technically-oriented crowd) and you have what for all intents and purposes appeared to be a blatant attempt to smear Obihai's reputation.  Maybe it was just extremely poor judgement on his part to frame the issue that way, but he managed to get many people worked up about it (I must confess that I even started to wonder about it), but in the end it turned out to be a non-issue, except for a very few people who in my opinion are probably so paranoid that you wonder how they can even stand to have an Internet connection at all.

In any case, the thing that NO company would want to see in an employee (and that's what he'd become if they were paying him) is disloyalty.  By being so vocal about this issue, especially without knowing all the facts before raising a ruckus, he's probably just blown up any bridges he may have been building with Obihai.  No way would any rational company put someone on their payroll that's been backstabbing them in other forums and/or trying to damage their reputation.

All of the above is simply my personal opinion.  I don't speak for Obihai, and I'm not privy to any inside information.  I'm just drawing what I believe are some obvious conclusions.  I'm not saying you should not appreciate the help he has given you or others; if he has helped anyone then that's a good thing, and I'm not saying you should share my opinions.  But if I were you, I would just keep in mind that someone else might have taken on the role of Obihai dial plan expert if he hadn't.  No one is indispensable, especially not in a forum such as this one.

[lhm.]

MT you are totally off topic in this thread. Please delete the above post.

TIA

[Mango]

By being so vocal about this issue, especially without knowing all the facts before raising a ruckus

I think this is what bothers me most about the situation.  There have been several times where people have posted completely incorrect information, and - however unbelievable - it has been accepted as fact by other members.  No one is doing themselves any favours by starting rumors, whether by genuine accident or on purpose.

Obihai has built some EXCELLENT VoIP devices and I'm thrilled to own one.  If you don't like the default settings................then change them. 

[DocM]

I may not have been on these forums as long as the rest of you guys but RonR's contributions are great. He was one of the few people who quickly responded to my queries and gave me effective answers. Out of the several topics I've read on this forum, I have never seen him "force" anyone to follow his philosophy. He simply stated his solution, which worked if followed correctly. It is unreasonable to ask him (or anyone else) for all possible solutions to achieve the same results.

It is quite unsettling to me for Obihai to delete unwanted topics. I personally don't believe their reasoning is sufficient to delete any topic. Maybe they could relabel it and lock it or move it to another section of the forum.

[MichiganTelephone]

I may not have been on these forums as long as the rest of you guys but RonR's contributions are great. He was one of the few people who quickly responded to my queries and gave me effective answers. Out of the several topics I've read on this forum, I have never seen him "force" anyone to follow his philosophy. He simply stated his solution, which worked if followed correctly. It is unreasonable to ask him (or anyone else) for all possible solutions to achieve the same results.

No, but it IS reasonable to ask him not to try to discourage new users from using the OBiTALK portal (even if only by including those settings in his "effective answers" when they are totally unnecessary to solve the problem at hand).  Note that it's often a "sin of omission" — he's instructed people to disable Auto Provisioning or OBiTalk Provisioning as part of a longer procedure without explaining what they will lose by doing so, and in most cases without it being at all necessary (the same changes could just as easily be made from within the Expert Configuration mode of the OBiTALK portal).  So you are correct in saying he doesn't "force" anyone to follow his philosophy — how could he, without having direct access to their device — but too often the implication has been that you have to follow his philosophy to get your issue fixed or to achieve the result you want.  And that especially impacts new users that probably most need the portal, but are least likely to understand that they don't need to disable it to achieve what they want.

Having said this, I will note that in some of the latest messages I've read from him, I haven't noticed him doing this as much (in fact I haven't noticed it at all in the last couple of weeks, but I obviously don't read everything he posts).  So perhaps (I hope) he now realizes that it's not a good thing to steer new users away from the portal, despite whatever personal beliefs he may have about it (and it was certainly a slap in the face to the Obihai developers that worked very hard to get that portal implemented and make it useful).

[MichiganTelephone]

MT you are totally off topic in this thread. Please delete the above post.

TIA

Considering that this whole thread is a reaction against deleting posts, your post is ironic in the extreme.  But my answer to you is this:

NO

YWIA

[carl]

.  So you are correct in saying he doesn't "force" anyone to follow his philosophy — how could he, without having direct access to their device — but too often the implication has been that you have to follow his philosophy to get your issue fixed or to achieve the result you want. 

I have been trying to stay as polite as possible in this matter but sometimes it just is not easy.
So far, I have not seen the long line of people complaining about Ron's "disastrous " advise rather a long line of people being thankful to him for his help and advise. If somebody thinks here that his advise was so bad and unneeded, why did not he provide a better one? If somebody helps me, I do not give a damn what kind of philosophy he may or may not be carrying out as long as it helps me, especially if there is no one out there incl. the CS who would do that.
All of us here love OBi. And all of us want it to be a success and further improve. But a few things have to be said. Right now, it is Google Voice making Obi big. But what happens if GV starts charging for the service ? Obi is great in giving the opportunity to use SIP providers too, but here it is where customer service comes in. I bought my second Obi and I have been making  warm recommendations to everyone I know. However, in the past I was about an inch away to sticking just to obi100 strictly for GV and getting a Cisco 187 or similar for SIP, because you get there a better customer support for the device  both from manufacturer  and from SIP providers. And that would have happened if it was not for a.o. people like Ron. I have neither the time nor desire to spend 3 months studying Obi in order to be able to solve issues on my own and there are lot of things there which are not all that logical or intuitive and where time consuming trial and error approach is needed and that is nothing for somebody who at this point of time wants to be nothing more than an informed consumer.
Censorship is always stupid( not even to speak about this childish "demotion")- it is far better to counter with what you believe is the proper information- and organizing witch hunts at helpful forum members is just bizarre.

[Ostracus]

.  So you are correct in saying he doesn't "force" anyone to follow his philosophy — how could he, without having direct access to their device — but too often the implication has been that you have to follow his philosophy to get your issue fixed or to achieve the result you want. 

I have neither the time nor desire to spend 3 months studying Obi in order to be able to solve issues on my own and there are lot of things there which are not all that logical or intuitive and where time consuming trial and error approach is needed and that is nothing for somebody who at this point of time wants to be nothing more than an informed consumer.

Well, one, I don't know why your original comment is in quotes. Second the documentation does leave something to be desired. That's why I wonder why no one's set up a Wiki were this issue can be worked on by both the community, and Obihai?

[QBZappy]

http://michigantelephone.wordpress.com/

Comment Policy:
"If you send a comment that is insulting or disrespectful, it WILL be moderated (a.k.a. "censored"), and you will be permanently banned from leaving further comments. It's okay to disagree, but be nice about it or you will be GONE!"

(Emphasis added)

[MichiganTelephone]

http://michigantelephone.wordpress.com/

Comment Policy:
"If you send a comment that is insulting or disrespectful, it WILL be moderated (a.k.a. "censored"), and you will be permanently banned from leaving further comments. It's okay to disagree, but be nice about it or you will be GONE!"

(Emphasis added)

Yep, that's my policy.  I've never said that I agree with anyone who may think that Obihai had no right to delete the thread.  They had EVERY right — it's their forum and they can delete whatever they like.  However, sometimes when you delete a thread in progress, people can get the wrong idea about why it was done, which apparently happened here.  I don't know if anyone thinks that Obihai had no right to delete that thread, but anyone who may think that is absolutely, positively wrong.  What some of us may be questioning is the WISDOM of deleting the entire thread, particularly when it was apparently just a few messages that contained bad or confusing information.

This is not the place to discuss my blog policy, but I don't see where it's at odds with anything I have said or done here (and even if you think it is, it's not your decision to make unless you are a forum moderator).  Even when I disagree with people I have tried to be respectful about it.  Some people apparently think I should keep some of my opinions to myself, but I happen to think they are relevant to this thread, and often are posted only as a counterpoint to someone else expressing their opinion first.

I've had people leave comments on my blog that disagree with something I say (sometimes almost everything I've said in an article) and I almost always allow those, but what I don't allow is the sort of comment that starts out with something like "You are a moron" or "You are a lowlife scumbag" or something like that.  I don't talk that way to other people (I won't say I've never slipped and done it, but I am human) and I certainly don't believe I've talked about anyone that way here.  I think it's possible to question someone else's actions and still not resort to the sort of frothing at the mouth hate that sometimes has permeated a comment in my blog.  There are people who think that "being nice" means never saying a bad word about anyone or anything, whereas my definition is not going out of one's way to be antagonistic or to personally attack someone using name calling, ad hominem attacks, or that sort of thing.  But I can certainly disagree with someone's actions, or the sort of advice they are giving to other people, and just because someone else may disagree with what I say doesn't necessarily mean I'm not trying to express myself in a relatively "nice" way.

Of course, if you try to be TOO nice when saying something that might be perceived as disagreeable, then the amateur psychologists will say you're "passive-aggressive", so you just can't please everyone!  

EDIT:  By the way, isn't it perhaps time to bring this thread to a merciful end?  We're starting to drift further and further from the original topic, and it detracts from the purpose of the forum.  And I will admit that I'm as guilty as anyone else in not letting this thread die, but I think all the points that can be made (at least by me) have been made, and I understand that some of you disagree with me, and that's okay — as I said before, my opinions are MY opinions; I'm not trying to convince anyone else to share them (perhaps unlike some others... sorry, couldn't resist).  Anyway, it would be nice if this topic could drop off the front page in this forum, and to that end, I'm not going to respond to anything else in this thread.  I think this horse is quite dead by now, and I, for one, am getting tired of beating it.

[QBZappy]

Since this thread was started as a result of my initial topic being deleted, and since you are not planning to add to it, (however I'm not certain that you can resist) I would like to have the final word. It might offer it a sense of closure.

The thought occurred to me tonight that I could reply with your quotes all night. There are so many to choose from. By memory, some so outrageous that they have already been deleted by OBihai. Between the exchanges that you have had here on this forum, PBX in a Flash, freepbx, your own blog, and perhaps other forums, I see that you have been a prolific writer in your own right. You have also burned a few bridges along the way in those forums. You may not have 4,000 posts in this forum, however someone can certainly make the case that you have accomplished the equivalent, with all that entails, and perhaps have surpassed it since you have been doing this for a much longer period of time. Your blog shows the power of the written word. I believe that you have been able to shape the opinions of many of your readers. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to think that is why you received the OBi202 for review. I'm sure that I speak for many of the forum readers here, including OBhai, that we take an interest in what you have to say. A word of advice from someone who has been around long enough, take heed of these wise words spoken to Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility." IMO you have squandered some of your credibility by publicly humiliating people.

I can write a lot more since it is practically writing itself, but suffice it to say that I leave you with a medley of some of your own words, saving my favorite for the end. By the way, the final part of the quote is not intended to be my opinion of you. It just happens to be your opinion of someone else after you didn't agree with him.

... You're just pulling "facts" out of your ass, with NOTHING to substantiate them.  

... but hey, you'll just quote any old statistic that pops into your pea brain as long as it "proves" your point, won't you?

... unless you have some actual data in hand.  If you don't, then once again you're just pulling stuff out of your ass.

... And I'll bet it really ticks you off when people don't want to follow your "advice."  Guess what — there are many people, particularly in today's economic climate, that DO want to make their money go as far as possible, and they would be perfectly within their rights to tell you to "fuck off" when you offer your unsolicited and unwanted advice.  You are not the ruler of the world, nor even an Obihai employee, so I don't know where you get off thinking that your opinion counts for any more than anyone else's.  Use your Obihai devices the way you want to, but don't expect everyone else to do as you do — your priorities and theirs may be quite different.  And when you tell other people what to do, they probably view you as some kind of buttinsky asshole, which would be the same opinion I've had of you since practically the start of this thread!

Emphasis added

I don't know if this is a cultural thing, (Canadian vs US) but I do find it bizarre how overbearing you can be at times. On that note, I think I am done with this thread.

Peace--
QBZappy

[carl]

Amen.