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Where in the World is RonR????

Started by RFord, June 05, 2012, 05:51:40 AM

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RFord

I can't help but notice that RonR has been absent from the OBi Forum for some time.  Has he been banned from the forum?  Maybe Michigan Telephone (asxhole) can shed some light on this issue, since he has waged a one-man war to have RonR ban from this forum.  RonR has been one of the most helpful individual on this forum and despite what one envious/buffoon individual thinks, has done a lot the promotion of the OBi ATA.  It would be a shame if RonR is no longer allowed to provide support to the masses.

QBZappy

#1
RFord,

I think you are not the only one to notice that RonR was MIA. I had considered putting up a similar thread, however I didn't want to be the first to start something again that might be of a controversial nature. I've mentioned several times before that RonR was providing product support that OBihai could not reproduce with any amount of money.

This website and this forum specifically is the public face of the product. This is probably one of the first places people come to visit before they make the decision to purchase the product. I think that if OBihai has any success with their product, it will be as a result of the following combination:

Good product (On going effort to stay on top. Costs money)
Good reviews (Write once, referred to often. Usually free, or cheap for the cost of a donated unit)
Good internal product support (On going effort to stay on top. Cost money)
Good user based product support (On going effort. Free. Generously offered by enthusiasts. Not acknowledged by product vendor, even taken for granted)

RonR was generous with his time. I still don't understand what his interest was in spending the countless hours helping people on this forum. I believe that he was one of the contributors in the success of this product in the early stages of it's product life. How to quantify "his" contribution to this success is impossible to say with certainty. I've mentioned this before, I wish I had an employee that was as talented and passionate as him in my business.

I've been mostly a reader on forums. I usually don't take an interest in contributing because I couldn't be bothered unless I feel a good vibe in the community. I've noticed lately that the quality and quantity of the support has gone down. If you have observed, users are feeling the need to bump their threads in an attempt to get their issues noticed. The impression of user isolation, abandonment, whatever you may want to call it is starting to take root. I would suggest that the OBihai support people need to pick up the slack because you guys had it far too easy for the last couple of years.

OBihai was fortunate to have the stars aligned in their favor after building the better mouse trap. Any mouse trap, no matter how good it may be, will always need some Buzz to get it noticed and advance. Perhaps they have enough momentum behind them now that they can ride the wave without the help of generous contributors.

I hope RonR pulls a MichiganTelephone and rejoins the community in the near future. At least his absence was not caused by any meltdown. None that I noticed anyway.
Owner of the 1st OBi110/100 units in service in Canada & South America. 1st OBi202 on my street. 1st OBi1032 in Montreal.

ianobi

QBZappy,

Well said! I have never seen better explanations of dial plans and digit maps than those provided by RonR. I don't blame him for taking offence and walking away, but I too am hoping for a swift return any time soon.

Ianobi

infin8loop


Maybe he ran off with Carmen Sandiego.

Yeah, I know, it's a Tuesday after a Monday.
"This has not only been fun, it's been a major expense." - Gallagher

QBZappy

I think I spotted him on Google Street view doing his favorite activity. Anyone spot him elsewhere?
Owner of the 1st OBi110/100 units in service in Canada & South America. 1st OBi202 on my street. 1st OBi1032 in Montreal.

Ostracus

He might also be on vacation (people take those now and then). This should be seen as an opportunity to, "get our game on". After all depending upon one person can cause problems down the line. Let's say he got hit by a bus? Then what?

QBZappy

Well I for one would nominate infin8loop, as honorary resident guru until the mystery of RonR is better understood.  Anyone else care to second it. :D
Owner of the 1st OBi110/100 units in service in Canada & South America. 1st OBi202 on my street. 1st OBi1032 in Montreal.

infin8loop


RonR vacation photo...


RonR working on a dial plan
"This has not only been fun, it's been a major expense." - Gallagher

infin8loop

Quote from: QBZappy on June 05, 2012, 11:25:45 AM
Well I for one would nominate infin8loop, as honorary resident guru until the mystery of RonR is better understood.  Anyone else care to second it. :D

Funny Canadian. I'm here for comic relief only!  I cut and paste my dial plans from RonR posts.

LOL
"This has not only been fun, it's been a major expense." - Gallagher

MichiganTelephone

Quote from: RFord on June 05, 2012, 05:51:40 AM
I can't help but notice that RonR has been absent from the OBi Forum for some time.  Has he been banned from the forum?  Maybe Michigan Telephone (asxhole) can shed some light on this issue, since he has waged a one-man war to have RonR ban from this forum.

I will admit that in his early days on this forum I thought he should be banned, simply because back then he was so inconsiderate to others, in my personal opinion.  However, in my opinion he got better about that over time, and for the last few months my primary objection to him has been that I thought he was giving bad advice to new users, by telling them not to use the OBiTALK portal to configure their devices.  Then he got on this kick about the non-existent (for all practical purposes) "back door" in Obihai devices, and went badmouthing Obihai on BroadbandReports.com's VoIP forum.  I suspect it was that last act, far more than anything I said, that took him out of the good graces of the people at OBiHAI.  I did think, and still think, that it was pretty rotten of him to try and act as the "guru" in this forum, but go over there and try to scare a certain percentage of people into not buying an Obihai device.  I cannot even fathom why he did that; it totally mystifies me why he would do such a thing given that so many people seemed to admire and respect him here.

When I realized he hadn't posted in a few days I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone accused me of driving him away.  I rather doubt that, because all indications were that he totally ignored my posts.  At least he never bothered to respond directly to anything I said.  Even when I created a thread where people could post their reasons for using or not using the portal, and I tried to make it as neutral as possible, he ignored that opportunity to explain his reasons (maybe he really didn't have any good reasons, but if that was the case, that makes it even worse that he kept discouraging people from using the portal).

I have mixed feelings about him leaving.  On the one hand, I realize that if he does not come back, we have all lost a valuable resource when it comes to explaining Obihai dial plans.  On the other hand, I feel that we all may have become too dependent on him to explain those to us.  If he had not been around in the early days, Obihai might have felt a bit more pressure to publish documentation that explained exactly how the dial plans work, in language that more of us could actually understand.  But for so many months, we've all become accustomed to letting him spoon-feed us dial plans.  To paraphrase the old saying, we have been begging him for fish, and he's been giving us the fish, instead of teaching us how to fish.  He'd give us dial plans but rarely if ever explain why they needed to be done in a certain way.  I don't fault him for that; he wasn't being paid to be our teacher.  But now we are caught in a situation where he's not around, and we simply don't know why — you can blame me, you can blame Obihai, or you can blame it on the rain, but we actually have no clue as to why he's been MIA.  It would have been nice if he'd posted some sort of note explaining that he was leaving, or going on vacation, or whatever, but perhaps he was unable to do that for some reason (and I think we all hope that nothing seriously bad has happened to him).

The flip side of this is that maybe more of us will be forced to figure out how the dial plans work, or maybe Obihai will get enough complaints (or even start losing sales) to inspire them to figure out some way to simplify the creation of more complicated dial plans.  Certainly, the portal could be enhanced to allow some common tasks (like sending numbers matching certain pattern(s) to a different SP than the default).  I will freely admit that I do not understand the dial plans the way he did, but that didn't stop me from performing a few basic modifications to get my devices working the way I want them to.  It actually took me weeks to come up with a "recipe" that works as I want it to, but the thing is, I completely understand what it's doing and why it works, which I wouldn't if I'd just had him create a dial plan for me.  That doesn't mean I can tell anyone else how to create a dial plan (unless they want to do EXACTLY the same thing I'm doing) but it does mean that if a person does a little digging, both in this forum and in Obihai's documentation, it is possible to figure this stuff out.

Finally, I will say that this is not the first time I have seen this sort of thing happen.  As an example, without naming names, I can think of another situation where, in a forum for a particular piece of VoIP software, one guy because the "resident expert" but sometimes managed to tick off other forum participants.  He held that position for many months, and then one day got into some kind of tiff with the forum moderators and just up and left (at least he posted a farewell message of sorts).  I just get a really bad feeling when I see one person becoming the "resident guru" in a forum, particularly when he has a bit of an attitude, because sometimes these guys just have a tendency to up and leave.  I won't try to psychoanalyze the situation because I'm not qualified to do that, but just saying this isn't the first time I've seen a "resident guru" up and quit (if that is indeed what happened here, and again, we just don't know at this point).

Everything in this post is solely my opinion, and nothing here should be taken as a statement of fact.  Don't consider me a "reliable source" on anything, because I know as little about what actually happened as the rest of you.
Inactive, no longer posting or responding to messages.  Goodbye and good luck.  Some of my old Obihai-related blog posts have been moved to http://tech.iprock.com - note this in NOT my blog; I have simply given the owner permission to repost some of my old stuff.

carl

I noticed immediately that RonR left the forum- the most knowledgeable and helpful person here- the usefulness of the forum dropped by 75% and the attractivity of Obi products took a nose dive. It is a result of a combined witch hunt by one forum member here and the Obi forum moderators who failed to understand that they owed Ron R a lot and , as I wrote before, they should have paid him. Considered the constant hostility he encountered it is rather surprising that he did not give up earlier.
I do not believe that anyone else will be able and especially willing to replace him- I certainly will not buy additional equipment, engage a helper and spend next 3 month 60 hours a week to get where he was and then spend several hours a day doing customer service for the forum members.
We can only pray that Obihai steps up to the plate and provides the service he did- at which moment they would realize how much money he saved them, but I am not optimistic here.
See what happens.

MichiganTelephone

Quote from: carl on June 05, 2012, 05:11:55 PM
I noticed immediately that RonR left the forum- the most knowledgeable and helpful person here- the usefulness of the forum dropped by 75% and the attractivity of Obi products took a nose dive. It is a result of a combined witch hunt by one forum member here and the Obi forum moderators who failed to understand that they owed Ron R a lot and , as I wrote before, they should have paid him.

Well, Carl, I STILL disagree with you.  You can hate me all you want, but my opinion is still that no company in their right mind would ever hire someone who was on another forum airing their gripes and generally backstabbing the company.  Furthermore, while I am not saying this is what happened here (since I obviously have no way of knowing what's going on in someone else's head), I do think that when people receive too many complements it tends to go to their head, and they start to think they are more invaluable than they really are, and that can cause them to behave badly.  And that, in turn, can actually encourage them to think that if they up and leave, it will show those f***er's just how valuable they really were.  So, your posts (and those of others who may have bestowed just a little too much admiration) might actually have been as much behind his decision to leave (if, indeed, that's what he's decided) as anything I wrote.  But we have no way of knowing, because he never bothered to tell anyone why he left, if he's left.

Now, if you consider me pointing out that he was dissing Obihai on BroadbandReports.com, or that he was telling new users not to use the OBITALK portal, some sort of  a "witch hunt", then what can I say?  You hate me, you won't buy any more Obihai products, you refuse to put any time into learning Obihai dial plans, whatever.  Guess what, the sun will still rise tomorrow and life will go on, I don't and won't care what you think of me, and if Obihai loses a few sales to you they'll doubtless make many more to people who either want to use the devices in more simple ways (that can be configured from the portal) or who are actually willing to try to learn this stuff for themselves, instead of relying on one person.  Maybe in a year or two, there will be several people here who understand this stuff, not just one person with an attitude and maybe an axe or two to grind.  Or maybe Obihai will do a bit more work on their portal, so there won't be as much of a need for a "resident guru" to crank out dial plans for users.

Anyway, I still strongly disagree with you and if you want to think I'm the world's biggest ass, you just go right ahead, because I honestly couldn't care less.  I've never in my life tried to win any popularity contests, and I'm not about to start now.  There's still a part of me that thinks that maybe we'd have all been better off if he'd never even started posting here, because then we might have developed a larger group of "experts", and many more of us would have at least rudimentary knowledge of dial plans and how they work.
Inactive, no longer posting or responding to messages.  Goodbye and good luck.  Some of my old Obihai-related blog posts have been moved to http://tech.iprock.com - note this in NOT my blog; I have simply given the owner permission to repost some of my old stuff.

dudlee

RonR was great at trying to help folks.  His "immediate" answers were very welcome.  Seems that MT decided he should be the go to guy on this forum, even though he came very late, and was pretty much ignored.  Attacking RonR was in very poor taste. And no MT, I really don't need a 5 paragraph explanation of why you did this as I really don't care.  One of the main reasons I came to this forum was because everyone was so helpful and there was no petty childish computer nerd flaming going on.  That all changed with you MT.  I am now leaving this forum for good as it has now changed.

MichiganTelephone

Quote from: dudlee on June 05, 2012, 09:42:42 PMSeems that MT decided he should be the go to guy on this forum, even though he came very late, and was pretty much ignored.

WTF?  Where did you get the idea that I wanted to be the "go to guy?"  That is a role I most certainly do not want, never wanted, and am not in any way qualified to hold.  Just because I didn't think it was good for someone else to have that role does not for a minute mean I wanted it... in fact, that would be the last thing I would want; it's way too much responsibility for one thing, and for another, due to my age and failing memory I can't even remember half this stuff from one day to the next.

In fact, in case you haven't noticed, when I do try to answer questions I'm probably wrong more often than I'm right.  We have several "experts" on this forum (and I wish we had more) but I don't really consider myself one of them!
Inactive, no longer posting or responding to messages.  Goodbye and good luck.  Some of my old Obihai-related blog posts have been moved to http://tech.iprock.com - note this in NOT my blog; I have simply given the owner permission to repost some of my old stuff.

MichiganTelephone

After thinking about this a bit, and re-reading the comments above where I am being attacked over RonR's leaving (IF he left, and is not just on vacation or something), despite any evidence whatsoever that anything I said or did actually had anything to do with his absence, I have decided that there's no reason I should stick around either.  While I REALLY don't give a sh*t what anyone thinks of me, I have a better use for my time than trying to explain anything to people who are of this mindset.  Frankly, I'm getting sick of writing altogether, and put my blog on hiatus yesterday.  I'm getting old and tired, and am starting to just not care about anything anymore.

There are much younger and smarter people than I on this forum, and I hope some of them will pick up the mantle and become the future "resident experts", but if I stick around, there will always be people like dudlee who think that I chased RonR off because I wanted to take his place, which was NEVER what I wanted.  Some of you won't believe that and I still don't care.  Right now my current mood is sort of "f--- everybody" although I realize not everyone deserves it.  Goodbye, good luck, and maybe we will meet again in another lifetime.
Inactive, no longer posting or responding to messages.  Goodbye and good luck.  Some of my old Obihai-related blog posts have been moved to http://tech.iprock.com - note this in NOT my blog; I have simply given the owner permission to repost some of my old stuff.

Ostracus

And on a more positive note, starting with the Obihai documentation. It seems some culling through old posts, and pooling of knowledge and expertise, especially were the documentation is either incomplete, or just plain wrong would be a good step forward.

nexus14

I seriously thought RonR was a paidmember of Obitalk providing actual support. His posts were extremely detailed and very technical. Most importantly, whatever he provided actually worked!

I knew he was gone the day I posted in a thread regarding 1-800 numbers and ideaSIP. He will surely be missed.

Thankfully Obitalk was easy to set up, but I feel sorry for people that will run into problems and have more technical questions to ask. Before, I would see threads with a question, a single reply by RonR, and another reply with "Thanks!". Gone are those days...

carl

Quote from: MichiganTelephone on June 05, 2012, 08:49:28 PM
Quote from: carl on June 05, 2012, 05:11:55 PM
.

Well, Carl, I STILL disagree with you.  You can hate me all you want, but my opinion is still that no company in their right mind would ever hire someone who was on another forum airing their gripes and generally backstabbing the company.  Furthermore, while I am not saying this is what happened here (since I obviously have no way of knowing what's going on in someone else's head), I do think that when people receive too many complements it tends to go to their head, and they start to think they are more invaluable than they really are, and that can cause them to behave badly.  And that, in turn, can actually encourage them to think that if they up and leave, it will show those f***er's just how valuable they really were.  So, your posts (and those of others who may have bestowed just a little too much admiration) might actually have been as much behind his decision to leave (if, indeed, that's what he's decided) as anything I wrote.  But we have no way of knowing, because he never bothered to tell anyone why he left, if he's left.

Now, if you consider me pointing out that he was dissing Obihai on BroadbandReports.com, or that he was telling new users not to use the OBITALK portal, some sort of  a "witch hunt", then what can I say?  You hate me, you won't buy any more Obihai products, you refuse to put any time into learning Obihai dial plans, whatever.  Guess what, the sun will still rise tomorrow and life will go on, I don't and won't care what you think of me, and if Obihai loses a few sales to you they'll doubtless make many more to people who either want to use the devices in more simple ways (that can be configured from the portal) or who are actually willing to try to learn this stuff for themselves, instead of relying on one person.  Maybe in a year or two, there will be several people here who understand this stuff, not just one person with an attitude and maybe an axe or two to grind.  Or maybe Obihai will do a bit more work on their portal, so there won't be as much of a need for a "resident guru" to crank out dial plans for users.

Anyway, I still strongly disagree with you and if you want to think I'm the world's biggest ass, you just go right ahead, because I honestly couldn't care less.  I've never in my life tried to win any popularity contests, and I'm not about to start now.  There's still a part of me that thinks that maybe we'd have all been better off if he'd never even started posting here, because then we might have developed a larger group of "experts", and many more of us would have at least rudimentary knowledge of dial plans and how they work.

MT: Until now, I have tried to avoid anything what might have been interpreted as a personal attack on you but this time I am making an exception. BTW for the last time as well, because I am not in business fixing pathological personalities.
Where, for heaven's sake, did I ever said that I hate Obi ?? Just the opposite, on this and all other forums/rating sites I was always very positive about the device and company. Where did I say that I would not buy any more products from them??
Where did I ever " compliment RonR too much "?? I always simply thanked him whenever he gave me valuable advice( basic manners some people miss) but that's all, I only came to his defense late in the witch hunt. 
And all this twisting, insinuations, lies and propaganda.
I do not hate you, MT. You should read all your posts and hate yourself. If RonR got hit by a truck, we would be in the same place now regardless what you( or Obi chat mods) did.
No, we would not have any expert team here if he never was on the forum. Because even the few people who might be willing and able to get his level of knowledge will not provide a near real time customer service round the clock.
But what MAY have happened and what MAY happen in the future that Obihai starts seriously reconsidering their approach to customer support and cooperation with SIP providers if and when they realize that this is hurting their sales , an issue especially critical should  Google choose to discontinue or charge for GV. Because it hurts already now, not with me but with other people who do not have time for hassle. But those are issues for a different thread.                                       ::)

Billt928

#18
I'm new here and was reading this forum before my purchase of a OBi100, OBi110 & two OBi202's plus a WiFi adapter over the last 3 to 4 weeks. I found the advice of both RonR and MichiganTelephone to be usefull and they also always seemed to be the members that always had a quick answer.

Now that the two of them seem to have run each other off from this forum.

I can only hope that OBi themselves start providing support on this forum. after all this is not a third party forum. it is owned and run by OBI. When I first started looking at OBi products and reading this forum I though it was a 3rd party site due to the lack of OBi employees answering these post.

I know company run forums are the first place I look for quick support. I know I have posted a few questions here and OBi employees have never responded, much less to most of the post I've read here.

They are really lax on release notes on firmware if they provide any at all, I've seen two for the OBi202 over the last two weeks and can only guess what they are suppose to address, I know I prefer not to do firmware updates unless I'm having a know issue that is addressed by the firmware or the firmware has some new features that I just can not do without. but without release notes. who knows what they are for and if my device bricks over some firmware update that I may have not needed. how will OBi address that issue?

lhm.

Good bye MT. Better late than never.