Etiquette AND Protocol When Dealing with Senior Engineers, Artists and Programmers.
Around PL, as the membership grows, we are starting to see a lot of BAD MANNERS.
Lets talk about professionalism. When a gentleman or lady has been working with this technology for 20 to 30 years, you may safely assume they know what they are talking about when it comes to scanner physics and business. Many people here seem to fail to respect that, and fail to show even common manors.
The Golden rule, if you have nothing nice to say, you have nothing to say at all.
Exemptions to the above, usually none, unless its a matter of safety or good for the industry. Ie some idiot makes a policially incorrect show about people drowning digitized from snuff films. If you wouldn't do it in church (whatever religion) or court if your a athiest don't do it here.
My major gripes right now:
Juniors, respect your Seniors, Often times they are trying to save you from expensively reinventing the wheel. I have many professional laserist friends who would love to participate here, but do not, as they do not like to have to justify their every statement, and hate posts that say "I think thats wrong", and yet that posting is from somebody who has zero experience with that technology and there is no justification why the statement is made. If your not sure you have the Physics or Politics right, dont challenge somebody who does. If you do make a mistake, apologize. Stupidity and Paranoia are starting to run rampant around here, and I for one am sick of it. Dont take a good technical thread off course for paranoia and politics.
Somebody goes to the trouble of posting a file or a new segment of code, and Oh, its not
(insert excuse here) , so therefore not my cup of tea, and you demean it. Guys and Gals, its a lot of work to set down at a compiler or frame editor and crank something out. It you can help improve it, improve it. If not, leave it be and go on your way. If you find a virus or major glitch, yes it may need to be announced, but if its a simple goof PM the author and allow them a chance to correct it. If you think (insert name of professional software here) product sucks, but you have never used it, how about waiting till you go to Selem or Flem or ILDA or a friends house and try it before you blast it. Granted there are a few dogs out there (mainly some low cost asian clones of 1990s dos code,) that we will advise our friends to avoid, but often people dont even look at features tables before they say, "dont buy that, it doesnt do....) Then you ask them, and they have version 0,1 beta when the current one is 9.0
FOLLOW the recent example of a certain engineer who tested some galvos, If the galvos have problems, put them on the bench, prove it, give the creator a chance to fix it, then publish the review. If you cant scan a ILDA test pattern, you cant say the article under test doesnt do what its claimed to, cause you cant prove it. Write it up as a proper test reprt, so your comments may be subjected to peer review.
Not every professional here is trying to deceive you. Yes, sometimes interpersonal relations get in the way of business. Or a past standard was found to have a error and retracted.
But nobody comes here to spread disinformation. Dont be so Damn paranoid. If a guy is in business for more then five years, has a office staff and doesn't work out of his home,odds are he didnt get there by ripping off customers, but by serving them. Get rid of this distrust of number one. Sometimes they are just following the last rule of the ILDA code of Ethics and due to a professional relationship cannot disclose what you want to know.
Sometimes it is to avoid embaroussing somebody who screwed up bigtime, but does not warrent loosing business . Ie somebody wrote a specifcation or drew a schematic while tired or drunk or in a hurry. It happens! Dont cry over spilled Milk.!
Next up, sometimes poltics makes odd bedfellows, some times for the greater good, you team up with a competitor in a mutually beneficial relationship. Rarely does that happen to screw over the customers, who can quicly figgure out they are getting screwed.
Next up, in a recent frameswapping thread, I have seen "Oh thats close to what I want but its not blue where I like it to be green and the point count is 657 and I want all my frames to be exactly 700, and the guy was talking about a frame ripped from professional clipart that he didnt pay for. If the frame given to you as a curtesy is not good enough, draw your own damn art. It takes 15-30 minutes a frame for a professional artist to skecth something, and then another 15-30 minutes to load it into the system (known as digitizing).
Next gripe, If a person paid 45,000$ to develop a technology, dont ask them to give it away for nothing. There are exceptions for this for medicine and safety of life things, or international standards , but for crying out loud, some of this stuff took two or three decades to work out, and cost a fortune, and many folks spent long hours away from their families late at night in a lab with less then modest equipment and flaky development systems trying to get it right. You can bash a poor quality clone, but just because you think it can be made for 10.00 doesn,t mean you should be able to buy it for 8.75. Keep in mind businesses have overhead and costs and hidden costs. Keep in mind some stuff is done to keep away from lawyers or patent issues. Also keep in mind ythat many parts we use are spill overs from other industries. If the entertainment and hobby market were the sole markets for laser parts and galvos, we would NOT have lasers and galvos. The folks who make PCAOMs for example, are all defense contractors, you are not their primary market.
Add this one to the following, we all love lasers or we wouldn't be here, Therefore laser safety of the public and professionals and laser hobbyists is our profession. You have a obligation to make shows safe and artistically interesting for the good and safety of the public and for the good of the industry. Respect laws and safety rules. If your looking for a
way to dodge the regulations you don't belong here.
-------------Steve Roberts----------------------------
(note IEEE is Institue of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) (ILDA is International Laser Display Association)
The IEEE code of Ethics:
We, the members of the IEEE, in recognition of the importance of our technologies in affecting the quality of life throughout the world, and in accepting a personal obligation to our profession, its members and the communities we serve, do hereby commit ourselves to the highest ethical and professional conduct and agree:
1. to accept responsibility in making decisions consistent with the safety, health and welfare of the public, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment;
2. to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest whenever possible, and to disclose them to affected parties when they do exist;
3. to be honest and realistic in stating claims or estimates based on available data;
4. to reject bribery in all its forms;
5. to improve the understanding of technology, its appropriate application, and potential consequences;
6. to maintain and improve our technical competence and to undertake technological tasks for others only if qualified by training or experience, or after full disclosure of pertinent limitations;
7. to seek, accept, and offer honest criticism of technical work, to acknowledge and correct errors, and to credit properly the contributions of others;
8. to treat fairly all persons regardless of such factors as race, religion, gender, disability, age, or national origin;
9. to avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment by false or malicious action;
10. to assist colleagues and co-workers in their professional development and to support them in following this code of ethics.
Approved by the IEEE Board of Directors February 2006
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ILDA code of Ethics
Section 3. Statement of Code of Ethics
* Members desire to promote cooperative, responsible and ethical application of laser display.
* Members agree to conduct their business in a professional, ethical, safe and courteous manner, and to make a good faith effort to resolve any and all complaints made against them.
* Members agree to respect the goals, desires and objectives of their clients.
* Members agree to observe and obey any and all regulations governing the use of lasers in any country or area in which the member operates.
* No member will knowingly take or receive credit for work done by another member or, through inaction, knowingly allow an incorrect credit to persist.
* Members agree not to make inaccurate or misleading claims in advertising and/or promotion.
* No member will knowingly make inaccurate or slanderous statements about any competitor or through silence lend credibility to statements made by others.
* Members will not misrepresent their capabilities or the capabilities of the medium in general.
* Members agree to keep privileged information obtained by reason of their position in ILDA confidential.
