What should we do with this forum?

Greta

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Well everyone... it seems that it's perhaps well past time to decide what to do with this forum. I realize that many members have un-resolved issues with Rob. Consequently I am hesitant to cut off communications completely... although it seems that Rob has already done that himself... :ironic: However I think we are all at a point where we do not want to give even the slightest implication that we support and/or condone such actions and business practices as have been displayed here by Orb.

So what should we do with this forum? Close it to further posts while leaving an archive for future reference? Ban Rob? Limit his access to CPF? Leave things alone?

Two things I cannot and will not do:

1. I cannot move any of the threads here to the MarketPlace 'Hall of Shame'.

2. I will not get involved in any transactions that have taken place between individuals and Orb. Those issues should be pursued privately off the board. I will allow discussion and coordination of punitive action to take place in the 'Hall of Shame' at the MarketPlace. Let me know if you want me to start a thread there. If you want to go that route, I will close this forum and post a link to the 'Hall of Shame'. Likewise, I can post a link over there back to this forum.

It is sad that we all have to have discussions like this but let's keep it civil and rational. It will not do any of us any good to just start posting impractical suggestions or to just vent. That has been done.
 

rich297

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Greta, I do not personally have any issues with Rob. While I am a great admirer of his lights I was deterred from buying anything from him due to the numerous accounts of non-delivery that I read on this forum. Although I do own three of his lights, they were all purchased used at the Marketplace.

With that said, I do feel that keeping his forum open is construed by at least some CPF members as support and approval of his current business practices which, by any standard, are absolutely unsupportable. Having read your post above, I think it is clear you do not want to convey such support. I recommend that this forum be closed and that a thread be started in the "Hall of Shame". Between the posts in this forum as well as the Jeers forum, there is ample evidence to justify such action on your part.

Thank you for asking for our input.
 

fugleebeast

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I also feel that this forum should be closed, or it should at least be locked to new topics and have a warning up at the top. People who currently have transactions pending with Rob communicate mostly through email, so I do not think it will hamper anything in that regard.

Thank you for asking our opinions, that is very considerate of you.

Also, thank you for taking action on this. I'd hate to see more people go through what some of us have gone through.
 

Greta

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Fugleebeast... I like your idea of a warning at the top of the forum. I will get on that now and wait for more input from more members who have vested interests before doing anything more.

Thank you Rich for your input as well :)
 

fyrstormer

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Hmm. If it were my call I'd archive the threads pertaining to the use, modification, repair, and showing-off of Lummi products, and I'd toss the rest. No sense hanging on to tons of complaint threads (and the shill threads generated to push the complaints off the page), when it's obvious Lummi doesn't care to respond to them anymore. Maybe we could start another thread where people can post links to threads they think are worth saving, and then the admins can grab those and put them in the generic custom-lights forum before closing this one.

Glad I got my one Lummi. Wish I'd gotten my second one. *grumble*
 

mglamb

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...No sense hanging on to tons of complaint threads...

I respectfully disagree, I think it's very important to document all the problems people have had. Keeping all the neat technical stuff about the lights while sweeping away the dirt of the bad business practices and dishonesty of this operation is counterproductive to protecting the CPF community. No matter how nice the product is, the company is dishonest and/or incompetent and this must not be lost sight of. And I'm glad I got rid of my 2 Lummis - I couldn't keep them knowing what a weasel the maker is.
 

orb

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Very sorry to see this thread & the notice above on this Forum.
It is however understood that something would have to give here.
Ultimately all I want to do is fulfill any outstanding orders & resolve matters.
Move forwards to a better Lummi & regain the reputation I once had.
For now I understand the forum can not support me. I have stayed away from CPF for a while now as my welcome here has long gone. All is a shame & I take the blame. By no means was any of this intentional, I have to get focused on turning the negative into a positive as fast as possible. I may not be around on CPF anymore but I answer my emails & continue to send out orders. Farewell CPF thank you for the good times.
Even though it is sad, I would like the Lummi sub forum to be closed please.
 

fyrstormer

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I respectfully disagree, I think it's very important to document all the problems people have had. Keeping all the neat technical stuff about the lights while sweeping away the dirt of the bad business practices and dishonesty of this operation is counterproductive to protecting the CPF community. No matter how nice the product is, the company is dishonest and/or incompetent and this must not be lost sight of. And I'm glad I got rid of my 2 Lummis - I couldn't keep them knowing what a weasel the maker is.
I'm not saying there should be no record of Lummi's bad practices, just that we don't need a defunct forum full of long drawn-out discussions trying to resolve those bad practices, when there are already Jeer threads to make sure new members know what happened.

Weasel or not, I like my Raw. I'm glad I got it, same as I'm glad I got my Arc6s despite the drama surrounding them as well. In both cases, the product is not the company. The product has committed no offense against me.
 

Blerv

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I would personally rather see this subforum locked but left open.

When looking to buy any custom product (especially overseas) I do my research, these days most of that comes from forums such as these and general internet queries.

There is a difference between dragging a companies name through the mud repeatedly for past practices and simply laying down the cards and letting people make their own decisions. Any informed person can see posts from years back and make their own decision. With positive testimonials going forward I see no reason why Rob can't build the name of Lummi back up...sadly those only come with the shipping of purchased products.

Removing hundreds of testimonials speaking to their experience with Lummi Torches would be a disservice. Obviously if subforum was more praise than complaints the owner wouldn't be as quick to ask for closure.

Again, no intention of permanently marring Rob as a person. As for the practices of the company, these have left people short of patience, products, and in some cases money. I think they should have their voices heard for that.
 

HKJ

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I believe that I understand why Rob what this forum closed, but in my opinion that would not be a good idea, because then there are no places where people can read about all the problems with Lummi. Besides all the problems there is also a lot of good and useful information about Lummi products and I would also like to keep it accessible.
I do not know if it is best to keep it open in a read only state or just keep it fully open.

PS.: I do not write this because I have anything outstanding with Rob. I like Lummi lights and would like to get some more, but I dare not order them, due to the lottery about who gets his order.
 

rich297

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The problem that I see with keeping the Lummi forum open is that it implies CPF endorsement of his business practices. Granted, the red warning that Greta added to the top of the Lummi forum goes a long way towards disclaiming any endorsement of Lummi, but is that enough? Currently, the Lummi name resides in the same company as several highly-regarded and reputable Custom Flashlight Builders & Modders. I don't think the Lummi name deserves to be included in that select group.
 

blackfly

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...Consequently I am hesitant to cut off communications completely... although it seems that Rob has already done that himself... :ironic:

So what should we do with this forum? Close it to further posts while leaving an archive for future reference? Ban Rob? Limit his access to CPF? Leave things alone

#1) Rob removed the cpf link on his website a couple months ago & I regarded that as the first sign that he was cutting himself off. This was followed by a failure to respond to issues on CPF.

#2) Close the forum to future posts. But keep an archive open so that we can reference.

I am a member with iron in the fire. I have received previous orders from Rob (with a delay) & have a current order that is completely unfulfilled. I will give Rob the benefit of the doubt & expect that our most recent email exchange will be honored. I will say nothing damaging. But there is valuable information in this forum for those owning Rob's lights. I, for example, may want to sell a light one day. I would like to be able to link to the original post in this sub-forum. Also, I don't think CPF is, in any way, aligning itself with bad business practices at all. The red warning at the top is good enough.
 
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EngrPaul

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We all bite off more than we can chew with good intentions. I think Rob should step back and find a new balance. Perhaps get him into a conversation with other custom builders and see what has worked for them. Maybe he can find volunteer moderators to help streamline his workload maintaining CPF.

Rob should release his products in waves. That way, he can do what he wants to do on the schedule he feels like doing, and special projects that he enjoys putting first work out perfect.

I suggest to freeze the forum, and rename it Lummi (Archive). A message across the top should read that Rob (Lummi) has decided to not use CPF as a discussion forum for his products indefinitely.
 
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do15

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#1) Rob removed the cpf link on his website a couple months ago & I regarded that as the first sign that he was cutting himself off. This was followed by a failure to respond to issues on CPF.

#2) Close the forum to future posts. But keep an archive open so that we can reference.

I am a member with iron in the fire. I have received previous orders from Rob (with a delay) & have a current order that is completely unfulfilled. I will give Rob the benefit of the doubt & expect that our most recent email exchange will be honored. I will say nothing damaging. But there is valuable information in this forum for those owning Rob's lights. I, for example, may want to sell a light one day. I would like to be able to link to the original post in this sub-forum.

I am in exact same situation. If the forum is still open, I will let you know how it turns out.
 

Blerv

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While I'm all to help a struggling business person I don't know if it's CPF's obligation. I can't speak for the forum community though given my newer status and lack of posts. I do really like the other ideas about archiving the subforum though.

It's true that Rob makes a terrific product. Batch production and preorders are pretty common practice. Placing aside funds that are intended for a specific product instead of venturing forth on a new projects is the problem. This is Excel spreadsheet 101. :)

Scaling back the scope of Lummi to a niche, low production house should be a goal. Jumping the gap to multiple project pipelines has clearly not been successful.


Edit: Guh, moral wrench thrown in the gears. My apologies and condolences for those with outstanding lights. Perhaps keeping the forum open for response tracking would be wise. Perhaps even a single thread of outstanding orders with "Pending" or "Fulfilled" or "Returned Funds"?

It would be similar to a preorder thread. At least the enigma of waiting would be clarified.
 
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Cuso

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Whatever you guys did with the Arc subforum ?

Love the product, Rob. I'm keeping the faith, but this whole mess has indeed saved me from sending you some of my hard earned cash. Hope you can recover some day man. And good luck to all those with orders outstanding, I would not want to be in your shoes.
 
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wyldthng

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My 2 cents.... the red warning at the top is a good idea. So is keeping something open both as a reference and as a way of tracking who has received a light. Otherwise, there is no way of knowing if Rob is fulfilling his orders. I have received a few lights from Rob, all with big delays and a lot of weekly nagging and stress on my part. This is not good. I would love some spare parts, but really don't want to deal with all the stress and worry. I can see people not wanting to have this forum included with other custom makers' forums, but it serves a huge purpose, if nothing else than a fair warning to anyone ready to plunk down cash.......
 

ElectronGuru

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Perhaps get him into a conversation with other custom builders and see what has worked for them.

When I started on CPF, folks were still fuming about AWR. Over a time, I noticed a single theme to most every builder problem: taking money before something is ready to ship. Time after time (including several new examples this year) it creates issues and people keep doing it (sellers and buyers).

Simple rule to prevent 99% of issues, never post for sale what's not ready to ship!
 

jalbam

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As one of the victims who has not received his money or the order yet after more than one year I think that keeping the sub-forum writable with the currently red alert is the best idea. In my opinion, it's good for victims (it can help us to talk between us, taking actions together, etc) and to prevent new customers to be fooled. Other manufactures doesn't have that red alert so it's a fair situation.

CPF helped Lummi and Rob to contact with new clients having this sub-forum dedicated just for this company. Now that this sub-forum clearly won't help Lummi and Rob to sell any more (no wonder why Rob wants to delete all), at least it will help us, the common people. It wouldn't be fair for us, victims and possible future clients (this company stills wants to keep running, sadly), if we couldn't have the same options to write and to be listened having a sub-forum dedicated. CPF trusted this company but the company ruined all itself. It's the company's fault, not CPF's. Now we deserve that CPF give us the opportunity to keep this forum.

The problem with Lummi and Rob is not only that he took the money without having the products ready to sell. He lied me several times and he doesn't answer my emails anymore. He doesn't even answered the thread (http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?311706-My-(awful)-experience-with-Lummi-(more-than-1-year-waiting-lied-and-ignored)) explaining my situation that I started in this same forum but... he has answered this thread! Now I have no doubt he is just ignoring me. And I am not the unique one with this problem, sadly.

I find a very good idea to start a thread where people who is still waiting for an order can post the items which were ordered, the date when all was ordered and the quantity of the money spent as well as weather he/she still wants the order or just the money back.

Sorry about my English :)
 

jalbam

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Hello again,

For those who are, sadly, in the same situation as me and still waiting for an order from Lummi by Rob Cheetham (aka Orb) I have created a new thread.

I think it will be very useful for all of us, the victims, to be together in contact though a same thread and having in mind how much money is involved in this case. Maybe this can help us to get back part of our money spent (never our time, sadly, neither other money spent with advocates or others).

Here is the thread:*http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?315471-List-of-orders-pending

Thank you very much.
 
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