Another R.G. techie on list. [RE-wrenches]

Sat Feb 2 10:20:11 PST 2002

Mangelsdorf, Marco wrote at 04:25 PM 02/01/2002 -1000:

>A point of order, your Michael-ship.  With some solar companies having more than one of their employees on the Wrenches list (i.e., our friends John Berdner and Kent Sheldon at SMA), is it not fair to allow the same type of treatment for other companies as well if that individual is properly "qualified" to be on the list?

Bear with me while I try to explain how I deal with this stuff and why. (Also, Marco, please send only plain text messages to the list.)

I am not treating anyone differently, let me point out that I also limited Schott/Applied Power/AEE to 2 wrench-qualified tech support persons on the list (though they are now down to one). And these folks are my personal friends and in my back yard. My preference in the case of wrench-qualified tech support folks is for one per company, because that allows the entire tech support team to have a person that can get info for the company.

The only reason that SMA, as a manufacturer, has two reps on the list is that both of them were on the list with different companies before one changed jobs to SMA. While he was representing the first company, he proved himself to be extremely knowledgeable, respectful, and helpful.

However, if you all would prefer, I will ask them to choose one only. But I would highly recommend against that, based on their past history.

Gaia/Jade Mt./Real Goods already has 2 on the list, and that has long been the max that I have allowed for non-manufacturers. You might argue that it is actually 2 or 3 businesses, but according to them they have a single, shared tech-support for all 3 companies.

The main reason I have put limits on the numbers of folks joining the list is to keep the level of discussion up where it would be most beneficial for the pros.

Another very important reason is because the number 1 thing that wrench members have mentioned to me is that they don't want to wade through a lot of email. More members means more traffic, so there needs to be some limitation. Lately, traffic has been light, but in the past we have lost several members because they did not want to deal with the traffic. Their choice, but the point is that I want to keep this list as useful as possible for as many of you pros as possible.

A third reason that effects this case is that many of you pro wrenches seem to highly resent the high volume sellers and low-ballers because of their history of screwing up jobs.

When a request to be added to the wrench list comes to me, and it is on the knife's edge of eligibility, I err on the side of adding the person. You all never see the many requests I get. Most folks graciously understand that the list is closed and for pro wrenches and agree to use the web site archives as an alternative.

Michael Welch

------------------------
"The tragedy of modern war is not so much that young men die but that they die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals."
			Edward Abbey

Michael Welch, michael.welch at homepower.com www.homepower.com
     Managing Editor, Home Power magazine
     Office Coordinator, Redwood Alliance
     (Not HP mag numbers) 707-822-7884 fax: 707-822-3481

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