Question unique to me:
I ordered a basic (no filter) on 10/2/15. I then upgraded to a pro (still no filter) on 10/21/15.
Is my Pro-order-date the 21st or the 2nd? From the sound of it those few weeks could mean a difference of months in shipping.
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Upgrading doesn’t change your initial order date, nothing to fear
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Hi Joshua,
I wish… I am literally down the street from the factory, and I know the some of the guys doing the build and I could not get Dan to agree to save on the shipping but I did ask.
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Yeah it’s a bit broad. Especially over the past few decades. Change is accelerating. And many of the “GenX” or GenY" trends and thought processes are filtering into the other generations - smartphone use is almost ubiquitous amongst all generations now and social media reaches deep into the boomers as well as all the way back to today’s new-teens.
But you need to define the cohorts somewhere and the traditional 20 year/generation is a handy reference for data analysis. It’s never been a great measure because there are sub-components of a “generation” that overlap - where the babies are being born every 15 years instead of 20 or 40 years instead of 20. Those tend to be outliers for sweeping societal and attitudinal change (at least in the past).
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I glanced over the past 656 messages, but I have a question.
I’m wondering how much candy the “Umpa lumpa’s” can crank out. Then, we can determine if we will all be fat and happy soon. If they can do 10 a day then we can get the machines in days instead of 10 machines a month.
Just curious. I ordered Oct 18th, 2015, And it is worth the wait from what I am seeing created so far. I have my bench cleared out and waiting.
Thanks
Eric
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Keep in mind that Basic models are shipping first, as June 1st, (until the Pro’s start shipping June 30th) and that as production increases then the emails (asking if you want your GF 
) going out will increase.
The schedule is in the June 2017 Update
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sure, although 10 a day would still take forever for people to get all their orders. i’m hopeful production will ramp up, though you never know; hardware is hard, and they’ve run into unexpected issues before.
it may end up being difficult to scale without subverting QA.
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What constitutes a regular though? I read the forum and updates all the time. I don’t regularly contribute to threads because:
A: I don’t see the point in complaining about things I can’t control.
and…
B: I don’t have a Glowforge unit, therefore I have nothing to report upon.
So, how do I become a “regular” who gets pushed up the queue?
Just wondering because that seems a little unfair as we have all waited a long, long time… and some of us even patiently.
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The label of Regular (as the forum platform software defines it) is found here:
https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-do-user-trust-levels-do/4924/6
There has been some changes made by @dan , but the above link is how the forum metrics are applied.
I believe @dan has stated there are about 100 that are part of that queue.
Other factors are Basic vs Pro, continental US vs Overseas, order date placement, international regs and compliance and unique issues (shipping companies handling and environments, testing companies, and ???).
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And by this point, they had better have cruised way past 100 shipped units!
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The Basic models, I would agree.
The Pro models are the ones yet to come (Which will start another flurry of topics and postings)!
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A lot of people seem to have trouble understanding the whole Regular thing…
A Regular is someone who has contributed enough on the forum for Discourse (the hosting site) to automatically recognize them as someone who is regularly here and contributing.
You do have to read a large amount of all the posts, not just the one or two that most people are interested in, post a certain number of times yourself, get into meaningful discussions that generate interest and likes from your peers, create a number of popular topics, and basically just spend a lot of time on the forum.
And you have to keep doing it, because there is a 100 day rolling window where all of those qualifications have to be met, or you lose Regular status.
The easiest way to become Regular is to post ideas for laserable items, inspirational projects, show off what you are planning to do and share with the group. It’s the reason they are called Regulars, and everyone benefits from the idea sharing.
There isn’t anything undemocratic about being a Regular or not being a Regular. The folks who are Regular just spent the time to become Regular.
Another thing the Regulars have done in hanging around for the last year is get familiar with how lasers operate and learn what to look for. They are the best candidates for the job of testing the first units, since they are more likely to give feedback to Glowforge on a timely basis and let them get any issues fixed before the rest of the customers have to deal with them.
So that’s what’s going on. It has nothing to do with anyone’s value as a person, or how long anyone has waited. It has to do with GF picking the best people to receive the first units to give them the best feedback.
Hope that clears it up…I know a lot of people are uncertain on why it’s happening.
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We aren’t in a beta any longer… so, I don’t really understand the idea of “best candidates” in this scenario. Best candidates for what?
Perhaps this was communicated and I missed it, but had I known I could have jumped the line by simply posting and replying to things in regards to cad designs and CNC projects I am working on (that don’t involve the Glowforge), I would have been an active forum contributor. It seemed sort of pointless to spend a bunch of time talking about a tool that I wasn’t entirely certain I’d ever see. I didn’t want to be another negative voice in the crowd because that isn’t productive for them or myself.
I can understand why people would be upset about getting leapfrogged though. They should have kept that detail to themselves. There is no point in sharing it other than to make non regulars upset about potentially waiting even longer.
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Dan actually announced it. If he hadn’t it would have left regulars in a tricky position if anybody asked them when they ordered.
Ooh, I got post 666 my favourite number 
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Thanks, I see what you’re saying. Maybe the handling of this could have been smoother but… I’ve waited the better part of two years. What’s another month or two… or twelve? I’ll live.
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dan has also pointed out that a specific number of regulars are actually Glowforge employees and are delayed on receiving their units.
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That’s true, but I think the company was probably looking at the very start of shipping production units as sort of the last “trial phase” of the process. We’ve already seen shipping problems (mainly UPS beating the crap out of some of the units, a few units missing key packing foam pieces, the need for better tape on the bottom of the box…etc.) If I’m guessing, the idea was probably to take those who had been the most vocal in giving feedback and use them to help smooth out the last phase of the process. While you can design and plan and test for shipping, until those units start going out for real you don’t really know what will really happen And instead of those first 1% going out to customers that may or may not give them helpful feedback, they chose to use those forum members that had been the most vocal in involved. And unless I’ve missed something there has been no guarantee that just because someone earns a “regular” title in the forum that they get to jump line or anything like that. The only thing @dan had ever said is, “all things being equal.” What a lot of people have missed as well is that a lot of those people on here who may get bumped were already right around that point in line anyway. We’re almost there…almost there… 
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yup, which is why the number is only 100 or so (per one of his recent comments). it’s like a week delay in the grand scheme of things.
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Says the “Regular”… 
No, I’m not too worried about it. I have plenty of stuff to finish before I can even begin to start working with it anyway.
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Just repeating myself from earlier in the thread since it’s so long and some may have missed it. Some people who are not Regulars who ordered early have already received their Glowforge deliveries. I am not a regular, but I did place one of the first 15-20 orders (based on the money counter on the site at the time) very early the first day. My Glowforge was delivered last Monday.
I suspect, though I have no evidence, that their earliest orders they were trying to get some more data points with shipping to different parts of the country. Given that we’ve heard that the PRUs were shipped by FedEx and the production switched to UPS, they had limited data. Sequencing early shipments to get distribution across the country so you can collect more data on that is good sense.
I also suspect my case was helped by indicating my willingness to work with a less than perfect unit by volunteering to be a beta tester way back when. I have no way to know for sure, but I think that’s part of what Dan meant by helping with the development.
I know that’s small comfort, but we’re in the home stretch.
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