It seems to me that this section is misnamed. GF doesn’t really respond. Glowforge owners (that cannot even have the product yet) are the main people responding. It seems to me that when people post a topic here that have some reasonable expectation that they will get responses from…Glowforge employees. Odd, I know.
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The entire board is a community forum. The Ask Glowforge category had over 200 comments yesterday. So many questions are asked within questions. Yes, you can be fairly certain that someone at GF has seen the original Topics in this category. The CEO keeps an eye out should it become obvious that someone from the company needs to correct the information being provided. But mainly it is the community’s responsibility from many experienced people to help. You can try an email or PM but it’s unlikely they have the current staff to answer direct questions from 10,000 backers. BTW: I don’t dispute your original statement, but don’t discount the knowledge of the community. They fully understand what is possible with a laser of this type, safety considerations, basic design features and a gross sense of what progress has been made.
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Being a little flippant 
the “Ask Glowforge” doesn’t include “…and get an answer.”
However, I take your point. Probably should be entitled 'Ask the Glowforge Community" or “Glowforge Questions”. It should also be pointed out (just in case people don’t know) that you can ‘tag’ someone to ensure that it is flagged up to them. So if you’d like Dan to see it you can tag @dan
It doesn’t guarantee a response but I imagine it helps him to get to issues that he might otherwise miss.
I’ve replied to ~15 of the last 20. What were you expecting?
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@dan. This really wasn’t supposed to be a dig at either you or GF. I think you and the team are doing a great job. Seriously. GREAT. If it came off as a dig…apologies.
The problem is that so many people jump in and try to answer the questions that have little or no experience with GF. Since no one has a GF except GF…sometimes people want to hear some from GF…not people assuming, thinking, hoping, whatevering they know. Because of this GF’s responses are jumbled up with suppositions.
I’m just suggesting that the name on this section is misleading, at least for the reality of how it being used.
I agree that the title is somewhat misleading and could be changed, but the criticism that glow forge doesn’t answer questions is absurd. I’ve been thrilled with the communication from this small group of people and it has given me a lot of faith in the finished product. I realize spending thousands of dollars on a product gives an expectation that you will receive some personal attention/service, but it seems to me that questions that go unanswered by the company are questions that have already been answered and the community has stepped up and provided the answer. I am also grateful for the helpful community that is developing here and can’t wait to figure out how to make amazing things with the glow forge with you all.
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While everyone wants a personal answer to their vexing question, there are times I want to say “Dan, go get some sleep” or “Dan, go work on getting that grey scale working better, we can post links to one of the other times you have answered this”.
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As of 4:15 PM CST, Here are @dan’s stats. He’s here every evening and notes everything. I’m pretty amazed at his leadership and involvement. And when he states he enjoys reading the boards, that’s nice to know. I would hope he and the whole team are experiencing lots of positives. Deadlines and expectations must be grinding, but the energy from the forum seems so positive. And Dan likes us lots! That’s so neat to see.
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This really isn’t about GF or dan. It is about people with limited information answering questions about GF when people want information that only GF and its employees have. And really…it is about the name of the section based on what actually happens in this section.
You are correct. The name of the section does imply that a representative from Glowforge would be answering the questions. In practice, I assumed that the community would assist. Funny, I didn’t assume that at all about the Problems and Support category. I figured that would be all Glowforge and I rarely ventured into those threads.
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I agree, sometimes you want the right answer from a qualified person - or nothing at all. ‘Ask Gowforge’ isn’t what’s happening on this particular category…
For better or worse, this is a forum and people are going to answer, even if in the op you say “I only want an answer from”. If you can’t stand for anyone else to jump in there is always email and direct messaging.
That said, I’ll try to stay out of that type of question aside from posting a link to were it has already been answered.
I guess the general rule should be: an unqualified guess (to a question asked of the Glowforge team) does not equal a qualified answer (from a Glowforge team member)…
In the earliest threads glowforge mostly answered, @dan most notably. Now that there have been many questions recycled the community has started chiming in, really awesome people even providing links to other threads.
I’m pretty sure @kim1032 wasn’t really complaining, or demanding a change, but perhaps suggesting that now that the community is taking over some more of the load maybe we should consider not answering if we’re going to speculate or guess. It really seems to put a lot of noise between the question and the “answer.”
I suspect the answers from people quoting other threads and those awesome few that volunteer their time and experience with their own lasers or lasers they have access to are greatly appreciated. I certainly enjoy learning from their knowledge.
Then again I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this discussion on many another discussion board I’ve spent time on.
judging by likes it looks like @dan is pretty popular.
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I don’t know what you meant by this, then.
Community answers are very much a feature, not a bug. Easy to rename this “Q&A” though.
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I think the hope is to have one place where there is a direct line to you and/or the Glowforge team for answers.
Other threads can be community-related with community answers. @kim1032, did I get that right?
E-mail is great for that
@Dan. It was bad phrasing that I have both apoligized for and explained. Sometimes finding GFs answers among all the others responses is…not reasonable.
How many times and ways can I apologize? Perhaps you could just accept the originally apology given.
I am sure Dan is cool with you. A lot of emotions get lost and misread on-line.
No worries…
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Yup.
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