I need to address something that has become an increasing problem.
My email address is publicly available because I use it for project related communication. It is not an invitation to use it as a personal support channel for general uConsole questions, troubleshooting, setup assistance, or other routine support requests.
Over time I’ve received a growing number of direct emails asking for support that would be more appropriate on the forum. While that has been frustrating, the situation recently escalated further when people used information associated with my email address to find and call my personal phone number seeking technical support.
That is completely inappropriate.
I am a community member who volunteers my time and contributes because I enjoy helping the community. I am not a ClockworkPi employee, I do not provide official support, and I am not available for private technical support by phone.
If you need help with your uConsole, please post your questions on the forum where the entire community can benefit from the discussion. Public posts allow multiple people to contribute, create searchable solutions for future users, and help prevent the same questions from being answered repeatedly through private messages.
I value this community and enjoy contributing to it. However, having my personal contact information used to reach me directly for support is not something I am willing to accept.
I got my 3rd call yesterday and thought about all night. I felt like it I needed to say something.
I don’t mind giving one on one help if needed but it should start in the forum. My DMs here are open to for anybody that wants to talk about non clockwork related stuff also.
My email is only available for custom work or other projects to reach out. Most importantly, my personal number should never even be a consideration for contact.
That’s actually ludicrously entitled behaviour, but sadly not surprising. Whilst I have you, just a little note of appreciation for all you’ve contributed to the community. I’ve not been a “member” for long but can immediately see that we’d all be a bit lost without you.
Rex, thank you for all you have done for this community. Sadly, I see this behavior across several open-source projects I participate in. It drives people away from the projects.
Let me say that again for the people in the back: IT DRIVES PEOPLE AWAY FROM THE PROJECTS!!!
I don’t know about any of the rest of you, but my uConsole wouldn’t be useful if not for Rex, I have tried to run the ClockworkPi official OS with the HG AIO V1 board. Don’t run Rex off over stupid bullshit behavior. Have some respect, use the forums, and let’s keep this community growing.
Thank you again Rex for everything you have done, and hopefully the bullshit stops.
Never fails to amaze me how people came up with an idea of tracking people down, find their personal phone number and then call them for technical support for a volunteer job. I mean, you can not make that stuff up…
Although I had a slight issue with Trixie recently, but 2 minutes with Gemini and all things are cleared. Out of all the options such as forum, AI tools and etc, he decided to track down the personal phone number and call Rex…
For some people, reading is already too much to ask for.
The worst thing is the underlying selfishness of not making the problems and their hoped-for solutions accessible to everyone by actively contributing to the forum, yet still expecting help from others.
Yeeesh, sorry to hear about this, Rex. Given the nature of this community, I’m sure I’m not the only one here who’s worked IT Support/Helpdesk jobs, and was always amazed at the shamelessness of people seeking me out via private, non-work channels rather than opening tickets - unacceptable behaviour, but at least that was when I was getting paid for a job. The idea that anyone would be so entitled as to demand the support of a volunteer who’s already given so much to this community is mind bending.
I’m really sorry this is the reward for your excellent work here, and really hope that it doesn’t happen again. For what it’s worth, I hope you know you have absolutely no duty or responsibility to be in any way civil or polite to people invading your privacy like that: it’s not ok, it’s crossing clear boundaries, and you’re absolutely entitled to tell them exactly where to go with that kind of behaviour.
I love helping people get the most out of their devices, and I don’t plan on going anywhere. I just wanted to put it out not to do that.
I didn’t feel threatened at all or anything like that, I just didn’t appreciate it.
He had questions about applying the eeprom settings. I know that it can be hard and frustrating when your new device isn’t working right but the form has the answers he was looking for.
