@Brook_Drumm big thanks on your thoughts! It’s true, Germans tend to come off a bit harsh for the uninitiated, and I’m certainly no exception there.
The Witbox does have some nice spots, which i mention in the video, but my overall impression was that the complete package just doesn’t work out. If my honest opinion deters manufacturers from making products available to me, then so be it. I’ll just make guides instead. More on the topic of review bias in this article from @The_Verge (even though many other articles from there are horrible, this one is actually quite decent): http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/24/6834955/vlad-reviews
bq are actually rapidly addressing some of the issues i mentioned (patents and such), which i think is super awesome. I’m always open to feedback and changes and will try to update my content accordingly.
On the topic of business or non-business: It’s somewhere in-between, actually. I do have ads, the ebay partner program (woo, OctoPrint guide!) and 3D-printer related freebies bringing in some revenue for me (and thus am a running a registered business), but right now, the entire thing is not even close to minimum wage or even being profitable. I would love to one day turn it into something that i can financially justify to keep doing, but right now it’s more or less just for fun and to be able to give something back to this awesome community.
That being said, finding a sponsor or finally putting up that Patreon campaign is something I’m looking into right now. But I’ll still have to take a job as an actual engineer in the next few weeks.
Speaking as an American, I have to wholeheartedly disagree with @Brook_Drumm . I actually prefer a review that focuses primarily on the negatives. A company’s marketing materials will give you all of the reasons to buy from them, but what I really want to get out of a review is all the reasons I shouldn’t.
Of course, I have received all the same criticisms that @Brook_Drumm gave here about my criticalness and unwillingness to soft-pedal. In the interest of balance, I might start such a review by quoting a manufacturer’s marketing materials to list the “good” things about the machine (making it clear that I’m doing so, and that I might contradict them later with my own findings and opinions). Of course, any positives that stand out to me that aren’t in their marketing should be mentioned too, though aside from being deemed too technical for inclusion (or just not spending time and money on marketing, which is a plus in my book), this is unlikely.
Another thing that pisses me off about a of reviews that I didn’t see here is when reviewers (coughMAKEcough) focus too much of their review on aspects of using the printer that are neither unique to it nor controlled by the manufacturer, like when a review of a machine that is designed to use the open-source, community-developed software toolchains that most of the printers on the market use includes the reviewer’s own opinions and pet peeves about that particular software, or gives ratings to the hardware based on usability or print quality issues caused by that software rather than the hardware. If it has its own custom software toolchain, I want to hear about it (well, I kinda don’t, because I want to use the open source stuff, but that’s me), but if it’s using the standard tools, just say so, maybe give links to reviews of them, maybe talk a little about what configuration for those tools is provided, and then move on.
Excellent review. I just started to play with the Witbox but I can already confirm some of your findings. The noise is really much too loud (even when not printing) and it took me quite some time to find the SD Card slot. Keep up the good work.
Oh, one little trick I’ve picked up. If you don’t want people to complain about you focusing on the negatives and not giving equal time to reiterating the positives, call it a critique instead of a review. Critiques aren’t expected to include all the positives and waste everybody’s time by couching every criticism in a compliment, they’re just expected to give constructive criticism, which is the most valuable thing for everyone.
I think it doesn’t really matter how you call it and at the end it’s truely also about the way you say things not only what you say. How things are received then is also always depending on the receiver and contructive criticism isn’t good for anyone. The best thing in live is if you are independent enough to be clear and direct in what you say without having to worry if people will still support you with free hardware / money / whatever (you name it) if you’re honest enough to tell them when the product just isn’t right.
Luckily @Thomas_Sanladerer seems to be independent enough for now to do tough but honest reviews. I think on the long run this will help him beeing trusted by the community and also by the manufacturers - the latter probably not if they want to get as much marketing as possible but probably if they want to have good feedback on things. I think his other reviews - like the one from the @Printrbot Simple Metal demonstrate that he is definitely able to see which target market a product aims at and weigh his points in about that. The Witbox is placed as a higher end printer than the simple and so i think @Juan_Gonzalez_Gomez and the other guys from @BQ111 know that they will have to compare against this level of machines. And at least no manufacturer will really look bad if he reacts on these reviews like Juan Gonzales did above. Great job.
P.S. I very much like that we can discuss these things on that level of detail and friendliness here. Thumbs up.
I love that both sides are being voiced here. I wouldn’t engage here if I didn’t feel welcomed. We all have a style unique to ourselves and I wouldn’t want to sacrifice that differentiating factor one bit. Thomas’s openness to my comments and opinions are to his credit I think. I only partially disagree with whosa, but agree in the spirit-- to help the community, clarity is key. Whosa AND I are both enthusiastists and manufacturers. This is a hybrid that takes us both out of the unbiased column. People are smart and they will gauge our opinions on an appropriate scale. I am bummed that manufacturers have to recuse themselves from endorsing reviewers financially based on the obvious conflict of interest. If that was not true, I would endorse Thomas in some way. Sometimes I blur that line by sending review units without asking for them back - a sort of gift to say thanks. T my knowledge, I haven’t done that with Thomas, although you would have to ask him- my memory is bad and some things happen here that I don’t know about. My policy is never to send free review bots ever to anyone (learned the hard way). I even tried providing loaners that were never returned - again, not Thomas. Now I just say “no free stuff” to everyone.
On the point of Make magazine, I love those guys but maybe because I know them personally. I also granted them a distributorship, which is a business decision and therefore not without a grey area when it comes to journalistic integrity. I will tell you I have never asked for favors and have verbally asked them to “just tell the truth about my bots”. Like bq, i want honest feedback and need it if we are to improve.
So to the community, I ask you: how can manufacturers endorse and support efforts like Thomas is making without compromising trust or journalistic integrity?
One interesting point is like to pose: a small company cannot be divorced from the integrity of the man, or people, behind it. I believe that is true and I strive to wear my character on my sleeve. My hope is that it comes through.
That said, it would be dishonest to suggest that my written comments, even my public statements (orally), are not carefully thought out before they are stated. I am constantly trying to shore up my weaknesses for the good of my company. My true character will never be as good as the one I show the public. I’m actually a bit of a hot head and chock full of ego. But I’m running a company and I have a lot of mouths to feed so I temper my knee jerk reactions from time to time.
Back on topic… I would financially endorse a neutral party that operates independently and commissions tutorials and reviews like Thomas provides. But I can’t endorse journalists. Until that entity exists, I’ll throw my opinions out there in the hopes of encouraging and helping those like Thomas.
Brook
It’s almost telling to see who is involved in these communities. The ones with nothing to hide are all valuable assets to the community, others cough makerbot cough are conspicuous by their absence.
@Brook_Drumm I come from the watch world where I wrote a number of technical reviews of high end wrist watches (nuts and bolts kinda stuff) and still have a number of friends who earn their living on watch journalism. The magazines and (good) blogs could not exist if they weren’t supported by the brands and the journalists can’t be trusted in the least if there is not some small amount of separation of “church and state” (ad dollars vs editorial content).
In the watch world these waters are fantastically murky and incestuous (the best journalists can generally be commissioned for advertorial type content and are constantly wined and dined and carted all over the globe) but somehow it mostly works. You are not likely to find too many watch reviews as nakedly critical as @Thomas_Sanladerer ’s (maybe not enough German watch journalists?) but there are some with teeth still.
Anyway, just to say that the model for manufacturer supported independent journalism does exist. It’s not perfect by any means but it’s not hopelessly broken either.
@Brook_Drumm hah, i knew it! I’m still in my hot-head phase sometimes but that might be because i haven’t yet to feed that many mouths with my business.
Back to topic, CT Hacks, a german Make magazine (and soon the German Make) is doing a relatively good job with lended Printers. As far as i know most of em come from manufacturers or distributors. Especially the Distributors are maybe a good solution to the whole problem, because (as long as we’re not exclusively bound to one printer) we are ok with a bad review. Let’s tag @Philip_Steffan from Hacks, maybe he can add value here and @Michael_Sorkin from IGo3D.
Thomas: are you pursuing an ad model? I have never taken out an ad, but I’m curious based on johns comments. I really respect john.
Thanks @Florian_Horsch_flouS I’m doing my best to help Nectar be all that it can be, but I’m sure you know how hard that is when more than one person is involved 
And I’m still doing everything 3D printing for Free, not being paid by anyone or anything to do with 3D printing - not even advertising income 
Maybe I’m being foolish but still believe in being independent even if that costs me.
I don’t want to hijack this thread - Very nice review @Thomas_Sanladerer keep it up, maybe we can do one together one day
@Richard_Horne i thought about a Legends of 3dP Hangout anyway 
@Richard_Horne I know exactly what you mean. Taking money creates dependencies and expectations. It would be awesome to have a super transparent way of giving back to people who bring their contribution to the table, but don’t want to be part of something for a longer time.
This could be a huge discussion on its own… we should have it together, e.g. in an hangout. Possibly “between the years” (that’s what we call the time between Christmas and New Year’s eve - not sure if you translate it like this in English).
@Nils_Hitze that last one (on air) didn’t go so perfectly (imo), but i’d love to do another one. Maybe make it a bit more relaxed. Over Christmas and New Year (thanks http://leo.org!) would be nice, @Florian_Horsch_flouS !
@Brook_Drumm the only ads i have are the Youtube/AdSense ads, and those are more of a fire-and-forget thing. Are you talking about (clearly-labeled) sponsored content or something similar?
I’ll vote for an IRC channel at the same time, so us B-listers can join in, too.
Google Hangouts are from perfect every time because they don’t get bandwidth managed well. Just had this experience again. Otherwise it’s the only available tool that enables easy recording + live streaming AFAIK.
Any chance someone’s got a photo of the carriage? I’m curious about the @igus_Inc bushings being used…