Who is the most helpful/influential member this year?

[Angry_Games]

i know how frustrating it can be to blow a bunch of money on all new stuff and not have it worked correctly (thats my whole life it seems). I put these forums up for a reason, and those who have not heard it before, can hear it a lil

 

i bought my first DFI KT400A LanParty and didn't have any problems with it, but I had joined amdmb.com forums with the previous purchase and needed to go there because I couldn't get it working right (and I'm no slouch with computers eh lol).

 

Never got it working, so bought my DFI, and annoyed them until they put up a DFI section since i knew the LP series was going to be EXTREMELY popular (i wanted it instead of what i bought, but I thought I would 'save a few bucks' haha should have just bought it the first time...but then I'd never had need to go to any forums for help, thus our story would end right here...)

 

they put up a section for DFI, and I spammed it with help for free many hours during the day . Eventually my bossman Frank came rolling through, saying they needed employees at the office in Hayward for support if anyone was interested.

 

I posted that I wouldn't move to CA, but I would do support for them on the forums/internet for $25 a month. That made Frank laugh but they offered me a little more, plus of course, the boards and some hardware needed to get started (tho I already had a LOT since I'd been doing computer work for years already). This was in August 2003.

 

They said I did such a good job that they would fly me out to CA and make me Support Manager and so they did. Now I was locked in (haha) and I continued to try and build a good support system. Things finally got to where we needed our own place, and in May of last year we moved all of our work over to the Street, and instead of going to 10 different forums now, we try to get everyone to come to the ONE place for DFI

 

DFI has given me the freedom I need and want to do things the way I think they should be done. I was given the freedom to go in any direction, and this whole online/forum thing was what I felt was the best direction. I pay for this site out of my own pocket, and I work more hours than I am actually paid for (same as before I got paid better...i put in more hours than I was being paid...but it pays to love your job right?)

 

Things have worked out very well as I had envisioned them. I even realized at some point before we moved over here that a guy like Rgone would be perfect addition, and got DFI to hire him too. Together he and I have made a lot of challenging decisions on how to do things, and our bosses (both Frank and Jacky) have always stood behind us in everything we do.

 

We are paid to help DFI customers.

 

We dont have a solid job title or a set way of going about it like most support techs do (read from a script, work 9-5 in a cubicle etc). We are just paid to help you guys in any way we see fit. So this is how we see fit to do it (as Rgone would say in his broken Rgonian language).

 

It always needs improving, and it is never easy. There are a lot of things we wish we could do (drive to your house and bonk you on the head or fix it for you ourselves hahaha). There are things we haven't even implemented yet, there are things we always like to try out, there are things that we find are not really good ideas and have to apologize to a few customers lol.

 

Overall, I'd say we do a pretty damn good job (pat ourselves on the back yes sorry).

 

but

 

the biggest thing we ever did was to move here to our own place and try to 'build a community'. We know that you might buy a DFI board now, but the next big tech to come around you might buy an Asus etc (and we encourage it, we know we'll sell boards, but we also want you to try lots of different things...the same old thing gets stale sometimes).

 

If we had a DFI-only community, and provided the best support we could, we figured a good chunk would continue to purchase our boards, and more importantly, even if you just bought one and kept it for years, we hoped that you would stick around and learn as much about them as possible, then help others who just found their way here.

 

Which, to me at this point, seems to be working rather well. I get a lot of people asking if DFI is hiring, and I hate telling them no, but that is the truth...but at the same time, every single dude on that list we'd probably hire if we could (and a bunch not on the list!).

 

Not because they are the smartest or the best at anything...but because they love fooling around with this junk and would love to be able to have their hobby turn into some bona-fide income. It is the passion of the hobby that Jacky and Frank first saw in me, and I saw it in Rgone more than anyone else. We see it in a lot of guys and wish we could do more for you (like give you a paycheck haha).

 

But we can continue to build this community and make it even better than it already is. That was always our goal...to have such a community that if Rgone and I and the office all went on vacation for 3 weeks, this place would continue to function without us (har har like we'd ever get 3 weeks of straight vacation...we'd log into forums from motel rooms etc during that vacation anyway cuz that is just how we all are).

 

if i won that dadgum lottery (some person about 2 miles from me here in Boise won the big Powerball lottery, over $100 million to a single ticket *sigh*) then there would have been a free round of boards on me lol...that is how much I enjoy this forum and being able to have such good people around.

 

there are a few bad apples as any place but we try hard (without being a bunch of nazi's tho sometimes i guess that has to be resorted to) to keep it a good place that people like to come hang out at.

 

Members come and members go, there's 6,100+ members right now and a majority of them don't need our help anymore because they moved to a different board or solved their issue or we are just too big of a group of super geeky poindexters...who knows...but there's a core group that sticks around to help all of those new members arriving, old members coming back, etc...it is without those guys (listed at this poll and about 40 more that I didn't have room to list lol) we'd be in a lot of trouble...Rgone and I would work 18h days for a year on end and want to strangle someone if we didn't have all the good people we have.

 

 

well anyway...thats just some babbling but the moral of the story is that every one of you that has ever even answered a question for someone else when you came here looking to get answers yourself...we thank you very much for being members here!

 

*drinks on Rgone in the DFI-Street Lounge in Off Topic section!*

[babyelf]

wow big post.. but meaningful.. sob..

 

big pat on your back.. and a big thumbs up for AG and Rgone .. ermm and toe up

[MikeyLikesItSI]

Here's a vote for BigStan. He always was very generious with his knowledge, and helped me on a 1 to 1 basis almost everytime i ran into a problem.

[davidhammock200]

Angry & Rgone thanks for the drinks & the site, keep up the EXCELLENT work!

[Kamel]

i decided not to vote, as i've seen a few people on there that have really helped me out a lot. it is too tough to chose between those who have, heh. the important thing also is hard to keep in mind that it's not about who has helped me, but who has been the most help overall to others

[killxswitch]

i feel ed_jacobson deserves some recognition for his awesome start-up guide. that thing was crucial when i was starting out. but it's hard to vote, lots of these guys have been helpful.

[Kamel]

angry_games, thanks for the explaination and all. i do believe DFI is getting more than their moneys worth, it's so essential that we "love dont hate" lol. in a situation like this, a lot of companies (not even referring to motherboard companies, or probably not even computer related companies, though those are the only ones i ever fool with) lose sight of that and rely on other places to create their communities for them. this is ok, and certainly there is nothing wrong with it, but i personally (and i'm sure so many others') put places like this with such high worth to my personal worth that i would spend twice as much for a product (don't get any ideas on price hikes dfi hahaha) just to know that there was an inviting community that cared and helped me like this.

 

i don't do a very good job at explaining my appreciation for things. so let this just be my X instead of a signature which signifies that i am very much so thankful for this board's members. i'm also very much so thankful for all of the help i have received, even though sometimes i stupidly become bigheaded and act as if people owe me something. i realize i shouldn't do that, so just give me a nice firm slap when it happens, lol.

[Angry_Games]

i feel ed_jacobson deserves some recognition for his awesome start-up guide. that thing was crucial when i was starting out. but it's hard to vote, lots of these guys have been helpful.

ya ed is another one of those that i just ran out of room when i got to his name...you can tell how much we like ed as we've linked his guide in one of the critical stickies...its essential as far as I'm concerned

[Luc@z]

@Angry: I think your work at getting this forum set up has definitely benefited DFI along w/ all the users here. One of my deciding factors in choosing a mobo was whether or not there was a decent forum I could go to for help. If this place wasn't here I probably would have gone with another board (MSI) even though I didn't consider it as good specs-wise. I have a feeling many others, especially first-time builders, have done the same. So, thanks for all your hard work in getting this place up and running.

 

As for voting, I'm not even going to try to pick one out of the 20. They've all given tons of support and my vote goes to all of them.

[Frallan]

David it is... For keeping that PSU thing covered so that I have something to link to :dog:...

[solsource]

hey where is Ex-Roadie's name and what about ViperJohn?

[babyelf]

they've already graduated