Switch to category view. It’s more forum like.
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Okay, that’ll pass in the crowd I guess. Thanks. Any idea how to delete messages though? I have only found “archive” so far, but no option to delete stuff.
I’ll agree that the name is bad and this thing feels rushed. I’d rather see something purpose built that tries to improve on geekhack rather than copy it.
Click the “…” beside the Reply in your post to expand more option. You will see the trashcan there.
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As an IT project manager in real life, I always appreciate those who are ready to “act” rather than just “talk or have meetings”.
As long as the site admins remember that setting up a new community is an iterative improvement process with continuous changes, the project will be a success. It is ok to fail. often. Development is incremental and should be repeated again and again as more lessons are learned.
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I hate it already… it’s got a bot, fuck you discobot, I hate you already!
then the Achievments… wtf? Really?
I find this whole development pathetic, everyone trying to “build up” the community from new just so they have traffic to their fucking bullshit!
And don’t say it’s not owned by a vendor… it’s owned by IC (a vendor), NB (a vendor), and TC (some biased bs who are pro everything that gives them “sponsorship”).
really dissapointed of a lot of ppl I had a good opinion of before this all
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Don’t be disappointed. Tons of us who are here are not abandoning GH. KT is just an additional keyboard forum for us all - aside from GH, DT, /r/mm
it’s not at all how this was announced though… the instant I read the first few sentences of the announcement email I was really disappointed in the names mentioned.
It just came over as purely overhasty and wrong
I have to disagree with the idea that the only reason to get out fast is for the wrong reasons. On the contrary, I think they had the same goal as you – to avoid a major community fracture. They just held a different opinion of how to achieve that, which is to come out quickly using a platform that could handle iterative improvement, and I tend to agree with them.
I too was a bit skeptical of Discourse as a platform but I feel pretty convinced by Norbauer’s reply, and I also feel that the platform doesn’t really matter in the long run as long as it’s stable and not a pain to manage. It’s the UI & plugin work that’s done on top of it and more importantly, the community itself that matters.
I think it was a really good idea of you to get collaborators together in one place, and I definitely would have joined up if I knew about it prior to this site’s creation. But I think the creators of Keebtalk have seized the ideal opportunity and seem to be structuring it really intelligently, so I think the best thing would be to focus efforts on helping this site out at this point.
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Thank you all for choosing a piece of software that’s hyper extensible and quite mobile from the data perspective. Also it’s built on modern technologies that allow us to do a lot of interesting things. I do agree that the timing of this may not be the best however, I am totally on board for creating a community here that’s owned by us and not another company. Let’s all do our best to build this from the ground up in a way that we all can semi-agree on.
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Exactly my thoughts. Discourse will grow on people. Yes, change is scary, but it will be worth it in the long run to let this platform build on you.
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Yup, exactly. It doesn’t matter if “they’re keeping this separate”. I’m sorry, but you run another company, AND this. You may TRY to keep these separate, but there absolutely will be bias. 100%. And if you say otherwise, you’re lying. To yourself and to everyone else.
That’s why I’m super disappointed with how my question was answered on Twitch. It gives me zero faith in this platform. We’ll see if that changes. I sure hope it does, but I’m not holding my breath.
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How your question was answered? You mean when they said its going to be a registered non profit in peoples names with no affiliation with any company they may own/be employed by?
that is a distinct difference from a Company that owes venture capitalists results owning GH.
Just because discourse is different doesn’t make it worse. There are a ton of ways you can customize your personal UI to have it display info like a traditional forum, or leave it with the new method. The hosting provided by discourse is expensive, but you can host it on your own just like any other forum that makes it much less expensive.
Keebtalk is owned by the community, so in a way, keebtalk has reached out to you. 
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No, it is NOT. It’s owned by a company. Period. End of story.
Don’t pretend that it’s not. Even if that is a 501(c)(3) corporation.
It may be funded by the community (not yet, it’s not), but that doesn’t mean that it’s owned by the community.
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Which company?
First, let me say that I deeply appreciate skepticism like this, because in my experience if you go through life operating on these assumptions you’ll (sadly) be correct most of the time. It’s pretty much my own worldview, so in no way do I begrudge you this healthy cynicism. It was, in fact, my similar cynicism concerning the GH sale that pushed me to think we needed an alternative. The best I can do is try to help you understand our current thinking and motives, along with the promise that we’ll be continuing to work with our fellow community members to bring more people into the governance of the site and onto the board.
Honestly, we had to get rolling with what we had, and just for this very initial phase, to get this off the ground what Huey, Andrew, and I had was: each other. Our intent is very much not that it should just be the three of us “running” things. In fact, it is my hope to step into the background as much as possible and as quickly as possible, just trying to help provide logistical support and high-level advice on the board, based on whatever expertise I may be able to bring to the table. I just wanted to see this community happen, and I knew that I could help make that occur well and quickly, so I joined the effort. That’s honestly the only reason I’m doing this: simply to ensure that the project actually happened, and with the right set of guiding principles.
Regarding the vendor vs. non-vendor thing, let me just say that, in my experience, it’s pretty much impossible to find anyone who’s seriously committed to the hobby who hasn’t also run a group buy or offered something for sale (or isn’t at some level at least thinking about it). This hobby involves an obsession with physical objects, so commerce naturally creeps into most corners, and most of us are happy with that because it facilitates cool stuff happening that wouldn’t otherwise. But, FWIW, Huey, Andrew, and I were all hard-core enthusiasts and have been longstanding members of the community before any of us started doing this (semi-)professionally, and that growth grew directly out of our hobbyist activities. Frankly, Input Club is the only thing that could actually be called a profitable business among the the ones associated to the three of us, and even IC has demonstrated an enormous commitment to the community by open-sourcing all of its work and helping financially to support keyboard community-service projects—which (in my mind at least) includes TopClack.
As you’ve suggested, I myself make and sell keyboard housings. This is technically a business of sorts, but I ship them right here out of my living room, and I still think of this (and it still very much feels like) making and sharing my designs with a group of friends who share my niche tastes. While my designs have become (to my surprise) quite successful and popular, as my accountant will vouch, this pursuit still loses me money year-over-year. I’d frankly love to figure out how to make a little money for my trouble eventually, but for now I do it because I love the satisfaction of making this stuff and just want to figure out a way to facilitate a lot of people getting cool things. So, while at some level I’d love to think that my efforts on Keebtalk could somehow translate into figuring out how to make lots of cash from keyboards, even if that were my intent (which it isn’t), I don’t think that some kind of grand scheme along those would really be very plausible, given the way we’ve (intentionally) planned the site and its governance. I don’t honestly even know how I would go about doing it even if I wanted to.
For example, here are some of the rules we’re working on putting in place as part of the charter of the non-profit to ensure no undue influence from any vendors, whether they’re on the board, help support KT, or whatever.
- No advertising on the site, ever. The only way to “advertise” products is to make threads in the Marketplace, where it it’s an actual conversation and two-way street between community and seller—and not just pushing branding/product in people’s faces
- No preferential treatment of any vendors within the Marketplace
- No access to KT user data (individual or summary data) for use by any vendor, including board members, for any commercial purpose.
- Data access of any kind, including by mods, will always be kept to the absolute minimum necessary to run the site. (Mods won’t even be able to access your PMs without going through a special, tightly locked-down process.)
- The charter of the non-profit will require board members to act in their private capacity as keyboard hobbyists for the good of the community. If anyone is seen to be trying to guide the community toward their own private or commercial interests, there will be a mechanism for voting members off the board. We also fully expect (and welcome) that we’ll be held extremely accountable by the community at large in threads like this. We know you guys aren’t going to let us get away with any shenanigans.
We’re still brainstorming for other ideas to help keep this separation clean, appropriate, and above-board. We certainly don’t want to make this community vendor-hostile, since the vendors all grow directly out of this hobby (each vendors is, ultimately, another keyboard enthusiast); we just want to make sure that no one vendor controls anything or “owns” any part of this community or its data. We also want to make sure that this is a welcoming space that fosters entirely non-commercial, free, open-source collaborations among those members who want nothing to do with commerce.
Any other suggestions anyone may have to help with this (such as more protective rules to add), we very much welcome!
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I’m paraphrasing, but basically “we swear there will be no influence. And we have checks and balances”.
It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s literally impossible to enforce. Your personality, experiences, and … other businesses that you run WILL influence every aspect of your decision making. And it’s impossible to guarantee that there won’t be influence.
Saying “no, there won’t be” is a dishonest answer.
However, “we will try our hardest to make sure that there isn’t any bias or influence, and we will document everything we can to make sure that we’re completely transparent” is a MUCH better answer. (or something to that effect). But that’s not what was said.
Which leads to another point, if/when keebtalk is going to post company bylaws and the like, so we know how company decisions are going to be made. Rather than blindly trusting them to do the right thing.
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@norbauer Thank you for the honest and detailed response! It actually does make me feel better about this. So again, thanks!
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