Keebtalk Announcements 7/9/2018

Community General
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Hello everyone I am known online as either Manofinterests or Huey.

I’d like to talk about Keebtalk today.

Keebtalk was founded by 3 community minded individuals with a mission and a promise.
What we’re all about is on the Welcome Page of Keebtalk.

An online community is important. We believe a good community is fostered around good principles and purpose. Keebtalk will not ever be a financial entity that is sold off to the highest bidder. Legally - it actually cannot be sold - we can only propose to disband the board and sell off physical assets.

Keebtalk was a reaction. Not to Massdrop buying Geekhack. It was a reaction to the fact a community could be easily and quickly sold and purchased without any oversight. It could have been Zeal, Input Club, an unknown foreign firm, or anyone else that could have completed the transaction, but the result would have led to the creation of Keebtalk.

Healthy skepticism is important, and we understand why there may definitely be many who are skeptical of Keebtalk. Whether it is our intentions, our actions, or ourselves who are what you are skeptical about, we will always stand by our mission and our promise.

As a community, we cannot grow without great leadership, and great people to help make sure that the actions we take and continue to take will benefit this community. With this in mind, Keebtalk would like to announce our two newest board members.

These two wonderful community members will be joining our board to help lead Keebtalk. They are:

Olivia: Designer & lover of rose gold.

Nathan Kim: Youtuber and owner of impeccable sleeves.

In addition to those new members, I (Manofinterests) have been voted as the Chairman of the Board. It is my duty and goal to ensure the board stays fluid and can make changes as necessary. (Also to get to your user verifications)

These updates are reflected on our “about us page.

This isn’t the end of expanding the Keebtalk board, but we believe this is the best step we could have taken and welcome both Nathan and Olivia with open arms.

Keebtalk does not ever plan on paying the board. Everyone on the board understands what our mission is. We understand that we all want to improve the community. We do this because we love the hobby.

In order to continue ahead with our mission to improve the community, we had to create a financial plan in order to be self sustaining and to be able to move forward. We do not want to burden users with advertising banners. We want this to be an open community that everyone can learn and grow from.

Our financial plan is to request the monetary support of larger vendors who are willing to support this community. The money will go to hosting/server costs. These individuals who choose to help us do so out of their confidence in our mission and our promise. The highest benefit that they will earn will be a page titled “Friends of Keebtalk” where their logo and name will be displayed.

In the future, direct donations to our 501(c)(3) will become an option. We are still in the process of filing the required paperwork. After we obtain the 501(c)(3), our financial records will be fully accessible by the public for scrutiny.

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. Any attempt to use the community to benefit their own private or commercial interests will trigger mechanisms for voting members off the board.

While we have recently added new board members, we are now looking for moderators for Keebtalk. We are looking for the best and brightest of the community who will set a good example for others to follow. We desire those who will help shape and enforce the rules to the benefit of the community.

If you are interested in applying for a moderator position, check out:
http://mechkeys.link/mod-app

If you believe in the mission and promise of Keebtalk and want to support us, please check out:

http://mechkeys.link/sponsor-app

The mission of the board has remained unchanged from the establishment of Keebtalk.com.
We invite you to join us in crafting the next era in this hobby we all so dearly love.

Please feel free to Ask Me Anything.

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Congrats Olivia and Nathan! great additions to the board!

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Thank you!

Honored to serve you all :slight_smile:

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Thank you very much!! It is an honor to be a part of this mission :blush:

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Saw it coming, but congrats nonetheless :yum:

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Congratulations @olivia and @TaehaTypes! Along with the rest of the board, you are ensuring a bright future for the community :hugs:

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Happy to see Olivia and Nathan added to the team! :smile: Congrats you two!

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Well done guys - stable pillars of the community :slight_smile:

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Congrats!

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I’m not sure I understand this as I’m not familiar with American system. Who owns the domain name keebtalk in future? If an organization is set up to own the domain, wouldn’t the owner of the said organization is an individual too? What’s stopping another “ iMav selling GH” saga?

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Thank you for the updates, @Manofinterests.

Congrats @olivia & @TaehaTypes

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Hi @belfong that’s a good question.

The domain belongs to the organization that is “Keebtalk” the organization is owned and operated by the board. The charter on Keebtalk explicitly has legal langauge disallowing one individual or even the whole board to sell Keebtalk. This is something important the differentiates 501©(3) from a standard LLC or company. The most a board of this nature could do is disband and sell the physical assets.

Domains are considered intangible assets which could not be touched in the event the board decides to disband, or if we become evil. We also don’t have any physical assets for Keebtalk. No corporate offices, no fancy self serving kombucha bar, or even an intern to bully show the ropes.

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Really awesome! Glad to see a non-profit run by the community. That alone sets this site apart from the rest!

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Just to clarify terminology a bit, there is the concept of a non-profit corporation in US law, and that is what we are working to establish to own and operate Keebtalk. I believe that 501c3 is a section of the Internal Revenue code under which certain non-profit corporations can get tax-exempt status. You have to register as a non-profit corporation first and then apply for 501c3 status, and I believe there is another higher standard beyond that for “charitable” status. Each of these does not per se imply the other, though we intend to apply for the first two certainly and perhaps also the last. When it comes to assets, if you’re a charitable organization, when you disband the non-profit, the assets must be given to another charitable organization in the event that the corporation is dissolved.

In short: in no event do board members get to profit personally from the sale or dissolution of a non-profit.

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Long term we plan on the major assets being owned by Keebtalk to be as follows:

  • Meetup power strips
  • name tags
  • sharpie markers
  • A banner that says Keebtalk for meetups
  • occasional swag

So - this is everything that could be transferred in the event of a unanimous board decision - not the forum itself.

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Great choices in Olivia and Nathan! The community is in safe hands.

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Good evening,

i would like to ask a few questions. What had been your thoughts to choose these persons, had their been other competitors.
This page had to be started by some folks, thats fine, but would it been the wrong way to get following boardmembers being elected by the community (if their would have been enough folks for that task).

The same question about this statement:

Shouldn’t the community be the one choosing their moderators? My understanding had been, that you want to be different than other older places, and i’ve read the word community and transparency so often the last days.

To make it clear, i like the excistence of keebtalk, i’ve absolutly nothing against Olivia and Nathan, but i’m a curious person. Andrew might be the only one not being surprised about these questions coming from me.

Have a nice day

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It’s a fair point. While our intent is very much to have the board be community-spirited (and all board members have to assent to that purpose in participating), I think an open election would have been impractical so early on in building the organization, especially while we’re still trying to guide and define the site’s character in a friendly, productive direction—and while emotions (and trolling) are running high so soon after all the recent GeekHack sale drama.

It actually isn’t even entirely clear who the Keebtalk community is yet exactly, and who thus would would be voting. I think we’re still in the process of convincing people of our mission, relative value, and good intentions. I for one would define our ultimate vision for the community as not just a population GeekHack refugees, but a wider self-selected group of keyboard enthusiasts who come here proactively because they like the vibe and our values and want to share and help each other in a friendly, constructive way—because they like the unique feel of the community we’ve established. In order to establish that feel, though, I think it requires a bit of careful curation early on.

No question that we’re asking for a bit of faith while we presume to act on behalf of the community’s interests in this way (and I regret being forced even to make that request), but I think the best way to mitigate that is simply to be open about the criteria we’re using to make decisions (such as board member selection) and simply to point to the choices we’re making and let people evaluate those on their own terms to decide whether we’re doing a good job on behalf of the community so far. A major part of our goal of this (ongoing) expansion of the board is, in fact, precisely that it should be more representative of the community at large—including in decisions of what shape the board should take in future.

For whatever it’s worth, I do agree that it’s a probably worthwhile goal to move in a more directly democratic direction once the community stabilizes. But, while I think it’s not yet practical to run KT as a pure democracy, we figured a good start would be the community-spirited republic we’re working on building. :slight_smile: We will be held directly accountable by the community in these early days by the extent to which we convince you that this is a cool place to participate. Folks are doing their most important voting right now with their feet (or, in any case, their web browsers). And we know that every decision we make, including board membership, is going directly to affect that. As such, these two new (non-vendor) board members with such universal respect in the keyboard community at large seem to me the perfect choice. These are simply two of the nicest, most thoughtful, and most kind people you’re likely to encounter. (Long before I had ever met Olivia or Nathan, I had heard from others what awesome people they were.) So I’m really excited to have them on board, with more to come!

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No Kombucha?

This is an outrage.

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