Author Topic: Why are ICs intended for massdrop now required to go into the massdrop forum?  (Read 15468 times)

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Offline Puddsy

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Doesn't really make sense to me, curious as per to the reasoning behind this.

My guess is that there's some backend reason for it, but I'd love some insight.

Thanks.
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Offline Oblotzky

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I absolutely agree. It's really counter productive as barely anyone visits vendor subforums except those that seek updates on concluded GB's. IC's should stay in IC where most people surf to keep the amount of potential input as high as possible. hiding them away only hurts the creative process. once the IC is concluded, it would be closed and then a thread for the set in the appropriate vendor forum makes sense.

please rethink this, thank you

Offline ghostjuggernaut

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Many GB's that are intended to be ran through Massdrop, are posted to IC as nothing more than a hype/promo post.  This can happen in the massdrop sub.  We've been selective about this in the past, but are now being black and white about it.  If you're running it on massdrop, or you are linking to the poll so Massdrop will pick up the gb, then it goes in the Massdrop sub-forum.  No more explaining actions to people, cut and dry.

The rules here are pretty lax on GB's, we let members decide to join or not with a cursory look by the mod team at first.  Anyone can create an IC and run the GB through MD, therefore using geekhack for nothing more than advertisement.
« Last Edit: Wed, 07 March 2018, 23:51:51 by ghostjuggernaut »

Offline Puddsy

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Many GB's that are intended to be ran through Massdrop, are posted to IC as nothing more than a hype/promo post.  This can happen in the massdrop sub.  We've been selective about this in the past, but are now being black and white about it.  If you're running it on massdrop, or you are linking to the poll so Massdrop will pick up the gb, then it goes in the Massdrop sub-forum.  No more explaining actions to people, cut and dry.

The rules here are pretty lax on GB's, we let members decide to join or not with a cursory look by the mod team at first.  Anyone can create an IC and run the GB through MD, therefore using geekhack for nothing more than advertisement.

Makes sense to me.

Thanks for the quick reply.
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Offline Data

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Many GB's that are intended to be ran through Massdrop, are posted to IC as nothing more than a hype/promo post.  This can happen in the massdrop sub.  We've been selective about this in the past, but are now being black and white about it.  If you're running it on massdrop, or you are linking to the poll so Massdrop will pick up the gb, then it goes in the Massdrop sub-forum.  No more explaining actions to people, cut and dry.

The rules here are pretty lax on GB's, we let members decide to join or not with a cursory look by the mod team at first.  Anyone can create an IC and run the GB through MD, therefore using geekhack for nothing more than advertisement.

My opinion:
That's a ****ty policy.  The purpose of interest checks is to generate hype.  Hype and interest are interchangeable concepts.  So in that regard, every interest check is a "hype/promo post".  Your statement is an empty contradiction.

This is little more than sanctioned mod bias against Massdrop.  SAD!

Offline jdcarpe

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If the intent from the beginning is to run the buy through Massdrop, I can sorta see why the mods would want the IC in the MD forum.

But, if the purpose of the "interest check" is to get feedback from the community to make changes about profile choices, key selection, which "kits" will have which keys, etc. then I think it belongs in the regular IC forum.

In other words, I don't think the issue is as black and white as it seems. It would be nice and tidy to say it is, but the reality is that probably it's not. And that grey area requires some judgement calls to be made.
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Offline Signature

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If the intent from the beginning is to run the buy through Massdrop, I can sorta see why the mods would want the IC in the MD forum.

But, if the purpose of the "interest check" is to get feedback from the community to make changes about profile choices, key selection, which "kits" will have which keys, etc. then I think it belongs in the regular IC forum.

In other words, I don't think the issue is as black and white as it seems. It would be nice and tidy to say it is, but the reality is that probably it's not. And that grey area requires some judgement calls to be made.
Yes this is how we tackled the problem. The main purpose of an IC is to be an interest check and to gather opinions from the community to tweak something, so that it will appeal to as many as possible before starting a GB.

However with these MD-threads, the sets are already finalized and the IC is only to create hype for them to vote on massdrop, and therefore we think it's more fitting to place it in the massdrop sub-forum.


Edit: Just realized I basically typed everything jd already described  :-[ :-[
« Last Edit: Thu, 08 March 2018, 08:21:16 by Signature »
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Offline jdcarpe

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If the intent from the beginning is to run the buy through Massdrop, I can sorta see why the mods would want the IC in the MD forum.

But, if the purpose of the "interest check" is to get feedback from the community to make changes about profile choices, key selection, which "kits" will have which keys, etc. then I think it belongs in the regular IC forum.

In other words, I don't think the issue is as black and white as it seems. It would be nice and tidy to say it is, but the reality is that probably it's not. And that grey area requires some judgement calls to be made.
Yes this is how we tackled the problem. The main purpose of an IC is to be an interest check and to gather opinions from the community to tweak something, so that it will appeal to as many as possible before starting a GB.

However with these MD-threads, the sets are already finalized and the IC is only to create hype for them to vote on massdrop, and therefore we think it's more fitting to place it in the massdrop sub-forum.


Edit: Just realized I basically typed everything jd already described  :-[ :-[

But with the recent PuLSE R3 IC, I don't think everything is set in stone yet. It seems like he wants feedback to shape the buy...maybe?

Thus, the confusion.
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Offline Signature

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If the intent from the beginning is to run the buy through Massdrop, I can sorta see why the mods would want the IC in the MD forum.

But, if the purpose of the "interest check" is to get feedback from the community to make changes about profile choices, key selection, which "kits" will have which keys, etc. then I think it belongs in the regular IC forum.

In other words, I don't think the issue is as black and white as it seems. It would be nice and tidy to say it is, but the reality is that probably it's not. And that grey area requires some judgement calls to be made.
Yes this is how we tackled the problem. The main purpose of an IC is to be an interest check and to gather opinions from the community to tweak something, so that it will appeal to as many as possible before starting a GB.

However with these MD-threads, the sets are already finalized and the IC is only to create hype for them to vote on massdrop, and therefore we think it's more fitting to place it in the massdrop sub-forum.


Edit: Just realized I basically typed everything jd already described  :-[ :-[

But with the recent PuLSE R3 IC, I don't think everything is set in stone yet. It seems like he wants feedback to shape the buy...maybe?

Thus, the confusion.
I see, I haven't looked deep into this particular case. I see he looks for discussion on the MiTolet set, but that the Pulse Set is already finalized and on massdrop voting page. If I understood that correctly, I'd think that he should split the topics, creating an IC for the Mitolet set but that the Pulse Set should be in the Massdrop-subforum.

However this is very hard to judge, and it's really on a case to case basis, with time I think the ruleset will be more clear  :)
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Offline Zambumon

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I was going to send this message to the mod team as a PM, but since there's this thread. I think I'll post it here.

Good day,

The purpose of any interest check is, precisely, to gauge interest and let people to know about somebody's new project regardless of who the vendor is going to be. Every single serious IC is an ad, and when people contact me for renders, they do it because they want to create hype and generate more interest on their project.

If you want to keep consistency, every interest check done by a vendor should be moved to their respective vendor's forum, and every single interest check where they have been in talks with a vendor and are getting ready for the group buy, should also be moved to that vendors forum.

Now, we have a Massdrop subforum where group buys, customer support and interest checks are mixed.

This measure just encourages me and other veteran designers to not put our soul on projects anymore, to stop spending weeks prior to post anything elaborating the renders, kits, novelties and just post a single render and a name. Or just to not mention Massdrop on the IC and not create a Massdrop poll, using a loophole on your ruling so I can get the IC back to the IC subforum.

But I'm not going to change my way of making my ICs, because I actually enjoy making them that way, spending weeks alone not talking about that new project I have in mind to anyone, figuring out the novelties and the kits by studying previous ICs and GBs, designing my own keyboards so I can feature new layouts on my renders, writing a long FAQ so I can spot new flaws on my kits and save some time to everyone, and getting into the IC phase so people can tell me that I should add this or that kit to the set.

Personally, I feel dissapointed about this measure. The first time I entered Geek Hack it was through the IC subforum, I can't recall which set that had recently announced that it was going to be done on Massdrop (either Danger Zone or Jukebox) but thanks to that set I checked other ICs and I then learnt about  PulSE, Calm Depths, Granite, Out of the Vault keycaps, Penumbra, SA Carbon... And spreading the ICs all over the place just because the person behind the project submits that project to the Massdrop poll system feels wrong and it will just makes it difficult for new community members to learn from past experiences.

Godspeed,

Zambumon

« Last Edit: Thu, 08 March 2018, 09:08:50 by Zambumon »

Offline Vigrith

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My opinion:
That's a ****ty policy.  The purpose of interest checks is to generate hype.  Hype and interest are interchangeable concepts.  So in that regard, every interest check is a "hype/promo post".  Your statement is an empty contradiction.

This is little more than sanctioned mod bias against Massdrop.  SAD!

I was trying to hold back for a while last night despite me seeing this as a blatant mistake but seeing as this thread is dedicated to the discussion of the problem then I'll join in.

What Data has said here is factual. Whether or not moderators and/or the team in general agree with this is completely irrelevant to the theoretical/moral side of things. You can decide to run your forum the way you see fit but you'll still be in the wrong, you absolutely are shafting the Massdrop related topics (and everyone in association) for all intents and purposes whether or intentions are ill or not, our facts may be completely irrelevant to your practice too. Let's not pretend this "is for the greater good", please, so let's get that out of the way first.

The only point I can concede over is the fact that some topics can be just "here's this set, it's being ran, go vote, thx" - this is NOT the case for Serika and definitely not the case for Pulse. Both are still receiving community feedback and will suffer from being shoved into a small sub forum inside a subforum inside a forum rather than being in the ever-popular IC section. No one's begging for attention and votes, if you think that's the case then I have bad news.

Go make a subforum inside a subforum for Novelkeys (if one does not already exist) and move GMK Olivia and their new keycap profile there. Go make one for Donutcables and move all of their ICs (and the ones they're involved with, which are many) there. Go make one for Capsunlocked and move GMK DOOM/their keyboard projects there. Go make one for Input Club and move Oblotzky's Enchanting Feature there. Go open up a sub forum for Type Machina and move the keyboards relating to that there.

You won't. Because it doesn't make sense, as the sets are interest checks and belong in the interest check section - checking interest can be as simple as measuring the amount of replies that your set receives, regardless of whether or not your set is finalised and ready to go through Massdrop or anywhere else. The MD forum exists and makes perfect sense for after a GB opens, for other drops that are unrelated to sets or keyboards designed by community members (whether you like them or not btw), etc. Not for sets that are in development and deserve attention.

Basically what I'm saying, and allow me to be very frank here, is that you need to either rethink the decision or grow some balls and rethink the purpose of the IC section altogether. I can almost see why you've come to this decision but I always come short, you're not only ****ing the set and designers over inadvertently (or not) but you're also ****ing over people like Puddsy and myself (of which there are many) that don't sort by "new" or whatever other way of browsing - we open GH, we ctrl click Keyboards, IC and GB and then read the relevant topics to our tastes.

All you're going to achieve is to have people dissociate their sets and themselves with MD as a front for Geekhack for absolutely no reason - if I want to make a set and I know for a fact I'd run it through MD as I'm good friends with people there I'll just pretend like it won't be and post an IC here in the proper forum anyway; you'll have no power to move it as you won't know I'm lying.

Your process is as fallacious as your logic is flawed. Use your head, it's not too late to revert this "policy". I enjoy the sense of community and people coming together to be excited for a project regardless of where it is going to be ran, it's one of the reasons I really like Geekhack, don't take that away.

edit: formatting.
« Last Edit: Thu, 08 March 2018, 09:06:41 by Vigrith »

Offline mbsurfer

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I really do not agree with the separation. I have never ran an IC, so my voice may not be as important as some of the designers and makers here, but as a consumer, adding another layer of separation is detrimental. If we're so worried about where the GB will be held (if the IC even makes it past IC and to GB), why not just require a [Massdrop] tag on the thread title? ICs are really there to gauge interest, no matter where the GB is held.

Offline Signature

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I'll leave my last response here and these are my opinions as a user not as a mod.

GH has become very different over the last few years since the Keyboard craze exploded. The way we do things are different, there are tons of new manufacturers, artisans and vendors. However one thing that isn't different is the layout and ruleset of GH. I think that we have been in a grey area ever since sites like massdrop started to do GB:s, before that you only made a GB through GH.

As of right now IC is in a weird spot where it's used as both a hype-creator and a place where you gather info from the community. The intention of the IC forum was to gather info but it's importance has shifted over the years. This change is not due to us disliking external sites, but rather us figuring out how the IC section should be ran.

I believe that this decision to move threads is more of an indication towards change, rather than that this is the way GH should be ran from this point onwards.


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Offline Vigrith

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As of right now IC is in a weird spot where it's used as both a hype-creator and a place where you gather info from the community. The intention of the IC forum was to gather info but it's importance has shifted over the years. This change is not due to us disliking external sites, but rather us figuring out how the IC section should be ran.

This makes a ton more sense and is something I can definitely understand (though too early to say whether or not I agree with it) - however, if I'm permitted feedback, I think this should be something that needs to be mulled over further before action being taken as to remain impartial and community driven rather than coming off as biased and hostile.

I think that if that is indeed the direction the moderators feel GH should take then things should've been figured out prior and should be set in motion simultaneously as to not cause unnecessary distress and tumult. I don't think it's feasible for you to be able to really separate "mostly hype threads" from "mostly feedback threads" - I can see why you'd want to, but I think it's utopic. You can try, but I think trying will also do more damage than it will do good, but if you're able to prove me wrong as a team I'd gladly welcome the change.

I mean let's be honest, people don't pay Zanbumon, Oblotzky, Thesis, etc. for renders because they want feedback regarding what keys people want changed with their sets, they do that because they want to generate interest (and hype) around their set so that it sees success once it hopefully comes to be. It's a herculean task to take on for such a minuscule "problem". That's my take on it, but good luck.

Offline joey

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Personally I think that all ICs should be in the same sub forum.
Having an extra [MD] or [MassDrop] in the title seems like a better solution to me.

About hype-building vs interest-check, I think they're pretty much the same thing. The reason is as someone running an IC, you don't need to take any feedback from users, you could just say 'here's the set, take it or leave it'.

Offline MiTo

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From what I have read in Ghostjuggernaut's posts, looks like him and other mods interpret a well drafted OP (links below) as advertisement material for a Massdrop group buy or other vendor. In fact, we can observe a pattern in moderating. Please look at the links I attached below and you'll be able to see that he moved all interest checks that had a link for a Massdrop poll or a link to Massdrop "request drop" button to the Massdrop sub-forum.

* Black Lotus GMK - https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=84756.msg2265267#msg2265267
* Symbiosis SA - https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94288.msg2568162#msg2568162
* Rebel SA (?) - https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=76080.0
* Electric GMK - https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=90706.0
* Serika GMK - https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94311.0
* Space Cadet GMK - https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94003.0

Not only that, he moved the Black Lotus GMK interest check to the Massdrop section despite the fact it's a MechKeys.ca group buy. The ones behind the interest check clearly stated that it's from MechKeys but their mistake was linking to a poll. Why is Rebel SA and Electric GMK even in this list? :confused:

I sort of understand why he's doing this, and it's probably related to this topic:

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=89079.msg2525547#msg2525547

I don't want to draw assumptions, but I'm under the impression he's biased because I didn't "move the the thread of the Laser interest check to the Group Buy section" when it became a group buy, as if I had powers to do that. How and why would I even do this, only to have it subsequently moved further because it was a "MD group buy"? Unnecessary bureaucracy that wastes time of everyone. He probably interpreted that I simply came to Geekhack forum to generate "hype" and left once the GB started. Which is false and I'll tell you why. Lots of changes to the project took place, new molds got done, super cool new stuff and additions were in the final version. Tons of collabs, too. There are lots of other methods to use this Forum other than publicly posting, too...

Speaking about my own thread that got moved last night, the project is nowhere near it's final form and moving it to the Massdrop sub section harms the interest I want to gauge. I need the precious feedback provided by the user base of this great forum. Just to name a few, below you can see a couple of changes I compiled shortly after creating the thread:

* Add R1 1u \ | to the Hobbyist kits;
* Add R1 1u SHIFT to Exotic kit (DZ60);
* Add R4 SHIFT & R3 CTRL + R3 ALT to the Ortho kit;
* Add R2 1u extra icon to the Icon Hobbyist;
* Create a Mac kit;
* Add kustom compatibility to the Mitolet kit;
* Bring back the old novelties from R1/R2;

And several other changes that I want to discuss, like creating a standalone F-Row kit, offering more sculpted options, create another numpad kit... I could keep going on and on, but these are just examples to prove the project isn't nowhere near finalized. And you think the sole purpose of the thread is to generate hype? At least give people time to answer all messages, just because I took a couple hours to answer doesn't mean I wasn't reading and taking Evernotes.

I ask, what is hype? Interest is in fact, hype. If you check interest you're checking if there's enough hype to justify a project. This is a fantastic forum man, a huge rep of content, filled with experienced and avid enthusiasts. You may think the project is ready, but believe me I ran several and they never truly are. There are always mistakes, tweaks, new things that can be added or kits that can be improved.

Let's be honest, is this type of moderation even necessary at all? Think about it. An interest check is an interest check, despite the visual content presented there. No referral links are getting posted, nothing harmful is being done to anyone. The content and traffic of the forum isn't getting damaged in any aspect. If you want to draw a line, why not make a [MD] flair to the [IC] section?

This is detrimental to literally everyone and nobody was getting harmed if things remained as they were.

The way we do things are different, there are tons of new manufacturers, artisans and vendors. However one thing that isn't different is the layout and ruleset of GH.

Moderation literally just invented a new ruleset last night, immediately after I posted the Pulse Round 3 thread. Now you arbitrarily move interest checks to meaningless sections of the forum. If you want to "figure out" how the IC section should be ran, let's gather feedback from people who actually, frequently and actively use the section? Or at the very least, listen to the people here who clearly disagree with the decision?

You said this was your last post related to this topic, like it is what is, we wont listen your concerns, covering ears with both hands. I think all moderators are moderators because they volunteered, you're not forced to be here. So please act accordingly and try to listen to the users you moderate to.



Offline xondat

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I sort of understand why he's doing this, and it's probably related to this topic:

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=89079.msg2525547#msg2525547

I don't want to draw assumptions, but I'm under the impression he's biased because I didn't "move the the thread of the Laser interest check to the Group Buy section" when it became a group buy, as if I had powers to do that. How and why would I even do this, only to have it subsequently moved further because it was a "MD group buy"?

You can't have the active thread for a group buy in interest checks, that's always been the rule...

You can create a new thread in the group buy subforum, or report the IC to be moved, but you neglected to do either.

Offline NAV

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Why is Rebel SA and Electric GMK even in this list? :confused:


"This includes topics that contain links to vote for a keyset or item through Massdrop."
lol both ICs have links to MD polls...

Offline livingspeedbump

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Pretty silly.

It seems like good common sense to have all IC's in the same place and then when they hit GB stage, they belong in the vendor's subforum (should there be one).

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Offline Signature

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I don't have time right now to answer regarding this whole post but I'll answer this.


You said this was your last post related to this topic, like it is what is, we wont listen your concerns, covering ears with both hands. I think all moderators are moderators because they volunteered, you're not forced to be here. So please act accordingly and try to listen to the users you moderate to.
I said that it would be my last post because I can only reply with my personal opinion rather than what the mod group thinks as a whole. Therefore I thought it would be more constructive to do a post later on, sorry if it came out wrong. (I have been a mod for less then a week).

Yes we are moderators because we volunteer, and because we volunteer we hope to strive for a better run website, same goes for any user noone is forced to use GH, but we do our best do create a pleasant experience. And we do listen, I don't reply in this thread because I want to convince everybody that this is the final decision. All this discussion we take into consideration, however most of the mods are asleep atm so I just wanted to inform how I thought about the subject.
Very busy with studies atm.

Offline clasicks

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I can see your IC just fine Mito. Looks like it is in its proper place, it will be a massdrop set, will it not?

Offline jdcarpe

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I can see your IC just fine Mito. Looks like it is in its proper place, it will be a massdrop set, will it not?

It all depends on how you browse the forum.

If, like me, you click that UNREAD button at the top, you will see threads that are active, even if they are in obscure locations.

If you browse by clicking on the various forum links, like Geekhack Marketplace, Keyboards, Off Topic, etc. you may never see something like an IC in a vendor forum.
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Offline MiTo

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You can't have the active thread for a group buy in interest checks, that's always been the rule...
You can create a new thread in the group buy subforum, or report the IC to be moved, but you neglected to do either.

To be honest what happened is that I couldn't find the LOCK button and eventually gave up. He could have locked the thread or moved it himself though (if I'm not mistaken), I tried to close the thread but couldn't find a way to do it. He also sent me a PM as you can see below:



But the whole project was already long gone by that time and I didn't have the proper OP. At the end of the day, just a lot of labor and things that could have been solved easily. He messaged me literally on New Year, I wasn't very active that time nor early 2018 because of holidays and all the stuff.



Offline Vigrith

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I can see your IC just fine Mito. Looks like it is in its proper place, it will be a massdrop set, will it not?

Will Black Lotus be a Massdrop set?

https://mechkeys.ca/products/gmk-black-lotus-gb

Offline clasicks

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I can see your IC just fine Mito. Looks like it is in its proper place, it will be a massdrop set, will it not?

Will Black Lotus be a Massdrop set?

https://mechkeys.ca/products/gmk-black-lotus-gb

i cant speak on that, have no idea about that set - was just talking about pulse  :blank:

Offline MiTo

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You can't have the active thread for a group buy in interest checks, that's always been the rule...
You can create a new thread in the group buy subforum, or report the IC to be moved, but you neglected to do either.

Also, as you can see here my modus operandi is to indeed follow the rules and lock the thread once the GB is live (see context and date), but for the Laser thread I couldn't find the button, everything rushed by and things unfortunately resulted in this situation we are witnessing.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=90669.msg2468638#msg2468638




Offline Vigrith

  • Posts: 1843
i cant speak on that, have no idea about that set - was just talking about pulse  :blank:

I thought what you meant by your comment was that Pulse is an MD set, therefore, having the IC in the MD forum is completely normal (which up until now it hasn't been at least).

If you thought it was still in the IC forum rather than MD then I misinterpreted your post.

Offline clasicks

  • Formerly KeyboardUser4
  • Posts: 785
I can see your IC just fine Mito. Looks like it is in its proper place, it will be a massdrop set, will it not?

Will Black Lotus be a Massdrop set?

https://mechkeys.ca/products/gmk-black-lotus-gb


maybe the confusion lies here, on the top of the MD poll page it states:

"HOW DO POLLS WORK?
Vote for your favorite products in an existing poll or create a new one. We’ll make the most popular products available on the site in limited-time events called “drops.”"


Seems to allude that polls run on MD would be sold on MD with enough popularity. If said GB has no plan to run it on MD why use the poll system there? There are lots of other options.



Offline xondat

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To be honest what happened is that I couldn't find the LOCK button and eventually gave up. He could have locked the thread or moved it himself though (if I'm not mistaken), I tried to close the thread but couldn't find a way to do it. He also sent me a PM as you can see below:

Show Image


But the whole project was already long gone by that time and I didn't have the proper OP. At the end of the day, just a lot of labor and things that could have been solved easily. He messaged me literally on New Year, I wasn't very active that time nor early 2018 because of holidays and all the stuff.

Also, as you can see here my modus operandi is to indeed follow the rules and lock the thread once the GB is live (see context and date), but for the Laser thread I couldn't find the button, everything rushed by and things unfortunately resulted in this situation we are witnessing.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=90669.msg2468638#msg2468638

Well for the future, the lock button is here:



(Or control + f "lock")

And for further future usage, you can report the first post in the thread (the OP) and ask to have it moved or say that it requires locking because you have a pending GB thread. You can also report GB threads to alert mods that there is one needing approval.

I believe mods only lock/move on request from the threads creator, which makes sense.

Offline Photoelectric

  • * Administrator
  • Posts: 6766
1. GMK Black Lotus:
Moving it was an error that has been rectified (it's back in the IC section).  HOWEVER the reason it was moved initially was because in the OP is a link to a Massdrop poll.  Only on the last 2 pages of the discussion is novelkeys brought up as a vendor.  This information should be listed in the OP, not at the end of a thread.  (Which brings me to the last point of this post).

2. Targeting MassDrop specifically:
This is not out of some kind of malice but rather for practical considerations.  Historically the goal of moderation and administration has been to try and preserve geekhack as a place where people build a community in terms of information exchange and sharing their enthusiasm for keyboards and related things.  Commerical activity has been an integral but controlled part of the community.  It becomes increasingly difficult, as the community grows and commercial activity dramatically increases every year to maintain the ability to make sure quality of the posts and contributions > their quantity.  MassDrop has become quite huge and well-known in multiple communities, and the amount of proposed products in their votes section is quite large and still growing.  Imagine if all of the keyboard-related contenders were posted here in the Interest Checks section.  As time goes on, more and more people become interested in custom products and activity on IC section also increases.  MassDrop is just one platform where people choose to run their group buys, there are lots of others, which we have been allowing.

Because MassDrop has its own discussion platform, it's quite beneficial to keep MassDrop vote commentary out of geekhack's IC and on MassDrop itself.  In other words, we are not MassDrop's discussion platform--they have their own.  It helps to not spam the IC section with posts that mostly advertise close-to-finished projects on MassDrop and ask for MassDrop vote (thus using geekhack as social media to gather votes).  MassDrop topics are not locked and removed from the site--they are just moved to the MassDrop section to maintain some order and free up the IC section.

3. Clarification of what Interest Checks section is about:
Basically we need to work on a sticky with some clear wording about what Interest Checks stands for.  It's not a complete free-for-all, but you can't argue that it's still very close to it overall.  We definitely need a good description to manage expectations.  We should also outline some basic requirements for the first post in each IC thread, such as keeping all the relevant information in the OP and not spread out across the thread.  IC threads should be locked once IC phase completes and a group buy starts (and link to group buy discussion post should be inserted into the OP). etc.
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Offline quaddepos

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don't fix something that isn't broken

Offline Purp

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tet.

Offline jdcarpe

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So, since Pulse SA - R3 is an actual interest check, that just happens to have a link to a Massdrop poll, can it be moved back into the main IC forum now, please?
KMAC :: LZ-GH :: WASD CODE :: WASD v2 :: GH60 :: Alps64 :: JD45 :: IBM Model M :: IBM 4704 "Pingmaster"

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Offline Vigrith

  • Posts: 1843
So, since Pulse SA - R3 is an actual interest check, that just happens to have a link to a Massdrop poll, can it be moved back into the main IC forum now, please?

Along with everything else, one would hope? Serika is also an actual interest check, as Space Cadet, as is Black Lotus, as is Rebel. The latter is not super active of late but Pwner is actively working on making it a reality and he's not set on using Massdrop as its means, the poll linked in the 1st post is like 3 years old.

Offline jdcarpe

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So, since Pulse SA - R3 is an actual interest check, that just happens to have a link to a Massdrop poll, can it be moved back into the main IC forum now, please?

Along with everything else, one would hope? Serika is also an actual interest check, as Space Cadet, as is Black Lotus, as is Rebel. The latter is not super active of late but Pwner is actively working on making it a reality and he's not set on using Massdrop as its means, the poll linked in the 1st post is like 3 years old.

Yes, by all means. It seems clear to me that a link to a Massdrop poll doesn’t necessarily make it a Massdrop IC.
KMAC :: LZ-GH :: WASD CODE :: WASD v2 :: GH60 :: Alps64 :: JD45 :: IBM Model M :: IBM 4704 "Pingmaster"

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Offline jdcarpe

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So, since Pulse SA - R3 is an actual interest check, that just happens to have a link to a Massdrop poll, can it be moved back into the main IC forum now, please?

Bump.
KMAC :: LZ-GH :: WASD CODE :: WASD v2 :: GH60 :: Alps64 :: JD45 :: IBM Model M :: IBM 4704 "Pingmaster"

http://jd40.info :: http://jd45.info


in memoriam

"When I was a kid, I used to take things apart and never put them back together."

Offline thelaughingman

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As a daily user of GH forum and frequent buyer of MD, this makes me sad. The only function of the MD website that I use is to join a drop, not the discussion tab, not the talk tab, not the poll tab. I go to GH IC section to actually check for stuff that pique my interests, not the vendors' subforums. I believe more in the collective ability of GH user base to determine for themselves what is an actual IC thread to participate in and keep it at the top of the section and what is simply an advertisement and will be drown out by other advertisement versus the mod group's vision of how the IC section should be ran. Ultimately, it's your house and your rule, and I, same as most of the user base, am only a guest.

Offline jdcarpe

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I go to GH IC section to actually check for stuff that pique my interests, not the vendors' subforums.

The only other guy who knows the correct word to use here.
KMAC :: LZ-GH :: WASD CODE :: WASD v2 :: GH60 :: Alps64 :: JD45 :: IBM Model M :: IBM 4704 "Pingmaster"

http://jd40.info :: http://jd45.info


in memoriam

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Offline spacewolf

  • Posts: 16
Honestly I'm happy for anything we can do to disenfranchise MassDrop at this point.

I'm not happy with how they handle things.

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Offline HotRoderX

  • Posts: 697
I had a big long post written out but decided to go with something simple. Decisions like these with overly complicated rules and rulings do nothing but look bad on the mod team. As it does make them look extremely bias against Massdrop, Mito, Oblotzky, and many other's.. who have honestly helped the community grow by leaps and bounds. I mean regardless of what people think of Massdrop.. Massdrop is the reason I and am sure a lot of new people join the community everyday. Massdrop is what got me started then I looked for a forum to become a part of after the fact.

Also I think the mod team needs to take a step back and really re thick the way they run things. The website is ran in a very overly complicated way. Example is.. Geekkey's there been outcry in the vendor forum that he scammed people. There been number of reports and even reddit its pretty much known ordering from there is hit miss. Even a blogger reported on it and didn't get any type of service until he posted about it on his blog. Geekhack has to go thought some arbitrary lengthy process. I mean honestly the vendor forums are not even that regulated they really should be deleted and the site steam lined in general.

I mean the internet has evolved since geekhack was first founded. Yet Geekhack is still somewhat in the stone age. Its ran by team of volunteers. Which is great but there is no reason it shouldn't be updated..  we don't even have working PM system for example. The forum structure is a bit confusing special with the vendor subforums which once again I think need to go. There are better way's to handle that and stream line the process at the same time. Just simply adding in a Tag system where.. search could look for a certain tag on older post would be nice and could be a forum of stream lining. Then break the vendor forums into three new sections

IC = Incoming Items to be released for Hype and publicity
Active = Active Group Buy's that the Community Could Take a look at
Fulfillment = Group Buy's that are ended but still in manufacturing Shipping Phase
Completed/Archived = Group Buy's that where completed and are no longer Active.. Kinda like a time machine into whats happened.

Offline chuckdee

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Honestly I'm happy for anything we can do to disenfranchise MassDrop at this point.

I'm not happy with how they handle things.

If there is a feeling of this, that is fine.  Many people feel that way, and want to crush Massdrop.  But at least be open about why you're doing things.  MD Polls are just that- polls.  Many sets have changed from that time with proper justification for the change

Call a spade a spade, and be up front about what you're doing and why. 

Offline spacewolf

  • Posts: 16
Honestly I'm happy for anything we can do to disenfranchise MassDrop at this point.

I'm not happy with how they handle things.

If there is a feeling of this, that is fine.  Many people feel that way, and want to crush Massdrop.  But at least be open about why you're doing things.  MD Polls are just that- polls.  Many sets have changed from that time with proper justification for the change

Call a spade a spade, and be up front about what you're doing and why.
I am in no way saying that that's why the geekhack forum is doing this. I'm just saying why I'm happy it's being done

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Offline chuckdee

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Honestly I'm happy for anything we can do to disenfranchise MassDrop at this point.

I'm not happy with how they handle things.

If there is a feeling of this, that is fine.  Many people feel that way, and want to crush Massdrop.  But at least be open about why you're doing things.  MD Polls are just that- polls.  Many sets have changed from that time with proper justification for the change

Call a spade a spade, and be up front about what you're doing and why.
I am in no way saying that that's why the geekhack forum is doing this. I'm just saying why I'm happy it's being done

Sent from my Robin using Tapatalk

I wasn't saying that you were saying that.  I was using your interjection as a stepping block towards what's really going on.  As even with the mod's response, it's still as clear as mud.

Offline Hokabuki

  • Posts: 169
Forcing Massdrop ICs into their own sub forum splits the community unnecessarily. Just because a set has a MD poll, doesn’t mean it will for sure ever get run on MD or otherwise. There are always things to clarify in an IC no matter how polished a set is. More people are going to miss out on the discussion as a result.

Offline chuckdee

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If it has been stated that IC's will only be put here if linked to a MD poll, as many keysets are now having their own page, could it not be satisfied by having links to the set page on the IC, and the link to the MD poll on the other page?  Just trying to find a middle ground.

Offline Vigrith

  • Posts: 1843
Cross posting from Pulse thread.

Hey mods, surely you're monitoring the thread/section (if you're not then we have an even bigger problem), how about we actually start listening to community feedback, facing the facts and just revert things back to how they were? You can revisit this faux "solution" at a later stage once you actually make up your mind as for what you want to do with ICs and once other vendors actually get their threads moved to their sub-forums instead of ostracising Massdrop for no valid reason.

You had your experiment, maybe the timing just isn't right and it's okay to be wrong. I think we can all agree with the fact that if this were to be in the IC forum this would be at least 5 pages long by now and instead its gotten like 1 reply a day. Just let it go, all you're doing it retracting attention from Geekhack since everyone just goes to MD to discuss this instead.

We don't need a full month or however long to gather data to have definite proof that the literal only reason you wouldn't revert this change would be because you don't wanna give in and admit it's a ****ed up thing to do.

Offline Tasteless

  • Posts: 25
I'll just chime in and say that this seems like a horribly implemented idea.  Fracturing your user base and making information more difficult to find is not exactly a good design principle.

Offline Zambumon

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Cross posting from Pulse thread.

They did the ruling in the heat of the moment and even moved two threads (Serika and PuLSE) 6 hours prior to the moment the new rule was published. They perfectly know that Massdrop's subforum isn't prepared to handle ICs, GBs, and costumer support all at the same time and that mixing all of these topics doesn't make sense.

With that being said, I did some digging, and I expect all these threads to be moved at once to the Massdrop subforum too. These include keysets that are planned to run on Massdrop again (such as Danger Zone), have a Massdrop Poll on their OP, were done on Massdrop, or have Massdrop on the title.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=68563.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=91813.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=91039.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=88662.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=89970.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=88368.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=88090.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=74350.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=71508.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=90617.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=88581.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=89079.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=75607.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=88344.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=90669.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=85186.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=75963.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=90044.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=85623.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=88383.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=76006.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=83969.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=87875.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=87275.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=85706.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=79693.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=84129.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=74452.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=79722.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=72086.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=77442.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=75345.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=73175.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=73748.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=73348.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=73067.0

Just so it is clear, you can appreciate from many of these threads that just because you include a Massdrop poll doesn't mean that your project will be ever complete. Here there are many projects that didn't make it, and that created hours and hours of discussion that helped to improve future ICs.





Offline livingspeedbump

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The obvious solution was already in place. The vendor forums should just be for:

  • If a known vendor was doing an IC for a product they would be selling on their site
  • If a product hits a GB stage/gets assigned a definitive launch date for the GB

Thanks to how GH worked, it was without question the best place for IC's and thus a huge part of why it remains so popular.

Interest checks are all on the same level, in my opinion. Nothing really is set in stone, that is why it is an IC.  The active ones would stay at the top, the silly/bad/no interest ones just sank into oblivion. This also helped the community as a whole get excited about the best sets, and thus make for better community buys. GH isn't selling anything (outside of some incredible >>DEALS<<) so I don't see why where an item sells is of any concern for ICs, or GH leadership for that matter.

There is just no actual logic behind this move. Seems like a few individuals are catering the forum to meet their agenda, moderating and flexing power just for the sake of moderating and flexing power, or because leadership is just entirely out of touch with the community utilizing the site.
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Offline jdcarpe

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The obvious solution was already in place. The vendor forums should just be for:

  • If a known vendor was doing an IC for a product they would be selling on their site
  • If a product hits a GB stage/gets assigned a definitive launch date for the GB

Thanks to how GH worked, it was without question the best place for IC's and thus a huge part of why it remains so popular.

Interest checks are all on the same level, in my opinion. Nothing really is set in stone, that is why it is an IC.  The active ones would stay at the top, the silly/bad/no interest ones just sank into oblivion. This also helped the community as a whole get excited about the best sets, and thus make for better community buys. GH isn't selling anything (outside of some incredible >>DEALS<<) so I don't see why where an item sells is of any concern for ICs, or GH leadership for that matter.

There is just no actual logic behind this move. Seems like a few individuals are catering the forum to meet their agenda, moderating and flexing power just for the sake of moderating and flexing power, or because leadership is just entirely out of touch with the community utilizing the site.

Pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter exactly.
KMAC :: LZ-GH :: WASD CODE :: WASD v2 :: GH60 :: Alps64 :: JD45 :: IBM Model M :: IBM 4704 "Pingmaster"

http://jd40.info :: http://jd45.info


in memoriam

"When I was a kid, I used to take things apart and never put them back together."