what the hell is 7bot?

[billm]

Does anybody know anything about these Round 4,5,6... group buys at deskthority?

The caps look great but... trying to buy them seems rather hopeless. Read the wiki, sent orders to 7bot as described, never got anything back. My order looks formatted correctly, am I just too late? Its hard to tell... What does "leftovers" mean in this context? Was I ordering from leftovers on hand or trying to be part of a group buy that's closed? I honestly can't tell from the poor documentation and deliberately insane order process.

As a software engineer, there's nothing I hate more than a sh*t process and this is literally the worst one I've ever seen. You'd have a better chance of success submitting your order via smoke signal.

I don't know much about the keycap side of things, but if anybody is interested in setting up a proper group buy for SA keycaps I'd be glad to help design and build an online store process that effing works.

[demik]

7bit's bot

[madhias]

You order like described in the Wiki. Then you get sometimes a mail with your order and where to send the money too (7bit has always some money collectors, I was one for example). Then, sometimes, your order will be shipped.

[EDIT] As a software engineer you would have RTFM. Those are not PBT sphericals.

[lolpes]

Does anybody know anything about these Round 4,5,6... group buys at deskthority?

The caps look great but... trying to buy them seems rather hopeless. Read the wiki, sent orders to 7bot as described, never got anything back. My order looks formatted correctly, am I just too late? Its hard to tell... What does "leftovers" mean in this context? Was I ordering from leftovers on hand or trying to be part of a group buy that's closed? I honestly can't tell from the poor documentation and deliberately insane order process.

As a software engineer, there's nothing I hate more than a sh*t process and this is literally the worst one I've ever seen. You'd have a better chance of success submitting your order via smoke signal.

I don't know much about the keycap side of things, but if anybody is interested in setting up a proper group buy for the same PBT spherical keycaps I'd be glad to help design and build an online store process that effing works.

leftovers are from the quantities ordered from SP, i.e. if he gets like 20 orders from a specific set, and MOQ is 25, then leftovers are from the remaining 5 that where ordered.

The wiki serves as a mean of documenting the kits available, and sort of history of the Group buys and the caps available.

The ordering form is also well explained, as software engineer you should be able to send an order form, I never had any trouble sending my orders.

Also the all the caps provided where improved over years and molds created for them, either with 7bit's funds or with the revenue from the GBs. With that kind of attitude, you are better off not ordering at all. :/

[neverused]

It's a topic for discussion at DT

[zslane]

7bit's group buy system is paleolithic to say the least. Nobody but 7bit likes it. We all tolerate it in order to get the tasty keycaps. That said, it is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. The thing that trips people up is that they don't get any feedback for about 24 hours, after which time the invoice comes floating into their email box. In the mean time their order PM looks "stuck" in their outbox, when in fact it went to the 7bot just fine (DT's outbox is more like a "Sent" box, not a "Pending" box).

Round 5a goes into production this month (for all I know SP is already churning out caps). The time to get in on it was the entire previous calendar year. Missing the deadline doesn't mean you can't order stuff, it just means you can only order what is left as "overstock" from the minimum order amounts 7bit had to place for each kit. Some kits will be sold out while others will have substantial stock left for some time to come.

Round 6 is just an alias for Round 5a. I think 7bit kind of regrets having called it 5a and renamed it 6 only very recently. Part of the reason he didn't call it Round 6 from the beginning is that, as I understand it, Round 6 was originally intended to be for his APL keycap design. But demand for a proper Space Cadet set and another round of Honeywell put the APL project on the backburner, and 7bit needed a name for the "in between" group buy. Hence "Round 5a" was born.

[billm]

The ordering form is also well explained, as software engineer you should be able to send an order form, I never had any trouble sending my orders.

That it's "well explained" is simply untrue. Nowhere in it, for example does it mention that while you're submitting your order via PM, you should expect a reply (if  the bot is up that day) via email. I looked over my submission several times and it matches the example. I tried several submissions , no response to any of them. Looking at the threads at deskthority and many people seem to be having the same problem.

Also the all the caps provided where improved over years and molds created for them, either with 7bit's funds or with the revenue from the GBs. With that kind of attitude, you are better off not ordering at all. :/
[/quote]

You're right about that.

[zslane]

7bot is a mailbot, but the ordering system is not completely automated. There are humans who are integral parts of the process, including 7bit himself. If he or his money collector is on vacation, for instance, there will be delays in turnaround with invoices. If you placed an order in December then chances are good your order was trapped in the Christmas vacation vortex.

The quirks of the system could be better documented, no question. I don't think anyone really defends it; at best we try to explain it so as to ease the frustration. We've all been through it at one time or another. Stay strong...it all works out in the end. 

[billm]

Hey zslane thanks so much for your explanation. The order into >/dev/null makes me freaking crazy. Then I  placed a second order because I didn't know the status of the first, and got no feedback on either, so then then I'm sitting there wondering, "great did I do a double order and I'm on the hook for $400 worth of keycaps or something?"

Dunno why I thought they were PBT... I guess from the texturing on the keycap top.

[zslane]

One notable aspect of the ordering system is that you really can't accidentally double up on your order merely by sending the same order twice. If you send the same order twice, the second set of data basically just replaces the first. In order to double up on something you would have to send a PM with something like this in the message:

HONEYB/NUMPAD/BLUE 2

When the mailbot sees the "2", it adjusts the quantity in your order to that value. A value of "0" removes that item from your order, while no numeric value at all leaves the quantity at 1. In a sense, your messages to 7bot are lists of items and their quantities, so unless you send lines with explicit numeric quantities, you will only ever order one of each thing, no matter how many times you inadvertantly spam the mailbot.

[madhias]

You can also always send a PM to the 7bot with any content, like "HELLO BOT" and you will get your order information.

DT would be a good better place to discuss this, since then also the involved Bots and Humans can help and answer your questions and recommendations

[dylpills]

lol

[billm]

Keycaps arrived this week. Shipped from Signature Plastics just up i5, to Berlin, then back to me! They're gorgeous. It only took 2yrs and 4months.

[SpAmRaY]

Nice

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[FrostyToast]

Got mine too.
Receiving random packages from Germany really throws you off.

[Sshimosawa]

The OP is right. Everyone tolerates the system - which sucks and is complicated for complicated sake. Telling people that eventually reading the wiki and learning how to order - doesnt change the fact that its arcane for no reason.

[Coreda]

Keycaps arrived this week. They're gorgeous. It only took 2yrs and 4months.

Was there any correspondence between then and now? Like wow.

[billm]

No, no correspondence that I saw. Just a pkg on the porch one day.

I remain utterly baffled by the ordering system. I've never seen anything like it and wonder how it even happened.

I suppose in one sense it does make the keycaps seem all the more valuable given the quest like nature of acquiring them. At least you have a story to tell at your next dinner party, a funny point of entry into your bizarre and obsessive hobby.

Still, it's a bit nerve wracking given that you place your order, wait 2+ years, then realize you left one piece off or got one key wrong? Are you going to wait another 2 years for that properly sized spacebar? That actually happened to me with my order since I was buying "leftovers". I left the spacebar off. Fortunately I was able to find the correct color code and get one from PMK for $9 in under a week to complete the set, but keys with legends wouldn't be so simple.

I get that this isn't all on 7bit, and I'm sure he's taking on a huge workload for not much renumeration, but to me that suggests that a better process would benefit him too.

It seems also, just from other posts here, that a lot of the delay has to do with SP's schedule. I don't quite know what to make of that either. They're clearly interested in the enthusiast market or they wouldn't have put up PMK, but that site is reliably sold out of product. That, and they're scheduled out a year in advance? If I were running a business with a years worth of backlogged orders and a sold out storefront, I'd borrow money if I had to to buy more equipment and grow the business. I mean geez, you have people lined up to pay you $100+ for a few dozen hunks of molded plastic, the markup has got to be pretty damn good. The market might be small but it's growing.

Anyway, I just ordered 2 sets of maxkey SAs from kbdfans. Haven't got them yet, but it's 2 days later and they're already shipped (from china) with a tracking number. The sets themselves are rather basic, not as gloriously obsessive as 7bits (the arrow keys are especially ugly), but hopefully a larger library of legends will come with time.