First of all, I don't think anybody is in a position to claim that they saw the worst of the X60 V1. My board was botched so badly by the factory, specifically, the screw holes and scratches everywhere, that xondat agreed to carry me over to the R. The board was nothing more than a paperweight, and a very, very ugly one at that.
Normally, I'm the kind of guy retailers don't want to deal with. I want my product on time, as described, sans defects, and any defects accounted for & explained & fixed pronto, or I'm instantly escalating to their HQ. I know my rights - I'm looking at you, local GM dealership that's about to get one hell of an ass-whupping from GM Corporate.
But this is Geekhack, and generally keyboard group buys we're talking about. It's not like you don't know what you're getting into, and if you do......maybe it's time to reconsider your expectations. Large, expensive group buys that don't run into hiccups at some point are rarer than rocking horse ****; every large GB has its fair share of problems.
And xondat has been working hard through his GBs. Yes, it took him a while to respond to my initial messages regarding the botched X60, but he did get around to it. And I've been very happy with the way Discord has been working, because it allows us to have quick updates on how everything is going, a direct line of communication to him, as well as some spicy banter that won't be found on GH, which is as lively and timely as a dead squirrel. Yeah, that's the truth, sue me if you have the ability to change that. I've added about an automatic week of waiting to every PM or post I click Send on. Don't act like this is groundbreaking news.
While I felt a certain amount of frustration regarding the delays in communication and the fact that nobody else in the V1 group buy shared my frustrations / unique quandary, I went about voicing it in as healthy a way as I could while not suppressing my own interests.
Now, it's good to have these threads open again. As said before, open GBs should have open threads. But quite frankly, shutting down Discord will be highly detrimental to GB communication in the long run. While I don't agree with some of the "rules" set in the server, I believe everybody in the X60R GB was given plenty of time and reminders to join the Discord so that we all were in it with no one left hanging.
"All GBs ran on GeekHack should be Updated and Discussed on Gek Hack". That's correct. That doesn't mean that all GBs ran on GeekHack will be updated on Geekhack, and you and I both know that is also correct. And when that happens, the same people *****ing about the elitism in running a private Discord server are going to be the same people *****ing for an personalized update every 4 hours. This isn't Microcenter.
And people, stop childishly throwing around vaguely expensive $600 price tags like it's supposed to mean something. A $600 product GB and a $100 product GB are, at the end of the day, still group buys. And knowing GBs on here, DEFINITELY caveat emptor. It doesn't mean ****. Not to those of us who have far more expensive commitments in life, and are still saddled with customer service issues in a proper retail context. It's your money and you chose to commit it to a keyboard group buy. If you have legitimate concerns and / or product quality concerns and the GB runner is being a **** about you publicizing it, then by all means, do it. But don't try to flaunt the price tag to magnify your woes, how you have been hurt by the GB runner. If you have complaints, post them here for all to see (pictures speak a thousand words).
And why post pictures of damage that you inflicted yourself? It just tarnishes your formerly righteous position on this issue. Was the other person, whose board you posted, in constant contact with you and wanted to combine your testimonies to full effect? If not, you just come off as a pompous ass who's trying hard to discredit another individual beyond what is warranted by that person's (in this case, definitely warranted) behaviour towards you.