Would kill for a Red Alert set. (threadcrapping thread)

[MMB]

not a firefox user

somebody find this for chrome >.>

x2

[tsangan]

I just right click save img as >_>

[OrangeJewce]

But you have to understand this.

They come to OUR forum, use OUR language and follow OUR rules for OUR group buys

We are COMPLETELY allowed to do the same thing, when we don't we cry that they don't invite us?

I don't see how anyone can complain that this is a one way relationship, they took their time to come to GH/DT to register, speak English and  figure out what is going on

It is really as simple as that.

Limited as in "you only get xx sets" not as in restricted.
There was even a raffle at DT for the last sets...

You were allowed to buy as many as you want, people just didnt, they waited till the GB was over then started wanting it. How is that OTD/DT's fault?

Sorry, but that is BS and you know it. Look at the Cherry GB right now. There is a HARD limit of 110 sets. There was a HARD limit of the number of KMACs available. We don't do that kind of thing in this community. A group buy gets as many people to participate as possible. In fact, it isn't all that infrequent that we reach out to other communities and invite them INTO our GBs. I have yet to see that courtesy extended to us from across the pond.

You know what happened as soon as images of the KMAC mini were leaked here? The whole thread was shut down to protect the person who took them. I would like to find evidence of us going onto those forums and yelling at them to take down images of projects we're doing. Seriously it was like the sky was falling because images of a highly anticipated keyboard were leaked on a "sister" community forum. Really?

I have to go back and find it, but there was a GB where the organizer for KBD kept asking for more and more stuff from the GH GB organizer to so they could have everything in order for the international orders, even if it wouldn't benefit OUR community directly. And the GB leader did it for them. We don't get that courtesy when we are given the "pleasure" of participating in one of their group buys, instead when we want to customize it and do a run ourselves we have to adhere to whatever the hell they decide for us.

The insinuation that they learn English for the sake of participating on Geekhack is atrocious. Every Korean learns English because it's mandatory. Can you say the same for those of us schooled and raised in the U.S? I'll make it easy: NO >_<". Furthermore, nobody is crying because we weren't "invited" to the party. We're crying because we should have to be "invited" in the first place. We're upset because we open our doors fully, with very relaxed rules regarding our buys and our intellectual property, and every time we want to expand the reach of the community we're accused of trying to rip someone off. It's preposterous and just plain mean. I'm under the impression group buys are done to enrich the community, not create classes of those who "have" and those who "don't". But that's exactly what this behavior perpetuates, and it makes me sick.

Cheers,

[Acanthophis]

Once again I registered with a north american phone number for OTD

Well, doesn't work with my German cell phone. So even IF I can speak Korean, exactly how am I suppose to register? Buy a SIM from a Korean carrier?

You can't deny there is a barrier...




I totally agree with Mr. Orange.

[alaricljs]

not a firefox user

somebody find this for chrome >.>

FoxyProxy is just a plugin that makes changing proxy's easier and lets you keep multiple proxy's.  For Chrome the equiv is Proxy Switchy

[Kellybear]

Thanks alary <3 I was going to look for one but you found it already! You so awesome.

[limmy]

Main reason why Korean GB is limited in quantity is because group buy organizers cannot handle large orders in their spare time. Group buy organizers in Korean keyboard forums are "not supposed to make profit" and doing group buy is seen as free service provided to the community. These facts do not help in any way to increase the quantity limit either. (The no profit rule seems to be outdated in this capitalist world but the rule was instated in response to frequent flame wars between members.)

Most of GH's group buys are on key caps. They are light and easy to carry. Probably not so hard to label and package. But think about KMAC or any other aluminum keyboards. There was one instance where someone's suspension of a car was broken during transporting machined aluminum for anodizing. Another instance is where KMAC group buy organizer's place was filled with boxes so that more than half of his living room was filled with boxes. Korean houses are generally small and Koreans don't have large garage like many Americans. One third of Korean population is residing in metropolitan area hence spaces are limited.

I don't fully understand why there is limited quantity for the dye sub mod set, but it seems to along those lines. The hardship of taking many orders are not compensated hence the limitation in the quantity. Even if there were compensation, I would think the amount of extra work one person can do in addition to his/her day job is limited.

As far as I know, there is no intention of making a GB item rare. There is going to be second batch of KMAC available and it is open for everyone who can say I am in. You would have to be able to send money to Korean banks and have Korean address to ship to(not all GB organizers are shipping internationally). But those barriers are inevitable international barriers and are by no means intended for discriminating. Rather, the rules are focused on convenience of group buy organizers who are doing free service to the community.

I hope this clears some of the misunderstanding.

[MMB]

Main reason why Korean GB is limited in quantity is because group buy organizers cannot handle large orders in their spare time. Group buy organizers in Korean keyboard forums are "not supposed to make profit" and doing group buy is seen as free service provided to the community. These facts do not help in any way to increase the quantity limit either. (The no profit rule seems to be outdated in this capitalist world but the rule was instated in response to frequent flame wars between members.)

Most of GH's group buys are on key caps. They are light and easy to carry. Probably not so hard to label and package. But think about KMAC or any other aluminum keyboards. There was one instance where someone's suspension of a car was broken during transporting machined aluminum for anodizing. Another instance is where KMAC group buy organizer's place was filled with boxes so that more than half of his living room was filled with boxes. Korean houses are generally small and Koreans don't have large garage like many Americans. One third of Korean population is residing in metropolitan area hence spaces are limited.

I don't fully understand why there is limited quantity for the dye sub mod set, but it seems to along those lines. The hardship of taking many orders are not compensated hence the limitation in the quantity. Even if there were compensation, I would think the amount of extra work one person can do in addition to his/her day job is limited.

As far as I know, there is no intention of making a GB item rare. There is going to be second batch of KMAC available and it is open for everyone who can say I am in. You would have to be able to send money to Korean banks and have Korean address to ship to(not all GB organizers are shipping internationally). But those barriers are inevitable international barriers and are by no means intended for discriminating. Rather, the rules are focused on convenience of group buy organizers who are doing free service to the community.

I hope this clears some of the misunderstanding.

This is really helpful, limmy. Thanks for clearing this up. Perhaps this might be an opportunity where GH could take on some of the burden of handling to ease larger orders? Just a thought.

Possibly shipping the materials stateside for US orders, and assembly happening here as well? I am sure there must be a mutually beneficial way of doing this for minimal overhead.

Any thoughts on that?

[OrangeJewce]

Main reason why Korean GB is limited in quantity is because group buy organizers cannot handle large orders in their spare time. Group buy organizers in Korean keyboard forums are "not supposed to make profit" and doing group buy is seen as free service provided to the community. These facts do not help in any way to increase the quantity limit either. (The no profit rule seems to be outdated in this capitalist world but the rule was instated in response to frequent flame wars between members.)

Most of GH's group buys are on key caps. They are light and easy to carry. Probably not so hard to label and package. But think about KMAC or any other aluminum keyboards. There was one instance where someone's suspension of a car was broken during transporting machined aluminum for anodizing. Another instance is where KMAC group buy organizer's place was filled with boxes so that more than half of his living room was filled with boxes. Korean houses are generally small and Koreans don't have large garage like many Americans. One third of Korean population is residing in metropolitan area hence spaces are limited.

I don't fully understand why there is limited quantity for the dye sub mod set, but it seems to along those lines. The hardship of taking many orders are not compensated hence the limitation in the quantity. Even if there were compensation, I would think the amount of extra work one person can do in addition to his/her day job is limited.

As far as I know, there is no intention of making a GB item rare. There is going to be second batch of KMAC available and it is open for everyone who can say I am in. You would have to be able to send money to Korean banks and have Korean address to ship to(not all GB organizers are shipping internationally). But those barriers are inevitable international barriers and are by no means intended for discriminating. Rather, the rules are focused on convenience of group buy organizers who are doing free service to the community.

I hope this clears some of the misunderstanding.

Thanks limmy, this is of use, and helps somewhat. But tbh, I don't understand why our forums can't have a mutual agreement that what is ours is yours and vice versa. As you said, no-one on your side is in it "for profit", so why is there all this defensiveness surrounding IP and second runs of defunct GBs. If there wasn't any intention of making items rare, there would have been an implicit assumption that doing a second run of the Red Alert set, in it's full originality, wouldn't cause friction at all. This holds true for the RGB buy as well.

If it's not about money, why can't there be concurrent group buys, one for Yanks and one for you guys, which would reduce demand on the Korean organizers and make everyone happy?

Cheers,

[limmy]

Please read my post here( http://www.kbdmania.net/xe/4835717 ) for internet traffic throttling. It is cost reasons. Internet traffic is not free.

Designs are intellectual property. Some are more defensive about it. But I heard Ragnorock never got to ask for permission. It is not that the owner of the design said no and was all protective. It was some speculation that speculated the designer was protective.

I am describing the general picture of Korean group buys. I too wonder why separate group buys for replica pissed off soulfree(Korean GB organizer). I mostly agree with Magicmeatball's points, but I have not lead any group buys and I don't know the details of ordering caps from SP.. I can only guess.. However, I can comfortably rule out some of the speculations you guys are making such as wanting the set to be rare and remain rare. At least that is what my understanding of the Korean group buys tell me.

[Bar81]

Thanks limmy, this is of use, and helps somewhat. But tbh, I don't understand why our forums can't have a mutual agreement that what is ours is yours and vice versa. As you said, no-one on your side is in it "for profit", so why is there all this defensiveness surrounding IP and second runs of defunct GBs. If there wasn't any intention of making items rare, there would have been an implicit assumption that doing a second run of the Red Alert set, in it's full originality, wouldn't cause friction at all. This holds true for the RGB buy as well.

If it's not about money, why can't there be concurrent group buys, one for Yanks and one for you guys, which would reduce demand on the Korean organizers and make everyone happy?

Cheers,

Exactly.

[Ragnorock]

Limmy what you've said clarifies a lot of things and I'm very grateful for the insight. Everything you've said sounds reasonable, but MM does raise a good point that if it isn't about the organizer making money and is just a service to the community, then it would logically follow that a very simple way to increase the service to the community without any additional expenditures of effort or money would be to encourage foreign organizers to share the burden by allowing other group buys to take place. That both reduces the number of orders that they have to pack/handle, and has no "negative" impact on their end (since financially it makes no difference.) While you did mention that individuals see intellectual property differently and you are making generalizations for simplicity, I would certainly not mind if someone over there wanted to make a biohazard keycap, even if it was solely my idea and funds that made it happen. All I would ask is that the group buy organizer contact me first, to which I would almost assuredly say yes, but even if they didn't I wouldn't be upset enough to start a cross forum dispute over it. Conversely, if someone was to say "Hey I'm starting up a group buy for more biohazard keys" today, while I'm still trying to sell leftovers of the ones that haven't even been shipped out yet, I'd certainly have something to say about it. Even then, if it was some sort of different color combo and there was interest, I'd probably say "Sure I'll start a new one up ASAP."

All in all, a discussion over here isn't going to change a thing on how the Korean forums run their group buys, they're going to keep doing it their way until they decide on their own to change. But Limmy is right, most of their group buys are for keyboards and cases, not so much with keycaps... and those are much more bulky and expensive to deal with so limitations make more sense.

[hashbaz]

I mostly agree with Tsangan.  Taeyoung and the other Korean proxies that buy up large chunks of our orders come to our forum, speak our language, follow our rules, and send payment the way we want.  I've noticed a steady growth in the number of Koreans participating directly on GH, and this is a very good thing imo.

The barrier is larger going the other direction since English speakers don't typically speak any Korean or have access to easy, cheap bank transfers.  To say that Koreans are taught English in school is beside the point.  A natural inequity exists there, and there's nothing we can do about it directly, short of learning Korean.

Limmy's clarifications are very helpful, especially the part about the group buys being limited for everyone (including Koreans) due to acceptable load on the organizer and space concerns.

We should remember that GH has always been a worldwide community.  Having two main hemispheres of users (NA and EU) has forced us to get used to shipping worldwide and dealing with the complications that come with that.  The Korean forums, on the other hand, are made up almost entirely of Koreans.  The forums are gradually getting to know each other and meld and form relationships.  That takes time and is not without growing pains, false starts, and misunderstandings.

Tsangan and I have both been very vocal about not stepping on toes with regard to reusing or copying legends.  Perhaps we have been over-cautious here, but in the early phases of any relationship it is better to be safe than sorry.  I think it's the case that the Koreans understand us and our ways better than we do theirs.  We are still in the process of getting to know them and how they operate, so the burden is on us to be careful not to cause misunderstandings.

All this is to say that we should chill out and not get our panties in a twist over things like the RGBY debacle.  Soulfree is a reasonable guy, and he had his reasons for being upset, which are private.  He and boost and I worked it out, and the result is that we joined forces and got in at a very good price tier.  It's true that in this particular case the number of sets are limited.  TBH I don't fully understand why that is but I imagine it has to do with the fact that the OTD buy finished taking orders a while ago now.  My panties are fine with this, and I hope yours are too.

Our communities are gradually learning to work together.  The Red Cherry group buy was run simultaneously on GH, DT, and kbdmania.  I hope that future rounds of moogles and RGBYs are as well, as there seems to be no end to our appetite for those.  The Dolch replica buy will certainly be a joint project.  Moving forward, I think having NA, EU, and KR distributors for large buys is the way to go.

[OrangeJewce]

I mostly agree with Tsangan.  Taeyoung and the other Korean proxies that buy up large chunks of our orders come to our forum, speak our language, follow our rules, and send payment the way we want.  I've noticed a steady growth in the number of Koreans participating directly on GH, and this is a very good thing imo.

The barrier is larger going the other direction since English speakers don't typically speak any Korean or have access to easy, cheap bank transfers.  To say that Koreans are taught English in school is beside the point.  A natural inequity exists there, and there's nothing we can do about it directly, short of learning Korean.

Limmy's clarifications are very helpful, especially the part about the group buys being limited for everyone (including Koreans) due to acceptable load on the organizer and space concerns.

We should remember that GH has always been a worldwide community.  Having two main hemispheres of users (NA and EU) has forced us to get used to shipping worldwide and dealing with the complications that come with that.  The Korean forums, on the other hand, are made up almost entirely of Koreans.  The forums are gradually getting to know each other and meld and form relationships.  That takes time and is not without growing pains, false starts, and misunderstandings.

Tsangan and I have both been very vocal about not stepping on toes with regard to reusing or copying legends.  Perhaps we have been over-cautious here, but in the early phases of any relationship it is better to be safe than sorry.  I think it's the case that the Koreans understand us and our ways better than we do theirs.  We are still in the process of getting to know them and how they operate, so the burden is on us to be careful not to cause misunderstandings.

All this is to say that we should chill out and not get our panties in a twist over things like the RGBY debacle.  Soulfree is a reasonable guy, and he had his reasons for being upset, which are private.  He and boost and I worked it out, and the result is that we joined forces and got in at a very good price tier.  It's true that in this particular case the number of sets are limited.  TBH I don't fully understand why that is but I imagine it has to do with the fact that the OTD buy finished taking orders a while ago now.  My panties are fine with this, and I hope yours are too.

Our communities are gradually learning to work together.  The Red Cherry group buy was run simultaneously on GH, DT, and kbdmania.  I hope that future rounds of moogles and RGBYs are as well, as there seems to be no end to our appetite for those.  The Dolch replica buy will certainly be a joint project.  Moving forward, I think having NA, EU, and KR distributors for large buys is the way to go.

Thanks Hash. I feel like you're points help make mine more than Tsangan's but now I had a full night's sleep and have decided that you're right in it isn't worth getting panties too bunched up over. I'm just glad that we actually got a response, in public, from someone who understands the Korean KB community better than us.

I think it's funny you call RGBY a "debacle" but yet it's not a big deal. You're funny :-D.

Cheers,

[soulfree914]

Thanks for clearing that up hashbaz. I haven't been able to read much on GH lately, so I guess there has been much talk and speculation about this dyesub RGBY group buy that I have missed. Even in the case of this thread, one of my friends brought it up to my attention.

TBH, I wasn't trying to force boost to stop the dyesub RGBY group buy for any "copyright" reasons and never been "pissed off" about Boost running the gb. Boost is one of the recent friends that I made in GH, and I just thought there were some misunderstandings that me, hash, and boost had to clear before proceeding on and eventually, after a relatively long conversation, Boost wanted to collaborate with me on the group buy.

As far as the limited quanity goes, I certainly do have room for more orders if that is needed and if it's ok with boost. I just initially limited it to 100-120 sets each since that was the predicted quantity from GH based on the first order thread.

Also, as anyone who had ran a group buy or two would understand, there is much work and responsibilty to take care of when running these gb's. And most of us all have other jobs to attend to that limit us from being active 24-7. So, ofc helping out everyone to get everything they need is very nice, but at some point, whether it's a deadline or quantity limit, I have to close the group buy to prevent an overload of volunteer work that I have to do. It's really not about making the set rare or limited. At least for me, it's not.

Here, we are talking about 500 sets from OTD, 200+ sets from GH for now, and if Koreans start to order from boost, those sets will eventually come to me to make it 500+. I understand the frustration of not getting the set that u want and I think I have been pretty flexible with certain cases so far.  So, I will talk to boost to see if he wants to handle more than 120 sets each, and we can go from there.

And I really appreciate those folks who have been trying to explain things to calm people down in the threads. I certainly will try to be more vocal to prevent such unwanted noise in this nice community. And I promise i'll do my best in my capacity to make this a successful group buy. :-)

[DanGWanG]

Thanks soulfree for your time and dedication to the project!

[mkawa]

somehow this went way beyond a WTB into an incredibly productive thread on US/KR relations. nice job guys