ClickClack sale today

[hazeluff]

Keep in mind the guy is sleeping.

Am I the only one who is checking his 4Grabs thread periodically?

I will continue sending out quotes and Dibs invitations in a few hours,

So I assumed that there were quotes going out.

But yeah he probably went to sleep.

[MyNameIsFinn]

So I assumed that there were quotes going out.

But yeah he probably went to sleep.

I hope he wakes up soon

[thegunner100]

Well it would be ~7:33ish right now on the west coast. Let the poor man sleep

[MyNameIsFinn]

Oh, I forgot about that since its 10:36 here. My bad..

[litster]

First orders came in at 5:22pm PST, and believe it or not our newest member beat over 99% of you out! haahaa, what are the chances?
(yes that %  is accurate)

The "newest" member is probably a secondary account created just for the sale so the person can buy more than one set.

[MyNameIsFinn]

ClickClack, commee back. The suspense is killing me.

[MyNameIsFinn]

And why exactly would ClickClack be IP blocked?

[whiskerBox]

Patience :sleep:

[MyNameIsFinn]

Patience :sleep:

Yeah I know , Im going out soon until like 12pm so Im afraid Ill miss something

[whiskerBox]

quotes are good for 24hrs you'll be ok!

[litster]

That is a very strong request you have there, one that I hope is not shared by many. And here is why I hope you are in the very, very tiny minority.
I feel very connected to this site/community and these sales are available in this community ONLY. It is one of the ways I would like to show respect, support, and gratitude. Clearly I mean no harm by them, that would defeat the point entirely. It saddens me greatly knowing that I could be in part compromising some peoples enjoyment of this site. Lets however keep this in perspective, the previous sales with the exception of the last canceled one went decently well and the site really didn't experience problems. I was lead to believe that the previously canceled sale was just unfortunately timed. I truly did not believe that this recent sale would contribute to the same problems as last time or I would not have done the sale, PERIOD! I enjoy and respect this community too much just to **** with it for some sort of lulz.

I would also like it to be noted that I made this sale almost exactly 2x larger than any previous sale in order for everyone to get in on it who ordered within some sort of reasonable amount of time. These accomodations would have sufficed easily for any of the previous sales. This recent sale however produced 4x the number of orders as my last large sale, far exceeding my extended accomodations.

I would like to dispell some misconceptions while I am at it now that I have a bit of "experience" under my belt.
1)PM's are quite accurate and the work flow luckily happens to be quite efficient (it took me somewhat by surprise as well a while back)
2)Emails (not pms) are very innacurrate timing wise and I would have to verify each individual member (it also makes me more vulnerable)
3)If I did more sales outside of gh our members would have a much slimmer chance of getting keys and most accomodations will be out of my control.
4)I have not implemented any of my ideas lightly or quickly, they have been carefully thought out over a good long while and many have been gained from community feedback and experience.
5)If I could do things differently right now then I would. I have now spent around 30hrs on the last (canceled) sale and this one and I have not made a dime yet (nor is it over) and this sale will not equate to being in any way financially worth it when you take into account the other problems it has inadvertantly caused.


BTW every single person who tried to order in the first 4 hours who did not get a key in this sale will be given the chance to get something in the next sale, which will be specifically set up for them. I will always try my best to make things right and/or as fair as possible and reasonable!

tl;dr -
Please all, please none and hindsight is indeed 20/20.

Clickclack, I mean no offense.  I have started buying your keycaps recently as well.  They look cool.  And I understand why you want to do this on GH.  It is a good thing.  I am not saying that you shouldn't sell your keys here.  I am saying the way it is done is not optimal, if not for you, for your buyers.  Who felt good sitting next to their computer for 2 hours on a Friday evening?  Wait, maybe we all were going to be next to our computers anyway.

The problem is your keycaps are in super high demand, a lot of people want them can't get them.  So when you announce there is a sale, and people know that is it first come first serve, they rush, like people running over people at Walmart on Black Friday morning.  You should still announce your sales here, and you should continue to connect with your fans here.  But it would be good to offload things that the Geekhack server can't handle to some other services.  Keep doing the way you are doing, and it will always bring down the Geekhack until the server are upgraded or demands slow down.

Also, the way it is now, you are not accommodating your your international buyers.  If you have a longer time frame and people don't have to rush, it makes the buying experience better.

I think the goals for your sales are, in prioritized order:
- sell your goods
- let buyers buy your goods
- make it easy for buyers to buy your goods (including your international buyers)
- make it easy for you to sell your goods
- make it fair for all buyers
- Try not to bring down Geekhack and affect non-buyers' geekhack activities

No doubt, this is actually a good problem to have for you, because it is good business and it is good your production is well loved by the community.  Obviously it is your choice how you want to run it.  Just keep in mind how other people and Geekhack are affected by this.

Thanks.

[whiskerBox]

I believe the site was being under a DDoS while the sale was going on. I don't think CCs sale was to blame for system performance last night or last week. He has done two other successful sales with this format before without issue.

[litster]

It was DDOS'ed by all the buyers all coming here all at the same time.  It wasn't a problem before because they were not as in high demand as it is now.

[whiskerBox]

Your right it definitely didn't help that there was alot of buyers constantly F5ing the site to death, but in addition to that there was an actual DDoS attack happening as well. the timing probably wasn't coincidental as well, I would assume it has something to do with some disgruntled person who was unable to get CC keys previously.

[litster]

but in addition to that there was an actual DDoS attack happening as well. the timing probably wasn't coincidental as well, I would assume it has something to do with some disgruntled person who was unable to get CC keys previously.

No offense, do you know this for a fact?  Any reference or source?

[alaricljs]

iMav has not stated absolutely that there was a DDoS attack last night.  However there most certainly has been an on-going issue that iMav has been dealing with and giving a little information about that involves someone(s) DDoSing GH.

[whiskerBox]

iMav confirmed that site was under a DDoS attack. Anyways it doesn't matter the fact is you are right this is not the best way to do this. My only concern is that our collective complaining will only lead CC to seek outlets for his sales that are not associated with geekhack and further distance the community from his products. We need to find an alternative that is both time efficient and easy for CC while still remaining here in the geekhack community.

[metafour]

- make it easy for you to sell your goods
- make it easy for buyers to buy your goods (including your international buyers)

As it stands I believe this is the order he prefers and I think the order of these would be an interesting topic for discussion.

[litster]

The DDOS may as well be all the bots people are running to check for new posts on Classifieds and other forums.  That is why interesting classifieds are bought within a few minutes.  Many bots are set to refresh every few seconds.  It doesn't take very many bots/scripts to slow the site down, especially for a small server.  This may be why we see all the slow downs.  And when the sales start, all hell breaks lose.

[Ragnorock]

Clickclack, I mean no offense.  I have started buying your keycaps recently as well.  They look cool.  And I understand why you want to do this on GH.  It is a good thing.  I am not saying that you shouldn't sell your keys here.  I am saying the way it is done is not optimal, if not for you, for your buyers.  Who felt good sitting next to their computer for 2 hours on a Friday evening?  Wait, maybe we all were going to be next to our computers anyway.

The problem is your keycaps are in super high demand, a lot of people want them can't get them.  So when you announce there is a sale, and people know that is it first come first serve, they rush, like people running over people at Walmart on Black Friday morning.  You should still announce your sales here, and you should continue to connect with your fans here.  But it would be good to offload things that the Geekhack server can't handle to some other services.  Keep doing the way you are doing, and it will always bring down the Geekhack until the server are upgraded or demands slow down.

Also, the way it is now, you are not accommodating your your international buyers.  If you have a longer time frame and people don't have to rush, it makes the buying experience better.

I think the goals for your sales are, in prioritized order:
- sell your goods
- let buyers buy your goods
- make it easy for buyers to buy your goods (including your international buyers)
- make it easy for you to sell your goods
- make it fair for all buyers
- Try not to bring down Geekhack and affect non-buyers' geekhack activities

No doubt, this is actually a good problem to have for you, because it is good business and it is good your production is well loved by the community.  Obviously it is your choice how you want to run it.  Just keep in mind how other people and Geekhack are affected by this.

Thanks.

The real solution is really to just produce more or raise the prices. If the supply is greater than the initial wave of demand, then there should be little issue with people being left out, as there is more than enough to go around. Raising the prices lessens the demand, and increasing the supply to meet the demand also solves the problem.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if you made your own website where people could just buy them until they were out, in the same manner EK does, but without the middleman. I guess you must not be very website savvy to have not done that already. I was going to do that for my group buys even, but if this was my model I would have done it a long time ago.

Also is it just me or is the site acting funny ever since yesterday, the thread I posted in last keeps showing up in my subscriptions as unread, and when I read it again it shows as read (non bold) but stays in my UserCP, it never used to do that.

I doubt there was a DDoS being run at the same time, I'm pretty sure it was just everyone on here trying to get keys.

[litster]

Right.  Again, I am not saying CC should leave.  No, far from that.  Announce it here.  Talk to people here.  Find a way to do this so Geekhack is not brought down.  Collect orders with other service or method, or add more hardware to GH.

[alaricljs]

I don't run vB so I don't know what sort of load that places on a server... but from what iMav said the server GH is on is far from what I consider small.  I have servers with less than a quarter the horsepower and much slower storage doing far more than I've seen GH handle on the frontend.  What's being pounded up GH's backend by hackers is another thing entirely, I don't know what sort of volume is there.

edit: Oh yeah, in case you might think I'm talking out my ass I am a Sr Admin for a fortune 500.

[alaricljs]

Also is it just me or is the site acting funny ever since yesterday, the thread I posted in last keeps showing up in my subscriptions as unread, and when I read it again it shows as read (non bold) but stays in my UserCP, it never used to do that.

iMav modified the way in which GH tracks read posts to lighten the server load.

[Ragnorock]

I think if he noticed certain IPs taking extremely high load, he could ban those IPs, or should be able to depending on how the server runs. I forget a lot of that stuff.

@Litster, there's a typo in your post, it should be that you're saying he shouldn't leave. But yeah it would be essentially the same if the buy was hosted on your own site, and only advertised here. That way it would be run essentially the exact same, except instead of clicking on your name to send you a PM, they click on a link to put in an order. No guarantees that wouldn't crash the site anyways for people trying to get to the link though lol. Hopefully it would be made available in advance.

[alaricljs]

I think if he noticed certain IPs taking extremely high load, he could ban those IPs, or should be able to depending on how the server runs. I forget a lot of that stuff.

Does that already, didn't mention too many specifics, but apparently as soon as one of the 'bad' IPs gets blocked a new one comes on.

[tsangan]

The real solution is really to just produce more or raise the prices. If the supply is greater than the initial wave of demand, then there should be little issue with people being left out, as there is more than enough to go around. Raising the prices lessens the demand, and increasing the supply to meet the demand also solves the problem.

I don't agree with this as this is fun to collect due to the rarity of the item, if you have something so common the fun isn't there. CC has the pricing model the way it is for a reason I assume, and most of CC's work isn't mass made, I don't know if thats due to limitations or his business model but I am a firm believer of rare items priced not ridiculously and can still work. Of course you're going to have people crying about not having any but that's the way it goes.

I think CC just doesn't have time to maintain his own site atm with his current job, he's doing it here on GH as a favor to us since a lot of us here seem to love his work, that's why he's taking time out of his day to do this for us.

[whiskerBox]

I think if he noticed certain IPs taking extremely high load, he could ban those IPs, or should be able to depending on how the server runs. I forget a lot of that stuff.

Unfortunately banning single IPs doesn't work with a botnet that uses thousands

[Ragnorock]

His keys are hand made, so producing more would mean longer between sales, and would regardless be more difficult than raising prices.

[alaricljs]

I don't agree with this as this is fun to collect due to the rarity of the item, if you have something so common the fun isn't there.

Really?  Not to be the turd... but I know of a few people that collect these because they are cool... then there's the list of people that have to have them in some neurotic sense, collection OCD, ePeen, OMG skulls!... and then there's the list of people that plan on flipping them or trading them for profit.  

Personally I believe that collecting is a disease and while I did attempt to get a couple CCs last night I spent all of 15 minutes doing it and I would land in that last list I mentioned.

[whiskerBox]

I don't agree with this as this is fun to collect due to the rarity of the item, if you have something so common the fun isn't there. CC has the pricing model the way it is for a reason I assume, and most of CC's work isn't mass made, I don't know if thats due to limitations or his business model but I am a firm believer of rare items priced not ridiculously and can still work. Of course you're going to have people crying about not having any but that's the way it goes.

I think CC just doesn't have time to maintain his own site atm with his current job, he's doing it here on GH as a favor to us since a lot of us here seem to love his work, that's why he's taking time out of his day to do this for us.

+1 couldn't have said it better

[hazeluff]

I don't agree with the increase in quantity/price. It's not going to help the situation.

There are two issues here:

-people who are unable to get keys
-sales causing major stress on GH servers.

For removing stress from GH, maybe he can use google docs? That would put in all the entries in at the right times instead of email.

[alaricljs]

Does Google docs lock access while working on an entry/change?  If not then you run into 100 changes being made within a 1 second time frame because their system can take it.

[demik]

The solution is for people to chill the **** out about these.

It has become more about keycaps than the actual keyboards.


I wish we were more like OTD worrying about custom keyboards to go with our custom keycaps.

[MyNameIsFinn]

The solution is for people to chill the **** out about these.

It has become more about keycaps than the actual keyboards.


I wish we were more like OTD worrying about custom keyboards to go with our custom keycaps.

Its become Hat Fortress 2 Electric Boogaloo

[hazeluff]

Does Google docs lock access while working on an entry/change?  If not then you run into 100 changes being made within a 1 second time frame because their system can take it.

You can set up surveys that are only inputs. and then it places it into a spreadsheet when submitted.

The solution is for people to chill the **** out about these.

It has become more about keycaps than the actual keyboards.


I wish we were more like OTD worrying about custom keyboards to go with our custom keycaps.

I don't think people will chill the **** out until the keys become "common" enough.

Some people enjoy the keycaps (me for one) as much as their keyboards. They keycaps are a part of the keyboard.

[litster]

You can set up surveys that are only inputs. and then it places it into a spreadsheet when submitted.

this.  Sixty did this to collect info from red alerts buyers.

[demik]

You can set up surveys that are only inputs. and then it places it into a spreadsheet when submitted.



I don't think people will chill the **** out until the keys become "common" enough.

Some people enjoy the keycaps (me for one) as much as their keyboards. They keycaps are a part of the keyboard.

Clickclacks were sitting on ek's site for months untouched before this sudden surge of interest in them.

So yeah, people need to chill out. And maybe everybody can eventually get one and stop breaking the site.

[hcry4]

And maybe everybody can eventually get one and stop breaking the site.

HAHAHAHA. One...
We need to be able to swim in a pool of them.

[demik]

HAHAHAHA. One...
We need to be able to swim in a pool of them.

That seems to be the attitude here.

[tsangan]

Well I'm pretty sure we know the supply isn't going to increase, due to 2 reasons A. These are ment to be as limited and B. This isn't mass produced like SP so you can't really just randomly pump out a few thousand more, not only that I pretty sure that is not how CC want's it to be.

Price isn't going to increase because CC doesn't feel like it's a mission to make $1000+ everytime he makes a sale/GB he's doing this because he wants to share his work with us.

So basically the only problem is GH falling apart, I honestly think it's mainly due to the sites having problems the last 2 times CC wanted to have a sale, as the first 3 times it was fine, BUT CC did say the amount of people wanting these have increase, though I still think GH can handle it.

[whiskerBox]

I hate to quote ripster, but it does seem like a lot of "T-ball participation award" complainers when it comes to CC keys

[snowboarder3]

Wow so many crybabies... guaranteed they wouldn't be saying a word about the format if they had gotten a PM in. Better luck next time... I'm fine with the way these are run. As long as the server can handle them, I see no issue running it here

[hazeluff]

Adding this thread to The McKEYmouse Effect.

Have I ever told you guys about The Hundredth Monkey Effect?

Who said you could use the image of my keyboard on your page? EH? ; p

You sir just lack taste! Also my filco is pretty plain. Only changed the modifiers and the esc.

People can decorate their keyboards however they like. But I agree with the price bit, not so much with the number of ICs.

My theory: Ripster is mad jelly about these keycaps and layouts people have.

Wow so many crybabies... guaranteed they wouldn't be saying a word about the format if they had gotten a PM in. Better luck next time... I'm fine with the way these are run. As long as the server can handle them, I see no issue running it here

There's a ton of people who have gotten it in who disagree and don't like the format it is run. I am one of them.

Also, the server does not seem to handle it, since its gone down the past 2 times he held a sale.

[litster]

Wow so many crybabies... guaranteed they wouldn't be saying a word about the format if they had gotten a PM in. Better luck next time... I'm fine with the way these are run. As long as the server can handle them, I see no issue running it here

You are freaking blind.

[Roguemaster8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect#The_effect_discredited

[ReAzem]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect#The_effect_discredited

Reason why Ripster is not the number one keyboard expert in the world.

[whiskerBox]

You guys have to admit that this system is still 100 times better then that of EK sales of clickclacks

[litster]

Did EK sales bring down GH?  No.  Did it take 2 hours to order something?  No.

[Roguemaster8]

Never said he wasn't a keyboard expert. That phenomenon has nothing to do with keyboards, just biased observation.

I just wish Geekhack had the capability to hand the loads that CC's sales bring. I saw an iMav post mentioning taking some of the stress away and putting it on a server farm somewhere. My memory is terrible so that is just a rough recollection of what I remember reading.

[metafour]

I'm not claiming this is a complete analysis of the situation but there seems to be some debate going on surrounding this issue.

It seems to me as though some people consider these keycaps as art pieces. Beginning artists usually strive for exposure and thus try to get their art in front of as many people as possible. Granted the art we're talking about here I would consider functional art so in this case the exposure is more than just being able to view the art as pictures on the Internet. Once notoriety is reached, and even before this point, the artist has a decision to make; whether they want more people to experience their art as intended or to keep it to an elite or private group.

Some of the people that already have some of these keycaps seem to have a vested interest in keeping these keys in the private/elite category and it seems the artist does too. I'm basing this off of a statement I remember reading from the artist about making sure these keys are mostly available to the members of the community here, placing emphasis on those that have been here the longest.

This mentality is at odds with the other way to view the situation; getting the keys into the hands of as many people as possible so that more people have an opportunity to appreciate the art.

I'm not expressing my opinion as to which way I believe the situation should be handled but I think this is a large part of people's opinions surrounding these keys and the way they are being sold.