Shades of Red

[litster]

You see that part in bold? That's horsesh!t. Apparently I was incorrect in my assumption that you had the cognitive reasoning required to comprehend the basic facts I stated previously. All you're doing is making yourself look like an ass to everyone but the little circlejerk you've got going on here. I'm not going to continue arguing 4v1 when dozens of people have come out in threads and PMs telling me to shrug the haters off and keep doing what I do because they get it and you don't. All I smell here is butthurt and I'll just let you, Demik, Kawa, and Sth deal with that. If it isn't already abundantly clear, I'll spell it out for you: I'm done dealing with the lot of you and you're no longer welcome in my group buys, comments or otherwise. If this is a problem to you, go read the rules some of you helped create, hypocrisy yo.

I know other guys make hundreds and thousands off of their group buys, they just try to keep as low a profile as possible to try and keep this **** from happening. Go pick on someone else.

You see that part in bold?  That's the comeback you have?  I was correct in my assumption that you don't have enough brain required to pull off tricks like this all the way to the end and get away with it.  All you're doing is making yourself look like an ass to everyone but the newcomers who don't know how you came on GH in a big way http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=20564.0.  You are not going to continue arguing with people who put you on the spot and quoting statements from you to support their arguments, and all you can do is say our arguments is horsehit?  Well, then you just proved our points.  All I smell here is butthurt because we told the rest of the community what you tried to pull over our eyes.  If it isn't already abundantly clear, I'll spell it out for you: We are done dealing you and your so-called group buys, and we will no longer use our money to fund your money-making venture so we can pay your rent and buy your 34DD girlfriend steaks and lobsters.  If this is a problem to you, go re-read your made-up sob story about how Melissa is going to get fired if you don't go rescue her, hypocrisy yo.

[xJaPx]

.

can't help the morons that love to over pay and then get nickle and dimed over some bull****

I've read through this whole thread and see both sides,yet no one has yet strayed too far off path.  But calling anyone who doesn't side with you a moron is a bit uncalled for.  Very easily could have just said people love to over pay and it would have been a relatively funny and sarcastic comment, but you more than likely offended a bunch of people fueling the fire of this chaos even more.  Yay for 10 more pages!

[demik]

[litster]

xJaPax, your reply's quote tags are off. 

morons is a strong word.  I would like to think people who are not familiar with the situation and how this evolved just don't know about it and it is worth our time to make it clear to them what is happening.

[xJaPx]

I cant even muster up a response looking at that damn chicken lol,  you win this round sir.... we'll see what happens when the bird isnt around!

[demik]

no you're right, i take it back. it was in the heat of the moment. it just ticked me off how people can sit there and defend him.

[litster]

As for group buy versus vendor, the differences are simple. 

Group buy: a large group of people get together, PAY IN ADVANCE, to get a a lower price.  The group shares the risks, organizers volunteer their time to organize and try to break even get a few free keys. 

Vendor: vendors pay for the goods up front with their own money, assume all the risks, and get a large pay back when it pans out.  This is what i3oilermaker, Keyboard Story, and a few others have been doing. 

Meanwhile, you use the large group to get the buying power, you assume no risk, you get a bridge loan from the group buyers, and you make a lot of money (in the thousands) from other people's risk.  Not only that, you buy up to the next price tier without sharing the discount with the rest of the group.  You take advantage of that and you make additional money from selling extra stock.  You may say you take risk by buying more.  But you already made enough from the original orders and anything else on top of that is just plain gravy.

It may not be clear to newcomers or non-groupbuy organizers.  But to anyone who has run group buys, they know exactly how it works. 

You see that part in bold? That's horsesh!t. Apparently I was incorrect in my assumption that you had the cognitive reasoning required to comprehend the basic facts I stated previously. All you're doing is making yourself look like an ass to everyone but the little circlejerk you've got going on here. I'm not going to continue arguing 4v1 when dozens of people have come out in threads and PMs telling me to shrug the haters off and keep doing what I do because they get it and you don't. All I smell here is butthurt and I'll just let you, Demik, Kawa, and Sth deal with that. If it isn't already abundantly clear, I'll spell it out for you: I'm done dealing with the lot of you and you're no longer welcome in my group buys, comments or otherwise. If this is a problem to you, go read the rules some of you helped create, hypocrisy yo.

I know other guys make hundreds and thousands off of their group buys, they just try to keep as low a profile as possible to try and keep this **** from happening. Go pick on someone else.

No argument there, huh?

[xJaPx]

xJaPax, your reply's quote tags are off. 

morons is a strong word.  I would like to think people who are not familiar with the situation and how this evolved just don't know about it and it is worth our time to make it clear to them what is happening.

From someone relatively new here and not having much background on members, after reading all 11 pages,  in summary - my interpretation: rag tried selling the modifiers that were incorrectly made under the pretense that it was helping SP and helping mel keep her job.  I admittedly skimmed the large posts, but i dont remember seeing rag ever say he was helping at no cost, although some may have thought it implied.  His beating around the bush didnt help his case, and did from read make it seem like he was trying to sneak one by.  But from reading, a few of you already know rag as someone trying to make money off of GBs, so why are you so shocked that he was profitting off this?  I guess that you are trying to stick up for the average user that doesnt know this, and more than likely believes hes doing this pro bono.  Again, all purely my.speculation and intetpretation.

[Glissant]

Ragnorock ended up clearing everything up, right? Are we getting the key caps we paid for? Alright then.

Is anyone attacking 7bit for charging people for many months without producing any real product? Ragnorock didn't do much bad here, and what he did do he cleared up pretty quickly.
I don't see why you guys have to keep harping on when he clearly worked hard to clear up any untruths/half truths/or comments that weren't thought through.
Time to let stuff lie and move on. You don't have to like Ragnorock or be in his group buys, but please keep a sharp eye out still for those of us that don't care about the small details. I appreciate it when people speak out.

And I would have said something if we didn't get what we paid for or if the comments about SP and Melissa weren't cleared up.

But don't listen to me, I'm just some random guy that doesn't contribute anything around here .

[xJaPx]

Seriously, post some more before interjecting so rudely!  Try giving away tons of keys and keyboards like that guy in the off topic thread, i cant remember his name...

[reaper]

Try giving away tons of keys and keyboards like that guy in the off topic thread, i cant remember his name...

Is it demik?  He gave away a lot of free keycaps and donate money from his group buys to Geekhack and various other non profit and stuff. 

[xJaPx]

Nah some dude who just posted a thread for his gf to be featured.on a blog.  Still isnt coming to me, oh well, it will forever be a mystery

[Glissant]

Try giving away tons of keys and keyboards like that guy in the off topic thread, i cant remember his name...

Is it demik?  He gave away a lot of free keycaps and donate money from his group buys to Geekhack and various other non profit and stuff. 

Yeah, demik is the man! I love that guy like a fat person loves raspberry cheesecake.

[xJaPx]

Mmmmm cheesecake

[alaricljs]

Duuuuuuuuuuuuude, shut off the tapatalk sig already.

[Glissant]

Mmmmm cheesecake

Sent from my Galaxy S III using tapatalk

Wife and I are getting some now . Last post with irrelevant info from me in this thread .

[litster]

Mmmmm cheesecake

Is this you?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jap

If so, you should change your screen name.

[xJaPx]

Tapatalk sig removed , my bad

Gliss, pretty pissed you have cheesecake and i dont, just saying

Mmmmm cheesecake

Is this you?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jap

If so, you should change your screen name.

Lol,  not sure how to take this?  Is THAT me?  no, lol.  Am i a japanese american, ya.  Jap's been my nickname since i was a teen.  It sure as hell doesnt stand for jewish american princess haha.  If youd like to chat more.about it pm me, ivr wasted enough thread space here

On topic, hope things get.cleared up if they already havent. I cant wait to get my red alert keys

[DanGWanG]

People be getting trolled hard in this thread.

[litster]

People be getting trolled hard in this thread.

you coming to get some?  ;-)

[DanGWanG]

Sitting back with some popcorn.  I watch movies, I ain't an actor =)

[MMB]

I prefer cake

[The_Beast]

I leki cake too

[litster]

Well, rag is using the "waaaa, there are four of you vs one of me, I can't cover up my lies, I want my mommy" excuse to avoid any argument or answering any question.  For example, he does not say why he should be able to continue to run group buys but not as a vendor, or why other people front should front the money and take the risk for him to profit, or why he made up that "firing" story.

[demik]

ah son of a ***** we are banned from his group buys?

now who's going to nickle and dime us ?

oh wait, there are other sellers making hundreds and thousands! let me go find them so i can hear their sob stories to get my money.

[sth]

No no it's not about nickel and diming. He just doesn't believe in aliens or something.

No joke, I told the guys in the trolling thread to screw themselves because I simply don't have time to put up with their conspiracy theories and bs anymore.

[WRXChris]

The argument about vendor vs. group buy is a good one; imo anyone who is able to "pay the rent" with proceeds shouldn't be passing any risk along to the buyers.

I realize that this would raise costs and increase workload by introducing financing fees and would also make it more difficult to balance supply and demand, but these issues could be addressed fairly easily with pre-order deposits and a revolving line of credit.

I recently read a very informative post from one of our Korean members who explained the many limitations to opening KBDmania gb's to us, and one of the points he brought up is that at KBDmania gb organizers are "not supposed to make profit".  This was a result of frequent flame wars between members.

[xJaPx]

damn asians always making us look bad being so kind and helpful to eachother.... now where did I leave that bigmac....

on a serious note, WRXchris, do we as buyers actually incur any risk outside of the normal consumer risk?  We pay upfront to have something made for us, we give profit to a middle man and the producer, and hope that the product we receive isn't defective.  At least here, the GB runners are willing to mitigate any conflicts and make sure we get what we ordered ( in general).  At least here we have someone who is going to do that, and discuss with us options to move forward with.  It's just like buynig a monitor from newegg and having it come with stuck pixels, except the GB leader is QCing them before sending it to us, which we can't say for your normal retailers (it would be impossible i know).  So instead of us figuring out something is wrong , having it ship it back, and hoping the retailers fixes our issue, the issue is being fixed by the "retailer"(GB leaders).  I guess comparing people who run GBs to retailers is bordering on making my whole rant contradictary, but to me there really isn't much difference.  I guess the only major differences between a retailer and GB runner is acceptable profit % and risk taken by said entity, which are relatively subjective in my mind(although paying rent with GB money to me is quite a bit of cash for something that is supposed to be a community project). 

as for having people run GBs for free, I almost wouldn't want that.  Granted making near thousands on a group buy is way to much, but I don't mind seeing the person slightly compensated for their idea/planning/time with ~$50-$100.  It's not an arduous task by any means, but time is money

[microsoft windows]

Sitting back with some popcorn.  I watch movies, I ain't an actor =)

Hope it's not that movie popcorn with the artificial butter flavor. I've been reading articles that butter flavor has been linked to an increased risk of dementia:

Artificial butter flavoring ingredient linked to key Alzheimer's disease process
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-artificial-butter-flavoring-ingredient-linked.html

[DanGWanG]

Yeah but I counter it with #4!

[Glissant]

What exactly does clocking deposits do?

[leeN]

you should get a vendor subforum

Yes I make moneys off of these group buys, it pays my rent. It buys me a few keysets or keyboards here and there, but it doesn't make me afford a new car or anything like that.

and that is why.

if you want to make money off the community, take the risk yourself and invest in the product.

boilermaker did it. keyboard story did it.

Maybe I'm missing something important, but can you explain the difference between what i3oilermaker and what Ragnorock do to me? (besides the Red modifier screwup thing)

Most of the keys i3oilermaker sells on his homepage origin from group buys where other people paid upfront too, as far as I can see.

This is by no means meant negative towards i3oilermaker, just something that confused me over the last pages here.

[sth]

afaik i3oiler orders extras because single keys are dirt cheap in large quantities. to my knowledge, he has never straight up lied to customers either.

[Rafen]

Is this about the red alert group buy? I was going to do this group buy till I found out it was going to cost me $52 so I backed out because I didn't have the money. Here is the price of that GB: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=31887.0

I was looking for keycaps on the Classified section and I found that he was selling the same set so I was going to buy them since I had the cash and didn't have to worry about tuition. Now what I don't understand is how the price got raised?
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=27740.0

Did I miss something of why this increased. I'm sorry if you guys are talking about a different group buy. I just don't see a reason why the sets would go up in cost other than for someone to make profit.

[longweight]

The price has increased because the group buy is over and the sets Rag is selling at a higher price are extra ones he ordered.

[alaricljs]

^^ Which he chooses to charge more in order to pay his rent (and other things) as he's already stated.

[Rafen]

That's the point I was getting at. I think its bs that he does that, considering the keys already cost a lot of money to begin with.

[longweight]

That's the point I was getting at. I think its bs that he does that, considering the keys already cost a lot of money to begin with.

Then please do buy a RA set from a cheaper source.

You think that it's bs him making a little bit of money out of sets that he ordered as extras? Why? Should he give all of his time on the GB for free?

[Rafen]

I don't think making enough money to pay his rent is a "little bit  of money".

[longweight]

I don't think making enough money to pay his rent is a "little bit  of money".

I very much doubt that he is going to make enough money pay a whole months rent and even if he does, who cares? The guy is running a group buy for a cool set of keys, pay the price if you think that they are worth it. Or don't.

[litster]

There are two issues that people are disgusted by rag and different levels.  They are not the same thing.  One is rag uses group buy money to buy stuff cheap and make more money and he doesn't assume any financial risk.  While other people who want to make some money by providing service to the keyboard community, they front their business with their own money and they assume the financial risks.  People may or may not agree and we can keep on arguing if making thousands of dollars is within group buy definition.

The second problem, which is a bigger problem, is rag made up sob story to try to get people to buy the wrongly made caps.  He lied about Melissa would be fired for the mistake.  But in fact "firing" was neither implicitly nor explicitly covered in his conversation with Melissa.  And it was independently checked with Melissa.

Rag saw a profit opportunity in the wrongly made keys, but realized that it would be a hard sale, a difficult decision for people who are in the group buy already and would need to pay more to buy them, more enough to make it worth rag's while, so he made up that story.  So he LIED to all of our faces, thinking he would get a way with it.

That, I, and many others, have a huge problem with. 

[litster]

I don't think making enough money to pay his rent is a "little bit  of money".

I very much doubt that he is going to make enough money pay a whole months rent and even if he does, who cares? The guy is running a group buy for a cool set of keys, pay the price if you think that they are worth it. Or don't.

Rag said it himself he made enough money to pay rent.

[mkawa]

There are two issues that people are disgusted by rag and different levels.  They are not the same thing.  One is rag uses group buy money to buy stuff cheap and make more money and he doesn't assume any financial risk.  While other people who want to make some money by providing service to the keyboard community, they front their business with their own money and they assume the financial risks.  People may or may not agree and we can keep on arguing if making thousands of dollars is within group buy definition.

The second problem, which is a bigger problem, is rag made up sob story to try to get people to buy the wrongly made caps.  He lied about Melissa would be fired for the mistake.  But in fact "firing" was neither implicitly nor explicitly covered in his conversation with Melissa.  And it was independently checked with Melissa.

Rag saw a profit opportunity in the wrongly made keys, but realized that it would be a hard sale, a difficult decision for people who are in the group buy already and would need to pay more to buy them, more enough to make it worth rag's while, so he made up that story.  So he LIED to all of our faces, thinking he would get a way with it.

That, I, and many others, have a huge problem with. 

i'm just going to quote this so that people are more likely to read it.

[longweight]

I don't think making enough money to pay his rent is a "little bit  of money".

Either way left over sets are always more expensive. Either get in on the group buy initially or expect to pay more once it has ended.

[litster]

longweight, making money aside, are you OK being lied to by rag?  Do you feel good paying him for getting away with a scam?

[longweight]

I don't feel like I have paid for him to get away with a scam, the original group buy prices were fine and I was happy to pay them (still am glad that I did). No one likes being lied to, hopefully he has learnt the lesson and will be more transparent in the future.

[OrangeJewce]

This has to have been one of, if most, interesting thread I've ever read in a forum.

Please forgive the rhyme, it wasn't intentional.

Cheers,

[jdcarpe]

Summary: Several people here have a problem with the way Ragnorock runs his group buys. They used this incident where SP messed up the modifiers as fuel for their fire against Rag.

1. Ragnorock makes money from group buys.

Which group buy organizer doesn't? I think it is implied that whoever organizes the group buy is entitled to at least cover their costs, plus a little extra. Is their time and effort not worth something? Rag said, "Yes I make moneys off of these group buys, it pays my rent." He never said that the profits from this ONE group buy was covering his entire rent. I'm pretty sure Rag has a couple GB's going on at one time.

2. Ragnorock "LIED to all of our faces, thinking he would get a way with it."

At the time of this incident, Rag had been traveling and was tired. He stated that he was operating on about 3 hours sleep. He came home to find that SP had botched the order. He notified Melissa, and proposed a plan to deal with the situation, which Melissa was okay with. He wanted to get the information about what happened to us members quickly, so he posted his proposal in his exhausted state. I personally believe, that at the time, Rag genuinely felt that Melissa was in danger of being fired and/or SP going under, due to several mistakes they had made recently on group buys, etc. He never said it was a certainty, or that Melissa had conveyed that to him. I think his concern was construed as a boldface lie. Again, all this by GH members that already have a problem with Rag for the way he runs his GB's.

I choose to give people the benefit of the doubt. Have I been burned by that? Yes, from time to time. But I would rather have faith in peoples' good intentions, than to go through life with the cynical attitude that everyone is out to get me. I try to stay informed of peoples' actions, and base my decisions on my own experience with someone.

In the end, reader, the choice is yours. Thanks for taking the time to read my little post and for letting me express my feelings here.

[litster]

Benefit of the doubt?  How about this benefit of the doubt?

[jdcarpe]

Yes, I read that thread already, but thanks for posting the link. Seems like everything worked out in the end. Since that was over a year ago, and Ragnorock is still an active member, I guess enough people could see past his (stumbling) entrance to the forum.

To be completely honest, I had never joined a forum like this before I joined GH and DT. When I first joined, I was under the mistaken impression that the Classifieds section was a place where you would try to make profit from items you were selling. I didn't try to sell anything right away, and soon came to know how this community functions, but I can see how others might think the same way, at first.