Implemented changes to the GROUP BUYS subforum and the VToS

[Moderation Team]

Dear site members,

The moderation/administration team has been reviewing the state of the marketplace, and we are aware that as geekhack evolves, our site rules must also evolve to stay relevant and helpful for the community.

One of the issues with the Group Buys subforum has been that it limits members with "Vendor" status from posting Preorder or Group Buy type threads.  However, the line between community Group Buys and vendor Preorders has been blurring continuously, and given the bulk of what we've seen posted in the Group Buys subforum to date, it makes sense to be more inclusive (until the time comes to revise the terms yet again.)  You may have already seen some vendor buys listed in the Group Buys section recently.

We propose that the Group Buys subforum be renamed to "Group Buys and Preorders".

Regular community members, Artisans, and Vendors will be able to post in "Group Buys and Preorders".   Preorders imply projects that require group funding and are more relevant for Artisans and Vendors.

• Group Buy thread titles should be prefaced with the familiar [GB]
• Preorder thread titles should be prefaced with [PO].

A common example of a pre-order situation on geekhack: a vendor wishes to have a custom keycap set produced and needs funding to pay a manufacturer with some profit in mind.  They will accept preorders from the community in order to have this keycap set produced.  The vendor will probably be selling left-overs in their own store at a higher price afterwards.

A group buy type thread is the same as before: a forum member wishes to collect funds and order a large amount of a specific product from a manufacturer and collects funds from other site members for the payment to the manufacturer posts a GB thread.  Group Buys should state terms such as MoQ, price tiers per different amounts of product ordered, etc.  Group Buys are typically not done for profit.

Anything that is not a pre-order that a vendor wishes to list on geekhack must be listed in the Vendor Forums area*

There will be a limit of 2 concurrent (from starting and until finished delivery) Group Buy / Preorder threads per Member/Artisan and 4 concurrent Preorder threads per Vendor. 

. . .

*With that, we also intend to change section 5a of the Vendor Terms of Service (VToS) as follows:

5a. Commercial posts advertising premade, available product(s) shall be made in the Vendor's own subforum, or in the absence of such, in the general vendor subforum only**.  Pre-orders that seek group funding from the geekhack community may be posted in the "Group Buys and Preorders" section.

(5b. **In the absence of a vendor forum, commercial postings may be made in the artisan services forum with permission from Moderator Team and/or an administrator.)

[SpAmRaY]

What about Interest Checks from Vendors?  Would that fall under 5a?

[Photoelectric]

Interest Checks from vendors have always been allowed to be posted in the IC section.  It's the actual selling part that's getting sorted out here.

(P.S.: this is all keeping in mind our overall history of vendors participating on geekhack--by far most have been small-scale vendors that are also participating community members, and some resellers that focus on custom keyboard goods.  Most major brand vendors don't seem to come by much.  These changes should make it more straightforward for small-scale community member "vendors" such as ZealPC, TheKeyCompany, etc. because their "group buy" preorders are not much different from normal community group buys or artisan sales.)

[Puddsy]

A common example of a pre-order situation on geekhack: a vendor wishes to have a custom keycap set produced and needs funding to pay a manufacturer with some profit in mind.  They will accept preorders from the community in order to have this keycap set produced.  The vendor will probably be selling left-overs in their own store at a higher price afterwards.

A group buy type thread is the same as before: a forum member wishes to collect funds and order a large amount of a specific product from a manufacturer and collects funds from other site members for the payment to the manufacturer posts a GB thread.  Group Buys should state terms such as MoQ, price tiers per different amounts of product ordered, etc.  Group Buys are typically not done for profit.

Wording is too broad. This wouldn't make it past my editor.

I thought it went like this:

PO: "I'm selling <generic keyboard product> that I will make myself (i.e. artisan caps), or have already made myself. I will sell it at a markup to you, the consumer, to make it worth it for me financially to keep bringing you this product."

GB: "I'm selling <generic keyboard product> that I will pay a manufacturer to produce. I need to gather funds to pay the manufacturer (as well as incidentals). I will include a small ($1-3) fee in the price to make this process worth it for me"

What's written above just sounds like: "I need money to fund a product that I'm bringing to you, regardless of whether or not I'm making it myself."

I'm all for the idea of separating the two. Just make sure it's an actual separation, not just a weird vernacular thing.

[Photoelectric]

Right so there doesn't really need to be a formal distinction between the two.  It's optional to select whatever matches an individual buy better, subjectively.

The actual situation is that most of our so-called current vendors collect money to have a product made by someone else (such as GMK keycap sets) and then perhaps sell left-overs at higher price.  It's not a pure group buy in the original sense that it used to be done on geekhack, where a group buy organizer wasn't expected to make much, if any, profit.  MOQ and price breaks were posted, everything used to be detailed pretty well.  Nowadays it's getting more and more slack, and the boundary between normal member "group buy" and "vendor" "group buy" is quite blurred.

A Group Buy is in the old sense of the term as it used to be on GH: a community member collects funds to buy a large quantity of product in order to get a lower price break per unit or reach a MOQ.

A Preorder is a collection of funds to have a custom product made and sold to those who participate in a preorder at a lower price during the preorder period--that's how it's frequently done on, say, kickstarter.  In our specific keyboard world, it can be a payment to a factory to make a custom product or to an artisan to make that product in their backyard.

Again, we're not going to police every single thread to make sure it's labeled correctly.  The point of the change is to be more inclusive of crowd-funded buys that are also for-profit.

TLDR: Group Buys = not for profit,  Preorders = could be for profit, with lower price during preorder.

[Puddsy]

Right so there doesn't really need to be a formal distinction between the two.

Then why separate them with a rule?

If the issue is for-profit v non-profit, make that the distinction.

[Photoelectric]

It's not a rule, and will be clarified when the change takes place.  It's just a suggestion to preface threads with an abbreviation that better describes the contents.  The only actual rule will be the numbers of concurrent GBs/Preorder threads per member/vendor/artisan, and the change to the VToS.

Basically "Preorder" was added because it's an alternative to the "Group Buy" that everyone's used to, but Group Buy was something not-for-profit, and vendors were not allowed into the GB forum (until recently, which was not by the rules).  Either we change the meaning of "group buy", or we add an option to include more than traditional geekhack group buys.  Hence the "Preorder" term.  But I can see how it can be a bit confusing.  In any event, when one creates a thread, they can select either abbreviation, whatever they think is more suitable.

[Puddsy]

Makes better sense now. Thanks for clearing it up.

[digi]

There will be a limit of 2 concurrent (from starting and until finished delivery) Group Buy / Preorder threads per Member/Artisan and 4 concurrent Preorder threads per Vendor. 

GOOD JOB GH!! Wooohoooooo

[xondat]

There will be a limit of 2 concurrent (from starting and until finished delivery) Group Buy / Preorder threads per Member/Artisan and 4 concurrent Preorder threads per Vendor. 

GOOD JOB GH!! Wooohoooooo

Rip KeyClack

P.S. Can it be mandatory to be "[GB] Blah Blah" and not "[GB]Blah Blah" or "Blah Blah"? I hate the lack of space or improper tagging.

[SpAmRaY]

And can we have vendors names in title to?

[rowdy]

And can we have vendors names in title to?

You should be able to determine that from who created the thread.

[xondat]

And can we have vendors names in title to?

+

You should be able to determine that from who created the thread.

For some it isn't too obvious if you aren't a frequent member, see jchan = keyclack; sherryton = originative etc.

[Photoelectric]

Sure, we can ask vendors that they also include their vendor name in brackets in the title, if you think that will help.  Although I think it will be clear from the context of the thread, and vendors generally have the Vendor rank + green star.

[OfTheWild]

I dont really see the difference between a group buy and a pre order... someone offers up a group funded purchase, and people participate. I'm guessing you're talking about if a "Vendor" who sells lets say "stabs" on their website, wants to run a special group-buy price to drum up additional funding up-front for a bulk order (meeting a new MOQ price point for their cost)... it would be a "pre-order" now?

I had an observation the other day that might be of interest (or not?):

I find that I totally skip over looking in 'vendors' and 'artisan services | child boards'. I just don't want to drill down through all those sub forums one after another to find some gem I'm interested in.

For example;
 I personally have no interest in RAMA's key caps so I never read that sub-forum. However, because that M65 keyboard went up in "group-buys" and I saw it, i jumped in on it. Now they are all going in their subsequent forums and hidden away from the front page. So i'll probably never get in on a Bro cap, a Ribbit, or know that Bunnylake was selling topre-mx stems 14 pages deep into a keycap sale I wasn't interested in. To everyone else including me you think "whatever dude, your loss"... but to someone trying to make a profit, they might think "well crap, i'm not reaching my demographic". Unless i'm the only one - but I doubt it.

Anyway, just my ramblings. Regardless of how its done, I know first hand and really do appreciate the hard work it takes to moderate such a large community. Thanks!


(I'd love to see a way to separate the active/open groupbuys from the closed/shipping/completed ones. Some day.)

[chuckdee]

From what I've seen, pre-orders are usually for a limited number, have less of a lead time, and more money put in up front by the vendor.

[Photoelectric]

I had an observation the other day that might be of interest (or not?):

I find that I totally skip over looking in 'vendors' and 'artisan services | child boards'. I just don't want to drill down through all those sub forums one after another to find some gem I'm interested in.

For example;
 I personally have no interest in RAMA's key caps so I never read that sub-forum. However, because that M65 keyboard went up in "group-buys" and I saw it, i jumped in on it. Now they are all going in their subsequent forums and hidden away from the front page. So i'll probably never get in on a Bro cap, a Ribbit, or know that Bunnylake was selling topre-mx stems 14 pages deep into a keycap sale I wasn't interested in. To everyone else including me you think "whatever dude, your loss"... but to someone trying to make a profit, they might think "well crap, i'm not reaching my demographic". Unless i'm the only one - but I doubt it.

Anyway, just my ramblings. Regardless of how its done, I know first hand and really do appreciate the hard work it takes to moderate such a large community. Thanks!

That's exactly the reason this change is taking place.

(I'd love to see a way to separate the active/open groupbuys from the closed/shipping/completed ones. Some day.)

Closed group buys naturally end up falling off the first page or two of the GB subforum as people stop responding to them because of finished deliveries.

[Photoelectric]

From what I've seen, pre-orders are usually for a limited number, have less of a lead time, and more money put in up front by the vendor.

However you want to define it is fine, because in reality preorders vary by place and by vendor.  On GH you can have a free choice of either prefix for your buy.

[chuckdee]

From what I've seen, pre-orders are usually for a limited number, have less of a lead time, and more money put in up front by the vendor.

However you want to define it is fine, because in reality preorders vary by place and by vendor.  On GH you can have a free choice of either prefix for your buy.

Just a suggestion, the moderation team might want to define the differences if those are not it, so that people know if their money is going to fund production, or if production is already underway and they are buying in before it's delivered.  As shown by the round 6 buy, there's a world of difference between the two.

[Photoelectric]

That's actually something that the poster of each buy should put into the description of the good(s) they intend to offer. 

[chuckdee]

That's actually something that the poster of each buy should put into the description of the good(s) they intend to offer.

You're putting a lot of faith in the vendor to represent it correctly.   If that's the intent, I'd go with why have the distinction and confusion I  tagging.   Because it will become a morass soon enough with different vendors defining it differently?

[Photoelectric]

The Market place is a free-form space for people to advertise stuff as they see fit, as long as certain basic posting rules are followed.  It's up to the buyers/participants to decide if they wish to join a specific group buy or not, whether they like the stated terms, whether they trust the seller.  The "Buyer Beware" stands for it all, and whether a representation is completely fair can be debated for every single buy thread whether by a regular member or by a vendor.  If you personally don't trust someone and have some moral objection to the terms of their buy, then you have the option to not participate in it.

It's not so much the [GB] / [PO] designations that you should be paying significant attention to but more to what's inside the buy description.

[riotonthebay]

I feel like it's not useful to have a [GB] and [PO] designation unless there's some definition of those terms. I think that definition can be simple and still leave some room for interpretation, but it would at least give people as baseline of understanding. For example,

[GB] - Upon meeting some minimum level of interest, organizer collects funds and pays the manufacturer. The organizer is not investing significant money into the project save for prototype/design costs, and the project would not go forward if not for community participation.

[PO] - Organizer has already placed an order for a set amount of goods using their own funds. Participants are preordering, possibly to ensure they get a spot or to get some discount.

I also think that a third designation would be allowed:

[SALE] - Organizer has already paid for and produced the items, and they're now being sold. kin25's method of operating the recent TX boards is the perfect example of this -- they're items that people would normally associate with a group buy, but you're not preordering or joining a group buy, you're just buying an item he has already produced. I think it's confusing for items like this to go in Artisan Services, because people associate Artisan Services with things like artisan keycaps, cables, wrist rests, etc., not full keyboards.

edit: note that none of these definitions above mention profit or anything like that -- that's the sort of thing that's up to the buyer to discover and decide on.

[chuckdee]

The Market place is a free-form space for people to advertise stuff as they see fit, as long as certain basic posting rules are followed.  It's up to the buyers/participants to decide if they wish to join a specific group buy or not, whether they like the stated terms, whether they trust the seller.  The "Buyer Beware" stands for it all, and whether a representation is completely fair can be debated for every single buy thread whether by a regular member or by a vendor.  If you personally don't trust someone and have some moral objection to the terms of their buy, then you have the option to not participate in it.

It's not so much the [GB] / [PO] designations that you should be paying significant attention to but more to what's inside the buy description.

Thanks for the reply.

[Photoelectric]

I feel like it's not useful to have a [GB] and [PO] designation unless there's some definition of those terms. I think that definition can be simple and still leave some room for interpretation, but it would at least give people as baseline of understanding. For example,

[GB] - Upon meeting some minimum level of interest, organizer collects funds and pays the manufacturer. The organizer is not investing significant money into the project save for prototype/design costs, and the project would not go forward if not for community participation.

[PO] - Organizer has already placed an order for a set amount of goods using their own funds. Participants are preordering, possibly to ensure they get a spot or to get some discount.

It seems like there are too many different possible cases one can use to fit into a Group Buy or Preorder category.  The main intention of the change is to allow vendors to post in the GB section for buys that require community funding to create a product.  Perhaps we can just do away with prefixes altogether.  It was just an idea to add [PO], but it's clear that it's creating more confusion than it was intended to, instead of being helpful.

I also think that a third designation would be allowed:

[SALE] - Organizer has already paid for and produced the items, and they're now being sold. kin25's method of operating the recent TX boards is the perfect example of this -- they're items that people would normally associate with a group buy, but you're not preordering or joining a group buy, you're just buying an item he has already produced. I think it's confusing for items like this to go in Artisan Services, because people associate Artisan Services with things like artisan keycaps, cables, wrist rests, etc., not full keyboards.

edit: note that none of these definitions above mention profit or anything like that -- that's the sort of thing that's up to the buyer to discover and decide on.

Technically that's exactly what should go into the Classifieds.  Because items on hand should be posted with photographs, timestamps, etc. In kin25's case, because he's an artisan and has a larger volume of keyboards than just a few, his thread should be in Artisan Services, just like artisans who create keycaps.

Again, Group Buys is a section for stuff that's yet to be made or purchased by organizer and requires community funds to make/purchase before distribution.  For example HotKeysProject posting GB threads for keycaps that will be made based on number of orders.

[xondat]

I see too many words and I get confused easily. The difference is if it fails or not.

Group buys can fail. You can place an order but it might never actually happen.

Pre-orders cannot fail. You will get your order in the future.

Adding onto "sales" (see Kin etc). Items are made and are being sold, head off to classified. Saying that, an IC is welcome as it may be required to see if there is interest in the region (yeah, see Kin again).

[Photoelectric]

I see too many words and I get confused easily. The difference is if it fails or not.

Group buys can fail. You can place an order but it might never actually happen.

Pre-orders cannot fail. You will get your order in the future.

That's not entirely accurate: you can prepay for a product to be made, and the factory can make a mistake and mess up the materials you paid for, or do the wrong color, or result in defects, or tell you that something costs more, or send you stuff for assembly and you'll fail to put it together and ship it for whatever reason, or you'll be hit with high import fees, etc., etc.  There are many ways a buy can fail, and it's a case-by-case situation.

[riotonthebay]

Hmm... maybe what I'm getting at is an issue of visibility. Right now we have subforums split out based on how you get a product, not based on what you're getting. This creates a challenge though -- how do people find the stuff they want to find? If I'm looking for a sweet new custom keyboard, I'm heading over to IC and GB, because that's where all the sweet new custom keyboards have been in the past. Except now, kin25's thread is in Artisan Services, and it's no surprise that the thread has had fewer posts than when it was still in IC. Now, it obviously didn't belong in IC, but it's still a shame that it's getting less attention because it was moved to the "correct" subforum.

I don't really have a great proposal, I suppose. I guess it would be cool if I could just go to the "I wanna buy a cool custom keyboard" subforum, and I can see all the ICs, GBs, and sales like kin's, and come away with a keyboard. Right now I have to bounce between a bunch of places to figure out what's available.

[riotonthebay]

I see too many words and I get confused easily. The difference is if it fails or not.

Group buys can fail. You can place an order but it might never actually happen.

Pre-orders cannot fail. You will get your order in the future.

That's not entirely accurate: you can prepay for a product to be made, and the factory can make a mistake and mess up the materials you paid for, or do the wrong color, or result in defects, or tell you that something costs more, or send you stuff for assembly and you'll fail to put it together and ship it for whatever reason, or you'll be hit with high import fees, etc., etc.  There are many ways a buy can fail, and it's a case-by-case situation.

I think what he's getting at is that the risk goes down almost an order of magnitude each time. Maybe 10% of group buys fail, but only 1% of pre-orders fail, and only 0.1% of straight up sales fail. (Those aren't meant to be exact numbers, but hopefully you get the point.)

[romevi]

We should make it "Vendors Awesome Terms of Service" so that we can use the acronym VAToS.

[Photoelectric]

I see too many words and I get confused easily. The difference is if it fails or not.

Group buys can fail. You can place an order but it might never actually happen.

Pre-orders cannot fail. You will get your order in the future.

That's not entirely accurate: you can prepay for a product to be made, and the factory can make a mistake and mess up the materials you paid for, or do the wrong color, or result in defects, or tell you that something costs more, or send you stuff for assembly and you'll fail to put it together and ship it for whatever reason, or you'll be hit with high import fees, etc., etc.  There are many ways a buy can fail, and it's a case-by-case situation.

I think what he's getting at is that the risk goes down almost an order of magnitude each time. Maybe 10% of group buys fail, but only 1% of pre-orders fail, and only 0.1% of straight up sales fail. (Those aren't meant to be exact numbers, but hopefully you get the point.)

That requires verifying that someone did in fact place a preorder (which you can't truly verify without requesting invoices posted, checking with manufacturer--which it probably won't confirm, etc.)  Everything on the Marketplace requires a certain degree of trust.  Since we can't prove that something is a preorder or not actually a preorder, we can't be separating stuff easily.  The moderation team just does not have the amount of time or resources or knowledge of each individual situation (nor does it wish to get legally involved with each case) to monitor and maintain that these distinctions are made.  We should not draft rules we can't enforce.

Hence the whole idea of Preorder / Group Buy was a simple suggestion, not a rule.  That's creating confusion, so it doesn't have to be used.  It's really down to the individual making a thread to make sure that the terms are laid out in a comprehensive and convincing manner.  It should be clear from the description of a buy what the plan of the organizer is, and then you, as a potential customer, can decide if that's good enough for you to participate in.  You can't fit everything into a title anyway.

[pomk]

Have you thought about the for profit/non profit distinction as part of the gb/po choise? You could demand that (non-profit) GBs should keep their books open, otherwise the distinction makes no sense imo. For example in Finland it's OK to do this stuff for profit as an individual as long as the yearly total profit is below a certain limit.

[Photoelectric]

That was the original intent.  But what is and is not for profit will be a daunting task to prove for every individual buy, so the intent was to make it a voluntary option for buy starters to share, not a required one.

[Moderation Team]

We have implemented the changes discussed in this thread, taking community feedback into consideration. 

Group Buys section is now called Group Buys and Preorders. 

There is a new information post describing the updated section here:  https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=88717.0

Vendor Terms of Service (VToS) have been updated accordingly (section 5): https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=43873.0

And finally, these two information posts have been updated as well:

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=81635.0
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=81634.0

Please feel free to continue posting feedback regarding the changes here.