On making "great finds" private to registered users only

[photekq]

By saying that some members are worthy of your shared items while others (who simply didn't pay club membership) aren't

Nobody's saying that. It's not that club members are more worthy than regular, contributing members - we're not! It's that :

1) Club members makes up a smaller group of members, so the thread would be more private for particularly special finds.

2) There are no non-posting snipers in the club.

You know, I'm certain that most of the people who regularly post in great finds will continue to do so in the public thread. If a club-only one is made it will only be used for very particular finds.

[Laser]

Why so much debate for a private thread? What club members know is club members business ... It's similar to sharing some stuff between friends, by email.

[Muirium]

Because of this:

I have a sense that someone may ask to start a new Club Members Only equivalent. Ordinarily, opening up a new thread is no big deal and they could go right ahead. But as Webwit said, we'd need to make a new section in the forum for the required visibility settings, so it should likely need a club vote anyway. I reckon that one would be a closer contest.

[Laser]

Alright, I was asking because somehow it seemed to me that club members feel the need to justify in front of all others the creation of such a thread.

[Spikebolt]

By saying that some members are worthy of your shared items while others (who simply didn't pay club membership) aren't

Nobody's saying that. It's not that club members are more worthy than regular, contributing members - we're not! It's that :

1) Club members makes up a smaller group of members, so the thread would be more private for particularly special finds.

2) There are no non-posting snipers in the club.

You know, I'm certain that most of the people who regularly post in great finds will continue to do so in the public thread. If a club-only one is made it will only be used for very particular finds.

Lets define particularly special finds. I find an auction for a Kishsaver, where do I post it? I find an auction for some beamsprings, where do I post it? I find a Model M, where do I post it?

Why do I have to think where I share the item I found on ebay? If I think certain items are interesting to a small amount of people I just PM them directly, otherwise I share with everyone.

You also can't be sure there are non-posting snipers in the club, I'm sure there are some lurkers among us. And that's fine.

[kbdfr]

[…] In the end what people are against is competition […]

That is complete bullshit, and in fact quite insulting

• I am not against competition, I am against unfair competition. When someone gets free delivery of the info for which I have been investing much time and energy, it is unfair competition.
• I recently sent a PM to several forum members (no idea if they all are Club members, by the way), asking them not to post a certain item and adding: "Feel free to bid against me, of course , but please do not feed those who don’t even search themselves."

That’s my whole point.
And: some of them didn’know about the item, so in fact by informing them I have even been creating possible competition.

[Spikebolt]

[…] In the end what people are against is competition […]

That is complete bullshit, and in fact quite insulting

• I am not against competition, I am against unfair competition. When someone gets free delivery of the info for which I have been investing much time and energy, it is unfair competition.
• I recently sent a PM to several forum members (no idea if they all are Club members, by the way), asking them not to post a certain item and adding: "Feel free to bid against me, of course , but please do not feed those who don’t even search themselves."

That’s my whole point.
And: some of them didn’know about the item, so in fact by informing them I have even been creating possible competition.

Then you are against of the existence of the thread, not against its visibility.

[rddm]

Spikebolt is right. The problem for you is how many people have the information not who see it.

Most of the people who post stuff are DT club members, so create a new thread. The older thread maybe will have less information, maybe the new one will have more. Maybe the usuals will not post in the older thread, but we don't change our policy, just add some privilege to club members.


That way, maybe the great finds start to be a normal finds. And the thread on club members will be better.
You can always say "pay to win", but only if the mods allow it. If a recent account wants to be a DT club member, don't let it.

I think this options will resolve all the problems discussed

[kbdfr]

[…] If a recent account wants to be a DT club member, don't let it.

I think this options will resolve all the problems discussed

You’re not serious, are you?

[andrewjoy]

As far as i was aware DT cub is not for advantages but to support the community.

[rddm]

People want a solution to stop lurkers, I give you that. Yes, is not the best one, but will solve the problem. I know all "free services" need donations, but we have 130++ club members, that pay atleast 12€ (1560€ total). I think it's enought to pay server and domain bills and help during the awards.
Maybe some non club members, but active and important people on DT, will become club members. who knows.

@andrewjoy, you are right. But this discussion is about people that take advantages of our community and stopping that.

One of the solutions proposed was put the visibility of the thread only for club members, but it's unfair to people that not donate money.
Other was to keep it only for registered people only, but everyone can register and see it. (No impact)

So or we keep it as it is, or we take my solution (the best one) ahhahaha.

[seebart]

It keeps amazing me how much of a topic this continues to be. No one can really "hide" anything online. Nothing on ebay is "hidden", sometimes auctions are placed wrongly or written up shitty but that's rare. The great finds thread should not be used/abused to lure users into becoming DT club members that otherwise would not, and certainly not invoke any kind of payment for content ideas. Even if we delete the entire thread, start a new one with limited access you still cannot deny a registerd user to post sales links. I guess if you're really crazy you could try to forbid posting any sales links anywhere on DT, that's sounds like something GH would do, but of course they don't and it's pointless and unpractical.

[photekq]

It keeps amazing me how much of a topic this continues to be. No one can really "hide" anything online. Nothing on ebay is "hidden", sometimes auctions are placed wrongly or written up shitty but that's rare. The great finds thread should not be used/abused to lure users into becoming DT club members that otherwise would not, and certainly not invoke any kind of payment for content ideas. Even if we delete the entire thread, start a new one with limited access you still cannot deny a registerd user to post sales links. I guess if you're really crazy you could try to forbid posting any sales links anywhere on DT, that's sounds like something GH would do, but of course they don't and it's pointless und unpractical.

Of course not. This would be terrible. This would be the death of DT!

As I said before :

Having a club-only great finds thread would not change things in any way other than the presence of the thread. If someone were to post the same link in the pubic great finds thread then so be it! Nothing can or would be done in that circumstance.

[Redmaus]

I think making it required to be a registered user should be implemented, so we aren't abused by people who don't contribute and maybe even coax a few people to join the community.

I don't think "pay to play" is a good idea either.

Maybe each of our profiles could have a "looking out for" or "Wanting" section so if someone finds something, they already know who wants it? There could be a search function so you could search through everyones want sections of their profiles and directly PM whoever wants it to sell faster.

I'm on the lookout for zenith boards right now, after seeing ohaimark's modded zenith board.

[seebart]

It would not be "the death of DT" but it would be highly idiotic. matt3o would never attempt anything like that anyway. I don't have a problem with making it required to be a registered user, external lurkers would be exempt that way. You still might have sales links popping up and anyone seeing them.

[rddm]

the register users only idea don't have great impact. We will have 100 more members, and maybe 5 participate. Well is better than nothing.

[flabbergast]

I personally do not like adding any "perks" to being club members, including a walled-off thread (about anything). I consider 'being a club member' more-less equal to 'I like DT so much that I want to donate AND I have enough money to do it', i.e. it's all about donations. Adding any advantage would inevitably lead to 'I will pay this fee to get this feature I want' attitude, which I personally would not want to see in this community.

However I also understand that technically, as of now, the only way to share interesting finds on DT with a closer circle of people than the whole internet is either PM (not ideal, since it does not scale beyond a few people) - or a walled-off thread for a select group of people. I have nothing against the latter thing, but I definitely do not like the 'select group' to be club members, primarily because money is involved.

EDIT: Although you can change the business model to provide the 'service' of listing interesting ebay finds and charge for it. Bleh.
EDIT2: I should clear up: 'Bleh' is for DT doing this; I've nothing against people starting a business like this.

[XMIT]

As a seller in decent volume I prefer to deal with people I know, whether or not they are club members. I reserve the right to give club members and/or registered members a discount but I don't think I've done it yet.

As a buyer I know that public sales are a free for all no matter what I do. For some items I really care about I'll ask folks (here and on GH) not to bid on them. This is how I got my TI 914 board - thank you to anyone who did not bid against me for this one.

This is why I try to circumvent the system whenever I can and go to the source: museums, recyclers, scrap yards, waste bins, etc. There is some good keyboard hunting to be done that can't be done from the comfort of a desk chair.

Go ahead, make the "interesting finds" thread restricted in some way. People will still talk on IRC, or on GH, or Reddit, or elsewhere. I don't see how it will make a difference.

Recall that elecplus and I share a goal of keeping access to vintage keyboards easy and affordable as this is better than sending them to the landfills.

[bhtooefr]

There's also the whole image problem that hiding things behind a paywall presents, which could hurt the club overall.

Treating eBay auction searching as a proprietary trade secret - even if it takes time - is asinine IMO.

If you want to keep people from benefiting from your auction searching for free, don't put the thread behind a paywall, start a buying service where you can have people pay you to find keyboards, and charge them for that service. If you want the proceeds to benefit Deskthority, then donate them afterwards.

[rddm]

If we don't want to have difference between people who donate money and people that don't, we never should have created the club member in the first place. Technically they have no advantages, but we give them statute. Where I come from, if you have statute, you have advantages.

[matt3o]

the club is to make the forum independent. take GH, it is owned by a single person. r/MK is owned by reddit. DT is owned by all people who care about it. if webwit wants to quit DT stays strong.

everything else said about the club is bullshit.

[seebart]

the club is to make the forum independent. take GH, it is owned by a single person. r/MK is owned by reddit. DT is owned by all people who care about it. if webwit wants to quit DT stays strong.

everything else said about the club is bullshit.

Right, and any change will have to precede a vote by club members on that anyway.

[rddm]

matt3o I like the idea of democracy in the forum. But people, in this case, pay to be deputy.

[seebart]

But people, in this case, pay to be deputy.

WOT

[guk]

mmh, security by obscurity is always a bad move. Personally I think this should stay open, if club members want to open a private thread they are welcome to do so.

I don't think the main thread should be visible to registered users only, but if there's a strong feeling about this I'll open a poll and stand by vox populi.

Vote on that or /thread ?

[rddm]

if club members have the advantage of vote in the future of the forum, they are doing the same that our deputies do for our countries.
The difference is that deputies are elected, and club members had donate money.

Don't get me wrong, I like the forum too much and I'm a club member, but also I'm septic about club members policy.
Why I have opportunity to vote, and the register members don't?

[guk]

Well, we did elect matt3o to make such decisions, so we certainly don't need to question it now. Fine with me!

[ohaimark]

An alternative that was mentioned which I'd like to pursue more is a "wanted keyboards" addition to one's profile. If we make the items within that list searchable somehow, I'd check to see if anyone here wanted "Space Invaders" or "Green Alps" before I posted it publicly. That would make PMing people to prevent non-reg'd members and internet lurkers from sniping much more effective via targeting.

At first, maybe. In the end what people are against is competition, as soon as the Club Members thread starts bringing competition everything will go back to PMs again... It's not a real solution and will create noisier problems.

At least we'll have "taxed" them for the competition, then.

As to the whole elitism thing... I feel pride in my contributions, both in finance and content, though I wouldn't go around calling people peasants. Club members pay money to support the club and server. We also tend to contribute a lot.

True, some non-club members contribute more than members in terms of content. That's the exception, I think, and not the rule.

[rddm]

matt3o's decision is the most sensate one, and the one I liked most. But 5 pages of polemic deserves a poll

[seebart]

if club members have the advantage of vote in the future of the forum, they are doing the same that our deputies do for our countries.
The difference is that deputies are elected, and club members had donate money.

Don't get me wrong, I like the forum too much and I'm a club member, but also I'm septic about club members policy.
Why I have opportunity to vote, and the register members don't?

matt3o was elected! Please do not compare DT to any country or state.