Deskthority Update

muirium

So, I’m fresh off an hour-long Muirathon with Deskthority’s new owner, Oliver. (Jsheradin did the work to set this up and got to say about 8 words the whole call!) The result is DT now has regular moderators again. Spampocalypse is here!

I also asked him the little question: so, how about them servers, eh? You are still keeping DT online, right? What’s the future of DT? Had a very entertaining conversation as a result, including his mention of Nexthority’s existence, and my proudly showing off that I’m also here: just in bloody case! He underestimated our fear that our community was doomed to going dark. He gets that point now. I told him to get more invested in the forum itself. Post and be a regular like us! He says he’ll try. So we shall see.

Oh we also talked about wiki image rights and forum posts rights as well. He’s oldschool DT liberal about it, but sees the need to officially spell them out, as I do too. I brought up cloning the DT Wiki outright and he’s cool with that. He doesn’t seem hostile to Nexthority, either. He’s just preoccupied with his actual business, leaving Deskthority as an afterthought. The extent we users took this as a serious existential threat to our community’s future quite startled him.

So, does Deskthority have a future? Hopefully. It’s looking up, today at least. Oliver says the server bills are negligible for him, and I insisted he reaches out to us if that ever changes. He’s pleased to have some mods who clearly know DT the community, inside and out. And, yes, he knows he should be more active and actually participate, instead of parachuting in with (not so) grand schemes. Count me fair reassured. The proof remains to be seen, but we’ve met well for sure.

Nexthority needs to thrive as well, if you ask me. The more servers, the better for us all. This scene is surely big enough for both forums. What we really need here is standout content that has Nexthority written all over it. Like Deskthority did, when it was in short trousers! Something special. Something obsessive. Can’t think what, but the equivalent of DT’s vintage focus, even in the workshop.

dex

Mu Great to here that he is still somewhat interested in his purchase. Also I'm kinda relieved that server cost shouldn't be an issue for now. Sod off 404 😎

And honestly I would like to see him participating in our discussions/topic etc. He did have a rough start to be honest but I'm sure that there is a place for him in the community.

Very excited for the future of Nexthority as well! Things are really looking good and I'm very curious how this forum will develop over the next few months.

hkg

Mu It is also worth noting that his supposed stance towards Deskthority being open about others using images and media from Deskthority is not purely out of kindness. It is actually because Deskthority does not have any terms and conditions stating that content submitted to Deskthority is owned by them. So until Deskthority actually puts that in a terms and conditions sheet, content submitted by users will not be property of Deskthority. And content that has been submitted before such an update should still be fair game because the users who submitted that content never agreed to those terms.

redmaus

Good to know Oliver has his priorities straight!
I'm glad that he seems to be taking an interest, but I for the most part stopped looking at Deskthority awhile ago. Doing Sysadmin projects for Nexthority is more fun! However I'm happy that the knowledge collected on DT isn't going to be lost.

Nexthority's true flavors will shine soon, as we finish up the final styling and logo selection for the site we can branch out to larger communities. Awesome write-up Muirium! 😀

muirium

Store’s doing great. Real great. (We never even mentioned it. Likely for opposing reasons!)

muirium

Correct. We did talk about this directly. I remember him saying something like "users exclusively owning their own content is a bit old-school" at one point, but I'm an interrupty-bastard and emphasised that's our culture and those are indeed the terms. Webwit said as much in the past, and I've certainly never faced a EULA update or the like saying Good Bye-bye!

For what it's worth, I don't expect Oliver to do much at all out of the kindness of his own heart. He bought Deskthority and if he wrecks it, that's his investment up in smoke. I do agree with people's general sense he didn't much understand the place and what he was getting when Webwit sold up. That's why me and Jsheradin were urging him to get in there and be an active user, instead of some distant corporate overlord for people to project their worst fears upon. Not much sign of that since we talked, right enough, though he has been chatting away with us three mods via private message at least.

I'm sure he wants to find some way to turn a profit out of DT. He was talking about using it as some sort of community-driven maker platform at the start of our conversation. He assumes we users would like to earn money through our efforts. I pointed out that's the exception to the rule—Ellipse comes to mind, but look at the scale of his efforts!—and really what we're about is a community of like-minded vintage keyboard enthusiasts helping each other out for the fun of it. That's not the easiest thing to monetise! Sure enough, we didn't talk about that side of things beyond that point.

Oh, actually, he did ask "whatever happened to Geekhack?" He's talked to the MassDrop guys—they laughed when they heard he'd bought DT!—but he seems to think GH suffered after its purchase. Perhaps a useful cautionary tale?

You do get the sense the other shoe is still to drop. Quite what it is? I've no idea. He doesn't seem to have an evil masterplan in the works, indeed, he's not much involved in his purchase at all. But at least we woke him up enough that day to get some mods set up!

hkg

Mu Makes sense. And it is also worth noting it is in his best interest to do what is best for the community. Pissing everyone off and making them leave not only affects us, but it also completely fucks his investment he made into Deskthority. Pleasing the community and making money in a way that doesn't negatively affect the community experience not only is good for the keyboard community, but it actually helps him profit off Deskthority. I don't want to see Deskthority burn. I sincerely hope it does well. If Oliver can make us happy and profit off of Deskthority at the same time, then good for him (especially if he reinvests some of those profits back into Deskthority to make it a better place). But only time will tell if that happens.

I would also like to reiterate that Nexthority is not here out of spite of Deskthority. We are just another community of dedicated keyboard enthusiasts, just like GeekHack or r/mechanicalkeyboards. I am tired of people acting like each forum/community is some sports team and that you can only be loyal to one, but hostile to others. We should all be sharing the passion that is keyboards together.

headphone_jack

Profit always comes at the expense of the userbase. Always. I don't know why people still believe what this dude says after he's been caught lying on many, many occasions. Whatever he ends up doing will be harmful to the community or the site, guaranteed.

hkg

headphone_jack I definitely agree with you as well to a point, but we have to remember that in order for him to actually make money, he needs to also please the community. If he pisses them off and everyone leaves, then he has nothing. I think he is well aware of that now.

headphone_jack

If he wasn't aware of that during the first "weekly AMA" we had more than 6 months ago, then he definitely isn't any more aware of it now. He is a liar and a cheat, and trusting him on any level is dangerous and ignorant of the behavior he and his company has displayed in the past.

muirium

What does our trust look like, I wonder?

Since that first day, when he appointed the Three Amigos, he’s not done much. We’re still waiting on getting access to DT’s header selection. (Those pics are soooo oooold, especially mine.) He’s not posted once in the forum. DT’s obviously way down at the bottom of his priorities list.

Moderation was the big burning fire needing top attention. We gladly stepped in and put it out. We’re in no position to help him out with anything else. And to be fair he’s not asked, either. I gave him a sore ear with my tales of the community’s worries about the future, under an absentee landlord. (An all too familiar problem here in Scotland, actually.) He said he’d try to be a bit more present in the forum he bought, but obviously no sign yet.

Strange behaviour for someone who willingly bought the place. (Nobody forced the responsibility on him, like poor Matteo was facing.) Yet that’s often how these things are. A distant owner buys more than they thought they were getting into. Not great. Not stable long term. But no immediate crisis.

Someday, the other shoe is going to drop. I get that. Indeed, I expect it.

headphone_jack

@Mu For the love of god, if you even can, work on fixing the visual editor. It's been broken for close to half a decade from what IO understand.

muirium

headphone_jack

That would require someone with technical chops. That’s definitely not me, and probably not Oliver.