The *Ping* Award 2013

[The Demongolator]

And now for the best category...

What was the worst keyboard or keyboard/input device related experience in 2013? The nominees for The *Ping* Award 2013 are:

"Deskthority - a small moan" topic at geekhack • Some kind of group moaning exercise involving strong opinions about some forum having strong opinions. Obviously not deskthority club members.

eBay sellers for being too expensive and for lousy shipping • The price is too damn high! And then they ship it in a plastic bag or in a huge box without padding.

GMK's MOQ • GMK still gets spanked by Signature Plastics in keycap group buys, because of their inflexible, high minimum order quantity.

PayPal for its persistence to lock accounts with no good reason • They sabotage our group buys! They take our money! When will we revolt?

TheProfosist for his failed Phantom groupbuy • Uh-oh, someone went missing while in the middle of a groupbuy.

Fouradi - Ping.

And the Smiley for The *Ping* Award 2013, as voted for by the members of deskthority, goes to...

Spoiler:

GMK still gets spanked by Signature Plastics in keycap group buys, because of their inflexible, high minimum order quantity.


Man who had to buy 300 bananas because of MOQ problems.

[7bit]

Yes!


I might drive up to them in the summer to hand over their trophy!

[Muirium]

Disguise it in a nice looking package with DT Awards written on it, so the surprise (and message) is complete. They need to hear this one.

[mohitgarg]

But we need 400 wingnuts

[Muirium]

This prize is no wing nut. It's even rarer!

That's it at the bottom right.

[lcs]

But we need 400 wingnuts

This prize is no wing nut. It's even rarer!

But are there at least 400 of them?

[7bit]

GMK could easily make 400 key caps.

[Halvar]

Excellent! Now we need someone to write them an eloquent open letter that introduces them to the concept of the keyboard community, to the volume of past SP group buys, and in few words makes the whole stupidity of the 400-for-every-single-keycap MOQ hit them like an epiphany.

[webwit]

I lack information to make a judgement. It could be that they strategically don't want to deal with us, and only with middle men, just because. It could also be that the business model does not allow smaller quantities because of product line setup costs. Cherry machinery was made for a bigger scale of production than SP. In that case the limitation can't go away even if they wanted to. Or, it could be a combination of these two.

[Broadmonkey]

I think it's a combination of the two. The tools are of course made high volumes. But 400 is still a lot and they started out on 300, so they are certainly able to lower it!
In anyway, I don't believe we should send them a letter, better have 7bit visit them and casually mention they won! But that he would still run round 6 with them

[tlt]

It might not be good business for them to make small quantities but they could do it for PR reasons to get up the hype for there caps. Are they making caps for any major players yet? If the Internets want (and get some of) there caps they might get big orders, just look at Cherry and there switches.

[Broadmonkey]

I believe they are still making caps for WEY. I really can't remember it, but I think Ivan mentioned another company, but apart from that, we don't really know much more of their customers.

[Halvar]

I was half-joking about the epiphany letter, but what's the sense of the Ping Award at all if the winner doesn't get at least a registered notification letter down his throat with a short laudation and the smile keycap? A personal visit is better of course.

[webwit]

A personal visit by the Demongolator.

[kint]

easy. http://www.gmk-electronic-design.de/en/referenzen.html:

Knürr electronics
Weytec
Desko
german flight control
and Cherry.

In other words, they produce custom keyboards and broadened their range by buying the tooling for making own caps.
I guess they don't have a clue at all how group buys are running and/or have the common german obstination to stick with their kind of business instead of being flexible.
And: companies like desko won't give a damn whether some computer nerds rave about their cap manufacturer.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Desko's masthead depicts a Fag Packet First Great Western HST — I did point out to them ages ago that First have changed their livery twice since then, but they ignored me. I guess the majority of their visitors won't notice that the photo is woefully out of date. I am not even sure what the relevance of the image is to 1970s technology.