Deskthority blog/articles - thoughts, opinions, contributions?

[Muirium]

I don't know why more people aren't talking about how suspicious keyboardjoy is either, but that is a topic for another thread.

You mean the first thread where people were doing exactly that for days?

[ddrfraser1]

I don't know why more people aren't talking about how suspicious keyboardjoy is

Explain

[keyboardjoy]

Giving people another chance to talk down to users is always bad. Uplifting certain """distinguished""" members of the community to a higher status is just a recipe for disaster, and I am fully against a blog of some kind. Maybe a collaboration to write some kind of "Hitchhiker's Guide to Keyboards" would be more beneficial to new users, rather than a confusing mess of blog posts based on the opinions of a single user. Not to mention, adding new features to a forum that (in my opinion) is already kind of messy is the opposite of a way to fix the problem. I don't know why more people aren't talking about how suspicious keyboardjoy is either, but that is a topic for another thread.

Thanks for the feedback. As an avid fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I like the name.

As for finding me 'suspicious' - you're welcome to make your point but perhaps consider cutting me some slack.

[ddrfraser1]

srsly

[TheInverseKey]

Giving people another chance to talk down to users is always bad. Uplifting certain """distinguished""" members of the community to a higher status is just a recipe for disaster, and I am fully against a blog of some kind. Maybe a collaboration to write some kind of "Hitchhiker's Guide to Keyboards" would be more beneficial to new users, rather than a confusing mess of blog posts based on the opinions of a single user. Not to mention, adding new features to a forum that (in my opinion) is already kind of messy is the opposite of a way to fix the problem. I don't know why more people aren't talking about how suspicious keyboardjoy is either, but that is a topic for another thread.

But my opinion is fact and if you don't like the facts then go back to school....

A blog should be a summary of the community,a simple starters guide is good but there is a lot to cover and would require to be written more on facts than opinions. Deciding who is writing these posts would be crucial and should go through some review process if they are going to be somewhat official.

[lhutton]

I think understanding the audience is crucial. There are the various MK sub-reddits doing the modern social media thing already and a boatload of keyboard YouTubers. I've done the odd video on a keyboard here and there but I don't really count myself as a keyboard content producer. Deskthority seems to have attracted an audience that skews towards more vintage things and I would suspect is somewhat older than the typical MK enthusiast. Ergo they are probably not as confounded by these odd old web forums as much as the yougens. I think web forums in general are not something people under 25 or so are really interested in, again, in general. MK users probably skew a little differently in that regard but even then I suspect most of them are on Reddit or Discord.

What does a blog bring to the table? What is the goal of a blog? Does it service the current community or is the aim to grow and expand into different areas, interests or age demographics?

[Weezer]

I'm against a blog because the Wiki already fills this alleged void of easily digestible information and is already the best portal for initial engagement with the site. If the site needs more exposure I'd recommend putting greater energy into promoting the Wiki, which is kind of off in its own tangentially attached orbit at the moment. I'm a little baffled that this isn't the defacto position as the new owner found this site through the Wiki. Furthermore the Wiki is capable of fluidly updating with new and better information, whereas a blog is not. What does a blog add to the site that the workshop forums, the wiki and new threads do not already offer?

In my humble opinion, a blog is the antithesis of engaging because it is a person, or a handful of people putting their opinions on a loudspeaker without a back and forth between members as a whole.

[Muirium]

Deskthority seems to have attracted an audience that skews towards more vintage things and I would suspect is somewhat older than the typical MK enthusiast. Ergo they are probably not as confounded by these odd old web forums as much as the yougens. I think web forums in general are not something people under 25 or so are really interested in, again, in general.

And there's the problem. Without enough new folk coming in, we're on the slow path to oblivion.

Here's a question: do forums put off younger people because young folk are young or because forums are forums? Do people just get more into forums as they age, or is it a cohort effect where we were around back at the right time, before social media, when forums were all there were?

I strongly suspect it's the latter. And the problem with any cohort is the long run.

What does a blog bring to the table? What is the goal of a blog? Does it service the current community or is the aim to grow and expand into different areas, interests or age demographics?

The idea as I see it is the latter: outreach.

[ifohancroft]

I personally don't care about a blog, however, like others have already said - it may be beneficial to noob users who aren't familiar with forums or as a way to summarize information from threads on here.

In other words, the blog posts should be a mirror of threads here (maybe a stripped down version).
On the other hand - if someone just creates a post on the blog (in-case some users use only the blog and not the forum) there should be a section on here that creates threads from blog posts.

TL;DR: I don't care for a blog. As long as it doesn't take users away from the forum and as long as it doesn't fragment the information in the forum because some people only use the blog. We can have a blog. I don't care.

P.S.

Here's a question: do forums put off younger people because young folk are young or because forums are forums? Do people just get more into forums as they age, or is it a cohort effect where we were around back at the right time, before social media, when forums were all there were?

I strongly suspect it's the latter. And the problem with any cohort is the long run.

I also think it's the latter. I've been into forums since I was a kid and I'm 30 now. Admittedly, I never really liked the settings section of forums as I feel like it's too fragmented and I wouldn't use a forum for every single thing, but when used right (like in the DT case) I fucking love forums.

[ddrfraser1]

DT has spoken. No blog.

[Muirium]

DT has spoken. No blog.

You? Pfft!

[matt3o]

Not sure why we should be against something that doesn't impact the forum in any way. If you don't like the blog just don't follow it, keep posting conspiracy theories on the forum.

What keyboardjoy should realize about the blog though is that he is on his own, you can't expect the community to help. It may happen sporadically, but if you want to keep it up you need to put great effort in it, in the long run some may surely join, but it's a very demanding endeavor and there are other priorities in my opinion. Having a blog with last update 5 months ago is more depressing than having no blog at all.

[ifohancroft]

Not sure why we should be against something that doesn't impact the forum in any way. If you don't like the blog just don't follow it, keep posting conspiracy theories on the forum.

What keyboardjoy should realize about the blog though is that he is on his own, you can't expect the community to help. It may happen sporadically, but if you want to keep it up you need to put great effort in it, in the long run some may surely join, but it's a very demanding endeavor and there are other priorities in my opinion. Having a blog with last update 5 months ago is more depressing than having no blog at all.

I agree with matt3o and with also what Muirium said earlier.

Despite (probably the majority of us) not caring about a blog, there doesn't mean there shouldn't be one. It may actually be very beneficial bringing new people in, as at the end, all of us will inevitably die eventually. We may be dead but DT needs to keep going

[Go-Kart]

Not sure why we should be against something that doesn't impact the forum in any way. If you don't like the blog just don't follow it, keep posting conspiracy theories on the forum.

What keyboardjoy should realize about the blog though is that he is on his own, you can't expect the community to help. It may happen sporadically, but if you want to keep it up you need to put great effort in it, in the long run some may surely join, but it's a very demanding endeavor and there are other priorities in my opinion. Having a blog with last update 5 months ago is more depressing than having no blog at all.

Indeed. It may be in DT user's own interest to try and augment the user base but it's a high effort, short term solution to protect against a problem in the seemingly distant future; hard to get people to engage with such a task. And as matt3o say, it would be fuelled by the community. New forum owner coming in out of nowhere, hoping (needing) the community to get behind one of his new ideas? That's a hard sell.

I am all for it. Outreach is import. Rather than describing it as a blog, an expansion of the wiki sounds more appropriate for what I think others here have discussed. Redoing the bedrock material, making sure there is a complete catalogue of what most would consider "essential reading", etc.. Not opinion pieces, not "what's hot", just information, data, written in more of a long format fashion.

[Weezer]

Something not creating adverse impact isn't inherently an argument to go forward with that thing. For example, expanding the forums to include Pez collector threads, would not impact the main threads in any way, but I think we could agree that doing that would be a bad idea for Deskthority for numerous reasons.

The question is: What will the diversion of limited time and effort bring to the table as a benefit for the forum, and will those things brought to the table pay off with a return that is greater, less than, or equal to, the time and effort that was put in?

My opinion is that the answer is not much will be brought to the table and no it won't be worth the energy investment, for the following reasons:

-It will consist of redundant information with the Wiki and Forums

-The Wiki is a better facet for educational information by nature

-A blog does not repackage the redundant information in a radically different way than would be experienced on the forums or wiki

-A blog does not encourage engagement from the community

-As was brought up, a blog is a tremendous time sink that requires constant input

-The members here are seemingly in a majority that we would not be interested in the blog

-Not all web traffic is good web traffic. If we turned the forums into something more like 4chan's /b/ we'd get tons more web traffic, but would it be the web traffic that we would want? If we are uninterested in a blog, do we want to attract the kind of people who would be interested in a blog?

As an aside: the idea that younger people aren't interested in forums is patently untrue. Reddit is a hub of forums. 4chan is a forum. Linus Tech Tips, is another large forum. All of these have a base of mainly younger people. Twitter and Facebook could be argued are a type of forum, as each post/tweet is the thread start, and then comments and retweets build the thread to create a conversation.

And I'm devolving into an anecdote now, but as a younger person my early 20's, not a single one of my friends follows a single blog. To me, blogs are something out of the 90's and 00's that represent an era of the internet where people were taking their ideas of what a newspaper publication was, and applying that to their interests online. The "blogs" that younger people are interested in today come in the forum of Instagram or TikTok or Tumblr, and they serve as a hub for memes and pictures of art, not as a mode for disseminating information. The younger people I know who are interested in engaging in their hobbies take their interests to a forum, or to a chat server where you can have the discussion back and forth between people with the same interests. It's the discussion back and forth that matters.

[ifohancroft]

If we are uninterested in a blog, do we want to attract the kind of people who would be interested in a blog?

That's actually a damn good point!

[headphone_jack]

-Not all web traffic is good web traffic.

It is if your long-term plan is to monetize said webpage.

[Muirium]

If we are uninterested in a blog, do we want to attract the kind of people who would be interested in a blog?

That's actually a damn good point!

To be fair, I was absolutely one of those people. Before I arrived at DT, my nascent keyboard knowledge was all from blogs and podcasts. They're still what I'm mostly into, outside this one particular forum.

Forums are… a lot to handle! There's only room for one, for me.

[ifohancroft]

If we are uninterested in a blog, do we want to attract the kind of people who would be interested in a blog?

That's actually a damn good point!

To be fair, I was absolutely one of those people. Before I arrived at DT, my nascent keyboard knowledge was all from blogs and podcasts. They're still what I'm mostly into, outside this one particular forum.

Forums are… a lot to handle! There's only room for one, for me.

Oh! Well, there are some very good keyboard blogs. The Brian Lee's comes to mind and of course, not to forget matt3o's.
I am like (active) in only about 3 forums myself.

[Weezer]

To be clear my intention isn't to insult anyone's preferences. I hope I didn't come off that way Muirium. My overarching point was just that I think there are better ways to promote deskthority. I think a greater emphasis on the wiki coupled with more officially hosted meetups, more competitions and awards like there were several years back, and maybe even an official deskthority youtube channel would be more effective in furthering the goal of strengthening the community and broadening outreach.

[Muirium]

None taken. Just saying I wasn’t looking for a forum when I came here. Or a wiki besides Wikipedia, for that matter.

As you mention the idea of DT YouTube, I believe my very first encounter with this place was in fact this video of (Deskthority cofounder) Mr. Interface’s, way back when, introducing Soarer’s converter and how to get it on a Teensy:

I liked his videos. Came to Deskthority for Soarer’s download, and kinda stuck around a while.

[Go-Kart]

An observation I have made recently - from reading many new/newer members' posts I've seen (myself included), there does seem to be an effective, albeit unofficial, DT YT channel guiding people here: Chyros.

[Rayndalf]

I'm against a blog because the Wiki already fills this alleged void of easily digestible information and is already the best portal for initial engagement with the site. If the site needs more exposure I'd recommend putting greater energy into promoting the Wiki, which is kind of off in its own tangentially attached orbit at the moment. I'm a little baffled that this isn't the defacto position as the new owner found this site through the Wiki. Furthermore the Wiki is capable of fluidly updating with new and better information, whereas a blog is not. What does a blog add to the site that the workshop forums, the wiki and new threads do not already offer?

In my humble opinion, a blog is the antithesis of engaging because it is a person, or a handful of people putting their opinions on a loudspeaker without a back and forth between members as a whole.

I agree. Sometimes I'll read about a keyboard in someone's post and then google it only to click on a link to the Deskthority wiki anyway. A linking system between keyboard names in posts and their respective wiki articles could make it easier to navigate. I browse a music production forum called Gearslutz that does something similar where the names of many products are hyperlinks to pages that show some basic information, all topics that mentioned that item, and a link to listing for that item Reverb or Ebay.

Hyperlinks of some kind when done well can be useful, but I understand some might find them distracting.

[raoulduke-esq]

I used the wiki for years before joining the forum. It’s a treasure and deserves love.

I noticed a lot of sources are now defunct eBay listings... we need a better way.

[Muirium]

Yup. eBay is not an archive medium! Better to archive those pages elsewhere. If you know a good place do tell us all about it!

[webwit]

I browse a music production forum called Gearslutz that does something similar where the names of many products are hyperlinks to pages that show some basic information, all topics that mentioned that item, and a link to listing for that item Reverb or Ebay.

What about renaming this forum to deskslutz?

[Muirium]

I actually kinda like it…

[lhutton]

Here's a question: do forums put off younger people because young folk are young or because forums are forums? Do people just get more into forums as they age, or is it a cohort effect where we were around back at the right time, before social media, when forums were all there were?

I strongly suspect it's the latter. And the problem with any cohort is the long run.

Yeah that's what I was getting at, if we're doing a blog to outreach to younger people it'd probably be better to start a YouTube channel, sub-Reddit and a Discord (bleh) instead. Even a blog is sort of Boomer-esque these days. My first thought when I saw the suggestion was "what is this, a monetization scheme from 2004?"

I don't really like Discord or Reddit or any proprietary solution tied to and hosted by one entity. Personally I prefer Matrix or old school IRC for chat. I like web forums and email lists on things like Mailman for more slow asynchronous communication. I'm on the decentralize the internet again train even if it is tilting at windmills.

Cohort effects aside there will always probably be younger folks still interested in these type of sources of information. The membership may contract for a while but ultimately this is a niche way of communicating these days about a niche subject and some interest will remain. I just don't want to have to use every social media thing on the planet to keep up with this place.

EDIT: Today I learned Deskthority already has a Discord.

[lhutton]

Not sure why we should be against something that doesn't impact the forum in any way. If you don't like the blog just don't follow it, keep posting conspiracy theories on the forum.

Sorry, if that was directed at my comment. I wasn't trying to be overly negative just trying to figure out where a blog fit into the plan.

I think there is legitimate concern to be had that if energy is being put into a blog it's being taken from other places. Hopefully the forum and wiki will keep getting upkeep and maintenance too and the blog doesn't come at the expense of those things. The wiki is the golden goose of this place.

[Rayndalf]

I browse a music production forum called Gearslutz that does something similar where the names of many products are hyperlinks to pages that show some basic information, all topics that mentioned that item, and a link to listing for that item Reverb or Ebay.

What about renaming this forum to deskslutz?

Nah, I think it's safe to say that actually typing that name into a search engine might be the worst part of the site. It would have made a decent April Fools joke though.