F104+SSK+122+62+77+50+Ergo orders now open! New Kishsaver+Industrial Model F Keyboards

[webwit]

It's a 7bit deadline.

[raoulduke-esq]

I tried considering "have your orders in by 1/2/3/4/5/6/30/18/19/20/21" and "we are still not in the final round, so even with a deadline there would be still some time to order keyboards and accessories afterwards" as equivalent and informative for the consumer while not creating a false sense of urgency but the cognitive dissonance required to maintain this for more than 3s was overwhelming.

I've also witnessed enough flame wars here to know that Joe isn't going to change what he's doing based on what we think and we're not going to change what we think because of how Joe justifies what he's doing, so...

[ckafi]

Could the deadline whinging please be moved to a different thread? This is absolutely pointless.

[Bjerrk]

This is absolutely pointless.

The point seems crystal clear to me.

[an_achronism]

Could the deadline whinging please be moved to a different thread? This is absolutely pointless.

Seemed pretty over to me so I dunno what would need "moved":

Joe isn't going to change what he's doing based on what we think and we're not going to change what we think because of how Joe justifies what he's doing, so...

EDIT: Hahaha, also yes

The point seems crystal clear to me.

[Ellipse]

For the love of God, could you all keep the very large text/screenshots to a minimum please. My phone does not like to format it properly anymore. Also, I am confused now as who's the bully and who's the bullied ... something that does NOT need clarification.

I am an EU and UK citizen and I have learned, that a sofa, rug or mattress sale is not to be taken too seriously in either of the 2 territories - legal or not. And sometimes you just buy a sofa from one of the Forever-Sale places because they are the ones who happen to have the right one at the right price ... in this case, thankfully no one is lecturing me afterwards on what everybody knows anyway ... please forgive me Mr Littlewood

Looking forward to the very same shouting match in about 10 forum pages to the right.

At this point I agree that a line has been crossed into online bullying territory, which I have zero tolerance for. an_achronism has been refunded and is being requested not to participate in the project. an_achronism's point has been made extremely clear and an_achronism is now being repetitive with the same general point written in different ways, further underscoring the bullying tactics.

I will note that days before an_anachronism's purchase I fully disclosed over email that we are in the early bird round and that orders would be accepted after the deadline. an_anachronism also admitted awareness of the payment over time option in some old posts and could have asked about it. an_anachronism even saw the changing deadline and made additional purchases after seeing that the deadline had changed. "Since we are in the early bird round you can definitely order the keyboard now and accessories later this year"

[soyuz]

Complaints from a customer are 'bullying' now? Nice.

Maybe if you weren't putting misleading stuff on your homepage you wouldn't have upset customers.

[an_achronism]

At this point I agree that a line has been crossed into online bullying territory, which I have zero tolerance for. an_achronism has been refunded and is being requested not to directly participate in the project. an_achronism's point has been made extremely clear and an_achronism is now being repetitive with the same general point written in different ways.

Very interesting way of handling criticism. Hmm.

I don't feel I've said anything that was not valid criticism echoed by others (and indeed stated by others long before I even appeared on the scene) so it's very bizarre to me that it is being painted as "bullying". Quite embarrassing, to be honest.

The damage is already done at this point, so refunding me doesn't help me and I'm quite sure it doesn't help you either.

If I'm being repetitive, it's because you're talking yourself in circles and seem not to be grasping the issue.

My points were:

1. that your continuously rolling fake deadline was dishonest and immoral, and that you should really have acknowledged in our original communications that it was not actually a deadline (which you must've known considering we were in the final days of April at the time)

2. that it seemed bizarre that you didn't mention the down payment and instalment option at any point in the back and forth, despite me very clearly telegraphing that I couldn't afford to buy absolutely everything at once. In fact, that was the reason I was messaging at all: to try to clarify which stuff could potentially be ordered later, after the April deadline had passed. You just kept avoiding the issue and trying to push me to order everything all at once.

If you had told me these two critical pieces of information, I still would have placed an order, but I would have taken the down payment option instead to minimise the instantaneous financial impact. You did not, and since you had given me the impression I'd miss out otherwise, I went ahead and placed the order, paying in full on a credit card that I would have to then pay off later.

I am neither the first, nor I imagine the last, person to have a problem with this. Have you cancelled all the other orders of people who have pointed out that your "deadline" practice is morally bankrupt? It doesn't look like it.

[soyuz]

I tried considering "have your orders in by 1/2/3/4/5/6/30/18/19/20/21" and "we are still not in the final round, so even with a deadline there would be still some time to order keyboards and accessories afterwards" as equivalent and informative for the consumer while not creating a false sense of urgency but the cognitive dissonance required to maintain this for more than 3s was overwhelming.

I've also witnessed enough flame wars here to know that Joe isn't going to change what he's doing based on what we think and we're not going to change what we think because of how Joe justifies what he's doing, so...

this post hits the nail on the head though.

[an_achronism]

I see he's now edited his post. Oh boy.

At this point I agree that a line has been crossed into online bullying territory, which I have zero tolerance for. an_achronism has been refunded and is being requested not to participate in the project. an_achronism's point has been made extremely clear and an_achronism is now being repetitive with the same general point written in different ways, further underscoring the bullying tactics.

I don't think you know what "bullying" is, friend. How does "being repetitive" (as you allege) "further underscore bullying tactics"? If repetition is bullying, you've been bullying us all for a while.

I will note that days before an_anachronism's purchase I fully disclosed over email that we are in the early bird round and that orders would be accepted after the deadline.

What you said was that orders would be accepted after the early bird round but the prices would be higher. I was already stretching affordability so that did not seem like a good option.

an_anachronism also admitted awareness of the payment over time option in some old posts and could have asked about it.

In *very* old posts, yes. Years old. It appeared from the posts I'd seen about it that this had been an early adopter thing, and I already felt like I was bothering you so I didn't want to be a further nuisance by asking to spread the payment when there was very little to no indication that the option was still available. I could have asked, certainly, but I felt that I had already made it clear from several messages that I was frankly spending more than I could afford to at the time, so if the option were available, you would surely have mentioned it. You freely brought it up almost immediately after I ordered, in a post on DT where somebody else was talking about ordering. Why not mention it to me when you obviously knew I was trying to figure out a way to afford an order?

You say you made clear that I could order stuff later. You repeatedly leaned into the urgency of ordering what I needed ASAP, though, on top of saying that ordering anything later would be more expensive (not just because of shipping). For instance:

I would recommend getting what you want and buying extras for futureproofing instead of worrying about sourcing keys in the future.

Absolutely. But this is already a huge amount of money, and I don't earn much, so I don't have the luxury of splashing out... pragmatism is an unfortunate necessity. If I could buy all this from you a few months from now I would, but I just happened to realise that I wanted one of these boards right at the end of the order window, if I'm not mistaken.

Surely it's very clear that a sensible response to the above would have been "you can order everything you want now but send a down payment, then clear the balance later"? That way, you get your money, I get the order, and I can afford the payments rather than screwing myself over in the short term. But you didn't say that.

an_anachronism even saw the changing deadline and made additional purchases after seeing that the deadline had changed, without complaint.

Hahah, I certainly wouldn't say "without complaint". I emailed you the day I noticed that the website had changed:

I notice the site has now updated to say that orders are still accepted up to 31st May, when it previously said end of April. What happened there? I thought I was right down to the wire; if I'd known otherwise, I'd have waited until my next wage!

This is very clear cut from my point of view. I would have nothing to complain about if you had not misrepresented the timescales of the project, and if you had taken my very obvious cues that I would be a prime target for the down payment and instalment plan option. Instead, here we are with you accusing me of "bullying" and refusing to fulfil my order, long after having the money back would help me. The damage is already done: because of a sudden change to my finances in May, I was paid less than usual and had to open a balance transfer credit card to move the balance of the order into a longer term repayment, which is a knock on my credit file I'd rather have avoided. You refunding me now does not fix that, it's already done. It just makes you look petty and unreceptive to reasonable criticism, while making the financial impact of the order even less worthwhile from my perspective, because I'm not even getting anything in return for it. So congrats, you've screwed us both over now.

[Bjerrk]

At this point I agree that a line has been crossed into online bullying territory, which I have zero tolerance for. an_achronism has been refunded and is being requested not to participate in the project.

This is not even remotely acceptable. You're using the plight of victims of actual bullying to shield yourself from criticism?

I really hope that it is absolutely clear to you that this is not morally defensible.

[thefarside]

I agree that any issues should be taken to a seperate thread or private conversation. As a happy F77 owner I can say it’s worth the price and patience. For a business owner it’s a common practice to periodically evaluate the budget and environment to determine the remaining period of performance, and would suggest that people give ellipse some slack. I can only imagine the stress and challenges of managing this effort, but am grateful he’s made this possible.

I ordered an F77 with printed keys and after a couple of weeks, asked if I could switch to unprinted and Joe was very accommodating. It’s a fantastic keyboard and the best in my collection. The alpha keys are from my Model F AT and the numbers with front printed F legends are from Unicomp. There’s a big difference between the original IBM and Unicomp keys and I’ll be interested to see how the XT-style keys compare when they’re ready.

IMG_2345-3.jpeg (118.88 KiB) Viewed 6325 times

I think the finish is outstanding and included a close-up. The texture and color are very high quality:

IMG_2348-3.jpeg (191.23 KiB) Viewed 6325 times

I don’t plan on flashing the firmware but would be happy to be a tester if assistance is needed. I use a KVM and the keyboard seems to happily switch between Windows 10 and Mac.

[Ellipse]

Thanks thefarside for your comments and photos.

Does anyone have recommendations for easy to use GUI-based utilities for Atmel chips with Linux and Mac? I'd like to include some recommendations in the project manual, as someone pointed out to me recently that the Atmel tool only works on Windows. I saw that the pandrew tool is offered on Mac and Linux as well.

[an_achronism]

Does anyone have recommendations for easy to use GUI-based utilities for Atmel chips with Linux and Mac? I'd like to include some recommendations in the project manual, as someone pointed out to me recently that the Atmel tool only works on Windows. I saw that the pandrew tool is offered on Mac and Linux as well.

Personally I would highly recommend QMK Toolbox which runs on Windows and MacOS

Atmel FLIP was a bit janky imo whereas QMK Toolbox (which runs avrdude in the background, basically just acting as a GUI) worked first time without a hitch and I've used it multiple times since. The "auto flash" function is extremely handy and avoids faffing about trying to time things perfectly.

If you're happy using command line, just use avrdude itself, which is arguably even simpler.

(Not to say Chyros is wrong, but it's as simple as choosing the appropriate chip in the top right, the hex file you want on the left, tick auto-flash, short reset to ground on the chip, and everything else is automatic.)

[OxC0FFEE]

Does anyone have recommendations for easy to use GUI-based utilities for Atmel chips with Linux and Mac? I’d like to include some recommendations in the project manual, as someone pointed out to me recently that the Atmel tool only works on Windows. I saw that the pandrew tool is offered on Mac and Linux as well.

Personally I would highly recommend QMK Toolbox which runs on Windows and MacOS

…

If you’re happy using command line, just use avrdude itself, which is arguably even simpler.

(Not to say Chyros is wrong, but it’s as simple as choosing the appropriate chip in the top right, the hex file you want on the left, tick auto-flash, short reset to ground on the chip, and everything else is automatic.)

Completely concur with all of this. I’ve used it on Macs ranging from High Sierra (10.13) up to Catalina (10.15)

[troglotype]

If you're happy using command line, just use avrdude itself, which is arguably even simpler.

For Linux, the use of avrdude on the command line is definitely easier to document than the additional install of some GUI such as the mono-based avrdudess.

[pveentjer]

I have bought 2 F77 keyboards and a lot of repair parts to make sure I will never need to buy a keyboard again. The money doesn't matter to me since it will be spread over time and I spend 10+ hour a day behind my machine. So $1000 over 10/20/30 years is nothing compared to the 5K euro's every 3 years I spend on a new setup.

I ordered everything to make sure that I would not miss the deadline. But seeing the deadline move again and again, also gave me a bad taste and I would suggest you improve your message on the website.

Also I do not agree with that an_achronism has entered bullying territory. Repeating an argument and being direct is not the same as bullying. It looks like a very cheap way to get rid of justified criticism.

I think it would be best to move all these messages to a separate topic so we can focus on technical discussions.

[sedevidi]

I think it would be best to move all these messages to a separate topic so we can focus on technical discussions.

Well... A little reminder of the problem from time to time right within the tech talks may be a good thing though...
I also did order with a sense of urgency, even after following this very thread for a few weeks, and did not see a warning regarding this issue. I may have thought a bit more before ordering, but that wouldn't have compromised the order itself.
In fact I already love my future keyboard, and I'm ready to wait as long as needed (but no more ; it's nearly 2 years now).
I now take with a spoon of salt any shipping estimate.

[an_achronism]

I ordered everything to make sure that I would not miss the deadline. But seeing the deadline move again and again, also gave me a bad taste and I would suggest you improve your message on the website.

Also I do not agree with that an_achronism has entered bullying territory. Repeating an argument and being direct is not the same as bullying. It looks like a very cheap way to get rid of justified criticism.

Thank you.

I think it would be best to move all these messages to a separate topic so we can focus on technical discussions.

Well... A little reminder of the problem from time to time right within the tech talks may be a good thing though...
I also did order with a sense of urgency, even after following this very thread for a few weeks, and did not see a warning regarding this issue. I may have thought a bit more before ordering, but that wouldn't have compromised the order itself.
In fact I already love my future keyboard, and I'm ready to wait as long as needed (but no more ; it's nearly 2 years now).
I now take with a spoon of salt any shipping estimate.

Agreed. The "deadline" is not why I ordered and the lack of one would not have meant that I missed out; I would have just taken my time slightly more about ordering and made sure I was making the best decisions I could in terms of affordability and longer term planning etc. Instead, I just ended up with a bad taste in my mouth, and I missed out because I had the audacity to express that. The fact I'm being called an "online bully" and being excluded from the project is really quite petty, in my opinion, and only makes Ellipse look even worse.

The more this issue is discussed in the main thread, the more likely it is that others will not be suckered by the fake deadlines. I don't want to stop people ordering, but I want them to make sure they don't rush into a bad decision because they are under the false impression they have to get the order in right under the wire, as I did. If it's separated out, it's probably less likely to be noticed.

Just to be clear about how this went down: what happened was that I got emails saying my order had been refunded, without so much as a courtesy message for context, and then about half an hour later or something he posted a public message on the forum accusing me of "bullying" him and declaring that I was being excluded from the project. Sorry, but that is an extremely shitty way to behave.

I'm not going to try to circumvent Ellipse's "request" (as he put it) to exclude me by forcibly cancelling my order without my consent. I don't want the damn keyboard that much. I will however ask that he reconsiders. As it stands, it sends a very clear message which only goes to reinforce the negative impression I got from the start: he doesn't give a crap about his customers and if you call out any of his bad decisions, he'll force you out and not actually take any of the feedback.

On a related note, by the way, remember when he recently posted asking for feedback on his QMK flashing video, in the panic preceding the release of Chyros' review in which he basically trashed QMK/VIA for being too complicated? I immediately gave feedback in this thread saying that presenting the info as walls of text encoded in video form was unwise, and that a real time screen recording with narration would be better. He responded to this by summarising it as "adding voiceover", which clearly isn't the same as what I suggested, then didn't change anything, as far as I can tell. It just seems like the guy can't handle criticism/feedback overall, tbh.

[jwegman]

@an_achronism; while I don't really disagree with your initial point, you made your argument (initially well, I thought), however I think you did continue to essentially browbeat that point. You've had what, ~10 posts in this thread all within the past few days, reiterating the same thing... I'm little surprised that anyone had wanted to expeditiously say "hey, here's your money back, go fish somewhere else".

[an_achronism]

@an_achronism; while I don't really disagree with your initial point, you made your argument (initially well, I thought), however I think you did continue to essentially browbeat that point. You've had what, ~10 posts in this thread all within the past few days, reiterating the same thing... I'm little surprised that anyone had wanted to expeditiously say "hey, here's your money back, go fish somewhere else".

I mean, sure. But I'm not simply repeating the same point over and over again, I'm addressing stuff that's coming up in the thread. Such as being labelled a "bully", for instance...

[Bjerrk]

@an_achronism; while I don't really disagree with your initial point, you made your argument (initially well, I thought), however I think you did continue to essentially browbeat that point. You've had what, ~10 posts in this thread all within the past few days, reiterating the same thing...

I don't think that's entirely fair. When re-reading the discussion, it seems quite clear to me that any repetition was prompted by someone else systematically evading the questions.

I see no indications of an_achronism repeating just for the sake of repeating. He may be one verbose poster, but hey, we're all different like that

[an_achronism]

I see no indications of an_achronism repeating just for the sake of repeating. He may be one verbose poster, but hey, we're all different like that

Hahah... yeah, you've got me there. I believe it's important to be self-aware and I am acutely aware that I'm verbose to a fault. I do try to fight it, but most of the time, I still struggle to convey the requisite level of detail without slipping into longer swathes of text. So er... yes, sorry about that (Ellipse and innocent bystanders).

However, what you've described here...

I don't think that's entirely fair. When re-reading the discussion, it seems quite clear to me that any repetition was prompted by someone else systematically evading the questions.

... is also how I would characterise my repetition: I have only repeated myself when it has become evident that it's necessary to do so, e.g. to restate a point that is apparently either being repeatedly misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented to avoid addressing it properly. And yes, I have tried to rephrase each time – as Ellipse said – because to simply repeat the exact same thing without trying to rephrase clearly would not aid understanding / clear anything up for anybody.

For what it's worth, I've just emailed Ellipse, so the ball's in his court. From my perspective, this is an opportunity here to save face. He can either maintain excluding me from the project, or agree to fulfil an order if I place one again, with the context of everything that has happened here, which would probably reflect better for anybody who's been watching this debacle unfold. For transparency's sake, here's what I said. This definitely falls into the "verbose" category because I feel it's important to be clear, so I'll put it in a spoiler so you can scroll past it more easily.

Spoiler:

Re. "request" not to participate

Joe,

As dismayed as I am at your handling of things, I retain my original interest in your work. I have always maintained throughout that I have no real reason to question the quality of your efforts, and I genuinely mean it when I say that I am impressed with what you have managed to achieve. It must be stressful as hell working with Chinese manufacturers from the US and having to relentlessly QC stuff all day every day. I'd say it might help to hire somebody to help but I am guessing that would take too much of a bite out of your margins, which is probably why you haven't.

I still strongly disagree with the rolling "deadline" thing. That's not going to change. Clearly, you have decided that you're not going to listen to any criticism on the subject, so aren't going to change the site. I think that's a mistake. I also think the way you've dealt with me standing my ground on that criticism is a mistake; as others have pointed out, communicating directly does not equate to "online bullying", so that's an absurd and dangerous accusation for you to be making. None of this changes my opinion of your product, which remains high, without having seen it in person with my own eyes. I do not expect this to change if I ever do end up using one, either.

The damage caused by paying everything in one go at the start is already done, as I have explained: I had to open a credit card to transfer the balance, otherwise I'd have been unable to pay rent without accruing a calamitous amount of credit card interest on the balance of this order and one other (because my employer screwed something up very soon afterwards which meant I didn't get paid properly). Getting the money back now doesn't undo that. I've no desire to antagonise you nor to shit on your work, and I'd still rather that you got your money and I got what I ordered.

So I'll ask once and once only: given that you declared my exclusion as a "request" not to participate, if I place an order again, are you going to fulfil it? Or are you going to unceremoniously dump the money back on my card again without so much as an email, as you did yesterday?

If you're dead set on cutting me out entirely, then whatever, you do you. I'm not going to try to circumvent that. I just think it's a worse decision for you than it is for me. Maybe I'll grab an F77 on eBay one day, maybe I won't; I've seen that there have been several on there already, often being sold at a loss by people who have given up trying to resolve what are probably minor and fixable issues (e.g. keys not seated properly or jostled springs). But I'd rather that you got the sale directly rather than somebody just selling one on later. Again, I actually do understand and value your efforts, I just don't think you know how to deal with customers, which is a separate issue.

Put simply, I'd rather remember you for the success of your work on this project than for all this nonsense.

Regards,

an_achronism

[Ellipse]

pveentjer thanks for your comments. You must have a really nice computer setup with that kind of budget! Do you go for the more exotic stuff like watercooling or is it more about acquiring various keyboards every few years to add them to your rotation? It seems like an increasing amount of that is due to graphics card prices which have skyrocketed, I guess due to manufacturing delays and the resulting product shortages.

Back to the current topic, as a general note a number of people (not just on the forums) are writing me long messages and some are demanding replies and/or some kind of compensation in exchange for their public discretion. Out of respect for privacy I am not mentioning any names and hope they will continue to keep the conversations between me and them. Today I have (probably wastefully) spent hours replying to them and a day's worth of keyboards has not been QCed and mailed. I am certainly to blame here ultimately.

Part of the reason I chose to proceed with the Model F project is the sense of community, intelligent and informative discussions, and the general level of expertise of those on these keyboard forums. I am also glad to have met and chatted with so many people I have met at the keyboard meetups over the years, including putting faces to some DT forum member names!

This project has required making many difficult decisions that have been discussed over the years and I have enjoyed the back and forth discussion and have made many changes that have guided the project over the years - just read back the old pages of this thread from the beginning to see the various posters thinking around the various topics. Even the whole idea of the ultra compact case Model F keyboards was someone else's suggestion here.

At this point after exactly 6 years and one day since the project was announced publicly (!), the die has really been cast on the project and I hope that everyone will allow me to continue wrapping up the project until its completion and getting out the orders without advocating for change in the 9th inning. The remaining folks who have been waiting years are aware of the delays and are looking forward to the shipping notifications (!), and those new to the project are hoping I can wrap things up over the coming months, maybe entirely by early next year. Most people still waiting on a keyboard would agree that wrapping up should be my main focus now, instead of dealing with these messages. The frustrating part is that long messages like this one and like the ones I've received privately are most certainly delaying the project for everyone, the authors included, so with respect I should not dedicate much more time to long messages, even though several points may have been made that I'd like to respond to.

I greatly look forward to chatting on the forums a little each day and helping out where I can while providing updates and typing away on Model F keyboards but I can't send out keyboards when I'm bogged down writing replies to demanding messages.

I understand that a number of folks disagree with parts of the project but I need to finish it instead of spending hours in writing replies, though I do like to write . Please know that I have discussed and thought through each of the issues for a long time over the years and did not make these decisions lightly. I definitely appreciate the patience that nearly everyone has shown towards the many challenges and delays the project has faced, and patience and respect towards me personally. Without this patience the project would have ended, unsuccessful, long ago. After this project ends who knows if there will ever be one like it, on such a scale as this one: too small for mass manufacture and economies of scale but large enough to make it a worthwhile aim to pursue in one's life.

I really hope that those reading this thread can continue chatting about their own new Model F keyboards and maybe post some photos of their setups. Everyone has a right to respectfully post criticism of the project as the forum is open to all, but both the content of the criticism (and the shipping of many orders!) are years past the sell by date at this point and I'd like to be able to focus on the product itself here instead of the same criticisms over the years regarding changing/extending deadlines, product delays, etc.

[an_achronism]

Well, here's your TL;DR since you're apparently not willing to read longwinded messages, despite being more than happy to write them. I think you're making a mistake by leaving the misleading "deadline" on the website and other things already discussed, but as of yet, this hasn't fully put me off using one of your keyboards, because I can appreciate the engineering behind the product (which I do) without appreciating how you conduct your business (which I don't). If I place another order, are you going to fulfil it, or are you going to throw the payment back at me and refuse to fulfil the order like you did with my original one yesterday?

Back to the current topic, as a general note a number of people (not just on the forums) are writing me long messages and some are demanding replies and/or some kind of compensation in exchange for their public discretion. Out of respect for privacy I am not mentioning any names and hope they will continue to keep the conversations between me and them. Today I have (probably wastefully) spent hours replying to them and a day's worth of keyboards has not been QCed and mailed. I am certainly to blame here ultimately.

That's interesting. For the record, none of these people are me, just for the benefit of anybody who might assume so based on how this thread has been going. Don't want that being insinuated . The only communication I've had in the past 24h with Ellipse is in this thread and in the email I exactly quoted above. And he hasn't replied to that yet.

Everyone has a right to respectfully post criticism of the project as the forum is open to all, but both the content of the criticism (and the shipping of many orders!) are years past the sell by date at this point and I'd like to be able to focus on the product itself here instead of the same criticisms over the years regarding changing/extending deadlines, product delays, etc.

You know how there's that old adage about actions speaking louder than words? You're saying I have the right to criticise your methods, but your actions say otherwise, because your reaction to being criticised was to dismiss it as "bullying" and forcibly cancel my order. And you seem to be saying that you've been dealing with a lot of other unhappy customers, but allude to them delaying their own orders by sending you messages. So presumably, you didn't cancel their orders? Just mine? How do you reconcile that exactly?

It's fairly ironic that you're essentially trying to make others feel guilty for writing long messages by blaming that for delaying you shipping orders (which is pretty damn low btw), and yet your reply is itself extremely longwinded (at least as long as, if not longer than, mine have been). But I take it then that this is your unique way of saying you don't intend to reply to my email

[wobbled]

There's absolutely no bullying in this thread, that is not the same thing as being critical. Going as far as cancelling a customers order because you have personal issues with the guy is all the more pathetic.

an_achronism you're not the first person to call ellipse out on the way he conducts business, and you wont be the last.
We can respect his attention to detail and dedication to completing this incredible project while calling him out on shit as I have in the past with his shameless greed for asking $4000 for a new IBM SSK.

Ellipse if you can't handle criticism, maybe e-commerce isn't for you afterall despite your success.

[soyuz]

'waaaaaaaa what do you mean i can't do shady business practices consequence-free? you nasty bully!!!!!!!!'

[an_achronism]

To my surprise, I got a reply after all. Since Ellipse has asked that I not contact him again in any way (which he claims would be "harassment"), I will not do so, either by addressing him directly in this public thread or by replying to his email.

I do however think that this is a truly disgusting way to behave, and is sufficiently shocking that it has to be seen to be believed:



My intention was not and has never been to damage Ellipse's business; if that has happened or does happen in future, then he will have managed that all on his own. How you interface with customers matters; this is not how to do it. I indeed cannot "force my way on others", but I am at liberty to express my opinion on his business practices and others are at liberty to decide whether they agree or not.

Needless to say, I will not be issuing "a full and public apology" for rightly criticising Ellipse's conduct. I am alarmed that he thinks that throwing "harassment" and "bullying" accusations around willy nilly is an acceptable response to what has transpired here. He does not get to put me on "probation" and suggest that I beg for forgiveness. That would be absurd. If anybody should be apologising here, it's not me.

I do not respond well to condescention, wildly dangerous accusations, nor thinly-veiled threats, even if they are underlined for emphasis.

[jmaynard]

Oh, FFS.

Give it a rest.

Everyone knows what you think of his business practices. Quite frankly, in his position, I too would have concluded you're out to harass and cut off all communication with you long ago.

You, Sir, fit Churchill's definition of a fanatic: someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

[an_achronism]

Oh, FFS.

Give it a rest.

Everyone knows what you think of his business practices. Quite frankly, in his position, I too would have concluded you're out to harass and cut off all communication with you long ago.

You, Sir, fit Churchill's definition of a fanatic: someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Oh, are we doing Churchill quotes?



Anyway, as it happens, "Sir", I was quite done. But y'know, if you want to yell at me, I'm happy to yell back. I can't promise I won't eventually get bored, though.