Future of DT

[browncow]

The recent several days downtime was long enough to finally get me on "DT" Discord. It's… different. We complained about DT's hosting a lot and discussed archival, but keyboards not so much. I’m just more at home on a forum with persistent state than live text.

Same, I still use IRC some but it's not that busy. Discord wants to give me ADD.

Discord cannot ever be a replacement for a forum. It's an instant messaging software, It can try to replace IRC if anything. It's just made for completely different uses, but people for some reason try to replace a forum with a discord chat quite frequently...

[darkwitchclaire]

I very much prefer a forum for a place like this because it's accessible without needing any specific software or login and it's available indefinitely which makes it a valuable resource for finding information that would otherwise be sparse. Not to mention not having to sift through the noise of an active Discord server.

I also prefer the look and feel of MediaWiki in general but that's just me.

[Muirium]

Yes, chat and forums are completely different things. Forums have whole threads grouped together for all time, searchable and browsable. Chat prizes the opposite: its ever drifting immediacy.

The popular assumption seems to be that there’s a generational divide, however, with younger people preferring chat, so when in doubt pick that one.

The error is insisting they are comparable at all. They each do things the other can’t.

Mind, from what I’ve seen, both are well suited for griping about Chyros.

[browncow]

Yes, chat and forums are completely different things. Forums have whole threads grouped together for all time, searchable and browsable. Chat prizes the opposite: its ever drifting immediacy.

The popular assumption seems to be that there’s a generational divide, however, with younger people preferring chat, so when in doubt pick that one.

The error is insisting they are comparable at all. They each do things the other can’t.

Mind, from what I’ve seen, both are well suited for griping about Chyros.

i'm in mid 20s so i'm not sure if i'm an exception to that, got few friends in my age that agree with this and they also prefer forums for that kind of discussion. Actually there are new forums popping up, example being level1techs forums, as people come to simillar conclusions.
As another person in this thread said, The huge advantage is that you can easily browse this forum without even registering, if you just type some question you have into your search engine.. that's how i found it, and i was just lurking for a long time looking up anwsers to various questions, which i usually found. Only registered when i felt like i had something to contribute...

It would be nice to have a DT irc though i think. And yes got to agree with the last one

[Muirium]

That's why I used weaselly passive voice. (Weasels always need their wiggle room!) I've no reason to trust the claim—"forums are for olds, youngs are strictly on <INSERT FAD HERE>"—either, but I surely hear it often enough.

I think it's more of a personal taste than an age cohort thing. We "forum types" showed up online early and got straight to work building our neatly organised enclosures like the dutiful little Doozers we are.

Spoiler:

I'll leave the identity of the (chaotic neutral) Fraggles in this analogy to the reader.

[Polecat]

140 words or less is more than you need if you're inclined to small thoughts, which apparently is a growing percentage of what gets posted online, and probably humanity in general.

Does anyone know why DT went down for several days, and if it's going to disappear for good? I'd hate to lose touch with the good people here, and I don't want to see the vast wealth of knowledge disappear for good, but I have no interest in an IM/chat format and I've never registered at any other keyboard site (and don't plan to). Yes, I'm one of the oldsters, and a difficult one at that.

Discord cannot ever be a replacement for a forum. It's an instant messaging software, It can try to replace IRC if anything. It's just made for completely different uses, but people for some reason try to replace a forum with a discord chat quite frequently...

[kbdfr]

140 words or less is more than you need if you're inclined to small thoughts, which apparently is a growing percentage of what gets posted online, and probably humanity in general.

Does anyone know why DT went down for several days, and if it's going to disappear for good? I'd hate to lose touch with the good people here, and I don't want to see the vast wealth of knowledge disappear for good, but I have no interest in an IM/chat format […]

+1

[Muirium]

Looks up from phone, blinks eyes, takes a quick glance at life.

"TL;DR"

[ifohancroft]

The recent several days downtime was long enough to finally get me on "DT" Discord.

I’m just more at home on a forum with persistent state than live text.

Same.

Although, I love Deskthority's IRC channel.

P.S. Since they are offering to sell the forum back to the community, the ball is really in our court now. Someone needs to get in touch and see what price they are looking for and we can try to gather it collectively or something.

[Muirium]

Since they are offering to sell the forum back to the community…

They are? Gee, if only there were some sort of forum they could conduct this conversation on about the future of our forum.

[ifohancroft]

Since they are offering to sell the forum back to the community…

They are? Gee, if only there were some sort of forum they could conduct this conversation on about the future of our forum.

Haha. I know, right.

Also, yeah. They are. I remember a post from webwit I think, that they are looking to sell it back. Could have been in an existing thread, not sure.

[Muirium]

DT’s resident spammer is busy today. I’ve whacked about 10 posts of theirs. All instant payload: no laying low for later edits this time. They must have lost their ineffective patience.

[kbdfr]

DT’s resident spammer is busy today. I’ve whacked about 10 posts of theirs. All instant payload: no laying low for later edits this time. They must have lost their ineffective patience.

Together with jsheradin, the 3 of us will have deleted half a dozen spam topics, a dozen of spam posters and two dozens of spam posts

I bet they will give up before we do

[fohat]

3 of us will have deleted half a dozen spam topics, a dozen of spam posters and two dozens of spam posts

Are they hoping to make money here, or just doing this for "fun"?

[Muirium]

Another three letter word.

search.php?keywords=Seo

Doubt it even works these days. But all it takes is clients who think it does.

Update: Following that link led me to some vintage spam I duly deleted, and ultimately this:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4323

This problem goes back to the very beginning of DT! Safe to say it’ll never end. Most days there just isn’t any. But every once in a while our guy in Pakistan finds his mojo. Good thing he has one trick and he’s as so very, very subtle when he plays it.

[kbdfr]

Here's an example (though an admittedly extreme one) of the kind of spam stuff DT is enjoying at the moment.
It was discovered and deleted by Muirium within minutes

Spoiler:

Spam topic.png (232.1 KiB) Viewed 68174 times

[Muirium]

That little X button is getting quite the workout again this morning. Our man in Pakistan is on a bender.

Just think of all his effort registering new accounts, picking a place to post or starting a new thread, pasting in his payload links—which he presumably has to manage to some extent as well—then finally hit Submit on the post.

And then I click X.

[soyuz]

The recent several days downtime was long enough to finally get me on "DT" Discord.

I’m just more at home on a forum with persistent state than live text.

Same.

Although, I love Deskthority's IRC channel.

P.S. Since they are offering to sell the forum back to the community, the ball is really in our court now. Someone needs to get in touch and see what price they are looking for and we can try to gather it collectively or something.

The price is middle of the 5 figs range which is frankly insane.

[Muirium]

Hmm…

Spoiler:

[ifohancroft]

The recent several days downtime was long enough to finally get me on "DT" Discord.

I’m just more at home on a forum with persistent state than live text.

Same.

Although, I love Deskthority's IRC channel.

P.S. Since they are offering to sell the forum back to the community, the ball is really in our court now. Someone needs to get in touch and see what price they are looking for and we can try to gather it collectively or something.

The price is middle of the 5 figs range which is frankly insane.

Damn! I can understand it being the lowest possible 5 figures number, then I guess it's theoretically possible that we can gather the money to buy it back, but...

To clarify, I have no idea if even $10K is realistic at this point.

[Muirium]

Ellipse should buy it. We are the support forum for his multi million dollar business, after all. :$

[kmnov2017]

Ellipse should buy it. We are the support forum for his multi million dollar business, after all. :$

LOL

[Muirium]

If he does, I want a Kishsaver remake for my efforts in juicy spam squashing.

[thefarside]

Maybe he could pay in keyboards!

[lhutton]

The recent several days downtime was long enough to finally get me on "DT" Discord.

I’m just more at home on a forum with persistent state than live text.

Same.

Although, I love Deskthority's IRC channel.

P.S. Since they are offering to sell the forum back to the community, the ball is really in our court now. Someone needs to get in touch and see what price they are looking for and we can try to gather it collectively or something.

Where's the IRC located? The Chat link up top just takes you to the Discord. The "Furry Falvella" mentioned in the intro on the Discord is what I think it is, isn't it?

[ifohancroft]

The recent several days downtime was long enough to finally get me on "DT" Discord.

I’m just more at home on a forum with persistent state than live text.

Same.

Although, I love Deskthority's IRC channel.

P.S. Since they are offering to sell the forum back to the community, the ball is really in our court now. Someone needs to get in touch and see what price they are looking for and we can try to gather it collectively or something.

Where's the IRC located? The Chat link up top just takes you to the Discord. The "Furry Falvella" mentioned in the intro on the Discord is what I think it is, isn't it?

It's on Libera Chat. It's either #deskthority or ##deskthority (I can't exactly remember.)

P.S. Sorry, I have no idea what the "Furry Falvella" is. First time hearing about that.

[Ellipse]

Today I reached out to this site's proprietor expressing my interest and received a thoughtfully written reply including the information that they are looking for $15k for the site and that an offer for $5k was turned down. My guess is that the final price may settle around $7.5k to $10k if they wish to proceed with a sale. For someone looking to buy the site, server costs for a private dedicated server with 1 gigabit/second guaranteed bandwidth, 64GB RAM, and a 2023 Intel processor would be about $55 to $65 a month including backup storage.

The quoted site cost was too high for me (I would want to keep everything exactly the same here), but I recommended that they reach out to some other forum members who run keyboard-related businesses (Unicomp, ClickyKeyboards, Kono/Input Club, etc.) to find a potential buyer. This is a terrific forum and along with geekhack and reddit MK it is a great place for learning and discussion on mechanical keyboards!

[Muirium]

Those are MUCH saner numbers than were rumoured before. Seems like we might be saved after all.

[dcopellino]

Ok it seems to be the best GB this community has ever conceived. Subscriptions open?

[ifohancroft]

I'm up for doing it as a community group buy. My only two requirements for when we get it back are the following:

1. Not moving the forum away from phpBB
2. Not moving the wiki away from MediaWiki