Future of DT

[thefarside]

I’m in for supporting a crowd funded purchase. I enjoy this site and would love to see it continue. I’m also happy with the site as-is and wouldn’t want any changes or updates.

I think we'd need a person to head this effort. My vote would be for ellipse if he’s up for it

[Ellipse]

I would be happy to coordinate a group buy for the site (I have coordinated some group buys before!).

Below is the Google forms link I have just created.

I would have to collect the funds by Venmo, Zelle, Transferwise (wise), check, etc. so as not to affect my merchant card processor which may not like collecting funds outside my normal area of selling goods.

Please only sign the form if you can realistically send funds in the next month or two.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1FLV9n2 ... ested=true

[NathanA]

I have just made an additional blog post regarding a potential group buy for the Deskthority site:

Interesting proposal. I'm not entirely sure how some people here might take to the idea of contributing monetarily to a group-buy where they don't end up owning some kind of stake, or where the ownership isn't turned over to some kind of legal holding entity that the community holds in common somehow. Still, if nobody else steps up to the plate, a single owner such as yourself is arguably better than having DT just die a slow death! What remains unanswered is how many contributions you can expect to receive under your proposed terms, and if that number comes up short of what the sellers would accept as an offer, how much you'd have to chip in yourself to make up the difference vs. how much you'd actually be willing (or able) to chip in.

For the record, I had also reached out to the current owners, not to offer to buy, but to offer some of my time pro-bono to diagnose and fix the repeated (and continuing) server crashes, as network and server admin/engineer at regional ISP is actually my day job (though often feels more like a 24/7/365 job ). They haven't (yet?) accepted that offer, though perhaps that's because they're nervous about giving a total stranger back-end access, which is extremely understandable...

[VR20X6]

I would be happy to coordinate a group buy for the site (I have coordinated some group buys before!).

I don't think it's worth buying DT off of OneCommerce, but if people really want it to happen via GB, you should really not be the one running it. It's an obvious conflict of interest, particularly considering that time that you smothered another community member's project by hijacking their thread to advertise your competing project: viewtopic.php?p=491827#p491827

[kekstee]

Instead of petty infighting you could set it up somewhere that has a reasonable nonprofit legal framework.

[zrrion]

I would be happy to coordinate a group buy for the site (I have coordinated some group buys before!).

Only problem is we don't have 8 years for you to dick around before delivering an unfinished product lol

[wobbled]

I would be happy to coordinate a group buy for the site (I have coordinated some group buys before!).

Below is the Google forms link I have just created.

I would have to collect the funds by Venmo, Zelle, Transferwise (wise), check, etc. so as not to affect my merchant card processor which may not like collecting funds outside my normal area of selling goods.

Please only sign the form if you can realistically send funds in the next month or two.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1FLV9n2 ... ested=true

Maybe check with the damn community before asking for their money? I appreciate you might just be trying to help, but bulldozing your way in really is not the way to go about this. I also question your motives since everything you do seems solely profit driven, similar to webwit, and we know how that turned out.

[photekq]

I would be happy to coordinate a group buy for the site (I have coordinated some group buys before!).

Please answer me this:

You've speculated that "the final price may settle around $7.5k to $10k".

If you end up being correct about this - what is the exact amount of donations that you would need from contributing members in order to feel willing to proceed with the purchase? Please answer for both figures of $7.5k and $10k. It would also be helpful to know for the third, currently standing, figure - $15k.

[Ellipse]

My guess is it goes for the asking price if we can get a group buy together in the next couple months, but if it becomes a year without a buyer the price may come down to what I've estimated. Just a guess!

In terms of having extra beyond the $15k if things turn out that way, I noted in the sign up form that the funds would be used to pay for the hosting costs and legal costs.

Setting up a nonprofit is an interesting idea but it would add several thousand to the acquisition costs and take a number of months for the paperwork, so that would have to be kept in mind if folks want the site ownership changed sooner rather than later and get all the technical bugs ironed out sooner, etc.

wobbled I have noted that I'm hoping to keep everything exactly the same where possible because this is primarily a place to discuss all things mechanical keyboards and to learn about great projects from various folks including some of the classic projects like the xwhatsit controller and Soarer's converter, which helped me to became more involved in the keyboard hobby and specifically with restoring the great old IBM keyboards and getting them up and running.

Would anyone be able to include a quick summary here of a wish list for the Deskthority site, for those who share the mindset of keeping things the same as much as possible? There were some site bugs with registration I remember, especially with certain domain names like gmail, for example. The wiki is a great resource as well - I remember reading if some folks wanted to change part of the wiki?

[NathanA]

There were some site bugs with registration I remember, especially with certain domain names like gmail, for example.

This isn't an issue with the site or server. This is a DNS issue...one that has been discussed here in the past, would likely take 5 minutes to fix, but current owners don't seem to know how to deal with it.

Google has stopped delivering mail they're receiving on behalf of Gmail users that are either not DKIM-signed or that fail SPF checks. I'm assuming that either deskthority.net has not implemented DKIM or has it implemented incorrectly; I can definitely confirm that it does not have a TXT SPF record defined at all in its DNS zone. The simple fix is to just add a properly-constructed SPF record to the zone. A TXT record for .deskthority.net consisting of "v=spf1 a mx a:mech.deskthority.net -all" should do nicely.

The second problem that is likely causing DT email to be flagged by Gmail is that 1) the web server appears to be sending out the emails directly, rather than through an SMTP relay, 2) the IPv4 address of the DT server reverse-resolves (in-addr.arpa zone) to "mech.deskthority.net", 3) but mech.deskthority.net only exists as an MX record, and there is no matching A record that forward-resolves back to the same IP address. Having forward- and reverse-DNS resolution not match each other for the sending host is a red flag for spam. The fix for this is to simply add an A record to the zone for the FQDN mech.deskthority.net pointing at the same IP address that the root deskthority.net A record points to (the server itself).

Implementing both of these fixes would require somebody have write access to the deskthority.net zone file. DNS for DT appears to be hosted by Cloudflare, so whoever possesses the Cloudflare login credentials for the DT account should be able to take care of this.

[sliceoflemon]

There were some site bugs with registration I remember, especially with certain domain names like gmail, for example.

This isn't an issue with the site or server. This is a DNS issue...one that has been discussed here in the past, would likely take 5 minutes to fix, but current owners don't seem to know how to deal with it.

Google has stopped delivering mail they're receiving on behalf of Gmail users that are either not DKIM-signed or that fail SPF checks. I'm assuming that either deskthority.net has not implemented DKIM or has it implemented incorrectly; I can definitely confirm that it does not have a TXT SPF record defined at all in its DNS zone. The simple fix is to just add a properly-constructed SPF record to the zone. A TXT record for .deskthority.net consisting of "v=spf1 a mx a:mech.deskthority.net -all" should do nicely.

The second problem that is likely causing DT email to be flagged by Gmail is that 1) the web server appears to be sending out the emails directly, rather than through an SMTP relay, 2) the IPv4 address of the DT server reverse-resolves (in-addr.arpa zone) to "mech.deskthority.net", 3) but mech.deskthority.net only exists as an MX record, and there is no matching A record that forward-resolves back to the same IP address. Having forward- and reverse-DNS resolution not match each other for the sending host is a red flag for spam. The fix for this is to simply add an A record to the zone for the FQDN mech.deskthority.net pointing at the same IP address that the root deskthority.net A record points to (the server itself).

Implementing both of these fixes would require somebody have write access to the deskthority.net zone file. DNS for DT appears to be hosted by Cloudflare, so whoever possesses the Cloudflare login credentials for the DT account should be able to take care of this.

Just to add to this, as of February 1st 2024, Google now requires a DMARC record to be present for domains sending mail to it :

https://support.google.com/a/answer/811 ... ll-senders

This too is just another record added to DNS for the domain. It apparently doesn't require an enforcement policy, just so long as a DMARC record is present. So a policy of p=none should suffice.

The above link lays out most of the requirements NathanA has mentioned above.

[photekq]

My guess is it goes for the asking price if we can get a group buy together in the next couple months, but if it becomes a year without a buyer the price may come down to what I've estimated. Just a guess!

In terms of having extra beyond the $15k if things turn out that way, I noted in the sign up form that the funds would be used to pay for the hosting costs and legal costs.

I'm unsure if this is a response to my post, but it seems it must be; I'm the only one who's mentioned your speculated figures and the current asking price.

Could you please answer the one and only question I asked in that post? I repeat:

What amount of money do you need in contributions from other members in order to move ahead with your proposed plan to buy Deskthority? For the three aforementioned figures: $7.5k, $10k and $15k.

An example of an answer would be: "At a price of $7.5k I would need $X in contributions from others in order to consider moving ahead. For $10k, I would need $Y. For $15k, I would need $Z."

This will affect my decision on whether or not to contribute. And I would imagine it will affect other people's decisions as well.

[soyuz]

To me it feels like out of the frying pan and into the fire when you’re moving from people who don’t care at all to ‘trust me bro’.

I don’t think ‘give me your money so I can buy this thing and own it outright’ is really a group buy.

[Muirium]

True. Giving to a fundraiser is not to be mistaken for buying shares.

[Ellipse]

Thanks NathanA for this great advice. I remember having to go into cpanel to update things similarly for the project web site to help with email deliverability as there were some issues reported by folks with things ending up in the junk folder or whatnot.

Yes, good points; as I mentioned in the Google form this group buy is for me to buy the site and not doing equity crowdfunding shares of ownership. That would add significant cost (both time and funds) and complexity around regulatory and legal aspects to do things the fully compliant way. Instead, the goal is to get things taken care of in the next couple months and start making the needed bug fixes. Here's an interesting article for those interested in learning about regulated equity crowdfunding in the US https://venturebeat.com/entrepreneur/ho ... ally-cost/

photekq I'm not sure I understand your most recent post, how it would affect a decision to contribute? Regardless of the final sale price, I expect to be contributing several thousand dollars of my own funds to help reach the goal and to operate the site if there is a shortfall for raising funds, whether to purchase the site or in the future to cover operating costs. I'd imagine it would depend on how much is actually raised versus what folks indicate in the Google form, as this may differ.

[photekq]

photekq I'm not sure I understand your most recent post, how it would affect a decision to contribute? Regardless of the final sale price, I expect to be contributing several thousand dollars of my own funds to help reach the goal and to operate the site if there is a shortfall for raising funds, whether to purchase the site or in the future to cover operating costs. I'd imagine it would depend on how much is actually raised versus what folks indicate in the Google form, as this may differ.

Your proposition would result in you gaining 100% ownership of the forum, as said in the form you linked earlier:

The funds collected would be used by me to buy and operate the site. While I would be the owner after buying the site, I do not want the appearance, functionality, moderation, etc. of Deskthority to change at all. Some trusted forum members would be needed to have backend access for maintenance since I am not a developer.

No one would be buying an ownership stake by contributing to this group buy; there would be nothing of value provided for contributors outside of there being a change of ownership.

That's the reason behind my question - I want to know what you yourself plan to contribute towards the purchase. It doesn't have to be exact, but I'd like you to state some rough figures at the very least (in dollar amounts, not in 'several's, 'couple's or 'few's). Let me simplify the question even further:

Can you state the minimum and maximum amounts that you'll be willing to contribute towards buying the forum, in dollar amounts? For assumed total costs of $7.5k, $10k, and $15k (if these changing has any impact on your answer).

It makes me uneasy that you're dodging my very clearly phrased question, while requesting money from the group that I belong to.

[soyuz]

This is classic ellipse tbh, like i don’t dispute he did a very cool thing reproing the model F but he’s always been evasive and kinda slimy when it comes to just being honest about his intentions.

"Give me money so I can buy an asset for myself" is not a group buy, nor is it a 'crowdfunder' - in crowdfunding, you still get a return on your investment (if it's not a scam). Here, you get nothing.

If you give this guy any of your money I have a collection of bridges at a really good price, just PM me for more info.

[Ellipse]

photekq I would be comfortable around approx. $3,000 to $5,000 at most to cover any shortfall but if we are $5,100 short for example I wouldn't limit myself! It is tough to provide any more specifics as it is very early in the process.

I feel I have been completely forthright for my plans to keep things exactly the same outside of any bug fixes or other legal issues that need addressing for a site moving to US ownership. The benefit is for those who want the site to be kept exactly the same. As folks have discussed here before, a site with this level of traffic could be sold to another buyer and loaded with ads and SEO for various keyboard or non-keyboard related businesses, but I don't want to see that happen. If I remember correctly there were some other, non-keyboard forums that have been sold or shut down in recent years with the forum deleted and the site converted to a promotional site with various articles, which I would not want.

[soyuz]

photekq I would be comfortable around approx. $3,000 to $5,000 at most to cover any shortfall but if we are $5,100 short for example I wouldn't limit myself! It is tough to provide any more specifics as it is very early in the process.

I feel I have been completely forthright for my plans to keep things exactly the same outside of any bug fixes or other legal issues that need addressing for a site moving to US ownership. The benefit is for those who want the site to be kept exactly the same. As folks have discussed here before, a site with this level of traffic could be sold to another buyer and loaded with ads and SEO for various keyboard or non-keyboard related businesses, but I don't want to see that happen. If I remember correctly there were some other, non-keyboard forums that have been sold or shut down in recent years with the forum deleted and the site converted to a promotional site with various articles, which I would not want.

Nowhere in this do you address the fact that your 'crowdfund' isn't a crowdfund, it's you asking for the majority of the funds off other people and then keeping the site for yourself.

[photekq]

I feel I have been completely forthright for my plans to keep things exactly the same outside of any bug fixes or other legal issues that need addressing for a site moving to US ownership. The benefit is for those who want the site to be kept exactly the same. As folks have discussed here before, a site with this level of traffic could be sold to another buyer and loaded with ads and SEO for various keyboard or non-keyboard related businesses, but I don't want to see that happen. If I remember correctly there were some other, non-keyboard forums that have been sold or shut down in recent years with the forum deleted and the site converted to a promotional site with various articles, which I would not want.

Yes, yes. As always Ellipse, you're very good at repeating the part you want to train people's focus on.

Anyway, thanks for answering my question, even if it was preceded by some weaseling.

So you're proposing a personal contribution somewhere between 20%-67%* of the upfront cost in exchange for 100% ownership of the forum. I suppose if you contribute $5000 and the price drops to $7500, that wouldn't be too insanely unfair for those who really want to see the site stay online. But even at the same price of $7500.. if your contribution ends up being limited to $3000, that's only a 40% contribution. On top of this, you've mentioned that excess contributions may then be put towards hosting costs. But how about when the remaining contributions run out? Will you continue to maintain the website as if it's your own asset, or will you ask for help? We both know how calls for assistance towards hosting fees have gone in the recent past.

Here's the thing. If it were anyone else proposing this, I wouldn't have a problem with any of the above. I've said it before in this thread - I think deskthority.net is a decayed/decaying asset, worth nowhere near $15,000 or even $7500. This forum's always been averse to almost every form of advertising, and it's very quiet here now. Compared to how it used to be, it's a ghost town, and it has been for a good while. If anyone else were proposing this plan, they'd be doing something pretty selfless - they'd be offering up a large sum of money towards saving the website, and they'd be claiming ownership of something with negligible value compared to their personal investment - not to mention the effort involved in upkeep.

But you're the exception. You're the only person I can think of who has actual, real financial incentive to keep the forum alive. Your products don't offer any real form of dedicated support - you rely on community involvement, and have readily advertised deskthority as a place to ask questions, a place to troubleshoot. This forum is effectively free technical support for your business (which has over $1,000,000 in sales, as you so often used to state).

As a result, your proposition is no longer a selfless act - it's someone with at least partially selfish (I would wager very selfish) intentions asking for a community of caring individuals to give him free investment towards a business asset. Just to compound things, that someone happens to be a person whose business probably wouldn't exist in the first place without the existence of this forum and its members. And it's the same community that has routinely contributed towards your products.

You're a twat. If $5000 is your maximum valuation for free, unlimited technical support for your business, then you're already tied with another bidder. Best of luck beating them, but please stop asking people to buffer your bid. I think it's an incredibly greedy thing you're doing; especially under the guise of it being a "group buy", as soyuz has covered above.

To anyone thinking of donating towards Ellipse's proposition: let the place die a dignified death; you won't have to pay for the funeral. Taking Ellipse's route will delay the funeral for a few years, and you'll be paying for the occasion.

*20% being $3000/$15,000, 67% being $5000/$7500

[wobbled]

Ellipse do one, you are greedy and you always have been.
Asking for people to give you money so you can buy the site yourself and be the sole owner. You’re as slimy as they come and I would never touch deskthority again if you owned it.
If you actually wanted to buy it you could probably afford it after your multi million dollar keyboard project, but you are scummy enough to have people fund it for you.
Kindly fuck off.

[thefarside]

I disagree with the posts above based on my experience with ellipse, and I don’t think he has any bad intentions. I trust he wants to keep the site as-is. I think he’s truly passionate about vintage IBM keyboards and I’m glad he’s producing them. I think debating about what his intentions are isn’t helpful if the goal is to keep Deskthority running with an owner who’s happy to keep it as is.

If anyone else is interested in spending at least $5000 of their own money to purchase the site feel free to chime in. Otherwise you’re not doing deskthority any favors. Our alternative is the lights out, find somewhere else to go and save any information for future reference!

[Muirium]

I’m in between. I don’t think he’s evil but I do think he should cough up 100% of the funds to buy it. He’s made plenty of money off Deskthority, more than anyone else* ever has by orders of magnitude. 100% of the ownership ->100% of the investment. Fair’s fair.

*And really, besides Ellipse and “$One Commerce” Webwit, who has? I’m guessing 7bit was next and then it’s a diminishing trace.

[soyuz]

I disagree with the posts above based on my experience with ellipse, and I don’t think he has any bad intentions. I trust he wants to keep the site as-is. I think he’s truly passionate about vintage IBM keyboards and I’m glad he’s producing them. I think debating about what his intentions are isn’t helpful if the goal is to keep Deskthority running with an owner who’s happy to keep it as is.

If anyone else is interested in spending at least $5000 of their own money to purchase the site feel free to chime in. Otherwise you’re not doing deskthority any favors. Our alternative is the lights out, find somewhere else to go and save any information for future reference!

You missed the part where the "owner" doesn't even pay the majority of the cost for it. If I went to a car dealership with say, 5 other people and put a minority stake in buying a car with all of them, can I just drive off with it and keep it for myself? Nah, that's fucked.

[TheInverseKey]

I disagree with the posts above based on my experience with ellipse, and I don’t think he has any bad intentions. I trust he wants to keep the site as-is. I think he’s truly passionate about vintage IBM keyboards and I’m glad he’s producing them. I think debating about what his intentions are isn’t helpful if the goal is to keep Deskthority running with an owner who’s happy to keep it as is.

If anyone else is interested in spending at least $5000 of their own money to purchase the site feel free to chime in. Otherwise you’re not doing deskthority any favors. Our alternative is the lights out, find somewhere else to go and save any information for future reference!

I have already offered One Commerce the $5000 USD offer that they referenced but it was turned down. Also, the email that I received was hilarious as they tried to tell me how to run my business(https://vintkeys.ca) by stating that I should get into OEM keyboards because that's where the money is. This is very ironic as One Commerce buying Deskthority was one of the greatest business decisions... /s Due to the sour taste that I got from the current owners, I will be offering even less. The forum / wiki is only a cost at this point and the ROI is next to none. As such there are better wikis that are popping up to replace Deskthority which also erodes the value of Deskthority.

[Muirium]

Hey, I thought it was us users who eroded the value of Deskthority. You live, you learn…

[TheInverseKey]

Hey, I thought it was us users who eroded the value of Deskthority. You live, you learn…

Nahh just your 2 cents on every post

[Muirium]

2 cents more than I’ll be putting into Ellipse’s donation can.

[VR20X6]

I disagree with the posts above based on my experience with ellipse, and I don’t think he has any bad intentions. I trust he wants to keep the site as-is. I think he’s truly passionate about vintage IBM keyboards and I’m glad he’s producing them. I think debating about what his intentions are isn’t helpful if the goal is to keep Deskthority running with an owner who’s happy to keep it as is.

If anyone else is interested in spending at least $5000 of their own money to purchase the site feel free to chime in. Otherwise you’re not doing deskthority any favors. Our alternative is the lights out, find somewhere else to go and save any information for future reference!

You missed the part where the "owner" doesn't even pay the majority of the cost for it. If I went to a car dealership with say, 5 other people and put a minority stake in buying a car with all of them, can I just drive off with it and keep it for myself? Nah, that's fucked.

To be clear, Ellipse only said that he'd cover up to $3,000-5,000 to cover a shortfall from $15,000. So technically he might be buying the car with $0 out of his own pocket. He would pay for the gas to put in that car, though. At least after he drains whatever he can raise in excess of that $15,000.

[thefarside]

As such there are better wikis that are popping up to replace Deskthority which also erodes the value of Deskthority.

Curious what other wikis you were referring to. Nice site btw!

It’s a weird situation and I understand both sides. I thought websites were supposed to be free!