Thank you for the updates, @Manofinterests.
Congrats @olivia & @TaehaTypes
Hi @belfong that’s a good question.
The domain belongs to the organization that is “Keebtalk” the organization is owned and operated by the board. The charter on Keebtalk explicitly has legal langauge disallowing one individual or even the whole board to sell Keebtalk. This is something important the differentiates 501©(3) from a standard LLC or company. The most a board of this nature could do is disband and sell the physical assets.
Domains are considered intangible assets which could not be touched in the event the board decides to disband, or if we become evil. We also don’t have any physical assets for Keebtalk. No corporate offices, no fancy self serving kombucha bar, or even an intern to bully show the ropes.
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Really awesome! Glad to see a non-profit run by the community. That alone sets this site apart from the rest!
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Just to clarify terminology a bit, there is the concept of a non-profit corporation in US law, and that is what we are working to establish to own and operate Keebtalk. I believe that 501c3 is a section of the Internal Revenue code under which certain non-profit corporations can get tax-exempt status. You have to register as a non-profit corporation first and then apply for 501c3 status, and I believe there is another higher standard beyond that for “charitable” status. Each of these does not per se imply the other, though we intend to apply for the first two certainly and perhaps also the last. When it comes to assets, if you’re a charitable organization, when you disband the non-profit, the assets must be given to another charitable organization in the event that the corporation is dissolved.
In short: in no event do board members get to profit personally from the sale or dissolution of a non-profit.
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Long term we plan on the major assets being owned by Keebtalk to be as follows:
- Meetup power strips
- name tags
- sharpie markers
- A banner that says Keebtalk for meetups
- occasional swag
So - this is everything that could be transferred in the event of a unanimous board decision - not the forum itself.
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Great choices in Olivia and Nathan! The community is in safe hands.
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Good evening,
i would like to ask a few questions. What had been your thoughts to choose these persons, had their been other competitors.
This page had to be started by some folks, thats fine, but would it been the wrong way to get following boardmembers being elected by the community (if their would have been enough folks for that task).
The same question about this statement:
Shouldn’t the community be the one choosing their moderators? My understanding had been, that you want to be different than other older places, and i’ve read the word community and transparency so often the last days.
To make it clear, i like the excistence of keebtalk, i’ve absolutly nothing against Olivia and Nathan, but i’m a curious person. Andrew might be the only one not being surprised about these questions coming from me.
Have a nice day
It’s a fair point. While our intent is very much to have the board be community-spirited (and all board members have to assent to that purpose in participating), I think an open election would have been impractical so early on in building the organization, especially while we’re still trying to guide and define the site’s character in a friendly, productive direction—and while emotions (and trolling) are running high so soon after all the recent GeekHack sale drama.
It actually isn’t even entirely clear who the Keebtalk community is yet exactly, and who thus would would be voting. I think we’re still in the process of convincing people of our mission, relative value, and good intentions. I for one would define our ultimate vision for the community as not just a population GeekHack refugees, but a wider self-selected group of keyboard enthusiasts who come here proactively because they like the vibe and our values and want to share and help each other in a friendly, constructive way—because they like the unique feel of the community we’ve established. In order to establish that feel, though, I think it requires a bit of careful curation early on.
No question that we’re asking for a bit of faith while we presume to act on behalf of the community’s interests in this way (and I regret being forced even to make that request), but I think the best way to mitigate that is simply to be open about the criteria we’re using to make decisions (such as board member selection) and simply to point to the choices we’re making and let people evaluate those on their own terms to decide whether we’re doing a good job on behalf of the community so far. A major part of our goal of this (ongoing) expansion of the board is, in fact, precisely that it should be more representative of the community at large—including in decisions of what shape the board should take in future.
For whatever it’s worth, I do agree that it’s a probably worthwhile goal to move in a more directly democratic direction once the community stabilizes. But, while I think it’s not yet practical to run KT as a pure democracy, we figured a good start would be the community-spirited republic we’re working on building. 
We will be held directly accountable by the community in these early days by the extent to which we convince you that this is a cool place to participate. Folks are doing their most important voting right now with their feet (or, in any case, their web browsers). And we know that every decision we make, including board membership, is going directly to affect that. As such, these two new (non-vendor) board members with such universal respect in the keyboard community at large seem to me the perfect choice. These are simply two of the nicest, most thoughtful, and most kind people you’re likely to encounter. (Long before I had ever met Olivia or Nathan, I had heard from others what awesome people they were.) So I’m really excited to have them on board, with more to come!
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No Kombucha?
This is an outrage.
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Ty for your answer,
you’ve some fair points,too. But, to bad, you might have overread my other questions
Olivia seems to be a fine young lady with one set finished so far, GMK Olivia, i’m one participant at that gb (as a sidenote), with 52 posts at gh and being a guest at Top Clack for promoting. She isn’t neither known that long nor an active community member as some others like for example Zambumon, who is posting here, too.
Again, why those people. A gb lead or youtube channel is all it takes?
Sorry, for being persistant, but answers, like politicians talk, don’t do it for me.
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In that case I will instead refer you to our ongoing actions in order to instill confidence. Who the moderators are is arguably more important than the board (whose role is effectively mostly in tone-setting), and we’re working on that right now.
For now, our objective for the board has simply been to reflect some measure of diversity in types community involvement and, most importantly, to find people who were both broadly very genial and strong supporters of the KT mission. Those seem like legit criteria, and they certainly apply to the folks selected. These criteria will continue to guide us as we work to expand the group charged with being custodians of the community mission.
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Well spoken,
one of these moments i wish we could talk in my native language. Don’t feel offended, that wasn’t my intention.
Without confidence i wouldn’t even be here or participated in a Norbaforce.
I had been confused a lot about “we’re different” and taking old paths in actions.
It would had been good to spend a few words why people had and will be choosen from my point of view, if hopefully a lot of new folks will join, it’s not guaranteed these folks know anything about the “leading pack”.
You even gave some introduction about the founders yourself, just keep it that way.
Cheers
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Wow congrats to these guys, they are both some wonderful people and I have full confidence in them to keep this community with our interests at heart. I do have a problem with both of them being on the board though. My reason being that both of them are already very intimate with most memebers of the board. Even if I personally have no problems with them, but objectively speaking, I think I would like to see someone join that isn’t as possibly biased. Possibly reach out to the other prominent makers or naysayers about this site and have them join that way you can see the outside perspective and make this site a place that is better than what you have already been talking about with the current members.
Hey Stephen! I’m really happy to see you here; it was awesome to meet you in person at KeyCon.
The point you make is a very fair one in general, but in the particulars I would like to suggest a bit of supplemental information that you might find helpful/reassuring. In some of the reactions I’ve read in response to the creation of this site, I feel like a few folks are operating on surface-level details and inferring things about those of us who are working to build Keebtalk that wouldn’t at all seem justified if the people making these inferences had any particular knowledge of the people or circumstances involved. (For example, assuming that Keebtalk is some kind of anti-Massdrop site, even though we started the project well before anyone had any idea whom GeekHack was being sold to.) Of course, in these cases, it’s simply our job to explain.
It’s absolutely true that I personally really like both Olivia and Nathan, and I am the board member who nominated each of them for membership, but I’m not sure I would go so far as to say that I’m particularly intimate friends with them (or, at least, not yet). I think I have, for example, actually spent more time communicating with you, in person and online, than Nathan. And I just met Olivia this winter and have only spoken to her in person on two occasions (NYC, Keycon), and very occasionally here and there on Discord. The two just seemed like generally well-liked members of the community, and people whom I have experienced directly to be both thoughtful and very friendly, even if those interactions have been somewhat limited. (I tend to trust my instincts about people.) They were also explicit early supporters of the site, which I think is really important (I actually don’t agree it would be particularly valuable to have people on the board who are naysayers to this site’s existence, assuming I understood your suggestion correctly.)
So, yes, we are acquainted, but rather less than it might somehow appear. And, in any case, it would be bit of a catch-22 to try to pick people based on their character and community interactions and also have them be people with whom we’ve never interacted at all. The keyboard world is still a pretty small community of humans, and most people who are at all active have some acquaintance with most other people who are active as well. That’s a good thing, in my view. Knowing that, we just focused on finding people who might help us set the right positive tone for the community (an “intentional culture,” to use the term of a recent supportive post, which I quite like). Olivia and Nathan were simply the first results of our brainstorming along those lines.
I, for one, would actually be very happy to endorse and vote for someone like you (including literally you) to be on the board, @Peiweisgreat, along the exact same criteria I applied when suggesting these recent two additions: you’re someone I’ve encountered in person at a meetup who seems really sincere and nice, both to me and other community members with whom I’ve seen you interact, you’re clearly pretty committed to keyboards in your life, and you seem more or less to be on board with the premise of Keebtalk. You also have the added advantage of not being a vendor. Furthermore, all us current board members have super nerdy, computer-based jobs; we could do with someone who has a respectable profession like a chef. 
Other board members may have more rigorous criteria, and I am just one vote, but the things I mentioned above are the very simple things that make a good board candidate in my eyes. So, yeah, I’m not sure how large of a board we’re looking to assemble, but if you or anybody with these sorts of qualities to bring to the table wants to serve on the board, they should let us know. I hasten to add, however, that being on the board is mostly just a pile of boring little chores, and it shouldn’t confer any kind or prestige or status beyond the pleasure of service. So, to whatever extent Olivia and Nathan can be called my friends, I owe to them my sincere apologies for roping them into this obligation. 
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Hear Yeee Hear Yeee!
In my short time in the community as a scrutinizing fly on the wall, I’ve seen nothing but positivity and helpful comments from these two new board members and think they are great choices. Congrats and cheers all around!
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Like I mentioned before I’m a fan of everyone on the board. Been on the Gmk Olivia hype train for a lot longer than I really needed to haha, I have either seen all or most of Nathans videos myself, and lets not forget on how much I indulge myself with your cases. I have no doubt they are both super genuine in their love and commitment to this project and the community itself. I just wanted to be sure that the intentions for them being on the board is to help as individuals and not just fluff added onto the board just because they would be willing to agree to yours and Huey’s decisions. I find it more important that there are people who more or less see things differently and can come to a consensus, than with people who already agree with each other from the very start.
I would also like to add that I would be an awful board member for sure, but thanks for that haha. I wish I had the time to commit to something like this, which is why I respect you guys so much for the dedication and the hard work it takes to run a site like this. As you know I am a chef, so keyboards have absolutely nothing to do with work. I just found myself on rmk and haven’t looked back since. I don’t really know the process of running sites or doing anything GB related, but I do know people and politics in the work space. Thats primarily why I had to bring up things like that.
I am definitely convinced and reassured with the answer you gave me though, and I’m excited to see the projects you guys concoct on the site. I for sure will be using this forum, even if GH doesn’t change because I know you guys specifically have my best interests as a Keeb enthusiast at heart.
P.S It was a lot of fun for me to meet you at Keycon this year, hopefully I get to see everyone I met there again. Also the wait for my retrofridge norbaforce case is slowly killing me, but I know the wait will be worth it. It always is.
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Not to deter the conversation at all or add anything negative to it, but as far as the moderators go, I think the admins are almost forced to choose people they KNOW they can trust, at first. The reason being is that, if moderators were chosen based on votes or some other method outside of the admins’ hands, who would know what their intentions were? There are a lot of people in the community (outside of keebtalk, for example, that blindly hate on it, because of the launch timing, or because they think the site will somehow benefit the admins because “vendors”). There is little point to having a moderator that does not value what the mission is or has any plan on helping or bettering anything here, or even worse, secretly hates the site and wishes it would die, etc. In the future, I think moderators and admins can be more easily swapped and chosen at the will of the community here, but at the launch, I think it has to be people that the admins know for a fact can be trusted, and have the right intentions.
In any case, if the admins and moderators aren’t performing well, clearly there will be an uproar, as we’ve already seen, due to the launch. So, people won’t sit idly by if something wrong or shady is going on. That’s the beauty of this forum that all the haters elsewhere don’t see: Nothing “bad” can actually happen here, due to the people running it. It’s not a promotional tool, it’s a legal non-profit. Admins and moderators CANNOT benefit from it, though for some reason, a lot of people on reddit think they can. lol
Actions speak louder than words, as @norbauer alluded to. The idea behind the forum is sound, but until some time has passed that shows the commitment and direction of the site, all we can do right now (other than ask questions and offer suggestions) is give the board of trustees, and the moderators, the benefit of the doubt.
If everything goes as stated, then we can give them our trust and respect.
If things don’t go as stated, then either we, the community, work with the team here to try to rectify it, or we go somewhere else.
For one, I’m glad there’s active development on the site, but only time will tell how active that stays. It’s new after all. I’m not doubting anybody, but as the saying goes, the road to hell is lined with good intentions.
Anyways, I think all the concerns I’d have are already mentioned in this thread. So far, I’m optimistic.