TIL that Gazzew U4Ts require lube on the top housing to remove the clacky upstroke. BUT that they’re very sensitive to over lubing… if I did more than the lightest coat of 205g0 then there was an audible “stick” noise as soon as the slider separated from the housing.
Really unpleasant lol, I’m slowly finding the perfect balance.
Not explicitly the top housing, but for me, lubing U4Ts with anything thicker than 3204 added too much friction in the press (even with the thinnest of application). I’m sure it has to do with the tight tolerances in the house which ultimately is a good thing.
I use 5 ply toilet paper…
TIL KeebTalk has a logo (I think):
There have been quite a few submissions in the past before we settled on the final logo
Oh, I see. The logo in the navigation bar is the KT logo, not a general Discourse logo. My bad. Also, the logo contest thread is pretty cool.
The logo that I posted above is what came up when I turned on 2FA.
For those of you who were not aware: JWK does not recognize “V1” or “V2” molds by these names – to them, these are simply just alternative mold designs and are not believed to be any better than each other based on the mold designs alone. The reason that switches such as Alpaca V2s, for example, are notably better than the V1s in my and many people’s opinions are the usage of a better factory lubing technique, not a differentiation in molds.
https://www.theremingoat.com/blog/naevy-v15-switch-review
Does anyone else find this statement from Theremingoat super confusing? How did differences in factory lubing techniques improve stem and housing wobble so much with the v2’s or am I totally imagining that?
Yea, I don’t think it’s super clear, and I had to read it a few times initially. FWIW, I read it as a general statement ( switch x.v1 v. switch x.v2) that’s illustrated by a specific example (Alpacas).
Regarding the Alpacas specifically, I had to reread his Alpaca v2 review, from which I believe he’s saying that in his comparison there is indeed an improvement in wobble and sound from v1 to v2, but the delta is not large because the wobble was already good on the v1. (So, better but not significantly so.)
Additionally, I believe that an unstated assumption is that the two molds are close enough that lubing and filming minimizes many of the stock differences between them, the main one being the quality of factory lubing.
ICIC. Thanks for clearing that up.
“I still did it drunk, in bed, and on Saturday morning”
We can tell, Goat. We can tell.
Ha! Right?!?! The fact that he most likely typed this up on a laptop just makes me giggle a bit.
I find his reviews in general confusing. Some how he is of the mind that the more you type, the more of a subject matter expert you are.
I don’t think he is wrong, I just take his opinion with a heavy grain of salt. As any one should when his reviews feature two variables that he can heavily manipulate.
EDIT: Forgot all this reviews are on a single switch too. Doesn’t even fill a whole board.
Sure, but he’s also pretty up-front about this and the alternative would be maddeningly expensive (and impractical) to do as a side gig that creates a free resource for people. Guy’s a grad student, not some loaded influencer.
If people are getting something out of his reviews, more power to them. You bring up a great point, but to me this is just further evidence that the reviews are iffy.
I think we all know based on evidence, testing a single switch in a tester does not equal a board. If Goat enjoys doing these, awesome, but I think the some in the community have put his reviews on a pedestal that is not deserved.
A grad student would know that “Context” and “Other” are just score padding.
Fair, but that’s on them (not TG) and (I suspect) has more to do with the lack of other people doing similar work than it is a product of how he talks about switches; a vacuum exists and he’s one of the only people filling it. There are, of course, Twitch/Youtube reviewers but their work is… not as searchable and usually lacking in any kind of thoroughness/rigor, which stinks. Other fields of products have a huge advantage over ours in that they have lots of reviewers poring over the same products and people can seek out the ones whose tastes align with their own (or whose tastes are simply very obvious and their observations can be metered based on those).
I don’t know that “score padding” is entirely accurate, since they’re just subjective things that account for his personal taste and interest, which are totally normal in reviews of any product or media (but especially here in keyboards where most things are deeply subjective). This is equivalent to, for instance, me saying that I like sharp tactiles more than rounded tactiles; he has just attached numbers to that in a way I don’t. TG actually provides a “Hard Total” composite score sheet in his linked Switch Scores github that has these removed from the scores for people who don’t want his taste included in things.
Sure, but nobody’s board is really equivalent to anybody else’s board, so I have a hard time imagining a world where full board testing produces meaningfully more useful results and insights than on-tester testing—which is actually an achievable standardization for anybody—can produce. But I’d love to see more people doing it! And I want more people to fill up this space with their thoughts and findings on switches!
Y’all, I’m in the Ohio discord group with the guy and he’ll be THE FIRST (like jumps on the opportunity) to question and disregard anyone who takes his reviews without the smallest grain of salt. He’s really been pretty embarrassed about the whole ‘pedestal’ issue. He’s always saying he just writes these reviews for fun.
Hey ajoflo,
I recognize you from somewhere but apologies if you asked me this elsewhere and I missed it. JWK has outright stated that they do not believe that the mold differences between V1 (Type A) and V2 (Type B) molds lead to any significant difference in performance. What I wanted to try and highlight here is that I do believe that a large part of their noted push feel improvement is lube over mold differentiation as many people will just blankly point to the score and my statements about how “much better” V2s are than V1s and attribute to molds. I won’t lie, I could have worded it a bit better.
I most certainly am not of the mind that the more I type, the more of a subject matter expert I am, first of all. I, in fact, often tell people to drop the nonsense pedestal that people put reviewers on when they are discussing switches with me. I actually hardly think I am a subject matter area expert on it, at all, and I think M_er_sun astutely pointed that I usually tell people to ‘fuck off’ whenever they openly fawn over me like some expert - I am just a dude with some switches.
Secondly, I wholeheartedly think you should take my work with a grain of salt. Everyone should. I am a reviewer who is giving my opinion on what I feel in long form, comedic takes as that is the type of content that I personally appreciate. I don’t watch tech youtubers, and I’ve only recently began to watch any Twitch keyboard people. I’ve grown in the last five years through undergraduate research to come to appreciate the long form, complex, and often overly-detailed research paper and believed I could provide that level of content to the people here since a lot of switch discussions become reduced to superlatives.
Thirdly, my reviews are not just done on a single switch, hence the pictures of multiple of them in the photos. In fact, I think the only time I ever reviewed single switches was for my Nixie review, and I’m sure you can understand why. Do I have an entire board of switches? Absolutely not, I don’t have that kind of money. Do I usually have somewhere between 5 and 10 to test? Absolutely, and I often request at least a couple from anyone who willingly sends me stuff. I’m also extremely open about this process because I think that’s the proper thing to do.
Fourth(ly?), Context and Other do not pad the stats. I’ve provided ample descriptions in the past as to what exactly constitute those scores and I would agree things like historical importance, longevity, availability, pricing, etc. are all subject to change over time. This is why I plan on sitting down and eventually readjusting scores based on these metrics (and some more objective ones) and discussing my rationale for why.
TLDR:
I make these reviews as a public resource that I would enjoy and to provide something that I think the community is lacking. It’s not perfect, but then again nobody’s content is. I’m glad you’ve raised these concerns, and while I think a few of them are a bit mischaracterized, I can understand why you feel that way. Feel free to support me as little or as much as you like as my goal is to help at least one person out there and it doesn’t necessarily have to be you. I hope I have helped you at least a tiny bit, though.
-Cheers
Ahoy, Mr. Goat. I’m glad to see you here, though I would it were under somewhat different circumstances.
I think by virtue of so few people giving the level of attention to switches that you do, your reviews have ended up somewhat of a gold standard, intentional or no. Through sharing your passion, I think you may have inadvertently raised the bar when it comes to the content of switch reviews, which may have positioned them in a place you never intended them to sit.
I think the clarification in your latest review and that you’ve posted here will be helpful in setting a tone through which people can enjoy your work; maybe a sticky on your site overviewing your approach will be helpful in managing peoples expectations. Over the years, I’ve learned that expectation management is one of the most important, and overlooked aspects of public presence - whether its as a business, a creator, or something else.
It seems to me some folks are, consciously or unconsciously, expecting unrealistic levels of pure objectivity by virtue of your writing skill, consistency, and the level of detail you afford to your reviews. When someone’s work gains popularity as yours has, I believe it’s only a good thing to remind newcomers and old fans alike why you’re doing what you do in the first place, and how you like to do it.
Say all that to say, I very much enjoy your writing on switches, and your own enjoyment of the hobby (and writing itself) comes through in them - and that’s one thing I’d like to see stay the same. I do use your reviews for some degree of objective information (you def sold me on the Water Kings I got in the mail today), but I’m mostly there to enjoy your writing. Enjoying lightly-salted Goat words is one of my favorite ways to pass extra time.
