I worked for 13 years as a university lecturer, and I can't agree more. Furthermore, information that you attain by your own research is retained better and for longer. These are facts. Plus... learning is fun. When you grow up with facts being handed to you on a plate, it makes you far less able to solve your own problems and harms critical thinking skills. There's absolutely nothing wrong with asking questions, but you should spend some time trying to find the answers yourself before you just ask. Usually the best questions are the ones raised from your own research, as the more you learn, the more questions you may have, but they tend to be relevant questions that are also more useful to others who may be reading your posts.

Good point regarding noticing vs. Identifying the difference. Did not think about it in this way.

You can press all of them too

Agreed, sample size defines a lot and of course similar switches are harder to tell apart, this goes to any similar things not just switch. I think another aspect that differs hobbyists and none hobbyists though, is the ability to identify the difference on top of noticing the difference, and further more know how to modify a certain part to maximize or minimize such difference. So like everyone could tell switch A is scratchier than switch B just from pressing it, but us would know that is material and lube related… or that they would think switch A make a more pleasant sound than switch B, and us would know how to tune the sound from different case/plate/foam/pad/lube etc. Now that I said this, I feel like a hobby, any hobby, is truly an art of themselves… the more time we spend in it, the more time we see things other people don’t

For funsies, I did a blind test with multiple linear switches I own. It is pretty easy to spot the difference, but unless you are very familiar with every one of them, it is really hard to name those switches. You just know they are different, but which switch is which - who knows /shrug

Based on those pictures it looks like the switches are Siemens STB. Not sure if it's STB11 or 21, but either way it's a really cool find!

Yeah I always had teachers and professors that said you spend at minimum 10 minutes researching a question before you ask it publicly. If everyone lived by this there would be a lot less questions asked.

"Ask ANY question, get an answer" is pretty straightforward. If you're tired of answering the same questions don't answer them, but don't gatekeep how much knowledge is needed before asking questions is allowed, that's ridiculous.

Maybe not, but if you know when a set will drop, or is expected to drop, you can be ready to pounce as most vendors will have extras. Some even have planners and calendars showing expected dates for each set, and most will have a mailing list you can sign up to. This is how I knew Striker was up as an extra set at Prototypist. I'd forgotten all about it until I got an e-mail telling me. It's not a cast iron guarantee, no, but you can get most things this way if you plan it well.

Love a good spreadsheet though

I don't mind spending money but i will never do another group buy just to wait 2 years. Would have to explain to my 6 month old son.. "You can't sell the house until all the group buys come" or write it into my will

I can see both sides of this. Those on the receiving end of people saying "Just search the answer, it's asked a million times already" just feel a little put out because it may not be that obvious to them that it's a question that is asked about ten times a day. The other side of that is the fact that if they just searched... which takes minutes, they would not have needed to ask. This is why I can't understand what the objection is to the daily thread is. It solves this issue mostly.

This ... like who is going to see your layout? (well maybe people at r/battlestations but thats about it).

If I want my setup to look like a pack of unicorns had a frat party and threw rainbows all over my 3 full sized keyboards .... its my setup after all.

I fail to see how that adds anything to the argument. It's not whether people's posts get answered or not that was the problem. It was the sheer volume of repeat questions on a daily basis. Loads of people just asking the same questions without even checking if anyone else had asked the same question. You'd see the same "what switch should I get", or "how do I fix a key that double types" questions posted repeatedly by multiple people, often within a short space of time. It just made trying to read this sub awful. If people took the time to read the sub properly, read the wiki, and did a little research of their own before they fired off questions this wouldn't be a problem... but they don't, so it makes sense to have a place for these questions to be asked, and also to have the thread reset every day. The threads are archived. It's not as if it gets deleted, so you can still search for them. Surely you have to agree that it makes more sense for people to just search out existing threads that probably already contain the answers they are looking for instead of just posting the same question again?

People don't like browns here, not sure why.

OK, now do the other switches the same way 🙃

I dropped it in the lube while moving it to the tray :(

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how

This is really relatable

Drop giveaway week. 7 posts, each one giving away 3 free keyboards or 3 free keycap sets, each post got around 17k comments, which got the post low on r/all and increased general interaction, creating that 30k peak you see

Yep. Inverse elitism. Simple as that. The fact is, the existence of expensive group buy boards and keycaps doesn't affect anyone who has no intention of buying them. There will always be cheaper in stock items, no matter whether it is keycaps, or keyboards. There are plenty of in stock options for keycaps that are not clones, and the same can be said for keyboards. There's never been a better time to be in this hobby on a budget, but some people seem to think that if only they can get rid of group buys, they'll be able to get GMK caps for $50 with next day delivery, or a TGR board for $200 within weeks of ordering it. They don't understand how it all works. They just say " Why don't they just make them and sell them". If it was that simple, it would be happening already. They fail to realise that all these grail products are not mass manufactured, they are designed by members of this community who do not have the financial backing to just fund the mass manufacture of these things. They also fail to realise just how small these production runs are. Take keycaps for example. A successful group buy only sells around 2 to 3 thousand sets (including extras). That's not because anyone has chosen this as some kind of artificial limit... that's just the amount that was sold. The MOQ on GMK is 250 sets. GMK will make as many as you tell them to so long as you hit the MOQ. So those that realise this would be incredibly foolish to personally fund the production of more than this, even if they had the cash to do it.

Oooh this is what I want to move to! I'm using a Preonic with 2x2u spacebars and really don't need four modifiers on the left.

Care to share your layout?

Found it lol, https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/wgxc1x/drop_giveaway_day_5_3x_expression_series_shinai/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf 16k comments because drop was giving away expression series boards

Beautiful collection! My favorite has to be the bottom one though I love me some white keyboards. 1800 layout is the best layout!