Meta Update I
Breaking away from my normal mold a bit, I’ve chosen to write a meta-update about my reviews, their reception this far along, as well as the future direction of things to be taken. Due to the increased reception and uncountable direct message conversations that I’ve had with people about what I’ve written, it is sufficient to say that I owe the lot of you an update and a bit of an explanation of the behind the scenes of it all.
Review Reception and Rationale
Needless to say, I think the increase in Reddit upvotes as well as all of the lovely comments that I’ve received on Discord has indicated to me that people are really enjoying my reviews and writeups (for some reason or another). In a completely transparent way, I’m not quite sure why you all seem to like them as much as you do, but I’m happy that they are being received well. As I’ve mentioned before in prior posts, I have a bit of a rationale that makes this something that I would do regardless of the reception, though it does make everything a bit easier when it’s appreciated. The rationale is thus:
As part of my switch collection, I’ve been blessed with being able to hold, interact, and learn about switches that the vast majority of people in the hobby don’t get a chance to ever see. In addition to that, I’ve had innumerable conversations with people from completely unknown to some of the most famous people in this hobby and I’ve learned even more about switches than I let on in my reviews. (Some of it I can’t even talk about due to the nature of some of the information.) With the field of switches exploding over the last year, I saw a lot of confusion among people about what exactly was going on with pieces, and it became hard for the average person to keep up with everything new. Since I have been so lucky to grow my collection alongside this explosion, I feel obligated to share with the average enthusiast the details, nuances, and opinions I have, as most people might not get the chance to see the things I have. While I enjoy writing the reviews and writeups, they are ultimately for you all in hopes that you will get to learn something new about what is going into your boards.
The fact that you all appreciate this rationale and its product makes me truly happy and is the reason that I am continuing to write past the first few ones that were received well.
Current Setting and Looking Forward
Currently, I have no set schedule for publishing my writeups and reviews and for the time being I aim to keep it as such. While I try and share with as many people as possible, many may not recognize that I am still an undergraduate in college in a STEM field. In addition to my large class load, I also am a teaching assistant and hold down a nearly full-time research job and other part time job. Needless to say, I work nearly 50-60 hours a week on top of the switch collecting, and most of the time I’m left writing these reviews well after 1 or 2 AM before I go to bed. As well, some weeks are going to be worse than others with classes, and I’m going to be left working on stuff until then without the chance to get to work on the writeups until the weekends, unfortunately. Thus, I don’t want to make any promises about a schedule of uploads nor in the order I’m going to do documents because I don’t know week to week what my life will be like. While this isn’t ideal for either you or me, I hope you understand it’s a necessity of the position I am in right now.
That being said, looking forward I’ve taken to heart what has been said about my reviews thus far. While, much due to the aforementioned schedule, it won’t move insanely fast – I am actively looking into setting up a website or blog through which I can post reviews in a bit more of a universal format. I will make no promises as to any dates, but below in my (extremely) rough outline of plans, I try and discuss when I see this as a potential option. That being said, for the meantime I will continue to upload the normal PDF format as I have done thus far along as it simply works for the time being. Again, while this doesn’t solve everyone’s gripes right away – I feel this is a solid step to take. As bigger changes take place in the future, I will aim to write more of these updates so you all can be aware of how I am moving around and doing things behind the scenes.
Extremely Rough Future Plans List
As discussed above, the following is a kind of list of roughed out plans that I have in my head for the future as well as an extremely loose timeline that I hold absolutely no promises about whatsoever.
Reviews Planned –
-This is a list of the current reviews I have in the pipeline in my head as well as roughly when I want to see these come to fruition.
-C3 Equalz Tangerine V2s – This review is up if you’re reading this!
-Silent Alpaca Review – Mid/Late February
- In addition to the normal Silent Alpaca pieces, I was also blessed to receive factory samples that PrimeKB obtained prior to purchasing to discuss. These were likely the very first silent linear samples ever sent out by the factory as well.
-Phoenix Stem Review – Late February/March
- This is going to be a bigger review and likely take up a lot more time than normal ones in the format that I current have planned for it.
-Website – March (?)
Reviews I Want to Do
-“From the Vault” – Review older, popular pieces such as Gateron Inks, Novelkeys Creams, Zealios V2, etc. as these are often the most popular in the community and these give you a good baseline for my tastes.
-“Plastic Comparisons” – A writeup detailing the chemistry behind things like POM, Polycarbonate, Polyethylene, etc. that goes into your switches and how theoretically they make a difference.
-GSUS/SuperVan Panda Drama – A writeup about the drama clusterfuck that threw everything into the Modern Durock era.
-“Lube Comparison” – A discussion much in the same fashion as the plastic comparisons
-“How Should I start?” – A more detailed beginners guide to switches past “just buy Gateron Yellows and add some lube”
-“ThereminGoat’s Views on Frankenswitches” – A talk a bit about Frankenswitches, why I don’t cover them, ones I consider as “valid”, as well as interesting ones I’ve come across.
Again, I stress these are all things I want to do – but they may not even happen. In a perfect world, though, I want to get more of these ideas off this list and into the done pile as I feel they could be useful or interesting given the reception of my reviews and writeups this far along.