A Suggestion About Posting, FWIW...

S

sing

Joined
Jan 31, 1999
Messages
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As Bladeforums closes in on another milestone -- 3,000 members, we are seeing more and more postings. Great! This is the place to share and learn.

The downside is that the General Forum gets way too much posts. I find myself overwhelmed and somedays skipping it all together. Many of the postings actually can go into one or another of the more specific forums. I know everyone wants a response and thinks the General Discussion forum is the route to go. But, may I suggest that posts go into the more appropriate specific forum. I think if we all get use to doing that we may not only not lose responses but get more by those interested in a specific topic/area.

For What It's Worth.

sing
 
Sing
Good point.Also if posters looked first a lot of the threads that keep getting rehashed over and over again could be eliminated such as "How long have you liked knives"," How old are you" etc etc.These types of threads end up taking up a lot of space.Spark how about some expertise on this?
Bob
 
I fully agree. Even though I myself don't have the time to attend any other forum, just this main one, due to its immense size.

But maybe, if specialized posts were put where they should go, I would have time to go to a couple of other forums.

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!!! Loca Grande !!!
 
Hear Hear!!

Some of the postings do seem a little self serving and not beneficial to the general knife community. I have picked up a lot of excellent "knife" information, but I had to read through some useless prose to obtain it.

I like this forum and will continue to read it often. Thanks to everyone.
 
I disagree. Not trying to be a troll, or some sort of jerk but I look at the profile first and see if it is a newbie posting the question. If it is, then I do what I can to answer that persons question no matter how many times it as been asked and rehashed. If it was a senior member who asked the same obvious question (like me with, you know you're a knife nut if...) then that person or me needs to be taken out back and beat
smile.gif


If you look back far enough you'll see even Mike Turber asked demographic type questions once or twice.

Until we get the search feature back I think we need to exercise some tolerance.

I do agree on putting the right post in the right forum though. Though the majority of members hang out here most of the time and don't bother with specialized forums unless something in the General Forums links them to another spot.

And if you use View Today's Active Topics it is a little easier to wade through those current posts.

FWIW

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"A knifeless man is a lifeless man"
-Nordic proverb

 
As a newbie here, I'm gonna have to play Devil's Advocate on this one. As this Forum grows (exponentially, it seems) these questions need to be asked on an occasional basis. It helps the new people learn about you old Forum Fogies and it helps you to learn about the cherries. The more we understand about each other the greater the dialogue. We're all here to learn about that which we love. KNIVES!!! Now I do agree that we should try to steer topics to the proper forum, but new people will learn as they participate, with your help, of course.
 
Not posting questions because they have been asked, and possibly answered, assumes that no new knowledge has entered the forums, and all that can be said on the issue has been.

I'm not really into demographic stuff, but the cool thing is you can skip it. For those that are into it, maybe they like getting a feel for what sorts of people they're conversing with.

All the threads aiming at ferreting out how many females and who they are particularly amuse me. You can feel the retarded teenage sexuality in the air...

Anyway, the only such posts that upset me were the rash of "I wanna be a senior member too" posts, many of which were made just for the sake of making another post.

Anyway, yeah we could move all this stuff into their respective forums, but this is the "general forum, open to all topics". It's the same amount of stuff, you just have a longer list. I'm not a fast reader and I handle it pretty well.

I try to keep stuff relevant, and in the right forum, but the current situation doesn't upset me unduly.

And if you think about it, just about every forum has areas that are more active than others.
 
I wonder if it's really true that more people read this forum first and the others only if there's any time left ... maybe so, but definitely not so for the members who have the most expertise in particular areas. I often see threads started here that should have been in Shop Talk or the Tactical Forum and though they get replies, they often don't get replies from the people who best know what they're talking about. The members who are interested and knowledgable in specialized fields of knife knowledge all read the forum we're interested in first and many of us don't even try to keep up with all the threads in this forum. When you spend your days making knives or practicing martial arts you find time for those forums but many of the most knowledgable members of those forums are rarely if ever seen here.

I often see questions going without answers from the members who know best because of poor choice of header, too. If you write a header that tells what the thread is about then even the people who don't read every thread (most of us, surely?) will find it if they're interested.

If you choose the right forum and write a header that has some meaning to it you'll nearly always get -- not merely answers to your question or discussion of the topic you want to talk about -- you'll get the right answer to your question and informed discussion. We have a tremendous store of knowledge in the members of these forums, but often the most knowledgable members seem to be the ones who don't have time to read every thread in every forum, especially the general forum where it's getting to be almost a full-time job just to keep up with everything ... let alone take the time to write replies....

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Lets please not get too rigid, other than strongly suggesting that topics be discussed in the proper forum.The friendly,helpful atmosphere is one of the greatest features of BladeForums, IMHO.

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"To grow older is inevitable.To grow UP is optional."
 
Ideally we'd like to see the members of the forums be self policing. That means that you guys take it upon yourself to post to the appropriate forums, etc etc etc.

Unfortunately, this doesn't always happen. There are about 5 or 6 threads I can point at right now that belong in the Community Center forum, etc.

It's up to you guys to help make these forums the best that they can be. We give you a lot of leeway in how we run this site, and we don't clamp down on off topic threads, etc, because we don't want to stifle you.

At the same time,please don't use our laisse-faire approach as carte-blanch to do whatever you happen to feel like. Let's all make the extra effort to make sure this place remains freindly, yet focused.

Maybe we need to reorganize. Maybe we need to change things. Maybe not. Either way, a majority of the control lies within you guys, as neither Mike, myself, or the moderators can monitor the forums 24 hours a day.

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here
 
I do not have a problem with the current situtation. There have been a few repetitive threads but not many. Rather than impose new additional rules I would suggest that some members may want to focus on some of the side bar discussions instead of the general discussion.

Having said that; I share your concern that as the forum continues to grow, the general forum may become a little too general for most members.

I would like to ask Sparks, if there is any way that we could select to monitor the dicussions on a subset of sites. We could always flick back and forth but it would be nice (and a big plus for the forum) to be able to selectively view current activity on a subset of forum sites.

This would reduce the traffic in the genral forum, and leave that forum open to provide general information and gudiance to new members.

[This message has been edited by not2sharp (edited 07 August 1999).]
 
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