Do you feel all the tension in bladeforums sice the new changes?

B

Big D1

Joined
May 6, 1999
Messages
402
I feel and hear a lot of tension since Spark shuffled the deck. Accusations of putting the squeeze on dealers and the like have me thinking a lot lately.

One thing that really fries my squash is when a dealer or anybody else has a valid complaint, the topic is squashed like a bug on a windshield. Sometimes the truth hurts, albeit what a person wants to call it.

I feel like I have been sucked into a vortex of deceit which had its making years ago in the beginning in which I predicted this would happen, and it was not good for the people. Big D1
 
Yeah, there sure has been some growing pains around here. But imagine the tension that ALL of the members here feel, multiply that by a thousand, and you got what Miek and Spark have/had all this time.

Spark's job is to keep Bladeforums open, and make it a place people can come and chat about knives. Sometimes he may not please everyone all of the time, but I thin for the most part things have been run here excellently.

About the new chargings going on here: As I said, it is Spark's job to keep BF open. Mike Turber spend a great deal of his OWN money to keep the place open. Bladeforums IS NOT free; neither is any forum site. Banners and the business 1SKS isn't enough to pay the bills apparently, so the mamagement here has to look at other ways of keeping the place open. BF is better than a magazine, yet people complain about memberships. Especially when it is still FREE to post! If you want the EXTRA features, you have to pay. Brick and Mortars have to pay craploads in rent and such; if you deal on here and make money, you should kick a little back, no? Isn't that fair?

Growing pains hurt. Has anyone got som positive solutions to help out?
 
I started feeling the tension somewhere between 4000 and 6000 members. Ever since then it's been friggin Thunderdome in here.

I don't see the root cause having so much to do with the new fees (although that's brought out some really lovely sides of some people :rolleyes: ). It's just that with our vastly expanded membership, and the fact that there is no Mickey Mouse standing at the gates of the internet holding his arm out telling us "you must be this tall to enter", we now host lots and lots of all types, including those who just ain't real hip.
 
There does seem to be a little more tension. People often don't like to get out of their comfort zone and any change often meets resistance. I have enjoyed these forums so much and I hope it continues to be successful. I will support these forums as much as possible. I think it is too soon to say for sure what effect the changes will have on Bladeforums. One thing that no one can dispute is that Bladeforums has been the most successful of all the forums.

Also as stated above a lot has to do with the size. Whenever a community gets this large there are bound to be some conflicts.

I have noticed increased traffic at knifeforums.com and other knife forums popping up like Knifenut Community

I personally feel the more forums we have the better for us knifenuts.
 
Membership growth means bandwidth. Slow servers inhibit growth.

The forums are suffering like the rest of the web... banner type ads don't always work, and advertising is cyclical with the business cycle anyway.

I'm surprised they made it this far without fees... I can't imagine subsidizing a forum this size from a knife business. A forum like this can be a big negative cash flow boat anchor (yes, there are buyers who are referred to 1SKS from forum... but ...).

I would have done the same as Spark... maybe differently, maybe very similarly, but you have to have at least a reasonable business plan to go cash flow positive, when all is considered, or you must be independently wealthy, otherwise it is going to die.

I'm amazed how many people react selfishly and haven't an empathetic clue in their postings about the business side ... common sense is, afterall, apparently not all that common.
 
Yeah, I've noticed some additional tension in the last few months, but it's not much more than the tensions that were here when Mike and Spark left KF and started this place. I think people are taking all of this way too seriously. I mean, if BF ever shut down (God forbid!), the only one that would lose money would be Spark and maybe Mike. The rest of us would be inconvenienced and saddened but life would go on. If there are dealers that don't want to pay a fee to be here, they should just buy start their own forum.
 
Diversity always causes friction. That's what all the the forums have extreme diversity among people who
will never have a face to face conversation. That really taxes a persons good behavior. I've read many times
when things got sideways. It happens. How Spark and the gang deal with it is amazing. For the good they
do this fourm ,and all the others, are a great education and a whale of a lot of fun.
 
Personally, I haven't noticed much of a difference in terms of average tone, as this forum is no different than the [hundreds of] thousands of other quasi-anonymous Web forums extant and extinct. Starting threads devoted to the tension some perceive only intensifies it, as far as I can tell.
 
Only people I've seen whining are folks that have been using bladeforums as free commercial space and making money off it.Everyplace has rule and responsibilities. If you don't agree with them or like them, find someplace else.
 
This thread belongs in Whine & Cheese, where even you Freeloaders can beach and moan. I want to know why they call you guys Basic Members instead of Guest or something that would be more fitting in W&C? I have some choice ones for you. :barf:
 
Yes, the individual for sale forums are a lot less active now. I was hoping that the volume and quality wouldn't change but at the same time the quality of the sellers would increase. This is not so. This was foretold but this in itself doesn't convince me that the decision to charge to post in the forsale forums was entirely bad.

I haven't agreed with a lot of the decisions made by Mike and Kevin in the past, and there are things that I'll NEVER agree with. I will say that in spite of all that I will try to support the forums. I've done so by purchasing merchandise and also by paying for membership. We'll see if it makes a difference. I will say that the forums have lost a lot of good people who NEED to be able to take people at their word. In my profession, I get lied to, all the time but perhaps not as much as the professional police officer. I can take a lie and not worry too much about it. I was told via email that as a policy, mistakes are not to be admitted to. I can live with that although a few mea culpas wouldn't hurt. The whole point is that bladeforums is a thing greater than its creators. I don't have to like or agree with Mike or Kevin to enjoy BFC and I'll go out on limb and assume that even Mike or Kevin don't expect everyone to love them and their decisions both past and present. I do, really enjoy BFC and will try to continue to do so. When I've reached my limit in terms of what I cannot accept, I'll just stop logging in. It is my choice and its yours too.
 
Actually, this thread does belong in Community...
or better yet, Whine and Cheese where the doodee meets the road.

But let me go get my 440c one piece undies on first.:p
 
Only people I've seen whining are folks that have been using bladeforums as free commercial space and making money off it.
Click to expand...

Ditto.

Not only are these people whining, but they're trying to stir up a bunch of controversy about it.

One thing that really fries my squash is when a dealer or anybody else has a valid complaint, the topic is squashed like a bug on a windshield.
Click to expand...

There's an old story about the boy who cried wolf. We could rewrite it about the dealer who whined and complained so much that after a while everyone just assumed that anything he posted was yet another whinning complaint.


If you want Blade Magazine or Knives Illustrated, or any of the other knife magazines, you've got to pay money for it. If you want to advertize in one of those magazines, you've got to pay big money for it. Bladeforums.com is as good a source of news and information as any of those magazines. Bladeforums.com is as good a venue to advertise in (getting on 11,000 registered members) as any of those magazines.

If you want to sell some knives from your own collection, you could just talk 'em 'round with some buddies of yours. That's free. If it works, if it gets your knives sold, sold quickly, and sold for top-dollar, then that's great. But, if that doesn't work, if the knives are exotic, or if you have no friends to talk 'em up with, then you may need more and better exposure. You could get a table at a show. You could put your knife on eBay. You could put an ad in one of the magazines. But, all of those things will cost you money.
 
Things have been tense, but I've thought that over the last two weeks everything has finally started to go back to normal. Stupid and ignorant fights have dropped dramatically, humor has finally returned, and the personal knife exchange is breathing again. Unfortunately the dealer knife exchange is still in cardiac arrest :D
 
Moving to Service & Support, the proper forum for site feedback
 
There seemed to be some tension when the changes were first made, but it seems that they are mostly gone now. Of course threads like this do tend to bring them back to the fore and serve no good purpose IMHO.
 
I gotta go with Razor, Phil, L6, Gollnick, rdangerer and whomever else took a similar stance.

I don't sense any tension until I read threads like this. I do disagree with whoever it was that said that if BF folded we would be saddened and inconvenienced. Hell, BF is the focal point of my life! My feelings upon its demise would be substantially stronger. I know, I should get a life. Well, my health problems don't allow me much of one. Blade Forums have helped a great deal in my fight against depression.

I've only been participating since early February this year. But I know that few have gained as much from participation as I. I admit that my basic Scottishness for awhile had me thinking Premier membership, but when I really thought about it, I know of no bargain I have found or could ever find would approach my benefit for the $30 Gold membership costs.

Although I always detested the United Way jingle, "Pay your fair share", I do think that should be considered in one's response to the changes.

I know I'm one of the half dozen forumites who admit to a relatively liberal political persuasion, but I can't say that I'm surprised so many conservative types have to be dragged into the present, let alone the future, without dragging their heels and screaming blue, bloody murder.

I do also believe that there should be a sense of ethics in one's approach to the changes, but realize that too may not be a widely held position.
 
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