Sorry I missed Gus's context regarding the "advertising" and "pictures" issue. I had no idea that this particular sub-forum ("Custom Knives") was supposed to be non commercial for a reason.
It is sad but true that success brings its own problems, and no less with this forum as with BFC as a whole, and for that matter almost every other large-scale popular forum on the Internet and before it the usenet. Many of you have put fingers on the various reasons why this happens both in general, and here with respect to knife makers in particular.
For a public computer conference to be successful and grow you have to have a constant stream of new posts and topics. If you restrict what is said to what is really useful and always novel - minimizing repeat questions because you can always look those up in the archives, then the post rate falls so low that people stop coming back to see what "new" has come up. This is particularly the case where subjects, like knives and knife making, have been around for centuries and there is only so much "new" to be revealed. How do you keep the discussion fresh when its all been said before? This sort of problem doesn't pop up so much in other domains like chip design, cryptography, or genetic engineering because something new really is coming along almost every day.
For my part I can say unequivocally that BFC has launched my "knife knut" interest, especially in customs. Before BFC I owned a few (really three or four) nice factory knives like spyderco and benchmade. Since BFC the number of factory knives (mostly folders) has risen to a dozen or more, while customs like Dozier, Livesay, and Reeve have become my focus for the last couple of years. Now, thanks to encountering George Tichbourne's work (again thanks to BFC), I've ordered my first "true custom" in the sense that it will be a one-of-a-kind, and there are a half dozen other makers like Jerry H. and Mike S. whose work I would love to sample first hand thanks to trying the web links first seen here and reading about what others have gotten from them. They'll have to be patient though. Unlike some of you I must seriously restrict what I buy to a few items a year, and I've pretty well burned through the knife budget for this year anyway, though you never know what will happen come Christmas
As for the "what knife to carry on an airplane" threads, oh well. So long as they stay where they belong in the general discussion I don't mind. I even participate once in a while, typically when I've just returned from an air trip and can actually report on the latest in airport security paranoia I've encountered. At the same time it is just this sort of repetitive banter, so long as some folks remain interested and newcomers keep coming along to keep the ball rolling, that keeps people here to see some really interesting stuff when it does come along. Personally I try never to start a new thread unless I have somthing concrete to contribute like my K-1 review in "Knife Reviews and Testing" last nite, but I've been into this medium for almost 20 years now...
In case anyone is interested in why I think I know so much about this medium, check out my book (if its still in print):
Computer Mediated Communications: Bulletin Boards, Computer Conferencing, Electronic Mail, and Information Retrieval Pub. John Wiley, 1991. Yes it was pre-public internet, but the sociology of computer conferencing hasn't changed much since it all got started back in the early 80's