How do you get highly skilled makers to post here?

I do miss some of the 'old guys' who used to post regularly.

I don't see any real problem here, I just get tired of the repetitive questions and just skip over them.

We need more 'Mystery steel' threads! :D
 
Despite numerous requests to stop in again since I have moved on, I still hesitated even to follow a link to this thread. My hat’s off to Nick for being a bigger man than I am and coming back for an attempt at a constructive conversation. Curiosity, not expectations, got me to read this thread, but when I saw it was on its third page and still constructive in nature, I decided to post.

I can’t speak for others, but for myself I can say God bless newbies and their questions, because I believe that newbie’s questions are what these forums are all about. Perhaps it is the teacher in me, but I prefer to be where I can be of help, and nothing spurs conversation more than newbie questions. Think about it, if you are like me when you are around friends on your same level in the business, you talk about cigars, scotch, music, movies, jokes, etc… but rarely do you talk about methods or technical aspects of knife making; it is boring and what is the point you already know what each other will say. It is only when a new maker approaches you with good questions do you talk about knifemaking. So please don’t segregate or under-appreciate the new guys, they are the life blood of these forums and the future of our craft.

I can give you the reason why I had to leave BF in one word- stress. I hate conflict, I just want to help people, and losing friends or making enemies for no good reason sucks greater than anything I have experienced in my adult life. There were days when I got a sick feeling in my stomach just pressing “enter” at this site, because I knew only grief would result. Most people come to these places for fun. I wished I could say that, but when I experienced that level of anxiety I knew I had a different incentive and that was my desire to help others, but there comes a time when your own physical and mental well-being needs to come first.

I would like the opportunity to clarify why, and when, I left BF. I joined BF in 2003 and until late 2008 it was my favorite site on the internet. But then I became the target of endless, intentional , harassment by new members who felt my metallurgical data was a threat to their approach to knifemaking. I was not met with countering data or attempts at valid arguments, just insults and nonsense like posting song lyrics to derail any thread I participated in.

Now let me be very clear about this, by themselves such people would never be able to keep me from helping folks, but when I could get no help whatsoever to stop the trolling I was no longer able to participate as I once did. I had a membership but let it lapse because I was unable to use it when eventually even a single post by me would destroy any thread as soon as my participation was noticed by certain individuals. In the following year, in which I was not active here, a new rule was put in place about posting images without a membership. I have NEVER liked posting stuff about myself or my knives on forums where I wanted to help with education, my philosophy is that advertising and sales tend to taint unbiased information. But I had been asked repeatedly to post my work to help establish that I can do some of what I talk about. So as I was leaving for the blade show, with a knife that I already had sold several times over, I posted an image here in total ignorance of the new rule.

When the violation was brought to my attention I can assure you that I felt sicker about it than anybody, but before I could remove the image (I was at the Blade show), a series of vicious personal attacks had been made against me by some familiar faces. The final insult was when someone who should have stopped the flaming (not Stacy) basically called me a freeloader for not having a membership. Between no hope of being able to post in peace, and the numbers of those who once were appreciative of any help I could give but now valued the outrageous behaviour of the other side more, I realized that despite my willingness to help, Bladeforums no longer had a use for me, and I moved on.

I must be honest that the second reason I decided to post in this thread is to address this:
“Many give him almost a God status because he has done the research to back up what he has to say…“
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Dixieblade57, you have a lifetime free pass to any information I can ever help you with as you are far too kind to me. I know from our past conversations that you have things in proper perspective about separating people from the data they provide, and that you are referring to others, and in that reference I sincerely hope you are dead wrong. I am a die-hard iconoclast, and relish being one. If I ever found an alter to a little tin god called Cashen I would be the first to torch it and take a leak on it while it burned. I sincerely believe that a lot of progress in our craft has been lost by putting people and personalities in front of sound information. If ever my name becomes more important than the information, then I have become part of the problem rather than the solution and I will have become one of things that I despise most.

I love newbies, because with every new bit of information I acquire I realize that I am a newbie. And God willing I will always be a newbie; asking questions, learning all that I can and realizing that if you are really learning you can’t be on a pedestal since there is no top in a never ending climb. Factual information deserves to be valued, but I deserve no better treatment than anybody else. On the other hand nobody deserves to be treated with the disrespect many have received here.

In the past, sites like this made changes in advancing our craft like I never expected to see in my lifetime, I guess that is probably worth saving. I wish you folks all the luck.
 
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David Stifle said:
There was quite a dustup a while ago about posting pictures AND not being a paying member. As I understood it, the decision was you cannot post pictures Unless you have a paid membership. Is this a fact?
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No, it is not a fact. It was made clear that anyone posting an knife they made ( unless it has a price tag ) can post it in shop talk. Some info on the item and procedures are appreciated, but if a registered user wants to post a photo of his Blade Show entry, it is fine. The people doing all the yelling were not mods, or even people with skin in the game.
To be blunt, it was all about personalities and old rivalries. That is also why a lot of the major player folks aren't here.

The suggestion I favor is basically what Esav is saying. Leave the current Shop talk alone. Increase moderation, and don't allow any negative posts. Lock threads that have no place to go.
Create a forum called "Knifemaking Techniques and Procedures"... an area for discussion of advanced techniques, HT, and materials.....post basic questions in Shop Talk.
 
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Wow, I was unaware of all that drama, Kevin. I must have (mercifully) been gone by then.
I think what you've described explains the problem (and implicitly the solution) to the question at hand.

"Birds of a feather flock together" is the old saying.
People of character and accomplishment are going to leave places where juvenile acts of low character are tolerated.
My experience had been that most of that was happening outside ST, and tried to stay in here. I didn't know ST had gone that way ...
 
Some thoughts:
What about a basic questions and an advanced questions forum? Basic forum: what is this piece of steel, how do I file bevels, what do I need to get started. Advanced questions: what HT recipe do I need to get Hitachi white to 61 RC?

Another idea: What if the forum was a single payment unlock? All paying members get access and all paying members pay a nominal amount, say, 5 bucks to get permanent posting access? this means that you wouldn't have to worry about th3e 10 dollars per year, but instead just a one time thing.

The crazy one: What if there is a forum that is for only certain people that were approved by mods? I know this would requite a lot of footwork for them and not so much for me, but I'm just curious. Basically, the only people there would be the experienced makers and the polite newbies. It would be an earned thing more than an payed for thing. Again, this is crazy because I have no idea if this is even possible, so I'm just going to throw it out there.
 
Geek:
The last two ideas are far too complex for Spark to even consider.
The first one is what I am talking about. Shop Talk for basic questions and the technical/experienced forum for specific and more advanced info. Any thread posted in the tech forum that really belongs in Shop Talk would be moved. I bet that in six months the whole area would be a better place.
 
bladsmth said:
No, it is not a fact. It was made clear that anyone posting an knife they made ( unless it has a price tag ) can post it in shop talk. Some info on the item and procedures are appreciated, but if a registered user wants to post a photo of his Blade Show entry, it is fine. The people doing all the yelling were not mods, or even people with skin in the game.
To be blunt, it was all about personalities and old rivalries. That is also why a lot of the major player folks aren't here.

The suggestion I favor is basically what Esav is saying. Leave the current Shop talk alone. Increase moderation, and don't allow any negative posts. Lock threads that have no place to go.
Create a forum called "Knifemaking Techniques and Procedures"... an area for discussion of advanced techniques, HT, and materials.....post basic questions in Shop Talk.
Click to expand...

Thanks Stacy, I totally misunderstood the policy.
 
As a member of many many forums over the years, my observation has been that separating them works ok so long as each forum has enough traffic to get responses in a timely fashion and so long as one isn't the apparent "noob" forum. Seperation by skill level rather than subject matters implies that your goal should be to graduate from the "noob" forum asap. Sort of like "ok, this is the cool kids club, and that is the new kids club. Go start in the new kids club and come on over when you think you're ready". Naturally no one wants to stay in the new kids club much past the initial greeting.
 
I am not a knife maker, nor am I a regular poster in this forum, but this thread caught my attention and I hope it's not out of line for me to offer a response...

It seems like some old faces have come back to offer a few words about this topic, and maybe Mr. Wheeler accomplished his goal simply by asking the question. Either way, I only have one important thing to say.

Repeat questions and threads seem to be an annoyance to many experienced BF members, but why? A simple. innocent question, albeit one that is asked a million times, should be met by someone who enjoys sharing knowledge. If you get frustrated when someone asks a question that could have been answered by reading a sticky, then you have no business opening the thread. Just pass over it and move on... leave it for those folks who don't mind being a guide.

The stickies have great information, but if all noobs did was read stickies, then it would take away what is great about forums... the interaction! Isn't that why we're all here?

JGON
 
bladsmth said:
Shop Talk for basic questions and the technical/experienced forum for specific and more advanced info. Any thread posted in the tech forum that really belongs in Shop Talk would be moved. I bet that in six months the whole area would be a better place.
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I definitely like where this discussion is going.

Keep Shop Talk as the open discussion forum about how to make knives. Add an Advanced Techniques forum for discussing what you do once you can make a knife, but want to do more of the work yourself, and want to raise the quality.

Neither forum should have any entry requirement above Registered User. Any inappropriate posts will be moved elsewhere. That's not just trolling, it would include people too new to realize they are out of their depth, and are disrupting the discussion.

(We do this all over the site, removing questions that really should be a new thread, not piggy-backed on someone else's topic. Not an infraction, just a redirection.)
 
Kevin, so good to 'hear' your voice, it was as if you were sitting there talking to me, you have a way not only with steel, but also with the word. And words can often be our undoing, one person types such and such, another reads it entirely different than it was intended, while a face to face would usually not be misunderstood, but we're here and not there. Thanks for taking the time to place that in this thread Kevin.

And thegeek574 you might be on to something there, possibly sub-sections within could be a good thing, more focus on the tasks at hand such as;

Steel Talk, a section that discusses different steels, damascus making, forging, grinding and heat treating, things pertaining to steel

Handle Talk, a section that discusses methods of various handle types, materials, how to make the material, work the material and fasten it to the knife

Now Sheath Talk is already covered in a separate sub section, BUT possibly that could be >moved< to the sub section area of Shop Talk, seems logical that it should be somewhere near by the guys making the knives ;)

And of course the main section for general info...

Might seem like a lot, but, when the new guys/gals do come here, sure would be handy to see the section they might be having questions on quickly and help keep the main section a little easier to keep tabs on.

And Nick, sorry for taking this into such a different tangent, the idea of bringing folks back will be quite the effort, but, might be worth it to attempt...

G2
 
bladsmth said:
No, it is not a fact. It was made clear that anyone posting an knife they made ( unless it has a price tag ) can post it in shop talk. Some info on the item and procedures are appreciated, but if a registered user wants to post a photo of his Blade Show entry, it is fine. The people doing all the yelling were not mods, or even people with skin in the game.
To be blunt, it was all about personalities and old rivalries. That is also why a lot of the major player folks aren't here.
[/B]
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Dixieblade57 said:
I will try and cover this issue. This may have been changed as I was away for a while. However the day this argument went down the rule was that if you did not have a paid membership you could not post a picture of a knife, period. Now the man that posted this picture just dropped by to share a picture of a knife he was taking to blade. This man used to be a member but due to the fact he was not happy or for whatever reason he moved on.

To me this man has single handed done more for knife making in the field of metallurgy and HT process. Many give him almost a God status because he has done the research to back up what he has to say and in many cases has published free info to all that would read it! Here is a link to some of his work!
http://www.cashenblades.com/heattreatment.html

However since he had no paid membership he was not allowed to post the picture here. Many thought it was an outrage and I agree with the many as any time that he has posted something and I had the sense to listen I learned something. When I first got into knife making my self adopted mentor told me to read any post he made and I would be sure to learn something!

However rules are rules and in and effort to show how silly I thought the picture posting rule was I agreed with the few that the rules had to be applied equally and since I stood up and said my piece I was told that my money was not needed as maybe I wasn't either.

Let me tell you this never talk about a man till you walk a mile in his shoes. Not one of you knows my current financial situation nor am I under any obligation to let any of you know. What tore it with me is the man that had that to say knew more about my situation than any! However when I tried to make a point that maybe the rules needed to be looked at I got burned.

If you want a section that all those who feel they need a place to play by themselves them by all means go ahead. However I do think that once the dust settles they may get tired of looking at one another!
We were all knew at this at one time or another and we all asked stupid questions, that is how some of us learned to do better. Now I don't profess to be so smart that I can't still learn from some one else!

In short I am not against a beginners section and more advanced section but if you think a paid membership will keep the Trools,(Really Trools) out your wrong because they will just pay the membership and become a part of it! Money is not always the answer to every question! one other thing somewhere up the line someone mentioned that maybe we all needed to go by our real names. When I first started this I didn't know a whole lot about anything but like any chat I went into you didn't use your real name. Thus Dixieblade57, however after I learned a little bit I realized it was better to use my real name as I do on my knives. I am known as, C Craft on all other forums I am a member of, the reason it has never been changed here, is this forum wanted $10.00 to do a name change. All the other forums said sure it may take a day or a week but their was no charge! Sometimes it is just the principal of things!

MY O2 and I am done with this discussion!
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OK I will be the first to man up and say I was wrong about how this is worded. I looked for a rules explanation last night before I posted this and if there is a rules section I could not find it.

To Stacy I know all about the personalities and old rivalries you speak of. I got lumped into the pot with them on that day! But what the hey I threw the chips up and let them land where they may. I usually say what I mean and mean what I say.
So since I thought that was the way the picture posting rule was worded that no one but a paying member could post a picture of a knife then you could see why I would have stuck my neck out to say all rules have to be enforced equally and that maybe the rules needed to be re-examined! However that is all old hash!

I want to address what Kevin had to say. Sorry Kevin there is but one God in my world and brother though I think highly of you, you ain't it!:D But you sure do deserve a high seat on the knife making end of world. Kevin once told me that I had the knack for asking questions that caused him to comment on another forum rather than just moderate. You see when I want an answer to a question I just don't want that answer but I want to know why it works that way. It's kind of like explaining something to my four year old grandson and thinking I have covered the subject as well as possible and when I finish he asks, "but Pop why?"

I don't think excluding newbies is the answer to fixing this problem. A lot of what needs to go on, is before you hit submit you need to stop and think is that the way you want to be talked too and is this worded in a way to answer or to antagonize. I think as long as I have any knowledge that I am sure of I am willing to share it.

I think this is a great forum. However if you want to bring back the older makers then the drama has to be cut. This is the first forum I became a member of and I have learned a lot here. I do think that the forum might benefit from a restructuring!
 
I think this is a great forum. However if you want to bring back the older makers then the drama has to be cut. This is the first forum I became a member of and I have learned a lot here. I do think that the forum might benefit from a restructuring!

I think most of this whole discussion is summed up in this statement.
 
Thank you guys for keeping this civil. :) :thumbup:

A few things---

1.) THANK YOU to folks for posting their thoughts. Especially my friend Kevin Cashen. IMHO, Kevin leaving ST was one of the worst travesties in recent ST history. Kevin is one of the teachers that I would make sure to read every post he made... and TRY to understand what he posted. ;) :)

2.) I really had intended to not post here for awhile. I started this thread because of several emails and pms I got from friends and many from folks I don't even know.

3.) I have NOTHING against new makers. I was one and did a lot of goofy things. I really wish folks would quit making this thread about a perceived division between makers. I can't help but wonder if a few of the replies to this thread were actually meant to be posted on the "newbie forum poll" thread.

4.) Obviously nobody likes being called a newbie. That's easy to see when the guys that have made one knife refer to newbies like a group that they are no longer part of. It sounds silly, but I think using the term "new makers" and leaving out "newbies" would have a surprisingly positive effect around here.

5.) It really bugs me that this "elitist" thing keeps coming up. :confused: I think as a general rule, knifemakers are the exact opposite of that personality type. IMHO, a guy not wanting to take the time to post the same answer to the same question every other day does NOT put him in that group. Bruce Bump even said that, and Bruce is THE FURTHEST thing from an "elitist" that you will find.

The general idea, is that knife making takes a great deal of time and patience. So if a new guy isn't patient enough to do some reading and hands on doing, it's hard to believe they will stick with knife making.


6.) I agree that the search function here SUCKS. I have tried to search for things that I posted, and came up with zero results. The google custom search is MUCH better, but still misses a lot of related posts.

7.) The subject title wasn't meant as an insult to the guys that already post here--- it was a genuine question about how to get MORE makers with real world experience to post.


I think Rick and Joe's posts really hit the nail on the head, for me. Thanks guys. :)



Thanks for keeping this pretty positive for the most part guys, it is much appreciated. :)



Happy New Year!!! :D
 
NickWheeler said:
Thank you guys for keeping this civil. :) :thumbup:

A few things---

1.) THANK YOU to folks for posting their thoughts. Especially my friend Kevin Cashen. IMHO, Kevin leaving ST was one of the worst travesties in recent ST history. Kevin is one of the teachers that I would make sure to read every post he made... and TRY to understand what he posted. ;) :)

2.) I really had intended to not post here for awhile. I started this thread because of several emails and pms I got from friends and many from folks I don't even know.

3.) I have NOTHING against new makers. I was one and did a lot of goofy things. I really wish folks would quit making this thread about a perceived division between makers. I can't help but wonder if a few of the replies to this thread were actually meant to be posted on the "newbie forum poll" thread.

4.) Obviously nobody likes being called a newbie. That's easy to see when the guys that have made one knife refer to newbies like a group that they are no longer part of. It sounds silly, but I think using the term "new makers" and leaving out "newbies" would have a surprisingly positive effect around here.

5.) It really bugs me that this "elitist" thing keeps coming up. :confused: I think as a general rule, knifemakers are the exact opposite of that personality type. IMHO, a guy not wanting to take the time to post the same answer to the same question every other day does NOT put him in that group. Bruce Bump even said that, and Bruce is THE FURTHEST thing from an "elitist" that you will find.

The general idea, is that knife making takes a great deal of time and patience. So if a new guy isn't patient enough to do some reading and hands on doing, it's hard to believe they will stick with knife making.


6.) I agree that the search function here SUCKS. I have tried to search for things that I posted, and came up with zero results. The google custom search is MUCH better, but still misses a lot of related posts.

7.) The subject title wasn't meant as an insult to the guys that already post here--- it was a genuine question about how to get MORE makers with real world experience to post.


I think Rick and Joe's posts really hit the nail on the head, for me. Thanks guys. :)



Thanks for keeping this pretty positive for the most part guys, it is much appreciated. :)



Happy New Year!!! :D
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Nick-

I might not be a skilled knife maker, but I do consider myself relatively skilled in tangentially related skills. I doubt i'm the only person who would say they have stayed around here largely or entirely because of threads like the one in your sig. By staying, you have likely increased the odds of getting "Highly skilled makers to post here."

Happy new year.
 
roblockwood said:
By staying, you have likely increased the odds of getting "Highly skilled makers to post here."
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DING-DING-DING-DING... we have a winner.:thumbup:

I was also pleasantly surprised to see Kevin's post... even though I didn't bother to read it. Ha! Just messin' bud.:p:D
 
Nick- I think this thread will breathe new life into what is already my favorite forum on the Internet. Props to you for the insight.

I am new here so I have no basis for comparison but Mr. Cashen's one post alone has made me understand the depth of character that everyone is referencing and nostalgic for.
 
Nick and Kevin have sort of proved my point about the "good" makers really wanting to stay and help out. I hope the changes that come from this and the other threads will make some positive effect in Shop Talk.

I will be posting a thread soon on some changes in moderation, but some may have already noticed that I have closed threads with no reason to exist, and sent suspicious threads to Tech Support. I will be more aggressive on curtailing unkind posts and trying to keep the threads on topic.

On a side note, Tonight I received several emails. One was another vulgar hushmail from someone who reads or frequents these forums. His comments don't bear repeating, but if he reads this, I want him to know that I pray he gets better.
 
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