If you are a Knifemaker....then be a Knifemaker

NickWheeler said:
FWIW- to some of the fellas who are feeling like we're being hammered down on here.... I registered at another forum where there is a banner stating knife makers are not allowed to announce themselves as such, but you are supposed to make a post in the intro section. So I posted a hello, no mention of being a maker, but a couple members asked--- followed by a friend jokingly posting a pic of me in my shop.
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I think we're talking about two different forums, but I am "banned for life" from one simply for filling out my profile and including my website in the appropriate box. Never even got a chance to make one post, much less correct my mistake (remove my link). No friendly warnings, no one bending over backwards to explain the rules I agreed to, just POOF! Ban-Hammer.

Now, that was my oversight, because I knew I wasn't ready to pay their very high fee (and jump through some pretty ridiculous hoops) to be a selling member there.... so I'm not angry about it.

My point is just to agree that this place is one heck of a bargain, and the mods are remarkably easy-going. Especially considering the sheer volume of silliness they have to deal with on a daily basis.

When a person just can't seem to get along with others and play by the rules anywhere in life, here on BFC and especially here in ShopTalk, it's usually their own dang fault. See ya!
 
I often see a non-member post that he never had a customer that came from Bladeforums. I know that 99% of the guys here feel different. Maybe they don't realize that people read their posts and find out more about them when doing a search on them and their knives. Bladeforums comes up in many searches I do on a knife style or maker.

I am quite pleased that the great majority of those posting in this thread understand the reasoning behind the rules.

As Rick said, no one with a knifemanker membership has to have that under his name. He can title his name any way he wishes, or have nothing there at all.

Also, I have never heard of anyone getting an infraction and not having the reason told in the infraction notice. It is part of the format: Infraction - Points Given - Reason. If you received an email warning about you home page, or an advertising link, and then got an infraction with the reason being "Rules Violation", that would be the reason.
 
I think the title of this thread says it all from my perspective. I know I felt extremely awkward posting the half-dozen times or so in the "Knifemaker's Discussion" part of BladeForums before getting my knife maker membership. IMO, the "discussions" held here should be for and by knife makers by an overwhelming majority. Not the other way around. Those who post frequently in this part of the forum, but are not willing to display themselves as knife makers is just bizarre to me. My .02 cents.
 
For any of you that are selling anything online, being on this forum gets you noticed even by people who normally do not go to online forums.
As an example;
2 days ago I posted some stabilized Bog Oak blocks in the supplies for sale subforum.
Today when I did a google search for stabilized bog oak blocks I came up #1 with the search results showing the blocks I posted here.
I can't think of any more effective form of advertising.
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HallHandmade said:
That's pretty brutal.

I feel that the fee here is extremely reasonable. There is some magic number where it becomes unreasonable, but I don't really know enough to know what that is.

When your vendor membership is so expensive that you're afraid to post the price publicly, and you offer a payment plan, that's pushing it IMO. Once you get into that kind of price range, you're pretty much stomping out the "middle class" knifemakers, which is probably a huge chunk of the potential membership. There are a lot of guys whose benefit from the site in sales wont cover the cost of high dollar memberships, but that doesn't mean those people fall into the "hobbyist" category.

Either way, if the benefit of my attendance to this site continues as it has (as I suspect it will), I'll gladly renew my membership this coming year, and the year after.

Even if I wasn't selling knives, I'm still the type just to support sites I enjoy because it's the right thing to do IMO. :)
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the change in pricing was to keep competition lower for the makers that were on that forum. the owner even used to sell my knives out of his web store as a dealer. funny thing is i am well enough known that i still get orders from the members (more then i ever did when i was a member due to my integrity to not sell as per the rules)
 
P. McKinley said:
A while back I got dinged for exactly this. I had let me "Knifemaker" membership lapse, but unknowingly left my website link active in my profile. Karda saw this and had a tizzy. He went ballistic!! I was given 10 demerit points and told to go stand quietly in the corner for a while.
I was pissed too. At myself. I broke the rules and screwed up. That's what happens.
I found out what the problem was and took care of it. I then coughed up some cash to re-up my membership. Now the mods are cool(especially Karda, phewwww). I'm cool. And, my website link is back in my profile. Go take a look. I sell knives there!

That's the way it works.

Peter (http://www.pjmknives.com/)
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Peter,

Your recollection of this is different than mine....
You were given a warning, which was reversed after our conversation....
a conversation in which, if IIRC, I was the one to receive the ballistic email about why should you pay for being a knifemaker on this site?
Yes our conversation may have gotten heated a bit, but came to calmness and understanding. I don't reverse infractions for jackwagons, so it wasn't as bad as your post makes it seem.
 
I was one of the people who received an infraction for having a website in my profile. I was taken aback initially as I hadn't posted in about a year and my post was in Shop Talk and not intended to promote myself. As I thought about it, I had to admit that I knew the rules and it was my unintentional oversight (I didn't amend my profile when my paid membership expired).
I got my start on this site and learned much over the years. So, thanks for starting this thread and thanks for reminding me why it's important to keep this site going. Even if it's mainly to lurk and look at the pretty pictures. :)

Brett
 
Karda,

Your memory of our conversation is spot on.

I apologize, it seems the intent of my post has been misconstrued. I was merely trying to offer a light hearted, although liberally altered, accounting of my encounter with the law here and hopefully make a point at the same time.

You did not have a "tizzy", I was joking. Indeed I hope my whole post came across as being somewhat sarcastic, yet entirely supportive of the standing rule of law here. I have nothing but respect for this forum, you, and the entire mod team.

I regret any confusion.

-Peter
 
Seems pretty simple to me...

If you are making money on the site from making or supplying.. pay for the membership.
If you are just learning and doing for hobby for yourself.. you don't have to pay
Even if you aren't a "Maker" there are many other memberships available to help support a great forum. If you can't afford a higher priced one, get one of the lower priced ones. Anything you can do to payback a little of what you take is welcome.
 
Karda said:
I have a question to pose for crew here:

What are you going to do when the problem become rampant enough that Spark finally gets fed up and makes this site pay only?
What are you going to do if Spark gets fed up with all the rule breaking, arguments and such and just decides "enough is enough" and closes the doors?

Just to keep up with the infrastructure issues and expenses is mind-boggling. He already mentioned earlier this year that he might be forced to go "Pay to play" at some point because of the server loading being so high that it will likely necessitate new infrastructure.
I myself hope that everyone will appreciate what Spark goes thru to keep this place going, and not make the mods have to chase anyone down to make them do the right thing. Honesty and Integrity are things you either have ....or you don't.
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I would guess that the numbers of users would significantly drop if this was a site that required paid membership.

If the doors get closed then, the users will frequent other sites and those sites will benefit from the vast knowledge base.

Either scenario would be bad for all parties. Hopefully everyone can follow the rules.
 
bladsmth said:
I often see a non-member post that he never had a customer that came from Bladeforums. I know that 99% of the guys here feel different. Maybe they don't realize that people read their posts and find out more about them when doing a search on them and their knives. Bladeforums comes up in many searches I do on a knife style or maker.
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That sounds pretty strange to me. I've been getting pretty constant contact just from folks that saw my stuff here on the forum from pictures I posted and checked out my profile and website, then contacted me to place a commission. I think I make nice stuff, but I'm far from top of the heap, and I'm getting all kinds of sales that I'm not even "trying" for (although I'm still very happy to get them).

Looking at the blades I've listed for sale in the exchange, I would say I've gotten twice that just from "unsolicited" business, just that from my sig links and user name combined with my forum activity. Almost every knife I've listed for sale in the exchange has generated another commission or two on top from that ad, or at least contact with a new potential customer.

bladsmth said:
I am quite pleased that the great majority of those posting in this thread understand the reasoning behind the rules.
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I was happy to see so many positive posts as well. Hopefully that shines a few rays of sunlight on the situation for everyone involved. :)
 
Stacy, I'm sure you're thinking of me when you refer to someone who said they had never sold a knife through bladeforums. Never have, and likely never will. Mostly because I didn't sell that many and my sales were all local by word of mouth, and I haven't made knives to sell in several years. Could I have? Sure. I have been contacted by many, but I'm not selling anymore.

I got dinged for having my site in my sig. It was the same situation as some have listed where I was a registered user for years (and had a website in my sig without incidence), then bought a knife maker membership, and then let it lapse and didn't think to change my sig. I never sold or purposefully advertised through the site, so I didn't ever read those rules and never knew I was breaking them. I just tried to learn and help others. The website listed was only a personal page to store photos of my work. I don't have the capability to sell through it and even stated that I don't take orders. When I was reprimanded out of the blue by a "supermod" I'd never even heard of before and who had been a member here less time than me, I got pretty bent out of shape about it, I'll admit, and some of the patronizing responses I received back in the course of our dialogue didn't help my mood much.

It left a pretty bad taste along with other incidents through time. I only bought a membership again to have more than the useless 5 pm's allowed to registered users as I do buy knives from makers here. I used to spend hours on this site daily for years. Now, I check it for 10 seconds a few times a day to see if Nick has posted anything new for sale. Sadly, I can't say at this point I've missed it as much as I thought I would.

-nathan
 
Forgot to mention....

Because of this site, the very first thing that pops up on Google when you search my name is

"OUTSTANDING! Josh Mason Knifemaker"

That is worth a million bucks to me. I could not be happier with that.
 
Pinoy Knife said:
i was a paid "Maker" here for several years but after my "Paid" membership ran out i just continued to post help full information as i could trying to help out the new guys until i received a "Infraction" for violating policy here,with no explanation whatsoever.
i though what is going on i'm not advertising here and have not for years ! turned out the "Link" in my signature was considered "Advertising".
it all left a very bad taste in my mouth, only after a "Mod" pointed out what was wrong and how to fix it was it all sorted out.
My advice make it very clear if someone is not following the rules what they are doing wrong? maybe they don't know like me i'm not a real computer savvy guy.
if you put limits on who/how people can post pictures how can you get tutorials? solutions for the new guys to resolve the problems they are facing ?
how can you ask those with experience to help the new guys if there are roadblocks in the way ? i will always consider this place a "Home" but at times it does not feel very welcome for me to contribute.
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It was made very clear to you on several occasions by one supermod, whose warnings were ignored and you continued to solicit work in the balisong forum as a registered user. I remember having quite an argument with you myself by email, in which things were worked out.



silver_pilate said:
I got dinged for having my site in my sig. It was the same situation as some have listed where I was a registered user for years (and had a website in my sig without incidence), then bought a knife maker membership, and then let it lapse and didn't think to change my sig. I never sold or purposefully advertised through the site, so I didn't ever read those rules and never knew I was breaking them. I just tried to learn and help others. The website listed was only a personal page to store photos of my work. I don't have the capability to sell through it and even stated that I don't take orders. When I was reprimanded out of the blue by a "supermod" I'd never even heard of before and who had been a member here less time than me, I got pretty bent out of shape about it, I'll admit, and some of the patronizing responses I received back in the course of our dialogue didn't help my mood much.
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In all actuality, you aren't even showing a warning in your profile, so I don't know where the "I got dinged" is coming from....
You may have been asked by PM to remove the items in your profile and upgrade and it also could be that you responded angrily and got a terse or possibly patronizing response in return. Lord knows I've gotten plenty of angry, threatening, condescending, patronizing, egotistical responses from some knifemakers, some of them pretty notable.
 
Burl Source said:
For any of you that are selling anything online, being on this forum gets you noticed even by people who normally do not go to online forums.
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Very true! I get a good deal of work from people who never heard of me or my website or a knife forum for that matter, until they did a search for the kinds of custom knives they were interested in, and my posts/info etc. on BladeForums showed up.

HallHandmade said:
Looking at the blades I've listed for sale in the exchange, I would say I've gotten twice that just from "unsolicited" business, just that from my sig links and user name combined with my forum activity. Almost every knife I've listed for sale in the exchange has generated another commission or two on top from that ad, or at least contact with a new potential customer.
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Same here. :thumbup:

Here's some food for thought...

People who are looking to spend serious cash on a really good handmade knife have a ton of options. They are generally pretty well-informed, know what they want, and are willing to do some research on makers they're interested in before they ever send an email and ask for a quote. They see how knifemakers conduct themselves all over the web. They make decisions that directly impact my grocery budget and mortgage payment based on that.

:)
 
As an amateur knifemaker ...I mean knifeish makerish , I must say ,this site is the ***SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT RESOURCE***of all time ,and if anything happened to it I would cry real tears . I may not have a big name / but as soon as I have the dough , Im gonna ante up and become a bona fide Knife Maker. Its a no-brainer , for such and such dollar amount I can have my name in there with REAL SMART PEOPLE?? , Nothing could be cooler.
My check is in the mail (pending funds , of course)
 
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