The Good Old Days

As a novice knife builder hobby maker I come here daily! I don't post much if ever. Why? Because I don't know enough to intelligently respond! PERIOD! However I've learned so much here I can't begin to thank enough to those who post here regularly with their knowledge. I also check in occasionally on other knife building forums but in all honesty they seem stagnate. This forum alone has given so much to me I think I need to go sign up for a paid membership because I feel I owe it to the owners. As a side note most of the people I read every word from have responded to this thread. I THANK YOU for putting up your knowledge so freely.
As a side note I also visit other forums of different hobbies and they too have seen incredible folks with tons of knowledge stop visiting. Probably for the same reasons some of those mentioned above don't visit here anymore. A sign of the times I guess. But there is still a incredible bunch here that still participates giving freely their knowledge and once again I just want to say THANKS!
Larry Cooper, Morgantown , WV
 
2 reasons i see for why this has occurred.

1. bladeforums has never had good image hosting, making people rely on 3rd parties that come and go, and when they go, it can literally destroy years/decades of posts content. I know it saves money, but it's shortsighted and not just a bladeforum issue, but an issue many forums run into. I doubt anyone who uses the web hasn't run into many a forum posts on many a forum where all the pics that were the purpose of the post have vanished. It's just not smart to let other companies and hosts control your sites content. Paid membership forums should include image hosting on site. Just makes sense as it preserves the content(e.g. the revenue stream) for the site/forum in question.

2. Lot of guys don't like the membership rules and pricing here. It's great for newer makers, but if you've already got a name for yourself, why spend money here when instagram is free and has more eyeballs? This is another issue that isn't exclusive to bladeforums either, it's happening all over the place. woodworker forums, car modders, pc builders, pool cue makers, etc etc. paid membership forums have got to offer more bang for the buck in this day and age, and get creative. As of right now, well known makers are pretty much expected to fork over money to post here at all, so when they stop wanting to shell out money, they disappear. If that lone rule was removed, i bet you would see many of the "Good old days" guys back in a heartbeat. But for now, they find the pastures greener on FB, Instagram, G+, twitter, and other knifemaking forums that do not require paid memberships.

That's not to say bladeforum doesn't serve a purpose anymore, it's a great resource and i've learned probably 25%+ of what i know about knifemaking from here, BUT times are changing and the traditional internet forum has got to keep up or it's a slow ride to the grave. According to Alexa(the site not the amazon product!) bladeforums traffic peaked back in 2015, and has been slowly decreasing ever since, not drastic drop, but a downward trend nonetheless.

Anyway, just some food for thought from someone who has worked in social media and forum management on sites that were once top 20 in the world, and now the dustbins of history thanks to shortsighted thinking by my 'superiors'.
 
I get the nostalgia for the great makers who have moved on, I do.
But I can't think of a better place to be as a relatively new maker. Never have I posted a question here that I didn't get 3 or 4 perspectives, all of which are relevant and useful to me. It's an awesome thing, and I love the members here who participate and help everyone out. This is a great community and a great bunch of folks to be able to talk to.

These are the good old days for me.
 
Bladeforums is the only forum I'm on without unlimited free photo hosting, and its also the only one I pay for a membership for.
The picture posting is a huge issue. As much as I like the community here, that's a real pain in the ass.I haven't had the time to go to my desktop and post pictures of my work or the new shop in months.
 
Geoff Flato said:
Bladeforums is the only forum I'm on without unlimited free photo hosting, and its also the only one I pay for a membership for.
The picture posting is a huge issue. As much as I like the community here, that's a real pain in the ass.I haven't had the time to go to my desktop and post pictures of my work or the new shop in months.
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Most of us agree I am sure. I have my own hosting, but really? This is not a good thing. There is probably a way to escalate the concern. Maybe if enough folks say something...
 
i think a lot of it has to do with the Management of the place. i have been here since 1997
had paid membership and everything, let the paid membership lapse ,and was threatened with "Sanctions" for advertising !! only 1 "Mod explained i had a link in my "Bio " that still showed my website, this was somehow considered "Advertising". i'm pretty sure many others got the same kind of treatment. big way to tell those that want to contribute to piss off!!!
i have stayed but don't typically say very much ,on occasion i share a bit of info ,usually others arm chair experts make stupid comments and i move on from answering further questions.
someone should ask the guys you miss Why they don't come around here anymore??
 
I don’t know if it’s always been like this because I used to use photobucket, but the new forum with the “upload a file” button makes it pretty easy to post pics straight from my phone as long as I run it through an image resizer first.

I can imagine photobucket will probably end their ridiculous photo hostage ploy when they see activity greatly decrease, but who knows.
 
Brock Cutlery said:
Most of us agree I am sure. I have my own hosting, but really? This is not a good thing. There is probably a way to escalate the concern. Maybe if enough folks say something...
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Its the pain in the ass factor for me. Sure I've got a website and host all my own pictures there, but its hard to justify going and doing that on the desktop when I can post pictures literally everywhere else I go from my phone in seconds. Free picture hosting and Tapatalk make it effortless, and it shows in the content of the forum. I'm sure I'm not alone in sharing virtually nothing I do here for that reason.
 
Well its really the WIP threads and such that suffer from teh picture thing...I like the fact that this is a discussion forum and is focused on information not pics/media....instagram or whatever is fine enough for that...a sig link is all you need to get there so...just my 2 cents
 
Pinoy Knife said:
i think a lot of it has to do with the Management of the place. i have been here since 1997
had paid membership and everything, let the paid membership lapse ,and was threatened with "Sanctions" for advertising !! only 1 "Mod explained i had a link in my "Bio " that still showed my website, this was somehow considered "Advertising". i'm pretty sure many others got the same kind of treatment. big way to tell those that want to contribute to piss off!!!
i have stayed but don't typically say very much ,on occasion i share a bit of info ,usually others arm chair experts make stupid comments and i move on from answering further questions.
someone should ask the guys you miss Why they don't come around here anymore??
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When well known knifemakers contribute valuable content but then are told they are being "freeloaders" if they do not cough up their $75 it tends to sour the knifemakers and they stop posting because they do not need Bladeforums or the bad attitude of some of the moderators toward them.
 
Add in that it costs more than an ABS membership and for lot of makers they don't really get anything for that.
 
I'm quite happy to pay the 75$
This forum and it's insanely generous members, has taught me nearly everything I know about knife making. The WIPs, the stickies, the folks that answer my stupid questions patiently for the 4000th time... well worth the money.
I understand if you are an established maker and you don't really gain anything by posting, it might be a waste, but I was a non-paying member for several years, freeloading and learning. I figure that I can afford to support the forum that has unwittingly fed my making habit!!

For all you established folks out there that are not really interested in paying money to post WIPs, send me your pics and I'll post them for you!
 
The only constant is change. For many a once-prolific poster it is not an issue of the Forums themselves being deterrent in some way, but rather of burning out, life changes, or moving into new and farther circles to chase sales as social media and the web change. Things grow ever more brief, instant, phone-centric. The forums are best browsed and posted to from a computer, especially typing long answers and technical instructions, particularly with pictures. The platforms such as Instagram follow the trend of smaller screens, shorter messages and attention spans, less pictures and detail of most knives shown.
It is much like the style of web sites changing, over time they've had to become more mobile friendly and streamlined. I'd update mine, which looks highly dated at this point, but it is no longer a significant contributor to sales and so I leave it mostly as a legacy site at this point. Who looks at galleries anymore? They might scroll back into your IG feed a month... but mostly it's about what you are doing right NOW and how catchy that is. There's a big crop of young makers out there now who don't know who folks like Don Fogg or Howard Clark are.
Yes it can be a melancholy feeling to observe this little world moving on... but don't let that distract you from the very real and ongoing spirit of sharing and passion for the craft here, manifested in newbies and veterans alike, no different then it ever was. Time was this place was decried for being shallow and contentious, now it's a relative bastion of civility and solid content.
Just keep in mind- to paraphrase Brock, it's always the good old days for someone- right NOW!

P.S. I'm just so incredibly hurt that I didn't make your short list, Flato... no, no, there's no taking it back now, I see how it is... sniffle...
 
Huntsman Knife Co. said:
With the recent discussion about photobucket taking down the links in Nick’s legendary WIP thread, I decided to save some of the posts for future reference. I’ve been through Nick’s thread top to bottom many times but hadn’t checked it out in a couple years.

Man, what a walk down memory lane.

Before I knew it I had a bottle of vodka cracked open was going through all the classic and completely epic threads we all know and love. The Wheeler Steel thread, Patrice Lemee’s Kukri WIP, Ankerson’s steel testing thread etc… The nostalgia was real. I hate to use the term "good old days," because I haven't even been a member that long myself, but there was something really special about those threads and that time period.

For me, those threads were the Wonder Years of this forum. Looking over them took me right back to being 20 and wanting to make my first knife. I remember when the Wheeler Steel WIP started and I’d check the forum every day for new posts. It made me really sad when I looked at the post dates and realized that almost 7 years had passed. It made me ever sadder when I looked at Nick’s post history. He’s been completely gone from the forum for a while now.

We still have exciting WIP’s and a tight knit community, but I can’t help but feel that the wonder years are behind us. This forum has changed, and for me, knife making has changed. It feels like the magic of a bygone era is lost.

This post really doesn’t have a point, but I think we should all look back and raise a glass to this forum and all of the great people that have made this place so special and so magical. There is truly nothing like the knife community. Knife making is a labor of love for us all, and I think at the end of the day, it’s this forum, the customers, and the relationships we build that keep us coming back to the shop.

So pour one out to the good old days, the epic threads, the banter, and the guys like Nick that made this forum what it is.

Cheers:thumbsup:
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Well said my friend. Cheers.
 
I plead faulty memory? Lol
Somehow I forgot you were on here when I posted that....

It does amaze me the tendancy of newer makers not to look back... I'd consider myself a new maker. Sure I'm full time, but I'm a young guy and have only been at this for about 5 years. I've spent many months looking back at those who came before me. I've even got a dagger in my collection made in 1968 by the knifemaker who's article in gun digest first got me started on knifemaking.
A couple dozen old books
Countless hours spent on line looking at the work of Hale, Warenski, Walker, Loerchner, and the like
Looking back is usually the best way to move forward
 
AVigil said:
When well known knifemakers contribute valuable content but then are told they are being "freeloaders" if they do not cough up their $75 it tends to sour the knifemakers and they stop posting because they do not need Bladeforums or the bad attitude of some of the moderators toward them.
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Karda was the driving force on that. It took too long but he's gone now.

Tai was a straight up jackass that drive Kevin and others away. It took too long, but he's gone too.

Knife Dogs poached Bruce, Ed and a few others too.
 
12345678910 said:
Karda was the driving force on that. It took too long but he's gone now.

Tai was a straight up jackass that drive Kevin and others away. It took too long, but he's gone too.

Knife Dogs poached Bruce, Ed and a few others too.
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With modern ability to crunch data, prolific posters with valuable content could get reduced rates or even credit for the next year. It’s really only a handful of users who are creating these epic WIPs.

I started developing a website, but I think that ship has sailed. Currently, I use this platform, and Facebook. In the new year, I’ll set up Instagram and increase my online presence. Being part time, I have a hard time keeping up with orders as it is. I don’t need more sales, unless I can increase my efficiency in production, but that would require increases in investment in equipment.
 
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