Thought we split 'gear' off into another sub forum

I would like a remerge, Im at lost with the subforums split. Perhaps a poll by mods to gauge opinions of the majority to help in decision making by the leadership what is the wanted direction.
 
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I don't mind the split between the gear and skills, however I do notice less participation in the forums. I am not crazy about the Gadgets and Gear forum cause it's less outdoor specialized. When a member posts a question in the WSS forum about gear it is because he knows the people who frequent this forum are more likely to have the experience with said item in the outdoors.

The gadgets and gear forum has helped me in the past with electronics, but I do not think of it as an outdoor gear forum.


I am definitely for the separation of the hunting and fishing forum only due the fact that I have seen members post pics of their hunts and fishing in there whom never post in the WSS. So it seams to be attracting more people than not.

So in closing, if the gear and skills forum were joined again, we as members must remember to not just start a thread asking about a piece of gear. Be detailed with your question and it's use in the outdoors. If you are not, you can not complain about when it gets moved.

Same thing with knives. If you get a new knife and you want to show it off, show it off by using it in the outdoors. I for one can care less to see a pic of a knife sitting on a table, it's much sexier when it's cutting something…
 
I'm only commenting on a little note about people being offended or surprised about pictures of dead animals popping up in threads without a warning. Maybe a prefix for such threads, that would give people a warning, under the wilderness&survival prefixes, that said that this thread could be disturbing to some people? Could be as simple as "Dead Animal Warning" or suchlike.
Other than that, i'd just say to the guys running this place. Keep it up. You doin' good!
 
This is not the only "survival" type forum I frequent and I can tell you since the split I have noticed alot more screen names from here on other forums.

And the posting has dropped way off here.
 
I hadn't really realized it until I read this thread but I haven't posted or read much in W&SS since the split. I think I started one thread in the gear section and not much else. I haven't given any thought to wether or not I'd like the subforums to be merged or not but I do think a poll would be a good way to figure it out and another mod would probably be a positive step too. I also agree that Tony would be a good choice if a new mod was added. He's a very active poster and has lots of great info to share.
 
tonym said:
I don't mind the split between the gear and skills, however I do notice less participation in the forums. I am not crazy about the Gadgets and Gear forum cause it's less outdoor specialized. When a member posts a question in the WSS forum about gear it is because he knows the people who frequent this forum are more likely to have the experience with said item in the outdoors.

The gadgets and gear forum has helped me in the past with electronics, but I do not think of it as an outdoor gear forum.


I am definitely for the separation of the hunting and fishing forum only due the fact that I have seen members post pics of their hunts and fishing in there whom never post in the WSS. So it seams to be attracting more people than not.

So in closing, if the gear and skills forum were joined again, we as members must remember to not just start a thread asking about a piece of gear. Be detailed with your question and it's use in the outdoors. If you are not, you can not complain about when it gets moved.

Same thing with knives. If you get a new knife and you want to show it off, show it off by using it in the outdoors. I for one can care less to see a pic of a knife sitting on a table, it's much sexier when it's cutting something…
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Well said my East Coast brotha! :thumbup::thumbup:
 
skab8541 said:
I can tell you since the split I have noticed alot more screen names from here on other forums.

And the posting has dropped way off here.
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Yep... I'm one of them... In all honesty I don't come here as much as I used to.


Ski
 
Since the split, I've not looked at the other forum at all, which means I'm probably missing a lot of gear talk. I'd prefer to see the forums combined again.
 
I liked things better before the split. It's not a big deal, though. I'm happy to go along with the majority.
 
I see the reason for the split, but I don't think it should stay split. There has been a large drop off of participation since it split.
 
I'm old enough to know better and don't care enough to rant.

In my view:

As some of you know, I have moderated and do moderate on other outdoor forums (a couple are not outdoor related...but people are people). I have watched forums and sub-forums come and go over the years for a variety of reasons. Inflated ego's, poor keyboard etiquette, weak or overly aggressive moderation can kill forum interest REAL quick. The other death blow to forum participation that I have observed is LACK OF MEANINGFUL CONTENT. Just how many times do we have to discuss the use of a baton anyway??? As far as I know, the Search function on the forum is still working! Honestly, my young scouts have had this most basic of the basic skills mastered for years! When the experienced outdoors person gets bored with the extreme rudimentary and incessant redundancy...like we have had here (IMHO), he goes elsewhere where his valuable time can be spent feeding his brain (yes, some folks can make you wonder). Going over the basics here and there for newer members is appropriate and just dandy, but if a forum is going to build muscle, it needs to get off the milk bottle. Growing and active forums (the kind that most people enjoy) just don't happen on their own, experienced and quality people keep the ball rolling.

Like kgd and a few others, I was mildly happy to see a new sub-forum. It is nice not having to sort through 'to be, or not to be, with a baton', or 'big knife versus small knife' threads to find a nugget. No, people don't generally leave forums because they divide into sub-forums. My experience tells me otherwise. :)
 
Dannyboy Leather said:
Inflated ego's, poor keyboard etiquette, weak or overly aggressive moderation can kill forum interest REAL quick. The other death blow to forum participation that I have observed is LACK OF MEANINGFUL CONTENT. Just how many times do we have to discuss the use of a baton anyway??? As far as I know, the Search function on the forum is still working! Honestly, my young scouts have had this most basic of the basic skills mastered for years! When the experienced outdoors person gets bored with the extreme rudimentary and incessant redundancy...like we have had here (IMHO), he goes elsewhere where his valuable time can be spent feeding his brain (yes, some folks can make you wonder). Going over the basics here and there for newer members is appropriate and just dandy, but if a forum is going to build muscle, it needs to get off the milk bottle. Growing and active forums (the kind that most people enjoy) just don't happen on their own, experienced and quality people keep the ball rolling.
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Great post Dannyboy. I sort of view the split as allowing the skills section of W&SS to take its own shine without having to be constantly diluted by discussion of widgets. Don't get me wrong, I love discussing widgets and I just have the two sub-forums, W&SS & outdoor gear automatically load as separate tabs in my browser. Heck, I'm not even technologically competent and I figured out how to do that all by myself :D

I still think it would be useful to give the split organization some time to adjust and perhaps Dannyboy's words give us proper motivation to consider some good instructionals. Maybe we can kick things off by strategically resurrecting some old classic skills threads.

On the otherhand, I owe a lot of my adventure in learning to my participation in W&SS. Personally, I rather see a photo-spread or video of a new guy lighting up his first wetfire cube with a firesteel than I would reading somebody posting about the 1000's of courses in being a survival expert they've taken. I think having the two forums gives room for novice and advanced techniques. I think in many ways the W&SS as a skills orientated subforum now has some unique attributes to it, we just haven't had the time to capitalize on them.

I would also point out that hammering in the foundations can be great even for folks who feel like they know most of it. I look at IAWoodsman's videos which often attack relatively basic tasks, but he does his instructionals in such a clear and meaningful way that you can't help pick something up from his videos even if you have done the tasks he has been talking about many times over. Anyhow, I still think this place is alive, its just kind of like our struggling spring...Waiting for that spring breeze to clear our stuffy house, and lets hope its a sweet smelling breeze and not a dogcrap smelling one (coming out of my backyard)....
 
Dannyboy Leather said:
I'm old enough to know better and don't care enough to rant.

In my view:

As some of you know, I have moderated and do moderate on other outdoor forums (a couple are not outdoor related...but people are people). I have watched forums and sub-forums come and go over the years for a variety of reasons. Inflated ego's, poor keyboard etiquette, weak or overly aggressive moderation can kill forum interest REAL quick. The other death blow to forum participation that I have observed is LACK OF MEANINGFUL CONTENT. Just how many times do we have to discuss the use of a baton anyway??? As far as I know, the Search function on the forum is still working! Honestly, my young scouts have had this most basic of the basic skills mastered for years! When the experienced outdoors person gets bored with the extreme rudimentary and incessant redundancy...like we have had here (IMHO), he goes elsewhere where his valuable time can be spent feeding his brain (yes, some folks can make you wonder). Going over the basics here and there for newer members is appropriate and just dandy, but if a forum is going to build muscle, it needs to get off the milk bottle. Growing and active forums (the kind that most people enjoy) just don't happen on their own, experienced and quality people keep the ball rolling.

Like kgd and a few others, I was mildly happy to see a new sub-forum. It is nice not having to sort through 'to be, or not to be, with a baton', or 'big knife versus small knife' threads to find a nugget. No, people don't generally leave forums because they divide into sub-forums. My experience tells me otherwise. :)
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This probably sums up why I like the split.

I know which skills I have and which I need to improve... and sometimes that's what I'm looking into. But I tend to come to BF when I'm in a gearhound mood... and having a place to go to look for posts specifically about gear is really appealing to me.
 
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