the bounds of ignorance...

[AwP]

Kevin How about a league of metalsmiths forum where only an approved list of people get to post and answer? The rest of us could only look and learn! I used to look in on swordforum when you and Howard Clark and Papa Meier used to post, then it got invaded by a bunch of nincompoops who clearly werent working blade smiths as the intro requested. The magazines are sometimes no better, with pixie dust theories being advanced with a heavy dose of self promotion, it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, and find real world workable info beyond the basics.

I'm not sure that would work all that great... While I agree that some of the nincompoops should have been asking their questions in the beginer forum there, when no nincompoops at all were posting in there it was awfully quiet. When the only people allowed to post have most of the answers, there aren't any nincompoops to ask a question to get them going.

[ironbasher]

Andrew,you are probably right about it being too limiting the way I said it.I didnt mean earnest people should be excluded, but I remember seeing posts asking questions like"how do I anoint a ritual sacrifice dagger" , or""how do I make a sword out of aluminum so that it is just as sharp and durable as steel only lighter" Clearly the posters had had one too many drums of coffee or left dungeons and dragons just long enough for food and pee breaks: thats the kind of things I hate to see clogging up a forum. Maybe this will be the forum for the "league"? Just my own earnest nincompoop opinion though. Ironbasher

[Kevin R. Cashen]

Originally Posted by ironbasher

Andrew,you are probably right about it being too limiting the way I said it.I didnt mean earnest people should be excluded, but I remember seeing posts asking questions like"how do I anoint a ritual sacrifice dagger" , or""how do I make a sword out of aluminum so that it is just as sharp and durable as steel only lighter" Clearly the posters had had one too many drums of coffee or left dungeons and dragons just long enough for food and pee breaks: thats the kind of things I hate to see clogging up a forum. Maybe this will be the forum for the "league"? Just my own earnest nincompoop opinion though. Ironbasher

It cannot be denied that the "Cafe" has been degenerating for some time. The solution is not simple. If it is just advanced makers or knowledgeable people they really have little to talk about, without boring or insulting each others intelligence. Usually the only thing you have left are controversial topics that get them to arguing, while this can be really fascinating for those lurking, it is by no means fun for the smiths. The problem is that if you really are immersed in this stuff everyday, when you get away from it you are on a break. Hang out with metal head/slide rule bladesmiths sometimes after an event like a show or hammer-in, you will find us talking about cars, politics or the sad state of the magazines, but you will rarely find us getting deep into metallurgy. We live that stuff the other 6 days of the week.

Now for the other side of the coin. When you allow all of the interesting questions, from the curious public, that really spur hot topics on, it is not the stupid Dungeons and Dragons posts that are the problem (we simply ignore them) it is the issue of aswering the SAME simple questions over and over and over again. Your experienced smiths simply get burned out. I held in there and tried to keep things alive but found myself getting too short and snippy when asked the same stinking question I just answered two posts up, but the asker was too eager to read more before posting or was too lazy to use the "search" function.

The only real problematic input that you get form the new guys is when they have taken all the hyped-up garbage in print today as gospel and decide to take the smtihs to task for contradicting their idols, or the guys who just got their hands on a rivet forge and become an instant "common mans expert", there to take the arrogant scientific know-it-alls to task for not embracing why re-bar and old mystery steel is not the finest of blade materials. We really have better things to do with our time.

All that being said, Adrian has been talking to me for some time about a possible solution to this, and I continue to hold out hope that a solution will be found, the internet is very cyclical and all forums seem to have their heyday and then eventually fade.

[Guy Thomas]

"Your experienced smiths simply get burned out. I held in there and tried to keep things alive but found myself getting too short and snippy when asked the same stinking question I just answered two posts up, but the asker was too eager to read more before posting or was too lazy to use the "search" function. "

You are so right Kevin, no one either wants to do a little research using the "search" button or they are too lazy to fully read ALL the posts in a thread.

"All that being said, Adrian has been talking to me for some time about a possible solution to this, and I continue to hold out hope that a solution will be found, the internet is very cyclical and all forums seem to have their heyday and then eventually fade."

I believe Adrian has tried to fix this on an experimental basis in the Japanese Style Swordmakers Cafe by restricting who can post. The result is a forum for professionals only that "echos" with emptiness because it has no input from varying levels of expertice.

I truly miss the Bladesmith Cafe of yesteryear, there was so much good information going on there it was truly unbelievable. I learned so much there and tried to limit any posts I made to things I was truly confused about after doing some basic research or to things I thought were truly pertinant to the thread in question. It shouldn't take someone long to figure out that if you are asking some of the best names in the business questions like "What kind of steel should I use to make a knife?" then you haven't done much footwork to earn their attention. One of the saddest things though about Swordforums is that the old database wasn't saved (that I know of) as an active searchable archive!