OT But What Happened to This Site ???

[dalee100]

Hi,

Between an aging format, aging users, and a change in how hobbyists think of making things, all add up to the "all things have their time in the sun" effect.

Forums like this and others like this one are pretty slow if you are seeking an answer to a problem. And most want answers now and not tomorrow. Places like reddit are much faster paced, though not nearly as well curated. You need to know how to pick out the good information from the bad. And valuable topics exist for mere seconds only to sink into and abyss never to seen again. Hard won knowledge doesn't last long these days.

And honestly, most users here are getting up there in age too. Many of us are retired or very close to it. Some are dying. It's not unusual to see a thread about closing down and selling out a shop anymore. We are more often getting rid of things rather than accumulating them these days. It took me 2 years to get my meager shop moved up north to me. And it sits in the garage awaiting a new home to be built. And I'm not sure I want to go to the effort anymore. I spent 30 years making chips, I think I'm kind of tired............

Youngsters coming into the "maker space" these days are more interested in 3D printing, lasers, and desktop CNC routers rather than Bridgeports and South Bends. Not that they aren't welcome here, they certainly would be. But how many here can say they've tried to couple a graphics design program like Blender to Fusion 360? So you can make a lifesize, wearable Mandalorian Beskar armour suit? Complete with powered accessories and Disintegrator rifle? We mostly make model steam engines and parts for motorcycles. It ain't what the youngin's is interested in right now. Maybe someday, they will be more interested in metal working. But that ain't today.

[Mcgyver]

So you can make a lifesize, wearable Mandalorian Beskar armour suit? Complete with powered accessories and Disintegrator rifle? .

We had someone try and make a jedi sword, kind of the same thing

I think there are as many young people today interested in making stuff as ever, but I agree with you its different stuff. Although its small percentage here who are into model engines, it behooves organizations to change with the times. There's one young guy at TSME (model engineering) who builds fantastic animatronics for his magic stage show. Very neat stuff that's mechanical, software, electronics and a ton of 3D printing. While he likely sees the talent in the model engineering builds, I'd bet he also sees a huge cross over in skills...and despite it primarily being a model engineering crowd his projects very well received.

Once this chap is there, he 100% fits in and gets value of all techniques and process discussed and vise versa....Its (imo) the job of organizations like TSME to attract more people like him. There should mutual benefits. I went through the same thing in business a few years - the average age was very high and we've since brought down 10-15 years since. And its a lot more fun with some youth...they bring an energy and positive attitudes....vs the pull the pants up/move to Florida/complain about the government group . I've got four young engineers at the moment (under 30) all relationships developed through a HS robotic team we're involved with. There not happening now of course, but go to one of those meets if you doubt the interest of young people with technology and making things.

Its a big commitment to have a home machine shop, but I think the youth maker and robots crowds, the ones serious about it, will see doing so as the path to really upping their games. Paces like here and TSME could play a fantastic roll in providing a community and help for them...but they'll have to get past all the old know it alls

[Paul Alciatore]

I think there is a bit of the explanation in all of the above. For better or worse, things do change.

As for other social sites, I have a problem with just how to use them to get an answer to a specific question. And then, if you actually do get one, how do you know the bona-fides of the person posting that answer. Perhaps he or she thinks a lathe is something served in a cup and a mill is for grinding grits or coffee beans.

This is the first machining board I joined and I still think it is the best. I think it has a very good balance of rules and tolerance. And most of the members are well behaved, in spite of what some may say about some of the others.

I have a Facebook page but I wonder just how I would get a good discussion going there about a machining question. If I posted a question there I suspect it would go without comments for a long, long time. And is there even a way to search for past posts there. I guess there is, but it is not a very good way to work. There is absolutely zero organization of the posts there except by date (I think). I suppose I would have to find someone who already has a Facebook page dedicated to machining and post there.

It may not be perfect, but I like the way that vBulletin bb software works and how our host, Village Press, has implemented this bb with it.

I will give you another possible explanation. The covid virus. I have to suspect that for the past year many people who have machining as a hobby have either been too busy trying to feed their families or too broke to spend any of their hard earned dollars on their hobby or perhaps even both. Perhaps things will pick up when that is a distant and fading dot in our rear view mirrors.

[SVS]

I’ve been on PM and HSM approaching 20 years. I’ve always thought PM died on weekends where HSM picked up a bit. Different crowds.

Both seem to slow in the warmer months.

I have to agree with Doc’s secret garden theory.

I CAN’T go to facebook-talked so much crap at my wife for time she spends there I’d never live it down. Rather die...

[oxford]

I understand the why but having a classifieds section would have really helped this place out over the years.

[loose nut]

It is also a seasonal thing, spring has sprung and yard work takes the lead.

[ptjw7uk]

Could be plain old age!
Personally I seem to have lost the urge to produce things - now I tend to buy what I need from the likes of Amazon or Ebay!

[reggie_obe]

I will give you another possible explanation. The covid virus. I have to suspect that for the past year many people who have machining as a hobby have either been too busy trying to feed their families or too broke to spend any of their hard earned dollars on their hobby or perhaps even both. Perhaps things will pick up when that is a distant and fading dot in our rear view mirrors.

If anything, COVID has given many more time for pursuit of their hobbies. If your working from home, you've gained back those wasted commute hours, if you currently "furloughed", the shop provides a creative outlet which should cost you little if you work with what you have and improve on and build with with what you have. If you longed to attend an industrial auction, but couldn't because of the "job". Good news, COVID hasn't stopped auctions from happening.

[J Tiers]

...................

And here, all too many of you regulars bury your content in the impenetrably-large and almost entirely unsearchable "Shop Made Tools" and "What Did You Machine Today?" threads.

........................

Agree 200%.

I've made a pest of myself making that same point about those threads being a problem, particularly the "shop made tools" one.. I essentially NEVER post in the tools one, And I basically never read it either.

I do sometimes post stuff in the "what did you do today", and sometimes small stuff in the "....machine today" version. And I have read those also. But anything significant I post separately.

In many ways I wish those threads did not exist.

[nickel-city-fab]

All of the above, though I wouldn't necessarily call it a decline. More like a "change".
Another factor, in my case: multiple interests. Only 24 hrs in a day. And zero spare dollars lately.

I hang out on multiple forums dedicated to various different interests, and I tend to "make the rounds" for a week or two at a time. In other words, I will be studying one particular aspect of vintage shotguns, Hi-Fi audio, machining, or fine art at any given moment. The way I tend to study is via total immersion for a week or three at a time, then something will bump me off onto the next subject in rotation.

And as mentioned, it is time to work outside for a while.
When I return to work in July, my spare time will be severely curtailed, but I will have extra $$$ to pursue my hobbies. But likely I won't have the remaining energy except on weekends.

[mochinist]

I think there is a bit of the explanation in all of the above. For better or worse, things do change.

As for other social sites, I have a problem with just how to use them to get an answer to a specific question. And then, if you actually do get one, how do you know the bona-fides of the person posting that answer. Perhaps he or she thinks a lathe is something served in a cup and a mill is for grinding grits or coffee beans.

This is the first machining board I joined and I still think it is the best. I think it has a very good balance of rules and tolerance. And most of the members are well behaved, in spite of what some may say about some of the others.

I have a Facebook page but I wonder just how I would get a good discussion going there about a machining question. If I posted a question there I suspect it would go without comments for a long, long time. And is there even a way to search for past posts there. I guess there is, but it is not a very good way to work. There is absolutely zero organization of the posts there except by date (I think). I suppose I would have to find someone who already has a Facebook page dedicated to machining and post there.

It may not be perfect, but I like the way that vBulletin bb software works and how our host, Village Press, has implemented this bb with it.

I will give you another possible explanation. The covid virus. I have to suspect that for the past year many people who have machining as a hobby have either been too busy trying to feed their families or too broke to spend any of their hard earned dollars on their hobby or perhaps even both. Perhaps things will pick up when that is a distant and fading dot in our rear view mirrors.

There are multiple large machining groups on Facebook. Some are dedicated to manual machines, others cnc, selling machines, dxf file sharing etc. Some you can ask a question and have 30-50 responses in an hour, with a lot of them being helpful depending on the group.

[Doc Nickel]

There are multiple large machining groups on Facebook. Some are dedicated to manual machines, others cnc, selling machines, dxf file sharing etc. Some you can ask a question and have 30-50 responses in an hour, with a lot of them being helpful depending on the group.

-The primary problem with Facebook is that such groups are unsearchable and unindexible. I can't count the number of times I've Googled some machining-related question, and the first dozen results are all from Practical Machinist- often going back a decade or more. Something that was posted to Facebook just a couple of weeks ago, is virtually unfindable, even by members of that group. And for anyone not on Facebook, that data basically doesn't exist.

Facebook is not there to index an correlate useful information- it exists to index and correlate you and the data you produce- what you look at, how long you look at it, who you interact with, how long you interact with them, etc. in order to better serve you ads and influence your opinions.

Putting all your data and content on Facebook- which helps no one but Facebook- is quite simply stupid.

Doc.

[J Tiers]

................
Putting all your data and content on Facebook- which helps no one but Facebook- is quite simply stupid..............
Doc.

Not to mention all the phishing etc that originates due to "faceplant", as I like to call it. People who are otherwise presumably intelligent will spread out their lives and contents of home or shop on faceplant, and wonder why they were targeted by burglars, phishing emails, identity theft, and so forth.

Faceplant makes such things easy, or perhaps I should say that the faceplant USERS make it easy, substantially assisted by the general way faceplant has been operated.

[The Metal Butcher]

Well, to bring an old point back up, one of the reasons people visit a site regularly is when there's regular content. People check every day when there's something new and interesting to read every day. If there's nothing really new and interesting, they tend to migrate over to where there IS something new and interesting.

And here, all too many of you regulars bury your content in the impenetrably-large and almost entirely unsearchable "Shop Made Tools" and "What Did You Machine Today?" threads.

Yes, many of you that have been here a while and have been regularly following that thread, have no trouble keeping up. But a part-time reader or worse a new reader? One thread is two hundred and seventy-plus pages long, the other over a hundred and fifty. I'm a regular and a machine enthusiast, and I don't read those, because they're cluttered, disorganized and unsearchable.

A new reader? No new reader is going to devote five days of intensive study to work their way through those threads. Those of you who use that thread have effectively closed yourselves off in your own little walled garden. You're locking all your content away and now complaining that there's no one left here to read your content.

If all of those shiny new shop-made tools and doohickeys I machined today were posted out in the open forum, in individual threads- as a board like this is designed for- those new and part-time readers might see actual traffic and projects- IE, new, fresh content- and maybe stick around and provide content of their own.

Doc.

Whoa. Interesting opinion. And apparently a popular one. I felt/feel very different. I always feel very self conscious starting a new thread, like I'd better have some damn good stuff if I'm going to make an entire thread about it. Like a whole lathe restoration or something. I must admit that I do get annoyed by multiple threads on the same topic, but rarely do new threads for new content annoy me.

Maybe I'll try to cut back on the use of the shop made tools type threads. I tend to post there a lot to gauge interest, or keep small interactions going, etc. I'm not sure that most of my stuff there deserves a thread of its own, and some of it would just feel "braggy", ones where there is no consultation from the community, no processes, or development, just a finished product. Projects that are the antithesis of Brian's engines (which absolutely deserve a fresh thread). But say some customer work I'm proud of, or some dumb graphite I machined at work... I don't think I'll ever be starting new threads for that, regardless of the community opinion.

Question for you Doc? What about continuation threads of everything a single user is doing? Sort of like the Garage threads on garagejournal. Same deal? I'm suspecting so, as I have even stopped reading all but one of those. But I would read a lot more on here, the machinist folks are a bit closer to my interests.

-The primary problem with Facebook is that such groups are unsearchable and unindexible. I can't count the number of times I've Googled some machining-related question, and the first dozen results are all from Practical Machinist- often going back a decade or more. Something that was posted to Facebook just a couple of weeks ago, is virtually unfindable, even by members of that group. And for anyone not on Facebook, that data basically doesn't exist.

Facebook is not there to index an correlate useful information- it exists to index and correlate you and the data you produce- what you look at, how long you look at it, who you interact with, how long you interact with them, etc. in order to better serve you ads and influence your opinions.

Putting all your data and content on Facebook- which helps no one but Facebook- is quite simply stupid.

Doc.

That is true. Many forums are blocked at my work, PM is not. Which is a good thing, as I've consulted it a few hundred times since I started working there. PM is a damn resource, and will be for a long time.

[Doc Nickel]

I always feel very self conscious starting a new thread, like I'd better have some damn good stuff if I'm going to make an entire thread about it.

-Er, why? I don't recall anyone expressing that there's a minimum quality level to posting.

Posting... well, pretty much anything related to home-shop machining is, point in fact, the very reason for a forum like this!

It's not a place where you can ONLY post and discuss full machine rebuilds or major projects like an entire from-scratch engine. It's clearly a place where you can post and discuss nearly anything home-shop related. Right at the moment, there's a thread on curing RTV, a discussion on a Honda throttle body, how to reverse a small single-phase motor and a question about speed-reading.

A board like this literally lives- and thrives- on content. That is, stuff that you and all the other regulars post. Sometimes it's one of Brian's amazing engines, sometimes it's somebody like the late, lamented Sir John showing us a freshly-welded-and-turned motor shaft, sometimes it's just somebody asking about using 5C collets.

What matters is that there's something to read every day. The more things to read there are, the more often people come back to check it.

But here, the bulk of new content gets buried in one of three impenetrably-long and unsearchable threads- those fellows have made a sort of sub-forum off the main forum. Except it's less organized, harder to read, can't be searched, and contains many "builds" that are spread out over dozens of unindexed pages.

I'm not sure that most of my stuff there deserves a thread of its own[...

-Oh, horse****. Sometimes the most interesting stuff is little things the author didn't himself think interesting. For example, a few weeks ago, I posted this video, which was largely just practice on both shooting and editing a video. But in it, I show using some 5C collets- one fellow who saw it had no idea that hex collets existed, and was very glad to know that, and another had no idea that three-blade cut-to-length collet-stop extrusion existed, and immediately ordered a handful.

There's no "deserve" here. We have no minimum level of quality required to post, and there's no panel of judges that rate such posts and delete those that don't qualify. Did it occur in a machine shop? Then it qualifies.

[...]and some of it would just feel "braggy", ones where there is no consultation from the community, no processes, or development, just a finished product.

-SO?!? I have dozens of folders full of photos of finished products. I love pictures of useful shop fixtures, ways to store tools, clever uses of ordinary tools. After posting my first reply to this thread, I poked around in that "tools" thread- I have a slow connection, so I only looked at a random dozen or so pages, and every page had at least one tool worth it's own thread.

Brag away!

Projects that are the antithesis of Brian's engines.

-No such thing. Yes, there's good projects, great ones and exceptional ones. There's also a few boring ones- so? I can't count the times I've posted- here, on PM or on my own board- some trivial thing, only to find someone greatly interested. Just because it's simple an uninteresting to you, doesn't mean it's simple and uninteresting to others.

Question for you Doc? What about continuation threads of everything a single user is doing? Sort of like the Garage threads on garagejournal. Same deal?

-In my opinion, no. Those are more like 'blogs'- you're essentially reading about one guy's exploits, but with commentary. Some of those have indeed gotten absurdly long, though- what a poster on one of my webcomic boards does is start a new "blog thread" each year. It's the same thing, it's one person's doings, with other posters providing commentary. They tend to get up to between 40 and 50 pages, but are then closed and a new one started.

If you insist on having such a thing, that's the way it needs to be handled.

The other general threads, like the "Thread of Awesome", are just chit-chat. They're certainly huge and unwieldy, but they're also not the primary content of the site.

Doc.