Anyone know whats up with Sawmill Creek Woodworking Forum? All I get is a home page to Sawmillcreek.org There is a forum link but it just goes to another page of links to fine woodworking magazine forum. Anyone able to access the forums or know whats going on?
Their domain name registration expired. It has since been renewed, but it take some time for the update to be propagated through the DNS servers. Their sever can still be accessed by IP address - http://70.169.135.35. The situation should (hopefully) be rectified by Wednesday.
-- JeffB remove no.spam. to email
Mike > Anyone know whats up with Sawmill Creek Woodworking Forum? All I get
Which raises another question, like what's going on over there at SMC. Lately the moderators have been really aggressive in locking discussions that in their "opinion" were straying into too much controversy, and for me, its getting a little bit too much to take, to the point that I've really stopped posting over there, and I've noticed a general dropoff of some of the more seasoned regulars, whether for the same reason or not, I don't know. The "gentility" factor has taken over and removed the spice from open and honest discussion and inserted a Political Correctness aroma which to me is starting to stink. When I'm trying to make a living I'll put up with PC, but in my leisure time I get a belly full and would just as soon not deal with it. Voting with my feet, I guess.
Although I'd been on very infrequently in recent years, I was one of the original members as it arose after Badger Pond closed. A month or so ago I ran into the same thing you're talking about and wound up getting locked out. Locked out! I couldn't even get thrown off Badger Pond. How am I locked out? Well, they can't fire me, I quit.
After some backchannel conversation with friends I found out that there are several of us originals who have had enough of Keith Outten's high handedness and similarly used their feet. I was really surprised. I mean some of us go way back, but they can proceed without me--I won't be back. They really pale by comparison to WoodCentral, my
*real* home (except for the wreck, of course, but forum vs usenet is apples and oranges).
Well I appreciate not having to read through a bunch of tiresome BS, pissing contests over who is right on a particular subject, personal attacks and other time wasting matters. After all, I can get that here :) and spam to boot. Having said that, SMC will no longer give non-contributors full access to some of the forums and they will have to put up with ads. Contributors see no ads and continue to have full access. One of the forums non contributors will no longer be able to write to (they can still read) will be the sale and swap forum. I think thats going to cut down a lot on some of the fine deals that come up there so that's not a good thing for the entire membership, contributors or not. This was brought on by the fact that only 9% of all SMC members are contributors for 2008. So financially, they are between a rock and a hard place. They're in the cat bird seat and have made this decision. I can respect that and hope it doesn't drive off too many non-contributing contributors if you know what I mean.
"Pig" wrote Which raises another question, like what's going on over there at SMC. Lately the moderators have been really aggressive in locking discussions that in their "opinion" were straying into too much controversy, and for me, its getting a little bit too much to take, to the point that I've really stopped posting over there, and I've noticed a general dropoff of some of the more seasoned regulars, whether for the same reason or not, I don't know. The "gentility" factor has taken over and removed the spice from open and honest discussion and inserted a Political Correctness aroma which to me is starting to stink. When I'm trying to make a living I'll put up with PC, but in my leisure time I get a belly full and would just as soon not deal with it. Voting with my feet, I guess.
Have you tried alt.politics?
Max
No, do they have a handtool forum?
Makes you wonder where they went wrong. Let's examine two parallel models, SMC and WoodCentral.
WC was in place before the demise of the Pond. SMC arose directly from the ashes. At first there were a number of people who participated in both (and there may still be, but the number is dwindling--WC has a much higher percentage of ex-Ponders, I believe).
The culture of the Pond from which we came was founded in the very civility you address, although there was never a problem with OT posts (and I don't think there is on any woodworking forum). Granted, that moderation was applied rather heavy handedly, particularly toward the end, but the vast majority of the people I remember from the Pond didn't need it.
WoodCentral far and away is the more Pond-like of the two fora insofar as behavior and sense of community is concerned. Although there is a team of moderators, I think the average user would be able to name one beyond Ellis Walentine, himself.
In the early years of SMC, the community was very much like the Pond and WC. But obviously some philosophies changed at SMC at the top level. Now, the interesting thing is, BP was virtually wholly member supported. WC is virtually wholly member supported. There is some advertising income at WC (so unobtrusive you'd hardly notice) and apparently from the above post there is some at SMC.
So why the diminution of accessibilty at SMC vs WC's completely open model? I'm sure someone with some serious sociology chops (I have none) will be able to put a better answer to it than me, but having participated heavily in two of the three fora (and significantly in the third), I think it comes down to heavy handed moderation.
Having said that, I think BP isn't a good example, because the solo oversight pretty much doomed it and the cost of a forum was somewhat different in its days than now. Still, there sure wasn't a lack of sponsorship by the members, even at the end. So what else is SMC doing wrong?
Limiting content (such as graphics embedded in posts--and a couple of other fora do that as well) seems to me to be a self defeating tactic. The whole concept of the internet is distribution of content. Woodworkers type strings into search engines to see examples of work. Requiring registration or support to view content goes against the grain, in my view.
However, I digress. As I said, SMC has lost me for good. A loss for them? Well, I like to think so, but I really don't care. I have a feeling it'll play out to an early demise for them and I have a hunch they'll go to their grave wondering what happened.
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