Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2019 11:43:58 GMT
Take a look at the sword community in 2000-2002, when there would be at least a thread an hour in a general section and overflowing at SFI with the influx of modern katana needing a subforum and even then in the general section a plea for a separate historical discussion section vs reproduction medieval section. By 2004 and even as SBG was being formed, SFI, myArmoury and SBG similarly were all booming. By 2008, all the groups were starting the "woe is" "its their fault" and more than a few entirely left boards for Facebook and twitter. Mobile use increasing and with that, even less interest in writing in discussion groups, with twitter and FB becoming single paragraph "essays".
I've said in other posts, all any need do is look at active numbers vs visitor/reader numbers. Look at view numbers in say the ren section vs the Japanese section. Sure, the more indulgent "thought experiments" and salacious topics will draw more out of the woodwork but less and less actually focus on the weapons, with circumstance/context being more the reason to reply in such threads.
So yes, by 2012, you are seeing fewer and fewer reviews, fewer and fewer new topics overall. The only real increase has been the classifieds section and the druids behind the scene can as surely confirm hour by hour activity. Something else lacking on some boards is not seeing minute to minute activity of user reading and writing (I know the mods on all boards can, or should be able to for tracking ip numbers, etc). A simple look at this (or any) boards stats for activity easily show my points. A couple of hundred regular member readers, many more guests stopping by but usually less than two dozen here posting with any regularity at any given time. The most online at once number kind of like a tell tale needle on a tachometer, in that the number was only achieved once.
I am not a doomie and participate when I have something to write (good, bad or ugly) and I am active on several venues. Pretty quiet at vikingsword lately but I have had nothing to contribute at the moment.
Feel good group hugs and kumbaya sing alongs are actually a death knell of inactivity. Posting information vs looking for debate. Offering more than a couple of me too words (or, you suck) in a thread. A lot of folk simply don't feel they have time to contribute more than just the debate.
Anyway, there are still folk on all discussion boards fighting the good fight of contribution and some will feel even this post is horse hooey.
c'est la guerre (in the broader definition of the term)
Cheers GC
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Post by nddave on Aug 15, 2019 16:24:39 GMT
I guess I can be considered one of the old guys now since its been nearly 9 years since I joined in 2010. I first ran into SBG bored on a graveyard shift looking for fucntional sword info and browsed around the main page and forum for a year or so before joining.
I agree it seems better in the old days simply because of the community and how the sword market was evolving at the time. Also many of us who are still around now have nostalgia for those days being new to the community and market and what was coming available at the time was new and fresh for example the Hanwei Tinker Line, the new Sonny operated Valiant Armory, FableBlades and Windlass upping their production values.
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Post by demonskull on Aug 15, 2019 17:09:25 GMT
I don't think the board has changed as much as the times. Glen has touched on it regarding numbers but I'll hit up another consideration, popular interest.
During the 80s, The Highlander movie and the popularity of Ren Fairs, started a surge of interest in swords. Now interest has ebbed and flowed before but, at no time before did we have the internet. Information was readily available (although not reliable), MRL started putting catalogs in the hands of anyone who desired a sword so the interest was fueled.
During the 90s, The Highlander TV show continued the interest and sparked new interest. More and more people became involved in sword collecting and gaining knowledge on the swords themselves and how they were used. Collectors and fans started forming Forums to communicate with each other. Based on this growing interest, niche vendors started producing more and more swords. Some of the smarter vendors listened to the experts and adjusted their designs accordingly. These produced better more historically possible swords, while feeding to the general knowledge of the community.
During the early part of this century, LoTR movies stimulated new members to join forums. Forums divided and new ones emerged to cover niche areas of the overall topic of swords. Sword ownership and interest reached new heights, new vendors joined the ranks, quality improved (overall) and knowledge that just a decade before was confined to a few became common place.
In the past few years there have been only several smaller movies to spark the imagination and fuel the interest into swords. This will pass, interest is like the tide, it will rise and it will fall. Just give it time.
The feeling of sameness and nothing new under the sun is not because the Forum has changed. It is because we have and popular interest has taken a down turn.
Just like the motto of the Starks, "Winter is coming" ...and with it change. How we cope with it, will be a personal thing.
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Aug 15, 2019 20:19:58 GMT
At one point, I had a whole lot more fire in me to create threads that I believed would spark some good level of discussion. Mainly in terms of bringing in actual historical context or actual events. One nail in the coffin for me was actually pretty surprising and it stuck with me. I found a very interesting page dedicated to the Akō incident aka The 47 Ronin.. that included actual measurements of the swords used by the ronin. It had some great info and some would say even surprising info as many of the nagasa on these katana were well over 30" in length. One was even like 34" or 35" and it was not a nodachi,handle proportion wise. Many of them used a short yari(te yari) as well, those are literally NEVER talked about here but here they were being used in an epic revenge fight to the death in a fortified compound by multiple samurai. I think it got a whopping 3 or 4 posts! Around a similar time there were some hot threads..that had many pages..One was about the hypothetical plausibility of a real light saber. I think it was nearing the double digits. LOL. Let that sink in.
You might find this discussion about the swords of 47 Ronin interesting, I tried to track the possible origins of the swords with the very limited source information that has been provided on them: www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/28908-47-ronin-swords-list/ just for fun and not serious research by any means as I am lacking the source material of them.
In general back in the old SFI, SBG, etc. people were just posting more. Sure it might be the ever weekly what is the best katana for 300$'s, or something like longsword is superior to all swords, etc. I think we might need those threads that start out as goofy as sometimes really good information was shared in them. Many of the bit heated discussions were good in my opinion as it just showed that people have genuine passion (well some could have just trolled for fun and giggles).
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Post by Cosmoline on Aug 15, 2019 22:26:25 GMT
Let me mention the trillion pound elephant in the room--FACEBOOK. It's the reason almost all the special interest private forums have faded or died completely. SBG is one of the few sword related forums still standing. Many haven't had posts in *years* and are little more than archives. Facebook gobbled up the attention and the users. SBG is actually doing pretty well in that context. FB is also why the classifieds are slow. Readership is elsewhere.
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Post by Sir Thorfinn on Aug 15, 2019 23:23:51 GMT
FB... Yup.
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Post by Curtis_Louis on Aug 15, 2019 23:31:46 GMT
I still prefer Friendster and Myspace.
I spend lots of time alone.
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stormmaster
Member
I like viking/migration era swords
Posts: 7,647
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Post by stormmaster on Aug 15, 2019 23:35:18 GMT
the fb all swords group got shut down by the man recently, but it has sprung back up to already over a thousand members
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Post by randomnobody on Aug 16, 2019 0:09:28 GMT
I recently rejoined the new All Swords FB group, and had been in Blades of History for a while, but neither really seem more active than this forum lately. If anything, I see a lot of the same stuff posted.
I do think that social media and aggregate sites (Reddit etc) have contributed to a decline in dedicated forums. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I appreciate the archive capabilities of a dedicated forum over the in-the-moment posts on social media.
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thomasthesecond
Member
"I thought I was an architect, but I was just moving dirt."
Posts: 153
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Post by thomasthesecond on Aug 16, 2019 13:49:09 GMT
Part of me feels like they're was a toxicity that developed, and poisoned a lot of the community as a whole.
I've just recently joined a few FB groups, and they're either all $600+ swords, or people bashing the guys that bought the cheaper ones.
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Post by nddave on Aug 16, 2019 16:12:39 GMT
Part of me feels like they're was a toxicity that developed, and poisoned a lot of the community as a whole. I've just recently joined a few FB groups, and they're either all $600+ swords, or people bashing the guys that bought the cheaper ones. See and that's why SBG is a good place because its one of the few if not only places where the variety of interests and price points can merge and coexist in a friendly and insightful community. I think this goes back to something that was said earlier about new people. That being some may feel their purchase isnt worth mention if its budget or been discusses before. I uses to feel this way when it came to reviews, for example the H/T Bastard was my third functional purchase and I wanted to do a review. But since there were already a few for it by more seasoned memebers I felt it wasnt neccessary or my experience out of measure. I'm sure many new memebers feel the same way and I think if we can show everyone this is the place to talk SWORDS, no matter the make or price bracket or popularity or memeber experience, this will open the gates to better memeber contribution but also interaction. For example with old grudges letting die and allowing the new M&V rules do their job. Treat each new thread or review as a new day and chance for rectification rather than the typical years old can of worms.
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thomasthesecond
Member
"I thought I was an architect, but I was just moving dirt."
Posts: 153
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Post by thomasthesecond on Aug 16, 2019 16:32:20 GMT
Part of me feels like they're was a toxicity that developed, and poisoned a lot of the community as a whole. I've just recently joined a few FB groups, and they're either all $600+ swords, or people bashing the guys that bought the cheaper ones. See and that's why SBG is a good place because its one of the few if not only places where the variety of interests and price points can merge and coexist in a friendly and insightful community. I think this goes back to something that was said earlier about new people. That being some may feel their purchase isnt worth mention if its budget or been discusses before. I uses to feel this way when it came to reviews, for example the H/T Bastard was my third functional purchase and I wanted to do a review. But since there were already a few for it by more seasoned memebers I felt it wasnt neccessary or my experience out of measure. I'm sure many new memebers feel the same way and I think if we can show everyone this is the place to talk SWORDS, no matter the make or price bracket or popularity or memeber experience, this will open the gates to better memeber contribution but also interaction. For example with old grudges letting die and allowing the new M&V rules do their job. Treat each new thread or review as a new day and chance for rectification rather than the typical years old can of worms. I completely agree. That's why I liked that you started reviewing swords again on your channel, when I'm really looking at one in particular there's never enough out there on the internet to satiate.
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Post by pvsampson on Aug 17, 2019 2:17:25 GMT
See and that's why SBG is a good place because its one of the few if not only places where the variety of interests and price points can merge and coexist in a friendly and insightful community. I think this goes back to something that was said earlier about new people. That being some may feel their purchase isnt worth mention if its budget or been discusses before. I uses to feel this way when it came to reviews, for example the H/T Bastard was my third functional purchase and I wanted to do a review. But since there were already a few for it by more seasoned memebers I felt it wasnt neccessary or my experience out of measure. I'm sure many new memebers feel the same way and I think if we can show everyone this is the place to talk SWORDS, no matter the make or price bracket or popularity or memeber experience, this will open the gates to better memeber contribution but also interaction. For example with old grudges letting die and allowing the new M&V rules do their job. Treat each new thread or review as a new day and chance for rectification rather than the typical years old can of worms. I completely agree. That's why I liked that you started reviewing swords again on your channel, when I'm really looking at one in particular there's never enough out there on the internet to satiate. Some relevant points in these statements. There was a post on a FB page today on katanas,with a member there commenting on a cheaper model sword than he would buy,( sold through SBG actually) saying not to buy. That attitude tends to push people away that cannot afford high end items. Many here know I bought my first katana recently,cheap even by Australian prices yet I really like that sword,and did a mini review.Why? Well,why not? I like reading the reviews of all the weapons posted here,and dreaming a little too and I wanted to share the fact I got my first kat. That's all. Hadn't seen that brand reviewed either. Someone mentioned about posting and not getting many replies.Yeah it can be a little frustrating when a specific question is asked and there are few replies but as mentioned before this place has a group of regular posters and not everyone is interested in the same subject,or even have specific knowledge.It's all good This forum is not too bad actually. I have read a lot of posts from the past,way back,and I see the same basic attitudes and overall helpfulness. Higher traffic would be a little more interesting but it is what it is. General civility and acceptance will keep people here.
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Post by whitefeathers on Aug 19, 2019 1:59:00 GMT
I beleive it was 2010 when I signed up. I remember this place was quite active! Its this forums fault I bought a ton of swords. I miss ubc. I made some good friends from there. I still talk to one and go cut with him a couple times a year. Stinkin social media. Its a love hate relationship but it hurts forums like these. Ive been in some of those fb sword groups even got banned from one. Haha. I refuse to go into them these days because of stuff mentioned above. I use fb nowadays for what it was designed for reconnecting with friends and i am in some groups but more for research. And you know life happens..I have other interests that have creeped up recently that just push swords aaide. I still train just not as much and train for other sports instead. Its good though to see some old names still around. I try to check in at least once a week.
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Ifrit
Member
More edgy than a double edge sword
Posts: 3,284
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Post by Ifrit on Aug 22, 2019 22:03:16 GMT
I joined back in 2008-2009, with another account. It was definitely different back then. The community was a bit more fun, but also way less informed.
Back then, it was impressive to see a guy make a very simple sword, despite no distill taper. As long as the thing didn't break in use, it was a cool build
These days, I've seen beautiful swords with gorgeous leather work being ignored. Everyone's become a connoisseur, and that's not necessarily a bad thing either.
The sword market has changed from back yard cutters to martial artists with the rise of hema. I like the change, but it does have a bit of elitism at times.
The community itself was really friendly. It still is, but back then it had more inside jokes exclusive to SBG. These days, we got the tired ol pommel joke and... That's it maybe.
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Aug 22, 2019 22:11:35 GMT
These days, we got the tired ol pommel joke and... That's it maybe.
Old and tired, yes. Perhaps it's time to...end it rightly?
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Ifrit
Member
More edgy than a double edge sword
Posts: 3,284
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Post by Ifrit on Aug 22, 2019 22:12:43 GMT
These days, we got the tired ol pommel joke and... That's it maybe.
Old and tired, yes. Perhaps it's time to...end it rightly?
I want to both buy you a beer, and spike it with Carolina reaper sauce
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Post by Curtis_Louis on Aug 22, 2019 22:25:20 GMT
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Aug 22, 2019 22:35:22 GMT
Hahaha, oh man, that'd murder me. I'm a super wuss about hot things. That being said, I do have some of Mike's hot sauce on its way to me. I've never had a hot sauce, never wanted any hot sauce, but I'm curious since he's the one who made it. In the end I'll probably try a drop of it, cry for a while, decide me and Michael are not such great pals, chain it to a cinder block and throw it in the ocean.
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Ifrit
Member
More edgy than a double edge sword
Posts: 3,284
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Post by Ifrit on Aug 22, 2019 22:38:11 GMT
Hahaha, oh man, that'd murder me. I'm a super wuss about hot things. That being said, I do have some of Mike's hot sauce on its way to me. I've never had a hot sauce, never wanted any hot sauce, but I'm curious since he's the one who made it. In the end I'll probably try a drop of it, cry for a while, decide me and Michael are not such great pals, chain it to a cinder block and throw it in the ocean. I'm a wuss who thinks he's not a wuss when it comes to hot food. But I crumble like any other person with human taste buds once something beyond siracha is in my food. I want to get some of his hot sauce too. I bet my room mate would love the stuff and murder all our food with it lol
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