Thanks Dan! Now that I feel good, make me feel envious and tell me you took that photo from your porch.......

Joshua

I actually shot the photo from an upstairs window.

So what processing did you put it through before posting? I assume you still had to resize and compress?

Note:

Joshua

I posted a reply to your question about the photo on the January 2015 Topic of the Month about videos and photography so as not to sidetrack this discussion.

Click: January 2015 topic of the Month.

Dan Cassidy

ABS Forum Admin

All ABS members

The ABS Forum Moderators and I have had extensive discussions about the suggestions and comments posted this month by our members in this thread and want to make every effort to make your experience on the ABS Forum as user friendly and useful to your bladesmithing skill development as possible. I have listed below the changes that have been made and the Moderators and I are discussing additional changes to our ABS Forum to increase member participation and advance our mission of education for the forged blade.

I have increased the image and attachment size limits for images within a post from a maximum of 800x800 and less than 150kb To 1,000 x 1,000 and less than 500kb. This is a very substantial increase and should well work for us.

One of the other issues that some members had was the default "Global Upload Limit" which was set by default to 500k for the "Members" group. This means that after they had a total upload of 500k worth of images (photos) or files on the ABS Forum that they may have to delete some older images to have enough space to upload or post new images. I changed the Global Upload Limit to "Unlimited" for the Members Group.

Another suggestion was to combine some of the sub forums. The ABS Hall of Fame sub forum only had one Topic which was a video that I filmed at the Hall of Fame. I moved the video to Educational videos and deleted the Hall of Fame sub forum. The ABS Suggestion Box sub forum only had about a dozen Topics. I was able to move all of the Topics to new homes on our Forum. There are many other places that our members can post suggestions for changes or new ideas and you know that we as Moderators will reply or find an answer for you. The Atlanta Knife Auction sub forum was combined with the Atanta Blade Show sub forum. I changed the title for Knife Critiques to "Show and Tell - Your Work". We have had several requests for this sub forum and I hope that it it will attract more members to post and describe their work. I included in the sub forum description that members can also submit their work for constructive critiques and seek advice.

Ok, the Moderators have worked hard all month working on your suggestions and have made many changes in response to your comments.

The initial question remains - How do we increase participation on the ABS Forum by all of our ABS members - especially our Journeyman Smiths and Master Smiths.

Sounds like a good well reasoned set of changes that address and solve all of the main issues brought up!

I don't start threads here or even comment because I just don't think about it. I go to the facebook groups and friends for most of my advice. The only time I really think about the ABS forum is when I get this newsletter. People lately seem to be shying away from forums because of their bad tendency to become places for arguments supported with unfounded information. While I realize the ABS has more class than this, it's still a forum. Theres nothing wrong with it as a forum, I just don't think there's enough publicity of its existence outside of the ABS newsletters.

Would it be a problem, since avenues like facebook are where a lot of these guys are, to simply have a few people make a couple posts to encourage people to check out the forums? Might even be an opportunity to find new members that have been on the fence about joining...

Dan asks:

The initial question remains - How do we increase participation on the ABS Forum by all of our ABS members - especially our Journeyman Smiths and Master Smiths.

I have made two suggestions:

1. Pick a few people that you would like to see start and send them a personal invite. Maybe ask them to post a photo in the Show & Tell section. People usually like talking about themselves and their work.

2. Survey the ABS smiths at ICCE and ask them about their forum participation and why they do, or do not participate. I would make this an anonymous survey to encourage honest answers.

Here's my third suggestion:

Have those of us who do participate, enumerate the reasons why we participate in forums in general, and what it is about forums that we like and why we return to the ones we like best. That will give you some insight into what reasons people use this forum and other forums. Combining that information with the reasons you get from suggestion #2 should start to reveal the answer to your question.

I do not want to be rude, and I mean no disrespect, but I believe that you are asking the wrong people the wrong question.

Like many before me let me take this opportunity to thank Dan and all the moderators for their hard work. i have found the discussions here to be a great resource as i struggle to become a competent bladesmith.

While i do not post often, well almost never, i do search the forum frequently and value it as is. As a blacksmith i have seen several forums start out well but go down hill because of the hunt for numbers. wanting increased traffic is fine but be patient and work to develop the participation you want and please don't aim for simple numbers. Personally i believe opening up the forum to non-members would incorporate bad information and dramatically change the feel of the site. no matter how good our team of moderators are, with an open forum the armchair quarterbacks will eventually slip through and overwhelm.

To attempt to help i have really thought about why i don't post more. first, as a beginner bladesmith i am simply shy about putting images of work out there especially when those looking at it are those i admire. while feedback is important to development it is hard to have your idols comment, sometimes harshly, on your work even harder when it's done in public. second, often i come to the forum looking to ask a question and since i don't want to get stomped for asking about something already covered (happens frequently in many forums though i really haven't seen it here) i spend all the time i have searching through the existing information and reading old discussions. granted i do usually find an answer or at least get distracted by something different to try. lastly, often times when i read through the current discussions really all i can contribute is a wow or thanks. without something of substance to add to the discussion i don't want to bother/intrude upon the participants with something unnecessary and frivolous.

that being said there was mention earlier of incorporating collectors to get their input on design and materials. would there be a way to offer limited, invitation only, memberships to collectors to see if they had questions or thoughts that would be beneficial to those currently earning their living this way and those wishing to move from a hobby stage to more. hopefully they would also be interested in answering questions from us.

another suggestion to increase both awareness and participation would be to have a 'live demonstration/discussion' time. years ago one of the blacksmithing forums would have a tuesday night online demo (text, sketches and photos) where those watching could ask questions of the demonstrator/lecturer. now, since this forum has gone to the armchair crowd i no longer participate so i'm not sure if they still do this but it was my favorite thing about the site. during the discussion/question portion of the evening participating members would often reference other areas of the forum or even other forums/websites. i did find some items of interest that i had previously missed that way and i always learned something. i recognize that this is more work for whomever does the demo/lecture but it did bring a large number of people to the site. i also found that both before and after the demo i would spend additional time browsing the site.

Candy Martens, Apprentice Bladesmith

Candy,

Thanks for you input on the discussion. It sounds to me that you have some experience with forums and you are able to clearly convey your thoughts in print. I hope you stick around. I might need help with that.

Please don't be shy about showing your work. No one should be bashing anyone's work here. That is supposed to be why this forum is different. We are our own critics for the most part and heaven knows we don't need anything else to make us hold back <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//smile.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' /> .

To all,

Is it my imagination that the forum has seen a bit more activity lately? As in the last two weeks or so.

Candy

Thank you. Your comments are well reasoned and you have some very good ideas for the ABS Forum. I have thought about a Collectors Corner sub forum for some time and will talk to the other Moderators about it.

I have also looked into other ways that we can communicate through the ABS Forum including the possibility of more media such as live webinars. I say the possibility because of the amount of preparation and the cost that I have to look into. Stay tuned as I will continue to look into the possibilities.

I have read every single post since the day that I configured our Forum and it went online and as Lin said we do not have any bashing or bad behavior on this Forum. You are a good writer and express yourself well so please feel free to ask questions. It does not matter if someone asked the same or a similar question before because every time we have a new discussion there are additional ideas and approaches discussed. No one has all of the answers and I am amazed at the new solutions and techniques that our very talented members constantly develop. All of us are here to learn more and improve our work.

Candy, I don't think anyone here would make harsh comments about any work that you might post. If you ask, you will get constructive criticism, but it will be offered as advice as to how to improve. Also you will get honest answers to any questions you have. Even those that have been asked before. I left some other forums because of the way people talked down to others. I've never seen it happen here.

Dale

Thanks for the positive reinforcement!

Dan i don't have any experience with webinars but it could be interesting, i think the key would be the instant interaction. i look forward to seeing what you guys come up with.

Another idea would be to do mini competitions, we do this with our blacksmithing guild on occasion. we have levels of competition, novice, beginner, intermediate, etc...projects could be as simple as a single component to a tool or jig to a fully completed knife. sometimes we put time or material limits as well to give it a bit more interest. we usually give out gifts of anywhere from t-shirts to yearly memberships to small gift cards. while this still doesn't get us full participation it does increase it, i should note when we tried it without prizes we got almost no participation but if we made the prizes too substantial it seemed to inhibit a lot of the novices from participating. i've also found that if we keep it jovial and a wee bit silly more people will join in. Not that it would apply directly to bladesmithing but one of my favorites is "what can you make out of a 1" cube of steel? no limits, just no added materials." though as i read it if we changed it up to carbon steel we could get some interesting small knives.

thanks

-c

Candy Martens, Apprentice Bladesmith

Ooo forging from a 1" cube sounds fun!

I like this idea I have always enjoyed doing the battle of the bladesmiths and participating in KITH (knife in the hat) when I have had the time. Something like this sounds awesome as it shouldn't even take all that much time!

As far as asking the same question again .. Not allways such a bad thing answers can change as the community learns more. Look at the discussion on fluxless welding over the last few years... Ten years ago no one would have even taken the idea seriously..

MP

Candy,

Glad to have you aboard. Please don't be shy about participating here, and don't hesitate to ask a question because you think it's already been covered somewhere. I know in some of those "other" forums they get kinda irate about that (and I've told them they have a bad attitude), but here you are likely to encourage someone to chime in and at the least, someone will remember where that former discussion was and we can all review it. It never hurts to go over the basics, and the basics will change from time to time as new techniques come along (as Matt pointed out). Lin already knows that I think every student is a teacher and every teacher becomes a student again. Asking that question gets us all thinking and talking about how we do stuff, and that's a good thing.

As for the fear of posting photos of your work, you're a blacksmith lassie! That means you've got the grit! <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//biggrin.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />

As a fellow "upstater" I welcome you to the ABS forum. Please make yourself at home.