Analysis of amount of visitors over the years

I recently posted an analysis of this forum over the past few years. It’s here. However, it’s hidden in a long thread. Since then it came up in more than one discussion, and I couldn’t find it back, so I thought I’d make it a separate topic.

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I’ve been on this forum for a few years now and I think I see a couple of patterns. One is that many users start to post here when they are considering a WEPS. They may stay here for a while, particularly when they’ve bought one and want to know how to use it optimally. But then they know how to use it and they depart again.

Another pattern is that the number of readers here is much larger than the number of posters. (Even though the statistics the old forum provided are probably way off due to bots surfing the web and other technicalities.) I am active on other forums as well and the number of questions I get there about the WEPS is larger than the number of questions I get here. That’s because people recognize me from this forum (or from my blog), even though they’ve never posted here.

The third pattern is that topics in which people post pictures of their results are always well-read (even though little people post them). A great edge that’s almost impossible to create manually is one of the reasons people use a WEPS and what better proof than a picture of a shiny mirror edge? Clay also uses these pictures sometimes on other social media.

The last pattern is what Clay also wrote about. When he (or somebody else) starts to do some research and posts his results here, that very often results in great discussions. The level of some discussions  then gets high; sometimes up to the level of academic research.

Those days are for me the high times of this forum. What happens then is that not only we can have great discussions about how sharpening actually works. But then the forum also magically (I told you about the readers) attracts posters who not only contribute to these discussions, but also start their own topics. To which other people then contribute again, etc. To me these posters include some of the best sharpeners and theorists about sharpening on the web.

In these days the forum almost explodes with new ideas. On all sorts of topics. Many a myth has been busted here and new theories and practices have been formed. These topics are often illustrated by very nice microscope photographs, but still one of the most memorable threads to me is one with a very “dry” mathematical proof that the WEPS (or any proper guided angle system) sharpens straight edges of any length at the same angle. And there were discussions about what stropping actually does, or how stones are produced, how different types of stones have different effects on edges and why, etc.

So if you ask if this forum shouldn’t broaden it’s scope. It can. But this forum is not limited to the WEPS, even though that’s the starting point for many people. I think the real scope of this for sharpening and everything related to it. (I think everything related to knives is too broad: you’ll never be able to compete with Bladeforums etc. and there’s no need for it either.) As a mod I’ve never stopped a discussion and people have asked multiple times, for example, how the WEPS compares to competing products. People are free to discuss anything that interest them and Clay is also very liberal about this. Everyone understands there are better places to discuss politics, and religion than this forum.

This forum has been pretty quiet for over a year now. I think that’s mainly due to the lack of interesting new topics/insights/research posted here. The number of regulars here now that also post is low. Newbies keep coming but also disappear again. And this forum has been plagued by technical problems for a long time. Performance problems, stability problems, hacks, change of hoster. So I think the move to new a forum platform is very wise, even though the transition takes some time to do well.

So how to make this forum more active again? I think Clay’s answer would also be mine. And I think Bill also had some very good points. For me improving the current forum and making it more user-friendly would also be very important. I also have some more ideas and I’ll post those later. But I’m also curious about the ideas other people may have.

2 users thanked author for this post.

tcmeyer, CliffCurry