What happened ?

[Anonymous]

When I came to this forum a few weeks ago, the forum had moved from an old platform to this one.. It was eluded that hundreds of people participated in the old forum. Like the topic suggests, what happed to those hundreds of people,, did something happen to chase hundreds away ?… of the hundreds that were in the old forum, did they get a heads up to come here?  It just seems strange to me that a well established product with what was a expressed to be a strong following in the old forum , has dissolved into six guys, keeping things going here..

IM just curious.. everyone that ” Is ” here seems like a very nice and engaging group… Where is the following?

Bill aka ET

Was the other forum really just like this one?

[tcmeyer]

In location terms, the changeover to the new format was really transparent, so there really was no possibility of losing the way.  There may have been a few who dropped out simply because the new format was not completely intuitive.  Personally, I had times when I thought maybe it was time to move on to something else and I still haven’t gotten past the inconvenience in posting photos and such.  I think there should have been a section devoted to “what’s new” and “how to” info.  It trickled out kind of slow by trial and error.  Unfortunately, there are still a few things that aren’t working right.

I don’t know where the “hundreds” of forum participants came from.  The old forum had a monitor on it which listed the number of visitors and the number of registered users online.  Those numbers were inexplicable huge, so maybe there.  I’ve been on here for a little over four years and I would have estimated the number of regulars at a few dozen, and I can think of a dozen or so who’ve been absent, but I can’t be sure they weren’t gone already before the switchover.  I’m sure some is due to normal attrition, like just plain getting old.

Like you (ET), I’m a retired engineer.  My strengths were in teaching and technical writing, so my main interests lie in helping others and this fits my interests perfectly.

Some in this forum are into show and tell.  Some are into really high-end stuff (read as Japanese knives) and there’s a bunch of other related fields that pop up now and then.  Maybe we ( read as WE) should run an interest survey and see what we can do to stimulate chatter in a number of fields.  The Wiki program seems to have just plain died, which is a shame, because there’s a ton of possibilities there.

Tom

3 users thanked author for this post.

wickededge, CliffCurry, Josh

[Anonymous]

Thanks Tom, for a better picture of the participation. I’m not sure just how many of these units are sold, I only stumbled on to the brand while surfing. Like always, when something peaks my interest, I do some research, and found the WE to be unique in its design… Ive always felt as though my knives were never sharp enough, and had an idea why. The WE design addressed all the things that were wrong with my knife sharpening technique and abilities. With plenty of time on my hands, and after being involved in so many other forums, I looked for some new territory. Gun forums, high end watch forums, automotive forums, photographic forums, all with many years of participation. Helping to get this one rolling was just an off chance to add some new involvement for myself.  I don’t plan to bail out on this one, and am trying to help make it fun and interesting by bringing along some of my experience.

Thanks again

Bill aka ET

[Anonymous]

I just went back to 2011, and read through some of the posts, page after page from 158 back toward the front…. and I see lots of names, and when I click on the names, their participation is very small. Seems like lots of people come and go, never to return. That’s OK… IM more into community building, than just a simple question and answer forum.. All of the forums that I am associated with are community forums with internet friends I have had for 8  / 10  / 15 years… people come to those forums to share a common interest, but more than that, just to say hello to friends, and share some life lessons over the years.

1 user thanked author for this post.

wickededge

[Mark76]

I recently wrote a post about the trends on this forum, Bill. I cannot find it back (can you? I want to re-read it), but it was in reply to a post of yours.

People indeed come and go. Particularly new WE users stay on the forum until they (think they) can get everything out of the system and then disappear again. But the amount of participation for the last half year has been low. And the transition to the new forum didn’t help either.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Anonymous]

IM just trying to figure out what might stimulate people to stick around and have fun.. I’m not trying to change things, but to encourage activity without a guilt trip. Most people spend a considerable amount of money on this system , and I don’t think are just throwing them under the bench. I do know there was a data base on the old forum, so you could see the factory angler without having to go to the manufacturer and search for the answer. I’m not complaining.. just found this forum to be so far from forums that I’ve participated in for 10 or 15 years.

[Josh]

Yeah Tom is spot on… I’ve been on here for about 5 years or so now, and I can only think of a handful throughout the years that would stay for a considerable amount of time. I’m just glad WE has a forum, it’s kind of cool. instead of us having to post on bladeforums or something, however, there is a lot more activity over there!

Mark, whatever happened to your “moderator” title? I just noticed it wasn’t showing still…

[DeeR]

I hate to be “that guy”  but in this case I am.  I spend hours reading and researching on this forum weekly.  Have done so since obtaining a PP2  a couple of years ago.  Still do so, although I struggle with this new forum format.  But I love this stuff and will keep struggling along.  Example:  If I produced an edge I thought was good enough to put on the forum (photo) , I couldn’t do it anyway because it just seems just confusing enough that I’m discouraged to try to do so  ( beside the extra high quality equipment it seems like it will take to produce them).  Although I feel I’m limited to the point that I have nothing new,  interesting, informative or noteworthy to  add to the forum I find it an amazing forum, thanks to you who are so knowledgeable,  experienced and unselfishly willing to share.  Most questions I have had have been previously discussed on the forum and I don’t want to be redundant so I just read, read, re-read the forum.  Anyway, please don’t feel your time and effort on this forum is a waste because I tend to feel there are many like myself that spend a lot of time on this forum benefiting from you exerts and am very  grateful to you all.  So my new year resolution is to try to contribute and not just receive all the time.  Again, thanks to “you all” experts.

3 users thanked author for this post.

wickededge, tcmeyer, CliffCurry

[Mark76]

Thanks Deer and welcome to the forum! If you need an instruction on how to post pictures, please let me know.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Mark76]

Josh, I’m still a mod with all the magical powers 😉 , there’s just no graphical indication of it.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

1 user thanked author for this post.

Josh

[Gregg776]

I generally only post to this forum if I have something to say and am not big on chit-chat; if somebody has already posted, I think it is trite to add a “me too” post. I have been on the forum for about 4 years. I guess the new forum was inevitable and the slow startup was not a big deterrent; the evolution of the Wicked Edge has likewise been slow and steady. I find that posting text here to the new forum is just as easy as the old forum; pictures were much easier in the old forum. I feel that pictures within the text is far better than placing them at the bottom. I don’t think I should have to join a cloud based picture hosting site with all of the added inconveniences my personal information is already too far spread as it is and to me anonymity far more valuable than fleeting fame. At least this forum consists of thoughtful and intelligent people, quite unlike most of the knife forums.
With the camera marketing system focusing on more megapixels it is no wonder photos take up so much bandwidth; but they don’t have to with a little cropping and re-sizing. I’m willing to edit my pictures. It would be nice if the 512KB limit could be raised a bit and if I could put edited pictures downloaded directly to this forum within the text. The picture situation of the new forum is a bit discouraging.
There was so much good stuff on the old forum that seems to be gone forever; maybe I’m wrong here. There were so many pictures, great mods and suggestions that both novices and experienced WE users could use; many hours of reading useful information that would be very time consuming to edit and catalog. I just hope Clay or somebody downloaded the entire old forum before it went off line and will eventually post a link.

-Gregg

[tcmeyer]

I’ll once again make the toot that uploading pics to a picture-hosting web site is a less-than- uplifting or encouraging requirement.  I’d prefer to see WE as the hosting site.

I’d also like to point out to Clay and his crew that there is a substantial turnover in the number of browsers who pass thru, and that it wouldn’t hurt to post repetitions of prior information.  The more activity here, the better.

1 user thanked author for this post.

wickededge

[Anonymous]

This website does not host photos… its too expensive to have the bandwidth necessary,, how ever you can post a photo here that resides on a hosting server.. you do not need to post an attachment just the URL… its not limited to 512 KB as someone suggested..

here is a shot that is rooted on my smug mug server at 4.7 MB…. the actual size of the photo is limited here by the software of worldpress.

here is the EXIF information on the above shot
Camera samsung SM-N910V
ISO 320
Focal Length 4.8 mm (31.0 mm in 35mm)
Aperture f/2.2
Exposure Time 0.09091s (1/11)
Name 20151229_175738.jpg
Size 5312 x 2988
File Size 4.70 MB
Date Taken 2015-12-29 17:57:38
Date Modified 2015-12-29 17:57:38

[wickededge]

We’re still trying to make it possible to upload photos and have them show inline. I think it’s going to take some custom programming because currently, giving permissions to post to the “media library” exposes everything in the library to all users, which means that a person could conceivably go in and delete important files. So, it’s still in progress…

-Clay

[jimbo45]

I don’t post alot but I browse the forum on a regular basis and I love my wicked edge.

2 users thanked author for this post.

CliffCurry, wickededge

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