My take on forum direction is this. There ain’t one, it’s several given the members that currently exist here. On one hand you have the OG OPE guys that want it to go back to like it was before 2020, which were the good old days. Started by many Gen Xers who don’t have feelings or care about hurting feelings or calling people gay or homo, or anything that generally pisses off anyone who has feelings. The newer members want no part of that for whatever reason, and there in lies the problem. The newer members want the tech/info without all that brought it to the forum, that doesn’t make it right or wrong it just is what it is. However that is who build the site and all its history, like it or not, because without all that there is no OPE.
On the other hand it can’t go back to what it was because many of the productive members who were booted from here by Randy or the ones that just got sick of the double standard Randy imposed on the forum ain’t never coming back. Imagine making Stump a moderator and then him moderating the dynamic douche oh’s of Mustang Mike and RI Chevy only to be smacked down for doing so. People get put off by it and leave, next thing you know Randy gets fed up with both and then ends up banning RI Chevy. Now you lost productive members because Randy picked winners and losers on the forum. That happened over and over again to the point where we are where we’re at now with very few build threads, very few interesting conceptual projects like Eggshooters oil testing, new GTG’s being created etc. I don’t bring all this up to dump on Randy, he dumped all over himself. I state it simply as the way not to moderate a forum as it will kill one quicker than anything will. The single biggest thing for this site to overcome is the 2 factions that remain on the site, +Randy and -Randy. It doesn’t matter which camp you are in, but this ain’t ever going away here, or at least anytime soon.
Lastly, there is only so many times you can repeat the same thing. I could post a 60cc class 2 series Husky build, but why? There is like 150 of them on the internet in print and tube-U videos. Porters who do it for a living got tired of getting ripped off, then the hacks started showing up which was an entirely different and unnecessary tangent the forum took. Myself, I went to a GTG, found out I like going to them, got to run different porters saws, figured out which model’s and porters I liked and shelled out my money. Can’t buy all the equipment and tooling to port 3-4 saws for what you can pay a professional to do it for you, which is what many new members think they are going to get to see here.
Myself, I’m of the minimal moderation theory, while not popular, there is as others have mentioned a certain amount of self moderation required to belong to any site. If you can’t handle the results of an election or the direction society or the world in general flows a saw forum certainly isn’t suitable for you.
With all that stated above, my take is that this site will never be able to be what it once was, too much has happened and too many camps of thought or allegiances to overcome. A clean break and a fresh start would be the most logical choice but also the most painful and time consuming. The new site admin here has a tough road ahead, but given the right direction and input it could be doable and enjoyable for all.
