Where Are Some Other Members?

[DJ Roach]

Forum problems

Aside from a very small amount of usable information, I suspect many of the ills of sites can be traced back to Just that, usable information or lack of. Many times all we see and hear is how nice an item is and Nothing else. When attempts are made to "stir" the imagination and develop some dialog, Not many respond (with exception of Tiger 1 AND a few others that seem genuinely interested/knowledgeable). I'm not trying to stir up trouble, but hearing how nice an item is, commences to get boring when the purpose for a site SHOULD be to educate. That should be the goal?

Boils down, to me anyway, (i.e. when someone shows an Eickhorn Army that has a generic xguard and most comments are how nice it looks or YEA, it was made that way. Bull, Eickhorn made enough of their own parts that they didn't have to buy and use parts from others, 99.9% of the time so the item had a 99.9% chance of NOT being made that way, but instead fell victim to Post-50s & 60s parts interchange by Most if not all dealers trying to complete a Nice Army Dagger) that education should be the prime goal and even though we'll continue to hear the OHs and AHs, hopefully we can educate.

JMHO and Not meant to cause problems. I love the hobby and don't want to hurt it in any way.

Now to address GDC problems. They have more Bannings per capita than any site in history. They are out to protect the unprotectable. They desperately need to come up with a Code of Conduct that has HONESTY at it's core. UNTIL they do that, the site will decline into total darkness. I'll crawl down off my soapbox now.

JMHO..........ALL.
DJ

[Larry Lipps]

Guys, DJ makes an execllent point that what generates interest is the transfer of knowledge, not just positive or negative comments. When new collectors pass through with a dagger question and get the "it's a fake" answer without any basis for the opinion, they learned nothing. Same said for positive comments. What draws collectors back is geting their questions answered. If you have ideas for improvements, we'd like to hear them.

[Stahlhelm]

Hello again everyone,

I am a relatively new member, but I also noticed, from the start, the very large number of "It's good" or "It's bad" responses, without so much as a single reason why. With due respect to all members, some may not really know exactly why and are just responding with intuition. Some may know and just don't think it's necessary to say why, and some may just simply not really know at all, but want to say something anyway. It really is hard to imagine any good reason why people who really know why wouldn't say why, and why people who ask the questions wouldn't want to know why. Yes, in the true spirit of educating others and defending an opinion, offering the reason for the opinion should be routine. Otherwise, opinions can be suspect and less valuable.

It is also true that many people do respond by just saying how much they like something, giving the member the expected accolades for an item he has posted. As menial and petty as this may seem to those looking for hardcore information, such responses do, however, happen to serve a need for some collectors. Let's face it, it can also be nice to have other people ogle your collection, saying oooh and aaah, wanting what you have, making you feel even better to have what they want. Of course, that's not for everybody, but it sure is for many, or there wouldn't be so many just posting things for other people to look at.

I also agree that there is an extremely large number of members who often view a post without making a single comment. Sometimes, it's almost enough to give the posting member an uncomfortable feeling of rejection. Many perfectly reasonable questions, even though sometimes by obvious beginners, are not answered at all, even after a huge number of viewings. As a newer member, I was initially nearly turned away myself by such low responses to questions that I asked with total sincerity, really wanting to know an answer.

All in all, I have ultimately always had at least someone chime in, at the last moment, to offer just the answer I needed. So, all in all, I am very pleased with this forum, and consider it to be a great source for education, although you must sometimes have the patience to wait for that education.

I believe that a forum should be, first and foremost, for the purposes of educating its members, regardless of their knowledge levels. A forum should also encourage its members to continue being members, particularly by making them feel welcome and respected, when posing meaningful forum-related ideas and questions. I think these are the simple ingredients of any successful forum. For every member who stops signing in, who stops posting, who fails to respond to those they can help, the forum loses a very valuable part of what it needs to survive. For example, if not one person has anything to say about what I have spent the last thiry minutes typing, I may never type this amount of thought again. I might just start commenting very briefly, reducing my thoughts and opinions to the bare minimum. Just kidding for now. I'm not giving up that easily!

Those are just my very sincere thoughts on the matter, and I'm glad this thread gave me the opportunity to express them.

Chris

[Colorado]

How many times have you witnessed over the past 6 years me expressing a reasoned opinion or questioning an item on the estand and I receive no support? I guess I have battered poster syndrome, but you get what you give to a forum.

This forum should be more than shilling one's wares for sale, asking if some eBay dagger looks OK, or a wannabe dealer questions if some "offline deal" is worth grabbing.

Real oppotunities exist to discuss daggers, but too many of us look the other way to avoid conflict or refuse to learn. One need to look no farther than items put on our estand as a source for good discussion. Need an example? There's more wrong than I brought up. I was disappointed that no one cared enough to start a thread.

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=240076

[SwordFish]

Chris, well said.

Speaking from personal experience, I'll go weeks without posting any comment, information, feedback etc. yet I am still lurking around the forums. Othertimes, I'll be on a roll and post non-stop. I guess I'm wierd like that.

Certainly there are the posters that just want thier numbers to be higher...to earn an additional pip next to thier avatar (for laughs, I posted my pip as my avatar.. ) or what not. I guess for some, they feel they have a better sense of credibility when they have enormous stats next to thier handle. Some folks won't post too much information for fear of the "bad" guys capitalizing on it and building a better repro. Certainly, other post to hear themself speak, other post when they have no idea just what the hell they are talking about, and other are hermit lurkers. Some are cocky and believe that by thier mere presence, everyone else should feel blessed, thusly negating the need to post.

Again, from personal experience, I have learned more from the forums than I have from any periodical reference out there. It's a great way to meet fellow who share the same collecting interests. Forums are a great way to buy, sell and trade. The list goes on.

But there is that dark side to collecting. When big dollars destroy friendships and relationships. They in turn tear the community apart. Force people to take sides and force folks to become defensive. Pride gets in the way and some won't admit to being wrong. They engage in the whole brinkism thing...go down with the ship firing.

We're each here for our own reasons. I've been very fortunat not to be involved with any of the nonsense. I collect army swords. Not high-end tripple etched swords...just your run-of-the-mill armies 'casue it's what I enjoy. I suspect that probably keeps me out of trouble. I'm a member of 4 forums. I see many collectors on all 4. Certain forums cater specific interests...which is wonderful. Others are truly generalist oriented (like WAF).

In short, take from these groups what you will. Enjoy it, build relationships and your collection, while increasing your knowledge base. Have fun doing it and don't take youself tooooo seriously. Try to keep it light-hearted and avoid the personal attacks. In the words of Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?" .

Happy collecting. See you out there friends.

Tom

[Santi]

Well said guys, all of you

[Börse]

Hello everyone.

I have been posting on GDC for 5 years. I go by Börse.

Recent events have caused me to leave GDC for good. My specific reasons are that the moderators and management of that forum are totally out of control. They have deleted and edited posts to the point that GDC has become a "thought control" camp. I am not talking about vulgar speech or profanity either - I am simply talking about power hungry moderators that have a complete double standard. They have allowed their friends to trash others at will, and then snuff out any dissent if they feel like it.

Moreover, many good members have been suspended or banned without any justification.

To quote a friend, GDC has become a "Masonic Stalinistic Hell Hole."

I had hoped they would fire the out of control moderators and clean up the swamp, but there is no inclination to do so.

I hope I am welcome here. I believe people will find me as civil, even tempered, and fair.

All the best.

[DJ Roach]

Gdc

Borse
Sounds like GDC is trying their hardest to suspend/ban more people than any site in existence and continue their protectionist policies of the un-protectable. Business as usual.........

I suspect they are quickly reaching the point where they can not only dictate policy, but have remaining members blindly accept what they are doing, right or wrong.
DJ

[Santi]

Hello everyone.

I have been posting on GDC for 5 years. I go by Börse.

Recent events have caused me to leave GDC for good. My specific reasons are that the moderators and management of that forum are totally out of control. They have deleted and edited posts to the point that GDC has become a "thought control" camp. I am not talking about vulgar speech or profanity either - I am simply talking about power hungry moderators that have a complete double standard. They have allowed their friends to trash others at will, and then snuff out any dissent if they feel like it.

Moreover, many good members have been suspended or banned without any justification.

To quote a friend, GDC has become a "Masonic Stalinistic Hell Hole."

I had hoped they would fire the out of control moderators and clean up the swamp, but there is no inclination to do so.

I hope I am welcome here. I believe people will find me as civil, even tempered, and fair.

All the best.

Of course you are welcome here, Börse!
I hope you like it here.

[dblmed]

Moving to GDC.....

Borse,

I am a dual member of GDC & WAF, and enjoy both for what they have to offer to a multifaceted collector.

I too am disgusted with the latest going's on 'over there.'

As with others, I've been disappointed with the 'depth' of Blade discussions on WAF - but I feel that is going to change.

"IF" enough of the 'power hitters' of Blade knowledge post on WAF, then this Forum will only grow. Even the title of this Forum, "Daggers & Edged Weapons" tells us that we have a LONG way to go here!

So, let's encourage our friends to POST here & to respond to Posts here - so, this Forum will grow.

It appears that most of the Major SS Collectors left GDC long ago.

Perhaps the same may become true, for we Blade Collectors?

Txs, Dave/dblmed

[Börse]

dblmed,

I have seen you on GDC in the past and you were always a nice guy there.

I will post here and hope to see the "Daggers and Edged Weapons" forum increase as well.

There are not a lot of "good guys" left on the GDC forum - because so many have left or have been driven off. I know there are many fellow collectors like myself that are looking for a new home.

Thanks and God bless.

[Stahlhelm]

Wow! "Edited posts" and "thought control" sounds really scary for a forum, or anything else for that matter! It sounds like a retro-political totalitarian stye of control that I was hoping had long since become an impossibility in a western democratic nation, such as the one we live in. I am not a member of this GD Forum I am reading about here, but from all of this I will cetainly never be interested. It is really sad to hear all of this, especially when such a specialized forum could be such a great place. I also really don't think these so-called moderators you speak of have the slightest idea what a bad reputation does to the future of their forum and the future of their moderating jobs for that matter. Once the word is out on this from so many people, why would anyone even want to be associated with it, let alone be a member. At that point, which is sure to come, they will no longer have any members to moderate. So, the best revenge, I suppose, is to spread the word.

That's just my thoughts on this matter that I have been reading about in this important thread-within-a-thread. Thanks for sharing the facts on this very sad situation, and thank goodness that the WAF has none of that type of "stalinistic" behavior you spoke of. The fact that I'm able to freely post such an opinionated response to this is more than enough proof of that. So, welcome to this forum, Borse, and thanks for spreading the word. May the WAF be the refuge of persecuted forum members the world over. Any place like you describe truly deserves its inevitable "Downfall." Maybe they'll even make a movie out of it someday!

Sincerely supporting the spirit of democracy and free-thinking throughout the forums of the civilized world and beyond....

Chris

[SwordFish]

Like dblmed, I agree that each forum has its strengths. Some of you know me as BaronOfBlades over there. I frequent each forum as they each offer something a little different.

Perhaps its time for WAF to creat subcategories for edged weapon collectors. It may not happen until enough edged weapons guys express enough interest. Just a thought.

I still enjoy GDC and have personally never been victimized over there. I am saddened by the departure of many of the long-time, valuable and knowledgeable collectors from the forum. Hopefully, we will see them here if they have chosen to permanently leave GDC.

I have met some great people and made some good friends through both sites. I hope I continue to build relationships with others who share my collecting passions.

Happy collecting. And don't get to wrapped up in this stuff.

Tom

[Börse]

I still enjoy GDC and have personally never been victimized over there.

Hi again Swordfish.

I used to feel the same way - or as another member here said "tried to stay out of the muck."

Unfortunately, I had friends and watched as they are suspended, banned, trashed, abused, and lied about once they could no longer come on the forum to defend themselves. When I brought up examples of real abuse by moderators and "protected" members, the threads were almost shut down so as to eliminate honest discussion. It was "fun" for some on the board to watch others twist in the wind. When the spotlight was shined on them, they didn't like it.

I think WAF can become an excellent edged weapons forum - and I will contribute here to make it so.

To those who are still on GDC and don't want to say anything, remember these famous words by by German anti-fascist Martin Niemoller:

<b>"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out."

<b>"Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out."

<b>"Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."

[Stahlhelm]

<b>"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out."

<b>"Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out."

<b>"Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."

Very nice and appropriate quotes for the topic, Borse! Thanks for adding those!

Chris