Thread: quiet around here

Yes, the online opportunities have increased hugely since the forum format replaced newsgroups. The one big advantage of the forum format is that it has historical searching and archiving built in where FB etc does not or so I am told because I have never used FB apart from one very short lived interest in a single group. I found it very hard to use so never went back.

Just as a side issue Chris,
I sorely miss the gatherings of the woodworkers from the Sydney Woodwork Show to Katoomba, Camden,Jerilderie and Horsham...
For me it's about people and personal contact and connection plus woodwork, toymaking!
Cheers Peter

Well, the way I saw it, and this is just my perspective on it, influenced by my being a former soldier who has seen and experienced stuff that nobody should ever have to go through and the inevitable associated mental health problems, the nature of the forum took a big turn around the time Covid lockdowns started.

We had just been through the bad bushfires and extreme weather events at the end of 2019. Everyone on the forum was suddenly an expert in climate change and natural disaster management and these topics were debated robustly with some people being downright obstinate in their own opinions. Then the Covid lockdowns started and suddenly everyone on the forum became infectious disease management experts overnight.

To be honest I actually enjoyed the lockdowns. The biggest shock to me was discovering what everyone else called lockdown was what my normal lifestyle was - only leaving home for essential supplies was pretty normal and everyone having to keep a metre and a half away from me was an unexpected but welcome bonus. It was very easy to manage my PTSD in that environment.

At the same time however, once people started to feel the effects of the lockdowns and their lack of social interaction in real life, I found that the discussions on the forum, particularly in the non-woodwork sections became very confrontational and some members were not their usual amicable selves. I felt reluctant to post much anywhere in the forum during much of the middle of 2020 (apart from throwing in the odd "hand grenade" post and running away). I finished my workbench build in that period of time and posted very little about it in the forum because I was pretty much over how people were acting.

I probably would have totally lost interest in the forum by the end of 2020 if I had not been invited to join in the plane-making challenge. It was a great initiative by a few good members who wanted to get something going to help people find a distraction from the problems of the world. The plane making challenge seemed to have the desired effect in uniting the participants in a common purpose and the mutual support was just amazing. By the end of the Plane making challenge the forum seems to have gone back to something like its former self.

Yes, it is still a lot quieter than it used to be, and to me at least it is back to being a friendly place to visit.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

Then some bloke in Australia invented this computer thingy called Internet or something,
So we could email people an look at people nude.

The internet wasn't invented by an Australian. It started as a cross site network between USA military and academic sites.

The World Wide Web, which is a protocol that runs on servers connected by the internet was invented at CERN in the late 80's.

If you look back through the forum's history there were "experts" here arguing about climate change and all manner of things long before the recent events. There was a time when I engaged, but now I just filter it out.

2c