I don’t think I can take it. The forums are for all intents, dead for hand tools. I’ve registered for reddit in the past, but I don’t remember why and the system is a bit foreign to me.
It looks like a site not really for sharing knowledge, but there’s plenty of panic questions from people who screwed something up, and folks who are making things and trying in a veiled way to advertise them. Which is against the TOS. Which is good, because the format is boggling in terms of the number of redirect attempts to get you to look at other topics, and especially ads.
In just a couple of weeks, I’ve seen several posts of people who want to use a plane with a chipbreaker and have no idea.
And the whole “Karma” thing is dopey. It would keep the Charlie Stanfords and other O.G. knots trolls from having their posts displayed, but there’s a catch with it. If someone says Paul Sellers is the GOAT and you say that’s an alternate reality, you’ll get so many downvotes that perhaps your posts won’t show up, and if you’re not really sharing anything except legitimate suggestions, that kind of defeats the point.
Reddit isn’t a forum run by some guy with delusions about personal ideals being better than other woodworking media sites’ personal ideas, it’s a well oiled calculating data mashing enterprise. This setup is on purpose, because it is the best for advertisers both in terms of the mood and for attracting the type of people advertisers want. Advertisers don’t want me, they don’t want half of the people who will read this blog and they certainly don’t want a Warren who likely won’t suggest much of anything made recently.
It’s so different that it’s entertaining, but it’s not going to be entertaining very long for anyone other than folks who just want to show they made something. And for that, it’s probably great.
It’s in some ways like stepping back in time on the forums, aside from the transient impersonal feel of everything on it. That is, the bulk of the group seems to think the Rob Cosmans and the Paul Sellers types are the high end makers, and that they infallible sources of information. Probably because the nature of the place prevents any distillation of information for the better – to an extent even worse than the forums do.
Of course, I love to shove everyone toward using the cap iron, and there are lot of folks there who could use it. But I don’t think anyone reads over 1000 characters of text (that being told to me by a guy who was sort of educating me about the consequences of making a negative post and then responding to people who posted rebuttals to clarify – that’s apparently a good way to just get multiples of all of the pissed off karma bees running your score down, and then you’re supposed to care about that. I think it’s a good acid test. If honest answers prevent you from having posts displayed, then you know what you need to know about the site).
Since paul and the other who knows who – i can’t keep up with all of the shallow youtube video link-revenue experts like the wood whisperer or Rex or whoever else. And yes, I know a lot of people love the wood whisperer, but a recent search on hardwax oils (I had no idea such a finish was so popular, but I guess so were velcro shoes for a while) that all have revenue links or actual direct affiliate links to each product. Or the “carbon method” – barf. You’re not the customer viewing those videos, your the product.
And reddit dovetails with that. I don’t think anyone is going to read anything about the chipbreaker when they ask how to deal with tearout. Even though you can show a picture like this – a mexico made stanley (and not a particularly good one) working through something that will tear out.
But, anyway…weird – it’s like some people showing fine italian food, but commentary getting offended if anyone says they’re not thrilled about online classes on how to make Ragu.
It does seem like it’s a shame that you can’t get the long-time accomplished hobbyists and pros on a site in a focused discussion anywhere, where useful information could fall out and be stored. But that ship has sailed – the strong makers for the most part abandoned the forums, and there’s no reason to worry about “what could be” when it’s already proven to be “what won’t become”.
Of Making by Hand with Wood and Steel 
I have been following you for the last year or so among the various forums (the plane sole flattening saga on the UK boards with Jacob being my favorite) and trying to go through your YouTube videos. Can you post your username on Reddit so we can read up on your posts?
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AlloyScratcher. I’m unlikely to be such a crank there and probably not post that much because the audience really the type for a cranky pants like me who wants to prove everything and see if other people will.
It is a little fun, because nobody has a clue who I am – so sort of the recoil at my expected crankiness isn’t programmed into people already. There’s enough to how that site operates that I won’t be adding lots of value to it, though – and I don’t think it matters. I was confused at first when two people had different “how do I solve this tearout problem” questions, because I showed something more difficult than what they were doing. But I realize now the nature of the site makes it so that if 200 people answer something, it doesn’t matter how useful or free your suggestion is, most people will never see it. I get that now. it’s geared to promote posts and responses to posts that get the most interaction, not sequentially, etc.
The number of ads is jarring, though. And the periodic “looks like you posted something like this elsewhere. Who now, you’ll need to wait 8 minutes to do it again”. Whatever the AI is for that, it’s not too accurate.
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