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Forum Participation

I have to say, if you truly are new to woodturning, these fora are not the place to start. That's like learning to drive by reading a book.

You should go to the AAW Symposium, or take a class, or at least get a mentor. Hands-on work where you can see what's happening is the best place to start.

Kind regards,
Rich
 
RichColvin said:
I have to say, if you truly are new to woodturning, these fora are not the place to start. That's like learning to drive by reading a book.

You should go to the AAW Symposium, or take a class, or at least get a mentor. Hands-on work where you can see what's happening is the best place to start.

Kind regards,
Rich
Click to expand...
Have to disagree, what better place to ask, Should I get a CBN wheel or a Norton 3x? Is a Delta lathe for $500 a good deal, and I can get on and on... But yes, I would go and get a mentor first, ask him for some classes, lol
 
William Rogers said:
.... I thought the "Newbie" was a place to introduce yourself. I soon discovered it was the fourm trying to separate skill level using a subgroup. I am not trying to be critical, but constructive. The message this sends to me is the main fourm is only for experienced turners to post it. Anyone not an experienced turner (whatever experienced is) should only post in the Newbie subgroup. I realize this is your forum and can have what groups you want. I guess for me I don't understand why a Newbie subgroup is needed. My, can't someone see the title of the post and determine if he wants to open it? It's not like there are 50 post a day to separate. I'm not sure why the Newbie forum was created, but is it still valid today? I am just offering my reason for not participating in this forum. I understand that this may be the way you want things and that is ok.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the forum, William. Your input is greatly appreciated and I share your concerns about the Newbie forum potentially sending the wrong message not only to beginners, but to experienced turners as well. The Newbie forum was started eight years ago at the request of new turners. The first sticky thread in the Newbie forum provides some insight into why it was started. Prior to that there was a lot of discussion about the usefulness of a Newbie forum. On one hand, beginners may feel intimidated by the threads on the main forum and on the other hand there's the negative connotation telling beginners to go to the back of the bus.

I'm wondering what sort of partitioning makes sense. To me, skill level doesn't seem to be a very good arrangement, but maybe that isn't how new turners see things. Most forums create sub forums based on function (finishing, tools, sharpening, tutorials, marketplace, lathes, sanding, chucks, ...... we could get carried away), but I think that creating more sub forums only makes sense if the number of posts warrants doing that. Sawmill Creek is probably the busiest woodturning forums do t,hey haven't seen a need to partition woodturning into ss un groups.
 
RichColvin said:
I have to say, if you truly are new to woodturning, these fora are not the place to start. That's like learning to drive by reading a book.

You should go to the AAW Symposium, or take a class, or at least get a mentor. Hands-on work where you can see what's happening is the best place to start.

Kind regards,
Rich
Click to expand...

It depends. If it's learning a skill then mentoring is the best way to learn, but for most questions I believe that Emiliano is right. On the forum you can quickly get the perspective of many other turners. I think that it's a very good way to learn, but then I might be biased in my opinion. 🙂
 
Mike Johnson said:
William,

A novice wood turner does not know the difference between a skew and roughing gouge. Many topics covered by experienced wood turners are splitting hairs between angles ground on tools and tool approach used on different types of wood blanks. Depending on the question and the person reading the post, you will have one person lost in the question or another wanting to cancel their subscription. Many wood turners have thousands of hours working on a lathe, these people are dedicated to honing their skills over the years. There are too many novice turners that ask pointless questions when the answers are only a click away. Part of the problem with many forums are people wanting to be spoon fed knowledge by people who have invested the time and resources to attain the level of skills and knowledge they retain. Most people do not have a lot of spare time on their hands if they are professional wood turners, people that have full time jobs and turn wood as a hobby have little spare time to enjoy the craft each week. There are a number of wood turners on the internet who produce video's to help the novice wood turner. Some wood turners post video's on YouTube which will help the novice wood turner answer many of the basic questions. Each time you watch a video on YouTube you are monetizing the hard work these people put in to creating these educational video's. A wood turning club is another great place for the novice wood turner to get up to speed.
Click to expand...

There might be turners who fit your description of busy professionals who don't have time to answer "pointless questions" from beginners, but I doubt that those kind of people would be found on the forums anyway. I have seen condescending attitudes on other forums (especially photography forums) where beginners are reprimanded for asking questions that apparently are too elementary to warrant a civil reply. That kind of rude behavior won't be tolerated here. The search function is there for more experienced turners to help the beginner. Generally a beginner is at the point where they aren't knowledgeable enough to know what to search for. Besides, many topics are fluid as things continually evolve.
 
One last thought on this...
If part of what Emiliano would like is a more fluid, mobile, and easily accessible forum, what about allowing access within the Tapatalk app?
 
There isn't any requirement that beginners nor anybody else must use the newbie forum. However, one feature that I like on many other forums is a forum dedicated to introductions only. Thanks for reminding me of that. I think that is worth implementing here.
 
Tom Albrecht said:
One last thought on this...
If part of what Emiliano would like is a more fluid, mobile, and easily accessible forum, what about allowing access within the Tapatalk app?
Click to expand...

The problem with TapaTalk is similar to issues with the defunct ForumRunner and that is opening up security vulnerabilities in this site that enable hackers to gain root access to forum files. Additionally, TapaTalk collects and shares information that it gathers from your use of the app with its business partners. So any personal information you post as well as your ISP and physical location, any email address that you post, sites that you visit, etc are much more freely available to anybody who wants it. The AAW and its IT contractor say that TapaTalk will NOT be implemented because of the risks that it poses. The current versions of Xenforo and most other forum software work well on mobile devices without the administrative burdens created by TapaTalk.
 
Emiliano Achaval said:
Its easier to follow groups, you dont have to check in to see whats going on, it shows up on your feed... So there is more participation, easier to jump in when something catches your eye...
Click to expand...

Hiya Emiliano........I'm not sure facebook is going to work out for me......unless I can establish myself with an assumed name. Is that possible? Also, I don't have a modern cell phone......mine is an older flip phone. When you mention "feed"......are you talking about info received on your cell phone?

I'm very interested in how well this works out for you, though.
 
odie said:
Hiya Emiliano........I'm not sure facebook is going to work out for me......unless I can establish myself with an assumed name. Is that possible? Also, I don't have a modern cell phone......mine is an older flip phone. When you mention "feed"......are you talking about info received on your cell phone?

I'm very interested in how well this works out for you, though.
Click to expand...

I don't know if he is referring to the orange colored RSS feed buttons that are shown in the picture below.

RSSfeed.jpg
 
There is one thing I believe might increase participation on this forum, and that's the ability to remain anonymous. There is an incredible amount of online effort to compile information on individuals, and many people choose to be as discreet as possible......and, whether or not this is being overly protective of one's identity, is beside the point that some people do feel this way.

I came onto this forum at a time when we could choose a "handle" that suited us......but, that changed a few years ago to require a full real name. This, in my opinion, is stopping some people from participating on this forum.

I've never quite understood the requirement on this forum that one's identity absolutely has to be out there for the world to know exactly who you are. This unnecessarily adds to the online personal information available publicly. I think, but I don't know for sure, that the policy of personal identification on the AAW forums might be to "keep it honest". As long as the forums are moderated, that does seem to be somewhat of a misnomer.

I'm sure there are some who could care less about this aspect of identity protection online......but, those who control policy here might be eliminating input to the forums by making this decision. 😵

ko
 
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There are plenty of people fishing for phone numbers and e-mail addresses and other identifiers
these days that they turn around and monetize in various ways. A larger number of these people
are now using this information for nefarious purposes which is targeting honest people and the laws
these days seem too protect the criminals. Too many people post way too much information on
Facebook on a daily basis setting themselves up for criminal attacks.

Just last week one of my co-workers had his cell service compromised by criminals, the crooks found
out his account address and they called a phone number to have the phone replaced when lost, stolen,
or damaged and had the new replacement phone sent to a location in another state. My co-worker received
an email informing him that a new phone had been mailed out. He contacted the cell phone provider to inform
them that his phone was fine and that someone was scamming them. Several days later they did the same
thing with another phone on his family plan. These companies are completely incompetent in protecting peoples
privacy and many times are selling there customer lists to advertising and marketing companies. These types of crimes are becoming common place and the internet is the land of opportunity for these people.
 
odie said:
Hiya Emiliano........I'm not sure facebook is going to work out for me......unless I can establish myself with an assumed name. Is that possible? Also, I don't have a modern cell phone......mine is an older flip phone. When you mention "feed"......are you talking about info received on your cell phone?

I'm very interested in how well this works out for you, though.
Click to expand...
As long as you sign up with a reasonable made up name, it's ok. Such as Bill Turner, lol. The feed is what you see on your page. On my feed I see all the postings from my friends, my groups and several pages. I also have chosen favorites, you see them first. And I can choose what I want to see or not... I will keep everyone informed here. Aloha
 
Facebook is the first place police go to investigate anyone that is on their radar.
In today's society you are guilty by association until you prove your innocence.
Most people have nothing to worry about when the police do research, when the criminals
start gathering information on a target that is a whole different story.

Some of the things people post on Facebook is foolish at best, we are so excited to be taking
the family on vacation next week to Disney World, and the hubby posts photo's of his high dollar
stereo equipment or vehicles in the garage. They return from their trip and their house is broken
into and the house and garage are cleaned out. Post photo's of your children or wife and you
have sick individuals that can become obsessed and turn them into victims. Post photo's of your
favorite hobby and you can quickly become a target of interest.
 
Mike Johnson said:
Facebook is the first place police go to investigate anyone that is on their radar.
In today's society you are guilty by association until you prove your innocence.
Most people have nothing to worry about when the police do research, when the criminals
start gathering information on a target that is a whole different story.

Some of the things people post on Facebook is foolish at best, we are so excited to be taking
the family on vacation next week to Disney World, and the hubby posts photo's of his high dollar
stereo equipment or vehicles in the garage. They return from their trip and their house is broken
into and the house and garage are cleaned out. Post photo's of your children or wife and you
have sick individuals that can become obsessed and turn them into victims. Post photo's of your
favorite hobby and you can quickly become a target of interest.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately we cannot control stupid. I do not post anything about being out of town or if I am going out of town. The Phone deal shows password should have been changed when it all started. Then there is the addage if you don't want the world to know do not post it.
 
Count me as one that would have zero interest in a Facebook group. While my wife and her sisters and friends are obsessed with Facebook, I have looked at her page a couple of times and want no part of it. Posting pictures of you eating at a restaurant, and having friends post back comments like " Yum, Yum" is just the dumbest thing I can think of. I also am smart enough to realize we could use more younger turners, and Facebook seems to be the format that interests them, and to that end I would fully support us having a Facebook page if somebody cares to run it, and AAW supports it. I have to say that one of the side benefits of attending the AAW conventions is that I get to meet and talk to some of the young men and women in woodturning, and I really look forward to it. Also put me down as one that that thinks we need to rethink the purpose and or titling of the Newbie forum. While the right intent may have been there, I think it gives the wrong impression. Beginners questions should be just as welcome in the main forum, as any one else's.
 
Bill Boehme said:
I don't know if he is referring to the orange colored RSS feed buttons that are shown in the picture below.

View attachment 22304
Click to expand...
In Facebook "feed" is what you see on your page... From all the places you have join or friends that you have accepted ... All in one easy place to see...
 
I have to chuckle at the little understanding of Facebook by some people. Facebook is like politics, why bother to convince someone to understand my views, is a waste of time. You either like it or you don't. Facebook has very strict privacy policies, you can be as open as you want or as private as you want... you choose what you want to see and whom you want to see... And who do you you want to see your postings... If you owe money to the IRS or are wanted on some federal warrants might be best to stay off Facebook, lol.
 
odie said:
There is one thing I believe might increase participation on this forum, and that's the ability to remain anonymous. There is an incredible amount of online effort to compile information on individuals, and many people choose to be as discreet as possible......and, whether or not this is being overly protective of one's identity, is beside the point that some people do feel this way.

I came onto this forum at a time when we could choose a "handle" that suited us......but, that changed a few years ago to require a full real name. This, in my opinion, is stopping some people from participating on this forum.

I've never quite understood the requirement on this forum that one's identity absolutely has to be out there for the world to know exactly who you are. This unnecessarily adds to the online personal information available publicly. I think, but I don't know for sure, that the policy of personal identification on the AAW forums might be to "keep it honest". As long as the forums are moderated, that does seem to be somewhat of a misnomer.

I'm sure there are some who could care less about this aspect of identity protection online......but, those who control policy here might be eliminating input to the forums by making this decision. 😵

ko
Click to expand...

The four main woodturning forums: AAW forum, Wood Central, World of Woodturners, and Sawmill Creek require its members to use their real names. The top three reasons are to eliminate spammers, trolls, and those who behave as though they were raised by wolves.

There were hundreds if not thousands of aforementioned bad actors that had been banned before the AAW forum instituted the rule requiring members to use their real names. Trying to keep up with those problems was a very time consuming job for the moderators. Additionally, flame wars and other uncivil behavior was all too prevalent when people could hide behind their anonymity.

When the rule requiring members to use their real names was instituted, existing members were allowed to keep their "handles" if they wished. Since the rule change, problems associated with spammers and trolls decreased dramatically. Also, flame wars and other types of "problem child" behavior decreased significantly. The rule change didn't appear to have any adverse effects on forum participation and members were generally supportive of the change. Having moderator approval for new members does add a bit of upfront work for me, but it means much less work over the long run.

Anyway, the bottom line is that there will be no returning to allowing anonymous members.
 
The biggest risks for most of us in our use of the internet are being analyzed by Google and Amazon and getting a virus through email.
Facebook only knows what you tell it and you control who sees your posts.

a bigger more likely threat is an organization we do business with not protecting the records of our accounts with them.
 
Emiliano Achaval said:
.... If you owe money to the IRS or are wanted on some federal warrants might be best to stay off Facebook, lol.
Click to expand...

..... or you are in the witness protection program. 😀 🙄

You must have been reading my mind, Emiliano. It must be that "smart" new coffeemaker that we have in the kitchen that is leaking my personal information.
 
Mike Johnson said:
William,

... Many wood turners have thousands of hours working on a lathe, these people are dedicated to honing their skills over the years. There are too many novice turners that ask pointless questions when the answers are only a click away. Part of the problem with many forums are people wanting to be spoon fed knowledge by people who have invested the time and resources to attain the level of skills and knowledge they retain. Most people do not have a lot of spare time on their hands if they are professional wood turners, people that have full time jobs and turn wood as a hobby have little spare time to enjoy the craft each week. There are a number of wood turners on the internet who produce video's to help the novice wood turner. Some wood turners post video's on YouTube which will help the novice wood turner answer many of the basic questions. Each time you watch a video on YouTube you are monetizing the hard work these people put in to creating these educational video's. A wood turning club is another great place for the novice wood turner to get up to speed.
Click to expand...


I see this post at a part of the problem. I think I’s a bad attitude.


If a novice turner doesn’t know the answer to a question why is the question pointless? Is it because as a professional you are spending all of your waking hours at the lathe honing your skills without any spare time, while the person with the full time job and family who turns as a hobby has hours and hours of spare time? Is it a pointless question because you learned the answer long ago?


How do you spoon feed someone turning knowledge? This isn’t Trivial Pursuit. If some lowly novice receives an answer doesn’t that knowledge have to be put in practice, or tried and tested? Answering a question doesn’t pass on the skill and the muscle memory necessary to automatically use the information.


And what does “…when the answers are only a click away” mean? Do you mean the search feature? The thing you didn’t mention? Your solution to the issue is to send the poor novice to YouTube. Or in other words: Get off this forum and go somewhere else. Really, that’s your answer? When does the novice return? When they have watched enough YouTube videos to become a professional turner?
 
Facebook gets a bad rap. It, like most things in life are what you make of it. I have family on the east coast and in the Midwest and it’s a great way to stay in touch. There is no requirement to stay friends with some one that constantly posts minute-by-minute updates. I also managed a car club forum and our participation went into a steady decline over the years and we created Facebook page and it has a number of visitors and participation is steady.


There are woodturning pages on Facebook that have more than just pictures. I have asked questions there and received nice, helpful straight forward answers


There is a woodturning forum I participate in and I read the forum at least once a day.


YouTube is owned by Google. Google gets a large portion of its revenue from advertising, so if you don’t like Spam then don’t visit YouTube. Facebook isn’t the only Spam creator.
 
Just wanted to give my little point of view as newbie turner and new member in the forum.
I read this forum everyday, but never felt the need to post and I think I am not the only one. Yes, I am one of those that search and read first. But because it is also the nature of my job.
There is a big amount of resources for learning and getting your answers and even if we want to restrict only to forums, well there are many. And usually they all have similar topics, so it is a pretty much redundant activity being part of more than one forum.
Don't like Facebook for how it sorts the information. Too chaotic for me and I am one that works with computers. The point is not that Facebook is taking over the forums, but being a versatile platform, for most of the people it is just easier to have "everything you need" in the same place (your friends, your hobbies, the funny video, etc.).
For every user that posts that pointless question, there is one that doesn't. But you can't expect that everybody knows about a search button or that they know it is a pointless question.
About clubs...yes they are great, but until they run meeting and activities at 6pm, they need to understand that for young and middle age people, it is really hard to participate.
 
Few experienced turners ever tire of answering the same questions from newer turners.
Woodturning has so many dimensions we even realize that a new turner may ask us the same question again and again because they don't learn items they can't attach to some previous knowledge base.

I also know I often learn something from a novice turner

In the woodturning forum I feel names and general locations are important.
What works in an arid region may not work well in a humid one.

Also someone new to the forum may get curious about a poster.
They can google "al hockenbery woodturner" and find stuff.
 
Woo
Bill Boehme said:
The four main woodturning forums: AAW forum, Wood Central, World of Woodturners, and Sawmill Creek require its members to use their real names. The top three reasons are to eliminate spammers, trolls, and those who behave as though they were raised by wolves.

There were hundreds if not thousands of aforementioned bad actors that had been banned before the AAW forum instituted the rule requiring members to use their real names. Trying to keep up with those problems was a very time consuming job for the moderators. Additionally, flame wars and other uncivil behavior was all too prevalent when people could hide behind their anonymity.

When the rule requiring members to use their real names was instituted, existing members were allowed to keep their "handles" if they wished. Since the rule change, problems associated with spammers and trolls decreased dramatically. Also, flame wars and other types of "problem child" behavior decreased significantly. The rule change didn't appear to have any adverse effects on forum participation and members were generally supportive of the change. Having moderator approval for new members does add a bit of upfront work for me, but it means much less work over the long run.

Anyway, the bottom line is that there will be no returning to allowing anonymous members.
Click to expand...
Woodturners Unlimited is another big forum. Very well run. We are moving our Stubby group there...
 
Thanks, Emiliano. I see that they are a British forum and also require real names for the same reasons that most other woodturning forums require real names. I recognized many of the names as being the same as on this forum as well as WoW, WoodCentral, and Sawmill Creek.
 
Bill Boehme said:
Thanks, Emiliano. I see that they are a British forum and also require real names for the same reasons that most other woodturning forums require real names. I recognized many of the names as being the same as on this forum as well as WoW, WoodCentral, and Sawmill Creek.
Click to expand...
I had no idea it was a British Forum, lol. One of the owners has a Stubby. Since our Yahoo Groups founder and Stubby USA dealer recently and sadly passed away, Bill Rubinstein, we have no control over the Yahoo group. Yahoo is also a sinking ship, so we are migrating there. Its not cheap to run a web site that size, and we are grateful at the chance to be able to use that forum...
 
Emiliano Achaval said:
I had no idea it was a British Forum, lol....
Click to expand...

I might be mistaken, but when I was setting up my preferences, there was only one choice for language and that was British English. No American English or Australian English. I went back and couldn't find any information about the country, but I am beginning to think that my earlier assumption was wrong.
 
I participate in 4 turning related forums including this one.......which is the one I interact the least on. I truly enjoy the interaction with other turners, but find that a VERY busy schedule makes it difficult to get around to them all. Mostly, the SMC forum and WOW are the main ones for me, but I do occasionally interact on WC. I have communications from turners all over the country, most related to lathes. I find it difficult sometimes to find turning time, and my doctor just last week "prescribed" me getting out into the shop more [at least 3 times a week, for a couple of hours] he said I need some stress relief! I have to agree! 😕😀
 
Bill Boehme said:
Thanks, Emiliano. I see that they are a British forum and also require real names for the same reasons that most other woodturning forums require real names. I recognized many of the names as being the same as on this forum as well as WoW, WoodCentral, and Sawmill Creek.
Click to expand...
Wasn't WTU set up after the big brewhah following Hartford Symposium in 2010? I am not a member but lurk occasionally but most stuff I have seen elsewhere. Divide my time between WoW, Wood Central, the AAW Forum and Canadian woodworking. I joined Facebook 6-7 years ago to keep in touch with my extended family and am members of Woodchuckers and Woodturning groups. Cannot believe the stuff people that are new to turning attempt and post.
 
Mike Johnson said:
There are several support groups that will help people that want to stop using Facebook.
It has been over (2) years for myself since I have used Facebook.
Too much brainwashing going on these days in our multimedia society.
Too many people have their nose stuck to their smart phones like Zombies on crack cocaine.
Click to expand...
Also there is toooooooo much politics and religion.
 
All Facebook woodturning related groups have strict rules about posting. Its absolutely prohibited to post about religion, politics, sports or the violin that you made. Just like here I believe, I dont see any non woodturning related posts...
 
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