Dinosaur

Caution! Nothing to do with real woodworking and everything to do with fora - feel free to skip it.

The final demise of the MSN UKwoodworking group recently got me in reflective mode. This was the early front-runner in the wunnerful world of UK woodworking fora. I joined up five and more years ago, when I was first online and it was hosted on Yahoo Clubs. Anyone remember those?! Yahoo killed the clubs and Yahoo Groups was frankly awful, so after a lot of looking and one abortive try-out on Community Zero, we ended up at MSN. Not ideal, and we lost some members who didn't care for the MS connection, but we toddled along quite nicely with UKwoodworking for a couple of years, give or take. Why did it die the death? Well mainly 'cos of one ill-mannered individual actually, but it would have gone in the end anyway. It was a dinosaur. The membership were almost exclusively amateurs, no axes to grind, no influence to speak of, no self-consciousness about saying silly but funny things, no-one trying to sell anything (except the occasional dodgy bit of porn, which was deleted) and, perhaps most importantly of all, everyone pretty much "knew" everyone else. You could tease someone, make a joke slightly at their expense, have a good old disagreement over something, whatever, but when push came to shove everyone knew where the winking smilies were and that a disagreement over one thing didn't mean a lifetime's alienation. I can't help but feel they were more innocent times.

These days? God help us, internet fora have a degree of influence. Influence equates to power, and power frequently fails to bring out the best in people. Look at all those Roman emperors... And fora have got bigger. Much bigger. Too big for one man and a dog to look after, so you need a body of moderators to look after things. And if the membership is too large to have a hope of all being on the same wavelength you should try half a dozen moderators trying to make a decision. So if those setting the tone of a forum can't agree, and the forum membership is sufficiently large that the range of characters and opinions is such that there are bound to be disagreements, well you start to get trouble. But of course that influence also brings the commercial sector into the equation, and they want to sell stuff and then there's even more pressure on moderators to strike the right balance. And, inevitably, some people won't like one or other aspect so they fall by the wayside.

So it comes to pass that one day you wake up to this, look around you and find you're part of a forum that has virtually nothing in common with the one you joined and many of your old friends have simply faded away. You can't write anything without second guessing what someone else will say and wondering whether it'll result in spending the next three days posting a defence of your legitimate alternative position. So you start to hesitate to post. I've found posting to forums is a habit; once you're in the groove you'll not hesitate to post even a silly comment if you think it may amuse. Get out of the habit, and suddenly a useful and informative post becomes too much effort to type. So inexorably that forum you don't recognise any more becomes less and less recognisable and you post less and less, so it's less and less like the place you used to know and love, so you post even less, and so... ad infinitum.

Just recently there's been a brief flurry of posts that almost restore my faith and make me feel like the forum I know isn't entirely gone away. Almost. But increasingly it feels like just a matter of time before we shall go our separate ways.

The fact is it's dawning on me that the dinosaur is probably me...

Bristol fashion

So yesterday was an "off" day wasn't it? Except it was an "on" day. Whereas today was technically an "on" day but actually it was "off". Clear as mud... Oh, except I had to pop into the workshop to check the thread size of the busted Bristol lever on the tailstock of the lathe. Useless blooming piece of plastic junk; so much for "shipshape and Bristol fashion" huh? With luck the aluminium replacements I've ordered will do the job and be a might sturdier. And yeah, more than one of them. Two; one for the tool rest as well 'cos I can see that giving up the ghost in a similar manner. Oh well, the penalty of buying a budget tool; at least the rest of it seems to be okay - touch wood. Goodness knows when they'll turn up though, it being such a busy time of the year for the post. Having said which I got one thing from Tuesday's online shopping efforts next day, which was impressive. As if to make up for it something else hasn't even been dispatched yet. Sigh.

Escape to Victory

It really sucks, finishing a project and being unable to do the blog-brag thing. It's the last time I ever make something for anybody who might be a reader 'cos the delayed gratification of postings pics is No Fun. Quite frankly blogging about musing from your workbench while not being able to be specific about what exactly is on your workbench that you're musing over has a number of downsides too... However, on the plus side and as you may have gathered, today's "off" day miraculously turned into an "on" day and the Great Escape has metaphorically fired up the motorbike and is making a spirited attempt at successfully jumping the barbed wire border into Switzerland. Yay.

In consequence naturally the workshop is in a total mess, so eventually an "on" day is going to have to embrace all the joy of tidying up. Bum. I seem to have various boxes of old tools lying about the place again too - damned if I know how that happens... Yikes, just remembered I've got those calipers to clean up for the Old Man. Looks like a bout of tool cleaning is on the cards then. And hey, hardly worth tidying up for that, is it? Yessssss.

Throwing things at lawyers

Don't say it too loud, and you may assume I'm clutching a large tree while I type this, but I think my back's on the mend. At last. If you're all very lucky indeed I may not have to speak of any ill health again this year - jolly well hope so.

So where were we? Today's an "on" day isn't it? Hope so, 'cos I'm a step nearer The Great Escape. Yes, okay, so I managed to screw up one, but give me credit, I rescued it. It's not a mistake, it's a Design Opportunity all right? Don't recall when I first came across the concept of things not being mistakes but DOs but I'm sure my woodworking enjoyment factor went up a couple of points right away. Although I do try very hard not to get hung up on making things perfect, it doesn't simply come naturally. After infinite labour and years of training I can just about manage a good impression of being philosophical about things these days though, so I have hopes that a couple more decades and I may actually mean it. Anyway, with all this progress, I'm wondering what I'll do next after the fearful shadow of Christmas presents is removed. Ought to think about that saw till again I suppose, only I've gone right off the tambour idea. Tsk, wish I wasn't so fickle. Heigh ho, at least I can be philosophical about it.

Oh yeah, we have another Hatch Day today (s'all go isn't it?) JMF, long-term nephew, owner of Mythical & Legendary Music Stand, infrequent reader and lawyer-in-training (now, now, don't throw things; apparently someone's got to do it) is, erm, well older today. Sheesh, he must be getting old if I can't keep track of how ancient he is now. Or maybe that's me getting old? No, don't answer that; go back to throwing things at the lawyer...