Yo... to the lurkers..

[TechJunkie]

And 24 hours without a lot of bickering!

I can change that with one sentence.

The reasons you have so many lurkers is easy.

1. Mostly shop talk. Shop talk is great, but you need a balance of fun too. I respect, and like all you guys, but this place is duller than a butter knife. If someone is not fully into projectors there is not much else to talk about. This is the lounge section and still all you guys talk about projectors. One thing LPF did have over this forum was a lot of funny, and informative off topic socializing. It made you want to log on everyday. There was also more creativity using lasers. Creativity outside legal projectors is mostly frowned upon here. You can argue the points all you want, but remove fun and creativity, and there is not much left to hold the average persons attention. I've been gone for months and besides some new hardware nothing has really changed. Which sucks for me because I liked talking to you guys. I've actually bailed out of the hobby because of this reason, along with other reasons. I've sold the bulk of my equipment, and will be listing the rest here shortly.

2. You cant go by forum stats. You dont know how long it reports people are online. If someone checks out the site for a minute, and the log on counter is set for a week things add up very quick. This is a traffic ploy used for search engine placement. LPF, and other forums do the same thing. The more traffic the higher the site is listed on the search engine result. I got so many hits on my "33 Reasons Not to Buy from Wicked Lasers" thread on LPF that it was listed right under Wicked's site when you searched for Wicked Lasers. The owner of WL threatened to sue LPF if Avery didnt delete it. And of course Avery did.

[planters]

1. Mostly shop talk. Shop talk is great, but you need a balance of fun too. I respect, and like all you guys, but this place is duller than a butter knife. If someone is not fully into projectors there is not much else to talk about. This is the lounge section and still all you guys talk about projectors. One thing LPF did have over this forum was a lot of funny, and informative off topic socializing. It made you want to log on everyday. There was also more creativity using lasers. Creativity outside legal projectors is mostly frowned upon here.

I agree in general, but why do you say "did have"? Has LPF become too "focused" as well? I'm not aware that there was more creativity on LPF using lasers. My impression was 90% of the creativity was how "mean" you could lathe-turn a new host design. Creativity outside legal projectors is not frowned on here. None of my projectors are "legal" and they have been well received.

I agree that this forum has become duller, but I think this is because it is in transition. Formerly, a hardware enthusiast's discussion site, the availability of low cost, turn key projectors means that outside of the had core the majority of participants will come from the content and performance crowd. This means software will have to become more intuitive and rewarding and the interaction with other components in entertainment like video and LEDs will be important.

But Tech, why complain? If you have something interesting to share then do it and invigorate this. This is not a put down. I'm serious. Look at all of my weird shit, the drone threads, the political rants, swammi's awards and his shows etc. There is a lot beside the "legal projectors" although I agree that there are too few who contribute to these other subjects and I miss that as well.

[Laserman532]

i smoked weed under the stage while Huey Lewis sang Back in Time at the Cow Palace in San Francisco...

[TechJunkie]

I agree in general, but why do you say "did have"? Has LPF become too "focused" as well? I'm not aware that there was more creativity on LPF using lasers. My impression was 90% of the creativity was how "mean" you could lathe-turn a new host design. Creativity outside legal projectors is not frowned on here. None of my projectors are "legal" and they have been well received.

LPF has become stale too. It used to be a brotherhood, but it turned elitist in many ways, then dissolved. There were all kinds of weird, wild, and interesting things built with lasers over the years. It would take me a few hours of browsing to get you examples, but this guys creations are off the hook. https://www.youtube.com/user/AnselmoFanZero/videos

If you used your projectors for business you'd get some slack. You have to admit most discussions are about legal rigs.

But Tech, why complain? If you have something interesting to share then do it and invigorate this. This is not a put down. I'm serious. Look at all of my weird shit, the drone threads, the political rants, swammi's awards and his shows etc. There is a lot beside the "legal projectors" although I agree that there are too few who contribute to these other subjects and I miss that as well.

Yeah right!!! Did we forget how the story of my first internet experience almost imploded the forum???? LMAO

All those threads you listed still morph into a conversation about projectors somehow.

I'm not really complaining, I was just pointing out why so many people lurk, and why I'm getting out of the hobby. I'm transferring my laser funds into RC 1/10 scale Short Course Truck racing.

[flecom]

I'm transferring my laser funds into RC 1/10 scale Short Course Truck racing.

you should try and variance one of your trucks...

see what I did there?

[absolom7691]

I highly doubt it has anything at all to do with an overabundance of shop talk. In fact, the less shop talk there is, the more likely the lurkers are going to remain. Most are here to glean information, bot email addys or spam the forum. The ones that do come here for info will either stay and chat or they will eventually leave. If they are just looking for a bit of info, they get it and go. I prefer shop talk. If there is one thing I absolutely hate, it's coming to a forum for a brief bit of info and having to navigate through 20 pages of ridiculous banter just to find what I am looking for. The more worthless information there is on a forum, the longer the lurkers are going to stay. It's even worse when the information you need happens to be in a bullshit thread that was just started for max views. Sorry but, this isn't Facebook. For the record, the banter has gotten worse. Threads are constantly derailed now because they are far less focused on the topic at hand.

About projectors... ebbs and flows. 3 years ago, no one, outside of Jem and Swami were building lumias (a limited few more there too but I can't remember who). Now, everyone is building them. Out with the old, in with the new. New ideas DO come up and trends are started. The only thing that stagnates it, are pointless threads.

The more pointless the thread, the longer the lurker has to stay.

[edison]

If there is one thing I absolutely hate, it's coming to a forum for a brief bit of info and having to navigate through 20 pages of ridiculous banter just to find what I am looking for

What i hate is that newbie,s contact me by PM and ask a ton of questions about how to do knivedging or what optics is being used while everything can be found on the forum. They seem to have a hard time finding the search bottom. I,m happy to point them in the right direction but they should put some effort in it.

If i want to know something about lumia i do some research myself by typing: lumia and press search. If i want to know something about kniveedging i type kniveedging and press search. How hard can it be? Lazy bastards that is what they are....

[absolom7691]

Right but wouldn't you agree that it's easy to give up searching when there are a ton of useless threads without much technical info because people are too busy playing the "Look how big my d*&$ is"?

[norty303]

I agree with Edison (shock horror, first Andycon, now Edison and all in the space of one week!)
I don't understand why people ask via PM. Either search the forum or ask in a new thread. You will get so much more balanced response by asking the whole community rather than one target via PM.

[norty303]

Also, derailed threads often contain information about things you hadn't even thought of asking. NEVER discount any information you can pick up, even if only to discount certain theories or even to help you to decide to exclude certain people's responses from the useful info.