What is happening to this site ?

" plug your own web site and books and that's how you earn money,

Knowing more than some of two recent departees, I am more than confident that this wasn't any part of their motivation. They will be missed though."

I couldn't agree more

As for " Vast threads dedicated to chewing over irrelevant minutiae and pointless pi**ing matches between gigantic egos the size of continents"

This will always occur . Its called free speech, albeit if its totally irrelevant to the current thread.

But The initial post was about loosing engineers of quality and knowledge .

No disrespect to other members as, as Diane says the knowledge is still there, Just not as much as there was.

I know for a fact in at least one case it is down to common courtesy. Nothing whatsoever to do with personnel websites or money. Just ask prior to publishing.

No doubt Jason and others will argue the toss about you make a posting and it becomes public domain but courtesy cost nothing and goes a very long way.

Hi Michael,

No one here has ever said that forum members would be expected to log in via facebook.

OMG, I am not sure where you got that impression. You are wrong. Having said that, these forums can be browsed around the world without logging in, so if you have any sensitive content or anything confidential, this isn't the place to post it.

Jason, our facebook page is for sharing news from around the clubs, articles from this website and for marketing purposes. If it offends, please avoid!

Patrick

Patrick,

I think perhaps that it was references such as "articles from this website" that gave me that impression.

I couldn't offhand think of any articles that originate on this website (as opposed to articles copied here from the magazine or somewhere else) other than postings in the forums (which might be loosely termed articles).

At any rate I'm relieved to hear that our musings won't be spread over facebook, twitter et al.

.

Neil,

I accept your chosen definition of "Social Media" ... but the fact remains that Patrick mentioned three sites in particular.

MichaelG.

.

Thanks for that, Patrick

... as I said; I simply feared that it was the thin end of the wedge.

... I responded accordingly, at the time, and I am now happy to let it rest.

MichaelG.

Edited By jason udall on 07/10/2013 20:50:08

Edited By jason udall on 07/10/2013 20:51:26

I'm not sure what to say. Without being thrown off the site.

For the Editor to come out with a comment like that.

" I doubt their absence will be missed"

HELLO. If I have a problem that I need help with, I post it on here.

its not MTM that answer it. It's the members.

a room starts to empty by people starting to leave it, and perhaps Dianne should remember

that. Without the members this will be just another web page of adverts.

How much knowledge has been lost by just these 2 very knowledgeable

people leaving. Both of them will be very much missed by me at least. I'm sorry to see you both go guys.

All the best for the future.

dave

No knowledge has been lost as no posts have been deleted. What was there is still there.

Harold made the choice to use his website , no one forced him into it - his choice but his web site is still there as are his books.

Someone once said to me the best way to see how dispensible you are is the clasp both hands together, dunk them in a bucket of water and then pull them out.

How big is the hole left ?

In my previous employment there was just myself and one other person in the machanical maintenace dept., that were still being employed by the company. All our collegues had natuerally retiered or had taken voluntary redundancy and had been superceeded by contractors. Out of the two of us, I'd had almost 36 years of static plant maintenace expereance, while the other person had spent around 25 years on mobile plant maintenace and his last five years on static plant maintenace as his work was all farmed out to contract.

Then came the time the company changed thier policy on machanical plant maintenane, whereby every site in the country would be put out to contract, we were given the choice of being transfered over to the main contractor or taking a genorous voluntary redundancy.( guess which option I took) Now I had probably turned every nut and bolt, on the site that I worked on, that was ever likely to be turned more than any contractor, but I don't work there anymore, but the plant still runs although a big chunk of it has now been out of use for the last 18 months and is now demolised.

Just as John points out, with all the expereance that I and my collegues had over the years, there is no hole left, the plant that is still there is still producing what the company wants and the machinary still gets fixed.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 07/10/2013 22:42:12

"No knowledge has been lost as no posts have been deleted. What was there is still there."

Very true ,but............... what of the future?

If this is the thin end of the wedge and more decide to call it a day, then it won't only be the engines that are produced that will be from the past, it could become more reliant on posts from the past.

As with all trades you never stop learning so by that very fact this site has lost out.

What happened when LBSC died ?

George Thomas ?

Edgar T Westbury ?

No loco's, shop tools or IC Engines produced since then ?

Times change, things move on.

[EDIT ]  To say that there is not much new today with the exception of materials and electronics.

Virtually all of what is published in the mags had been published before but possibly in a different form.

If you distilled the content of MEW and the tooling side of ME down to one basic dividing head, toolpost, bed stop, T&C grinder then you could throw away 40 years worth of mags.

Where the mags are going to suffer and this will happen whether people walk away or just pass on, is that the replacements will be slower standing up to the altar because of time restraints and the fact the internet is more instant.

Edited By John Stevenson on 08/10/2013 00:34:02

Hello John Stevenson,

...
And yet, the abandonment of Terryd (already forgot?), Harold Hall and Graham Meek make me feel that I lost with the departure of each one of them, not just a fount of knowledge but also the wisdom of individuals with character, respect for others and sensitivity. Gentlemen...
If you go out of the forum I just lose a source of knowledge...
To me they are gentlemen who have a hobby. And you have a hobby!
This difference for you may not have any importance, but for me it is essential.

Note: I beg your pardon if due to my poor domain of your language I wrote something wrong or offensive to you.

Best regards
Costa Dias

Hi Jason, of course there's no hostility!

You wrote: "the exclusive content I won't miss"

I agree with you that our facebook page is perhaps not for you.

People come and people go - that's the way of things I'm afraid.

However, I don't see any lack of expertise on this site - people ask questions and (generally) they get answered. I don't consider myself an expert by any means (quite the opposite) but I have been enjoying this hobby for over twenty years and certainly have my own views and preferences on quite a few topics that I'm more than happy to share.

So I don't think there is any risk of there being a lack of general expertise on this site. The issue may be that some people are a bit more prolific (or perhaps charismatic/amusing) than others. I'm sure we all have our favourite posters and would miss them if they disappeared but I think the "community" will continue.

Regards,

IanT.

Hi dcosta

Terryd is not forgotten. By at least 3 of us. My brother and I were only talking about him a couple of weeks ago. My brother wanted to get ahold of terry but now he doesn't come on, we don't know how to. I will never forget. I recall struggling trying to silver solder, I posted on here and Terry contacted me to arrange to come over to me the next time he was at ARC and show me how it was done. Like wise . I had trouble with the cross slide on my lathe and GM contacted me. Gray invited me to send / take the whole lathe to him and he would sort it out for me. You may recall a thread he posted on mini lathes. That was mine. We have been friends ever since. Both of these people I shall never forget.

Dave

The whole point of the thread was " What has happened to this site "

maybe it should have been what is

Nobody from MTM has actually commented. What is it that is upsetting Harold, Graham and Terry that they no longer wish to continue with the site ?

The reasons are many,

In light of recent events else where on the Forum I shall no longer be posting any developments on this project or any further comments on this Forum.

What's happened to Terryd (17/9/13)

By the comments posted it is not just a case of lack of time .

Every site has it's ups & downs. Sometimes the down is terminal, but is more likely to happen if it's a donation financed site.

I doubt if this forum will become useless in the long term.

Richard

Well I think the forum is great. Lots of new stuff to learn and some pointless banter on threads like this. All part of the fun. It's a bit like the office I work in, some serious conversations about work, some rubbish, and always moaning about the company 'cos that's what people do. A couple of work friends have recently left and I have lost some expert help but the Company still services its customers and new experts will arise, including me.

Before this forum existed I was regular on a Landrover one, Then I got interested in an alternative energy forum and had less time to keep up with the other one so faded away. Then by chance I found this had been going for a few years without me realising so now I have faded off the last one. No song and dance just not there as often as I was. I find I can only keep up with a couple of forums at a time though I must be a member of a dozen. Whatever did I do with my coffee breaks before forums - oh yes, read paper stuff.

Edited By Bazyle on 08/10/2013 12:51:27

There wont be a forum in 10 years time...everyone will be dead, senile or too poor to participate! And I really mean this....not to mention the fact that no one will know how to opperate a non cnc machine.

Gee....

Lets be positive. Go through the list of threads and make a posting, "on subject" and that means (you).

A post every second day will keep the doldrums away..... and fix the forum.

Negativity is unhealthy.

Regards

John

Edited By John McNamara on 09/10/2013 08:04:48