H2Oxide
0
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2014
- Messages
- 929
- Points
- 83
I was torn as to whether I should post this other section, poll section, or suggestion section, but I think that this is an appropriate place.
I've been here for just over 2 years now. While that's practically nothing compared to the lifetime of the forum, it's long enough for me to have seen members join, become valued members of the community, and then disappear without a trace. They go about their own business, ask a few questions and possibly answer a few, maybe post a few builds, then vanish. And according to Google trends, the forum has been on a steady downward trend basically since its creation in 2007. The same goes for Photonlexicon.
For this reason, I think that we need to improve the cohesion of the current community to ensure that the hobby isn't all but dead within the next few years and to make sure LPF doesn't become a mere memory. Maybe it's not my place to suggest something like this, but here goes:
I think that every few months, we should have a community goal. A set objective that the community works together towards achieving, maybe individually, maybe in teams, or maybe something else altogether. Obviously, participation would not be required, but those who wanted to join could suggest new approaches, conduct their own experiments, build their own test device, or whatever else would be helpful.
The vast majority of the discussion about laser technology on here is purely theoretical. Some ideas are tossed around, maybe a few numbers and data points are discussed, someone might post an interesting article or spec sheet, but beyond that, they almost never go anywhere. So there's definitely interest in this sort of thing, but very few members seem to take that interest and actually develop it into something useful (myself included). The point of the community goal would be to exploit this interest and to help create a community that actively working towards the same goal.
Now obviously the objective of this would need to be something useful, not just a "Who can build the coolest laser lol" contest. What I mean is, we should focus on developing tools and methods to do things that would make the laser building process easier, or do things usually only feasible with expensive equipment in a way that makes it available to us. The end product would be a report on all of our suggestions, successes, failures, and everything in between. For example, I'm sure that a lot more members would experiment with DPSSLs if we found ways to create optical coatings or gain media at STP.
However, it wouldn't be a contest. The whole idea is that we need to work together. Sure, you could work by yourself or in a group on a specific experiment, but you should post your findings right away so that others can replicate them and maybe take a new approach that you had never even considered. The point isn't that you should post all of your findings all at once if you achieve the goal, but rather report things as you go along. Even if it turns out to be a failure, it's still valuable information. It's still nice to have your efforts recognised though, so maybe the largest contributors can have some sort of special forum flare or something, I don't know.
Right now, the most exciting thing that happens here is a new diode gets released, or someone builds some kind of exotic laser. Hell, most of the most active threads aren't even laser-related. I think that this would breathe a little more life into the forum.
Well there it is. If this gets a positive response it will obviously require more fleshing-out, but it will probably turn into another one of those "interesting-discussion-that-never-goes-anywhere" threads anyway. If it gets a negative response, well then at least I can say that I tried.
What do you guys think?
I've been here for just over 2 years now. While that's practically nothing compared to the lifetime of the forum, it's long enough for me to have seen members join, become valued members of the community, and then disappear without a trace. They go about their own business, ask a few questions and possibly answer a few, maybe post a few builds, then vanish. And according to Google trends, the forum has been on a steady downward trend basically since its creation in 2007. The same goes for Photonlexicon.
For this reason, I think that we need to improve the cohesion of the current community to ensure that the hobby isn't all but dead within the next few years and to make sure LPF doesn't become a mere memory. Maybe it's not my place to suggest something like this, but here goes:
I think that every few months, we should have a community goal. A set objective that the community works together towards achieving, maybe individually, maybe in teams, or maybe something else altogether. Obviously, participation would not be required, but those who wanted to join could suggest new approaches, conduct their own experiments, build their own test device, or whatever else would be helpful.
The vast majority of the discussion about laser technology on here is purely theoretical. Some ideas are tossed around, maybe a few numbers and data points are discussed, someone might post an interesting article or spec sheet, but beyond that, they almost never go anywhere. So there's definitely interest in this sort of thing, but very few members seem to take that interest and actually develop it into something useful (myself included). The point of the community goal would be to exploit this interest and to help create a community that actively working towards the same goal.
Now obviously the objective of this would need to be something useful, not just a "Who can build the coolest laser lol" contest. What I mean is, we should focus on developing tools and methods to do things that would make the laser building process easier, or do things usually only feasible with expensive equipment in a way that makes it available to us. The end product would be a report on all of our suggestions, successes, failures, and everything in between. For example, I'm sure that a lot more members would experiment with DPSSLs if we found ways to create optical coatings or gain media at STP.
However, it wouldn't be a contest. The whole idea is that we need to work together. Sure, you could work by yourself or in a group on a specific experiment, but you should post your findings right away so that others can replicate them and maybe take a new approach that you had never even considered. The point isn't that you should post all of your findings all at once if you achieve the goal, but rather report things as you go along. Even if it turns out to be a failure, it's still valuable information. It's still nice to have your efforts recognised though, so maybe the largest contributors can have some sort of special forum flare or something, I don't know.
Right now, the most exciting thing that happens here is a new diode gets released, or someone builds some kind of exotic laser. Hell, most of the most active threads aren't even laser-related. I think that this would breathe a little more life into the forum.
Well there it is. If this gets a positive response it will obviously require more fleshing-out, but it will probably turn into another one of those "interesting-discussion-that-never-goes-anywhere" threads anyway. If it gets a negative response, well then at least I can say that I tried.
What do you guys think?
), and the whole point of the goal is to get the community to actually do something, instead of just talking about doing something.
