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This is a rather interesting graph. Thanks for sharing it.
Love your gifs Razako.![Stick out tongue :p :p](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png)
Love your gifs Razako.
![Stick out tongue :p :p](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png)
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Spam!!! :crackup:I've started to post this comment on a few laser related you tube videos:
Anyone interested in building their own lasers should check out laserpointerforums.com - Free to join, never any charge, just a community full of laser hobbyists.
When I started years ago, we were buying the newest Disk writers to harvest the red diodes to see how far we could push them. 50 mW was WOW and then we got 100 mW!
Everyone was testing, building the LM317 drivers and posting graphs. 50 mW of green was way expensive. Popping balloons was a competition. We were alive with ideas. I noticed the "knee" in the power graphs and advised keeping below that peak.
Now we read: "Where can I buy a burning laser for $30? I want to burn stuff. I want 1 watt of blue. Why did my diode trash out? How much voltage do I need? Do I have to solder these wires? I can burn paper - How much power is that? My dad says he will give me $100 -- what burning laser should I BUY?
LPF has become a market place for "buyers". True, there are a number of us still experimenting but not many.
The laser field has expanded into fiber lasers, disk lasers VCLS etc and becoming expensive - beyond the kid buyers.
Times have changed from hands on building to hands on iPad buyers.
HM
Poll added.
I wouldn't say spiraling so much as a steady decline:
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Smoothing out what we can assume was inconsistent data collection back in 2007 (The graph changes all the time, but it usually looks somewhat similar to how it does now), it's apparent that people are losing interest in the hobby. Granted, the graph doesn't showcase forum activity, but there is almost certainly some sort of correlation between the search results and the popularity of the forum. In July of last year, there were next to no searches.
As for the causes, I can't say. If I had to guess, I'd say the recent influx of trolls has certainly made us more hostile towards newcomers, so that may be a contributing factor. But it can't be the root cause, this has been happening much longer than that.
I'm not even a vet, so I certainly can't speak for the history of the forum. All I can do is make suggestions.
Just a thought. Some people may come and go as finances allow. For example I am on more when I can afford to do builds, buy parts for new setups etc. Could be a reason some people evaporate?It's much more calm now from when I first joined, but we've still got a pretty solid community going. I agree with you though, I've definitely noticed a lack of activity/interest at times.
You've got an idea going, but that's all it is right now, just an idea. Got a plan of action? I'm interested.
Your keyword is a bit insufficient..
If people are interested of laser pointer, I doubt they will search with "laserpointerforums" at a first place
GoogleTrends Data >>
I'm not speaking about starting new forum, just to consider to change the platform. I just offered an "Easy" option for that, nothing else..
Implementing new features (that some members have discussed before) to vBulletin e.g. new user sandboxing, spam blocking and inline moderating will require HUGE amount of work.
Secondly, I am really grateful for Avery of his huge input and hours that he has spent for building this amazing forum. :thanks:
Avery and the other mods have said many times that the forum software will not change.
What kind of "platform" would you be talking about?
H2Oxide, it still seems really vague what you're trying to get at. I think you might get more feedback if you offered a specific (though possibly hypothetical) "goal" or activity that you've got in mind. So, my vote is still the same (Good idea, but...).