Community Goal?

[lasersbee]

From now on, let's try to stay focused on the topic at hand. Responses are about 80% in favor, which is honestly way higher than I expected. Granted, it's a small sample size, but even if only the people who voted in favor contributed, I still believe we could reach our goal to a degree.

Since interest seems to have waned over time, I'm going to give you guys a chance to retract, change, conditionalize, or otherwise modify your votes. All those in favor say "yea". All those against say "nay". If I can still get 12 "yea"s then I think we should go ahead and proceed with phase 1 (idea suggestion and discussion). Please only vote "yea" if you plan on helping in some way. If you're voting "yea" then feel free to suggest an idea along with your "vote." Even if we don't get 12, it's still something to think about.

I'm sorry for derailing your guys' discussion on how to increase forum popularity (I think that this is definitely is worth investigating and discussing), but it's not what this thread is for. The whole idea behind this is to get the current community to work together.

Don't want to rain on the parade... but... even 12 "Yeas"
with all the members on this forum seems a little low to affect
the whole forum. Unless I'm missing something...

Currently Active Users: 13043 (201 members and 12842 guests)
Threads: 74,184, Posts: 1,146,374, Members: 43,415

What actually would you want the community to work
on together and what would be the goal of this working
together ?? I must admit I did not read every single post
but I did read the OP and a few others. Like I said...maybe I
missed something.

Jerry

 

[H2Oxide]

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...).

Don't want to rain on the parade... but... even 12 "Yeas"
with all the members on this forum seems a little low to affect
the whole forum. Unless I'm missing something...

Currently Active Users: 13043 (201 members and 12842 guests)
Threads: 74,184, Posts: 1,146,374, Members: 43,415

What actually would you want the community to work
on together and what would be the goal of this working
together ?? I must admit I did not read every single post
but I did read the OP and a few others. Like I said...maybe I
missed something.

Jerry

I guess I really should have emphasized this.

I want you guys to suggest stuff that you want or need. Hell, you don't even need to suggest a solution, just a problem that you need solved. If I set the goal, people will just think that I'm looking for other people to do my work for free.

Some things I would suggest:

Sol-gel or other methods of HR and AR coating deposition at STP, automated (Arduino based or something) glass optic grinding, solar-pumped lasers, small-package CW dye lasers, rare-earth doped inorganic liquid ("liquid glass") gain media, electrodeposition of semiconductors, etc.

These are all thing that I've needed or wished were available to the average experimenter in the past. Most of them are simply too technical, but it should at least give you an idea.

It's like chemistry. If you need the latest and greatest catalyst to perform your experiment, then you can probably get ahold of it if you're part of a research team or professional lab. But if you're an amateur, you need to find a different way to skin the cat, which usually means synthesizing it yourself or finding a way to do it without the catalyst. The same thing applies here. I'm sure lots of people here would love to build their own DPSS laser, but something holds them back. The knowledge is out there, and experimenting is good, even if you're doing it wrong. Whether it be the prohibitive price of the custom optics they need, or unobtainable gain media, there's almost always a way around the problem. If we were to explore these concepts beforehand as a group, it would open up a whole new world, ripe for amateur experimentalism.

And I'd actually preferred if you "rained on the parade." Constructive criticism is infinitely more helpful than pointless pats on the back.

But as for the member count, how many of those 201 names do you actually recognize? There's a lot of "active" members that only have 0-50 posts. 12 members is a pretty decent sized chunk of the continuously active community IMO. Plus, it's an open project, so more people can join even if all they have is a suggestion or idea.

 

[Radim]

I would suggest one of the goals - increasing the active community base by new members (enthusiasts, students, teachers, professionals, scientists...) - some nice tips were discussed in Oliver's thread here. A lot is on LPF already and than it would be easier to perform further goals with more diverse active community.

 

[lasersbee]

I guess I really should have emphasized this.
Some things I would suggest:

Sol-gel or other methods of HR and AR coating deposition at STP, automated (Arduino based or something) glass optic grinding, solar-pumped lasers, small-package CW dye lasers, rare-earth doped inorganic liquid ("liquid glass") gain media, electrodeposition of semiconductors, etc.

These are all thing that I've needed or wished were available to the average experimenter in the past. Most of them are simply too technical, but it should at least give you an idea.

And I'd actually preferred if you "rained on the parade." Constructive criticism is infinitely more helpful than pointless pats on the back.

But as for the member count, how many of those 201 names do you actually recognize? There's a lot of "active" members that only have 0-50 posts. 12 members is a pretty decent sized chunk of the continuously active community IMO. Plus, it's an open project, so more people can join even if all they have is a suggestion or idea.

You made me count.... :crackup:I instantly recognize 86 members
on today's list.

If you need chemistry questions answered.... I'm sure there
are a lot of Chemicals related Forums out there...

Maybe we should look into Drones/UAVs/RC/Motorcycles...etc.
All these subjects have already been Theaded/Posted on with
no need to have Groups set up.

LPF IS basically and foremost a Laser Pointer Forum... That's
why I'm here...

When I need RC advice I go to the RCGroups Forum.....:beer:

That's my $0.02...


Jerry

 

[H2Oxide]

You made me count.... :crackup:I instantly recognize 86 members
on today's list.

If you need chemistry questions answered.... I'm sure there
are a lot of Chemicals related Forums out there...

Maybe we should look into Drones/UAVs/RC/Motorcycles...etc.
All these subjects have already been Theaded/Posted on with
no need to have Groups set up.

LPF IS basically and foremost a Laser Pointer Forum... That's
why I'm here...

When I need RC advice I go to the RCGroups Forum.....:beer:

That's my $0.02...


Jerry

12 is ~14% of 86, which is nothing to scoff at.

I'm already part of multiple chemistry forums, I was just giving chemistry as an example of a hobby that faces similar problems. There's no need to bring that here, I agree. As for Drones/UAVs/RC/Motorcycles, why? It's not like discussion of those things would add anything useful to this hobby.

As for the stuff I suggested, it's all laser-related... And the only one I've ever seen discussed here before is solar pumping.

You're right that this certainly is first and foremost a "Laser Pointer Forum" though, which is why I was so hesitant to post this in the first place. I knew that a lot of members here wouldn't have the physics/chemistry/math chops to participate in some of these projects, since the forum isn't for developing laser tech, just assembling pointers. The only reason I did at all is because the era of the laser pointer is over for all but us select few, and some members here do display an intricate knowledge of the science behind it all. I highly doubt there's enough members that still want to go through with this after how messy this thread has been anyway.

 

[lasersbee]

12 is ~14% of 86, which is nothing to scoff at.

You're right that this certainly is first and foremost a "Laser Pointer Forum" though, which is why I was so hesitant to post this in the first place. I knew that a lot of members here wouldn't have the physics/chemistry/math chops to participate in some of these projects, since the forum isn't for developing laser tech, just assembling pointers.

Once all 86 of those members that I recognized vote
on this Thread then I could see a trend.
BTW... only 18 members were interested enough to
actually vote on this poll.
I hadn't been here for over 3 years so I don't recognize
some of the members that joined in the past 3 years.

Hmmm...I guess you are just a lot smarter than most
of us here....

Like I said it's just my $0.02.....


Jerry

 

[H2Oxide]

Once all 86 of those members that I recognized vote
on this Thread then I could see a trend.
BTW... only 18 members were interested enough to
actually vote on this poll.
I hadn't been here for over 3 years so I don't recognize
some of the members that joined in the past 3 years.

Hmmm...I guess you are just a lot smarter than most
of us here....

Like I said it's just my $0.02.....


Jerry

I'm not saying there's a trend, or that the whole forum is on board. I'm saying that 12 members would be enough for a start. It doesn't matter though, because we don't even have 12 members.

And I never claimed I was smarter than anyone else. I said that "some members here do display an intricate knowledge of the science behind it all." I didn't even include myself in that group. If you go to an RC forum, there's going to be a few guys that understand the concepts and mathematics of combustion theory down to the t that build their own miniature engines and such. Most people just want to build RCs though. The same thing applies here.

Either way, I think that this is pretty settled. No point in arguing over something that's already been decided, right?

 

[ElectricPlasma]

Hijacking this thread again, just found something worth noting:

It's easy to see that when people come here the first place they go to are the massive dead links at the top.

Source: https://www.similarweb.com/website/laserpointerforums.com

Also something to keep in mind is where people are coming from, not sure what sonic.net is all about though...

 

[CurtisOliver]

I'm going to look up sonic.net later. Very weird that they are responsible for nearly half of our referrals. I see the dead links as a problem too. We have Sta's thread recommending companies, why don't we use it instead to guide, rather than leading people nowhere.

 

[H2Oxide]

I'm going to look up sonic.net later. Very weird that they are responsible for nearly half of our referrals.

I believe they are an ISP. Would explain why they're responsible for such a large portion of the traffic.

I see the dead links as a problem too. We have Sta's thread recommending companies, why don't we use it instead to guide, rather than leading people nowhere.

They help pay for the forum IIRC.

 

[CurtisOliver]

If they help pay for the forum, then it should be left alone. However I believe that a link at the top of the page that links to Sta's thread may be incredibly useful. Not only does it help newcomers, but it would also benefit the reliable companies mentioned.