I think we should have a forum called "Wood".

[Mike Hollingsworth]

anybody else?

[Will Overton]

Nah ... :)

[Mike Cutler]

"Wood", what?

Mike

I love the "Pasadino":D

I grew up in Eagle Rock/Highland Park.

[John Nesmith]

And another called "Working"

[Van Huskey]

The problem with more and more specialized sub-forums is the more niche ones get very little traffic and to get a decent answer a person is tempted to post out of the correct sub-forum.

[Dan Karachio]

Actually, the best way to do this is when enough posts suggest a new forum - when you try and predict, you are almost always wrong. So, it has to evolve. Given this, I think we need a gloat forum, a which bandsaw should I buy forum, a god I can't believe how much Festool costs forum and maybe a few more! Kidding of course.

[Chris Padilla]

We are always open to considering new forums but the need has to be clearly there. We already have too many forums in my opinion. :)

[Mike Hollingsworth]

So there ya go

[Eiji Fuller]

I actually think a bandsaw forum would be sweet. I just love bandsaws and cant get enough threads on them

[Thom Porterfield]

vBulletin has the ability to have sub-forums. They're easy enough to create (and to delete, if interest is low) so sub forums on specific machines--or wood--shouldn't be too difficult to manage. It sure does make searching for stuff easier.

[John Coloccia]

What does wood have anything to do with residential delivery options and table saw lawsuits?

Personally, though, I would never go into a forum about wood unless I had a question about wood. If everyone's like me, and thank the Lord they're not, but if they were, that would mean that the only other people in there are people asking questions that likely know as much, or less, about wood than I do. I'd be better off talking to myself. LOL.

:p

[joe fabitz]

I think too many sub forums are a bad thing.

Much better to take this sort of thing up in the general forum.

And i'm a wood fan through and through. For me, it's all about the wood.

But more eyes seeing the thread is better than fewer eyes.

[Dave MacArthur]

John Coloccia makes a funny but valid point...
Few folks would be just browsing the "wood forum".

Really, with two robust search options (advanced search in the forum and the Google site search), combined with the "New Posts" ability, it doesn't really matter much about sub forums. I really just need the ability to EXCLUDE certain topic areas (which we have) when I click "show new posts...but NOT engraving, laser, off topic". Then everything I want to read shows up, click click click.

Honestly, I really think that if you're logging into a sub-forum like "Workshops" and browsing down through the posts, you're not really using the forums tools correctly. Ok, I'll say it, you're browsing wrong! ;) But why would you do that when you can just click "Show new posts in Workshops" and not have to browse backwards in time through various sub forums trying to remember what you've read? I know many folks probably don't know about this feature, I didn't for over a year, which I now consider my "novice SMC time", before I learned to use my tools with more advanced techniques. "New Posts" is the dovetail technique of VBulletin browsing vs. the butt-joint forum scrolling techniques of mere hackers, if you will :)

If folks use some good keywords anywhere in a thread (band saw, bandsaw, G0514x2, etc.) then the internal search engines work great.

[Dave Lehnert]

If it helps you any. I have a friend who just started a woodworking forum and has an area for Lumber and Plywood questions.
Not allowed to post a link here on Sawmill but if you do an internet search for his store called "Hardwood Lumber and More" I'm sure you will find it.

But the forum is new so it's not very active and may or may not be of help to you.

[Dave MacArthur]

I'll admit I have about 50 posts "bookmarked" into a folder called "wood". The types of things in there, which I suppose would be in a wood forum, are tables of janka hardness, threads where two different woods were nicely combined in a project that I want to remember the look of, a LOT of threads on wood-destroying organisms and how to treat them (powder post beetle, emerald ash borer), threads on sawing boards from logs, threads on drying wood, stacking/stickering wood, how to seal ends of logs, how to cut logs with a chainsaw, etc...

In fact, for about a year, I thought the "Lumberyard" forum was EXACTLY for this stuff, until I clicked in there one day.

But these are exactly the types of threads I like to read, mixed in with ones on band saws and blades and joinery, which makes it so nice to have them all in the woodworking and power tools forum. I'd bet most of these wood-topic posts would be posted in the "wrong" forum if we had a "wood" forum, causing mods a lot of additional work. The only value I could see in it, from a "finding threads and reading them" standpoint would be to allow folks to EXCLUDE these topics from a search of new posts.

[Leigh Betsch]

"Would"? It could be for all the armchair "would"workers. :rolleyes:

[Kent A Bathurst]

What does wood have anything to do with residential delivery options and table saw lawsuits?

Very clever, John. One thing - You forgot BU v. BD planes.........:D

[Jim Becker]

While at first it might seem simple to add another forum area or three (whether discrete or sub-forums), it's not. Moderation of what we have now is already a major task and I cannot describe to you the amount of time I spend moving things around to "proper" places for the thread topics versus being able to read and contribute threads myself. And I assure you my fellow moderators are in the same boat.

When Keith makes the decision to add another area, it's not sudden and comes under a lot of behind-the-scenes discussion first. There are limited resources to manage the site and the amount of traffic at SMC is huge compared to many other forum sites.

Along this same line...if folks would be more thoughtful about their thread titles, it would help out tremendously with choosing what to read and where it should be, too.

That said, suggestions are always welcome...but... ;) ...they should go in the Forum Technical Support Forum, rather than here in General Woodworking. :)

Jim
SMC Moderator