Very well said. I have seen other types of forums fade away for the same reason. Knowledgeable posters get tired of being picked at by ‘certain types’. Eventually the forum is a shadow of its former self.
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It's my first time on this forum in a long while....partly because I got busy.
The other part is because I don't find as much interesting content as back when Stan, George, David, etc were here.
They were opinionated, passionate, and experienced...with their own quirky sense of humor and pride.
And in terms of Stan--his goal was to allow talented blacksmiths to be able to eat.
There are blacksmiths of high skill, who do not have the marketing savvy like Tsunesaburo...but make a superior product.
He'd commission a few tools (to help pay their bills), and resell to cover his costs as a hobby.
In some cases, the smith was physically injured or sick (one had cancer, so the tool took 3 years to be delivered).
As for his real job--he's a high level project engineer for multiple multinationals working in Japan.
The tool thing is just a hobby/passion project for him, and not an income stream.
I could rant more, but I won't.
Just glad that others didn't forget about Stan.