A new set of chisels from Stan

[Gary Cunningham]

Mike and Patrick, thank you both for writing essentially what I would have done.

I have visited a goodly number of woodworking fori over the years. There are probably just three that I consider to be capable of producing thought-provoking posts. SMC is one of them. To be so, it is due to the quality of the membership. These qualities centre on experience and creativity, along with a willingness to share. The situation is analogous to "you can have it fast, good or cheap. Pick any two". We strive to make all three are available in one thread. There are many here who do.

I have seen excellent forums losing the "leading" posters, and then the quality of the forum declines until the posts are predominantly about show-and-tell. A forum may continue, but the life is sapped from it, and slowly it fades away as standard remain low. It is absolutely imperative that experienced posters are encouraged. The only moderation I consider important is for personal attacks. Keith - please take note here! By-and-large, good fori are self-moderating. We are not fools when we read self-serving posts, those prompted by jealousy, or posters with just plain oppositional or pig-headed attitudes. Them we can just ignore.


Regards from Perth

Derek

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.

[Matt Lau]

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.