Do you ever wonder....

[Tony Zona]

Yes, I think it is. I posted a lot on an rv forum. One day a moderator apparently didn't like what I said. Rather than deleting the post, the coward mod changed it. Changed the meaning entirely.

Nobody from the forum would answer me. Nobody would delete it. So I was gone. It clearly is the right of the forum owner to call the shots, but not to change my thoughts.

That forum is sponsored by a business. I have since not spent thousands at the business. The owner doesn't know it, and I really don't care.

Deletion is fine. Changing thoughts crosses a line.

I disappeared from the forum. I don't care and nobody else did. And I have taken my rv business elsewhere.

[Scott Shepherd]

I was intensely involved in freshwater fishkeeping and was an active member on 5-6 sites for years(15 years or more) but lost interest and stopped posting on any of them within a very short time .
I wonder if getting offended is a valid enough reason to stop posting completely.

It probably happens more than you know. I can think about about 1/2 a dozen that got mad, took their marbles and left.

[Mark Blatter]

Yes, I think it is. I posted a lot on an rv forum. One day a moderator apparently didn't like what I said. Rather than deleting the post, the coward mod changed it. Changed the meaning entirely.

Nobody from the forum would answer me. Nobody would delete it. So I was gone. It clearly is the right of the forum owner to call the shots, but not to change my thoughts.

That forum is sponsored by a business. I have since not spent thousands at the business. The owner doesn't know it, and I really don't care.

Deletion is fine. Changing thoughts crosses a line.

I disappeared from the forum. I don't care and nobody else did. And I have taken my rv business elsewhere.

A case like you describe is certainly a valid reason to leave and not go back.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

A number years ago a group of folks left the Creek. Some of them left under their own power and some of them didn't. Frank Pellow was a friend those folks and left on his own accord. He was posting intermittently at familywoodworking forum.

Per Swenson, I miss. I learned a lot from him and always enjoyed the cantor between he and his Dad. I have no idea why he isn't participating any more.

It's not unusual for people's life situations to change and effect their participation at forums. Several of our moderators aren't as active as they once were just because their lives have changed and in some case so has their interests.

Some of those missing members are deceased....Andy Hoyt for example......and others.

[Moses Yoder]

If you think about it there are a number of things we don't know and do not have a reasonable way of finding out.

[Joe Tilson]

Some people find out they don't know as much as they thought they did. They choose to just sit back and learn. My brother just retired and has a friend who is mentoring him in woodworking. I don't have that available to me, so I go to the creek to learn what I can. We can then pick the method that suites us best. Besides that my wife told me some of my answers seemed sarcastic to her. That's why I don't post a lot on the creek.

[Rich Engelhardt]

And Per Swenson????????

Per is alive and well and feisty as ever - - - and working at making his chicken coop the Taj Mahal of chicken coops .
Or is it a hen house? I can never keep those two straight .

[Glenn Clabo]

I can speak for myself on this one...not that anyone missed me...but it's an example.

I joined SMC the day after it began and was asked to join the mod team later on. Then a little more than 5 years ago my wife took a job in Boston and I decided to retire. We moved into a condo on Boston harbor and decided to sell our house in Newport. Along with the house went most of my tools because I just couldn't see storing them not being sure if we'd ever leave the condo life. I picked up my camera and spent the last 5 years walking the streets of Boston and taking pictures. Then...as life happens...she got recruited to Michigan and we decided that a house was the best deal...so now I'm slowly getting back into replacing some (I'm not ever going to have as many as I did) tools and living in the burbs. Life simply takes turns that cause us to follow along for the ride.

Funny side note...I was very active in photography forums doing this time away from SMC...and I can't tell you how many people from all over the world recognized my name and told me about how great SMC was. It was a very cool to hear that.

[Rod Sheridan]

Per is alive and well and feisty as ever - - - and working at making his chicken coop the Taj Mahal of chicken coops .
Or is it a hen house? I can never keep those two straight .

That's good to know Eric, thanks.

I really enjoyed reading the postings from Per, glad to hear that nothing bad happened to him............Regards, Rod.

[Matt Marsh]

For me, my life changed drastically after I lost my wife to cancer in 2013. Woodworking has to take a back seat in my life for awhile.

[Patrick McCarthy]

I am a daily reader now, and was I was in the past but I did wander away for awhile a couple of years ago because, at that time, it seemed SMC was a turner's forum - or the majority of posts seemed to be about turning -
and I do more flat work and my predominant interest is in period furniture. For better or worse ( for you all) I came back.

i think people get to a saturation point, sometimes, and there is not enough new information or personalities to hold their interest. I used to participate in an audio forum which was enjoyable. Like a lot of us I started as a newbie, acquired the info that satisfied my level of curiosity, hung around and shared for a few years, but never had the desire or inclination to go to the level of learning , discussing, theorizing about sound waves, sine waves, hertz frequencies, etc, what the ear can and can't hear, etc. .Ssome very smart people there but it wasn't for me . . . . . . . Anymore . . . . So I wandered away. I imagine so prior posters here had similar experiences.

On the other hand, I assume some got offended or insulted by the lack of inflection inherent in the keyboard, took their bat and ball and went home.

just my thoughts. . . . . While I am still here.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I personally take the summers off from the creek for the most part. Work, is just too demanding then. Each fall when I come back though, some old names are gone. John Thompson for example posted a lot on knots, then we both came over here. I stayed, he apparently didn't. Fun to see the new names and meet some new characters.

[Brian Elfert]

I participate in a bunch of other forums. On one forum in particular there have been a great many frequent posters who just up and vanished over the years. Most of them left because they got into fights with other users, or the moderators deleted some of their posts and they got offended. One guy spent hours and hours deleting every post (hundreds and hundreds) he had ever made before finally deleting his account. The admin made it so posts over 48 hours old could not be edited or deleted after that. A number of others simply deleted their accounts and left.

[Keith Outten]

Brian,

We have had similar situations here in the past which is why we placed a 24 hour limit on editing. No matter what the situation I feel it is disrespectful to delete posts and threads when other Members have taken their time to contribute to threads a person creates, the loss is not just from one person removing their posts it can affect other people as well.

[Keith Outten]

Concerning Members of SawMill Creek that are now deceased I try to keep up with these types of situations and when I learn that this happens I change the persons title to "In Memoriam" and lock their accounts so everyone will know when they read the persons posts or threads. Because of my age its important to me to save these peoples information so that others may still benefit from their contributions here. At some point in time a young aspiring woodworker may vary well do a Google search looking for information about his Dad, Grandfather or other family member and find their posts here. I can only imagine how pleased they might be to not only read about their loved ones here but to see the pictures they left behind as well would be important to them.

Members of SawMill Creek would be amazed at the wealth of information that exists in our archived threads and posts. Most of the information shared ten years ago is still valuable today. We recently went over 2.3 million posts here, that represents a lot of hours that woodworkers have spent sharing their knowledge and expertise.