It is with some sadness that I take pen to paper (so to speak) to put into words what I feel is a sad but I suppose expected direction that fieldlines is going.
There was once a vibrant experimental feel about the board, where folks would try things and report back with stories and pics to indicate the good or bad ideas and move along.
Through the influence of Hugh, and Flux, it rapidly became clear which designs were the most efficient and buildable. The axial flux became the norm, and that was that.
Zubbly kept us intrigued with his conversions, but while tough and interesting, were just not up to the light wind capture that the Axials were.
Of course during that time, lots of folks were building them in various flavours, and placing their projects on this site. This was of great interest and always an enjoyable read.
Well the Dans have perfected their version, and retracted from discussion and moved on to other things, plus they have done it all before and I suspect there is only so much you can rehash.
So we get to today.
In August so far, there have been just three projects published on this board. Two have been from me, and one from Afghanistan. I hope some of you enjoyed the read and the pictures.... but what has happened to everyone else?
What is bothersome, is that none of the project type stories ever made it to the front page either.
Does this mean that projects are now of no importance at all?
I can recall Tomw saying that this is what he lives for.... apparently not any more.
It appears that the editors have decided not to encourage real stories but rather... "my cat is caught up the tree.. oh whoa is me help! help!"
When I spend hours trying to craft a story with scoop, only to find that the opinion of our editors is that it is less worthy of view than these competing classics:
Outback 3000 Watt Inverter Question
New! Smart Drive Bearing Specification
Alternative living home for sale in Northern Michigan
For Ghurd
Telephone wire coils for small wind turbine ?
New! So much Info
Searching
and other similar "front page stories"
Then I wonder if it is worth it any more.
It seems that the bent of the editorial staff is on twaddle rather than stories. I find this sad.... maybe that is why there is only three real stories in the month so far.
On a separate point, the chainsaw blade story could well have been added to the FAQ as it is the only innovative improvement to blade construction to have surfaced in the last 4 years that I know off.
In fact if you are going to build bigger blades, it is the only easy quick, accurate way to do it..... but now it will be lost in the forum archives, and no-one else will benefit.
Even Hugh Piggott has given a link to it from his front page... so it must have some merit.
Here it didn't even get to the front page as it was not considered worthy of interest. Other far more riveting titles such as these:
New! Plenty of Solar and Energy News here (just dribble really)
Treadmill Motor PVC Blades (no pics, just question)
Rewind (no pics just question)
.... were of more interest.
I don't understand why real stories are now discouraged, it feels like the modern electronics store now, where they want to sell you gadgets and phones, but no longer stock resistors and capacitors.
No it's sad. I for one will take the hint and publish no more articles that seem to be now out of step in the current climate. I (foolishly apparently) thought this is what we lived for.
So it seems that for this site now, it's "take your real stories elsewhere, we are just not interested anymore", instead we will ..... I don't know, what will we be interested in now..... more inane questions on the front page. Is this as good as it gets now?
Don't get me wrong the questions are very very valid, but pushing them onto the front page is just ...I don't know .. silly I think. The front page should be for projects... or interesting stuff, but it keeps changing for changings sake, not for decent content sake.... and that dilutes the use of a front page anyway.
Now at this point, Tom will get all uppity with me, and take offence. Thats not what I am after Tom. I would prefer you to address the point.... what do you actually want placed here... are real stories really less important than standard poorly researched questions?
I obviously just don't get it
.......sadly oztules