Tom,
I think we would all love to scrutinize and examine what the Navy is using for survival. Any help you need you are in the right place.


Alex,
If you love gear maybe get a part time job at REI. In a short time you will be an expert if you want to learn. I worked for REI for several years and they are quite serious abot product knowledge and training. REI also has handouts (called PIGs; product information guides) for each product category (tents, stove etc.) with a ton of info including weights and such.
Don't get me wrong I love gear but as I age I appreciate knowledge and skill a bit more.

Bill

Thanks for advice. Many children are dreaming of working at Toys'R'us But I'm afraid that commercial side of such an "institution" might limit my choices of gear to study. They call it corporate ethics I doubt they will sell anything what's not immediately profitable...

I'm really envy to TomApple's job

I'm on the fence with this one. I like the gear discussions to get feedback from those members who have actually used the stuff my wife won't let me put in the cart at Campmor. Although you can't really "learn" skills on the internet, this forum is great for giving me my ideas of what to practice when I do get out.

I think Alex has the best idea. More forums and subforums (sorry admins).

I must disagree on this point folks. I, like a few of the usual suspects here, enjoy hanging out on EDCF as well as here. My issue there is that there are SO MANY subs that I actually find it quite difficult to find what I'm interested in. I know, doesn't sound like it makes much sense, but here, with just a few forums, I scan subject lines and open the threads that sound interesting, instead of scanning 30 subs, and seeing what looks interesting today...oh wait, I already opened this sub...now, did I skip one?

I like the format ETS has now.

I agree. I know of to many forums that have 15+ subforums and it's virtually impossible to keep track of all of them. To bad..

It's 'Equipped to Survive' so the primairy focus of this site is gear and gear-review.

JIM, Ors? Have you ever tried the "View newest messages", "View messages for the past XX hours", "View unread messages from your last visit", "View new answers to your messages" buttons on those forums with many Forum categories? That's MUCH more convenient than browsing the categories manually. The primary benefit of the multiple-themed forums is automatic information sorting and categorization, so it's easier to find something from the past discussions, it's more organizing for the posters of new subjects, and also allows to ignore some sorts of discussions one may dislike.

Just imagine that you came to your local Grocery store and found that all of their goodies are now in one (Ok, two sided) huge 300 feet long pile, and sorted only by the expiration date

That's probably depends on your Preferences. I'm clearly see [new] icon against every new message in the thread (I'm using "Flat Mode" for topic Display in my Preferences).

Alex,

I guess it's just a personal preference, but I just seem to like a single or a few forums for all topics. That also sorts out the problem of 'where should I post this, in the gear-categorie or personal experiences.'

Since I come to this and other forums daily, I don't use any view-specific options(just flat-threaded). I just look at all the forums, and then it's much easier if you only have 3 forums (ETS) in stead of 30 (....)

Again, just a personal preference.

Well, on "civilized" forums people usually quote the text they are replying to, or at least call their opponent by his/her nickname, in case their answer is not immediately following the message they are replying to. It's that simple! Just click "Quote" instead of "Reply", an delete the irrelevant or excessive quotation to concentrate on what you're going to say. So there is no anything like "threaded vs flat mode" discussions or arguing happens ever.

By the way, one needs just 2 mouse clicks to switch from/to threaded/flat mode: "Topic Options" menu near the top of this page.
(Just tried that... Oh no! I'm lost. I'd better keep it flat

That's why we have a little link just next to the title of the topic, wich brings you to the message that it replied to.