Seems like there needs to be another section about guns <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

The CPF wiki (www.cpfwiki.com) is growing pretty slowly. I'm not sure what the reasons are.

There are very contentious sites (e.g. political sites) with tons more members than ETS has (like 10's of thousands) without too much moderation needed. I think the reason is they use better software. Maybe ETS will need to consider that.

It is logical that more members hover around volatile and controversial issues. A verrrry quiet forum is too boring for many. Depends what your intersts are. For me I would love things to stay the way they are , no religion, no politics, no guns. ( Just my humble opinion ).

However, as I have expressed before , I d like to see some sections like :

- Survival stories
- Survival equipment
- Survival techniques
- Long term survival
- Around Camp Fire ( welcoming new members, talking about what drew you to preparedness, or whatever)

Just my 0.02

> Seems like there needs to be another section about guns

I prefer the current system, where guns get discussed along with other survival equipment. Although such discussions are liable to wander into non ETS areas, having a separate topic would surely make that worse rather than better.

WAY back when, in times when few went online, the most popular online "site" (mind you this is pre web) was Compuserve(CIS) (which still exists, and is a pale shadow of itself - but nevermind)

One of the BEST parts of CIS was the forums. Forums were "limited" to 16 sections, one of which HAD to be private to admins, and the rest could be public/private as the Top administrator (called the Wizop) desired.

The Wizop could appoint "sysops" who had a set of admin rights to ALL the sections in that forum (as determined by the wizop) and "section leaders" - folks who had some set of rights in one or more sections. In general, sysops watched everything, Section leaders ran "their section" - and they all met in the Admin section to discuss what was going on on the forums in private

One of the NICE features was that as a topic drifted, we would move the thread to a new section - and if a flame war broke out, we had a few real options - the BIG one being that we could take the "branch" of the thread, and mark IT private, and MOVE it to the admin section - Now, if you were one of the people who were subscribed to that branch of that thread (by posting to it) - you would STILL see it, but NO ONE else would - what would then happen is the S/L or sysop who "killed" that part would usually give a polite talking to the members involved - laying down the law

The BIGGEST advantage however - was that to join CIS, you had to PAY - by the MINUTE - an advantage you say? Yep - because the SYSTEM (not the people) KNEW who you were - and you could be banned, and it was REALLY hard to get around a ban - going to a new IP didn't work, a new login didn't work - because they had your credit card, and therefore your credit info - unless you had a complete new ID - forget it

Most forums had between 10 and 14 public sections - it allowed specialization

I'd like to see something along the lines of the Bushcraft UK forum. They have categories for things like edged tools, equipment, general survival and bushcraft skills, food, plants and so on. The beauty is that if you don't care about a particular subject, you can go to the subject you have an interest in.
I like the folks here and appreciate everyone's inputs. I must say though, some topics just don't interest me and they are scattered anywhere in the 2 subject areas. The items surely have a place and someone has an interest, so they belong here. I just would rather see more subject division to make it easier to navigate to topics that I find of interest and others can do the topics that interest them. Just my thoughts on this idea. Cheers!

Thanks for your insight!

I'd definitely agree with Recommendation #1 and probably #2 (more topics, additional moderators).

The "show us your kit pictures" forum is a great idea, too. We'd have everything in one place and could ogle at different kits.

For what its worth, I like the Wiki idea. Doug's main pages are great, but he is only one man. New products are introduced faster than he can review them. Also, the same topics seem to keep coming up. I would LOVE to see wiki pages on the following topics:

Best firearms for survival use.
Best knives.
Best foods (MREs, mainstay, recipies, etc), including links to shopping.
Pro vs. Con of the various lighter types.

And this is just off of the top of my head. It seems that if we had a real wiki or at least a FAQ, some of the chatter could be cut down.

I vote for resolutions 1, 2, 3, and 4, except that I would rename/arrange the forum sections as follows:

a. Short-term planning
b. Long-term planning
c. Equipment
d. Kit Pics
e. Marketplace
f. Around the Campfire

And I vote for zero discussion of politics, religion, and whether or not to carry a gun (only discussion of WHICH gun, etc.). If politics and religion are given their own sections, the anger from those discussions will bleed over into the core sections.

And where would the "gun" section bleed? You are living in a fantasy world sir! <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

No no no! That's the only thing that's wrong with BushcraftUK, there are way too many subsections.

I end up browsing using the 'show new posts' to avoid having to click through 10s of different sections to see what's going on.