What has become of Bladeforums?

[Doc Dan]

I am sorry. I have been holding this in for a long time. Blade forums is BORING!

What happened to that place? It seems like after they made such a mess of their update that the place is not as good as it used to be. I really enjoyed hanging out there. Even the Spyderco sub-forum is really, really, really boring.

I quit hanging out on couple of places because of the arguing and fighting going on. I stopped getting on BF for about a year. I went back and the place is ASLEEP!

What happened?

[Naperville]

Blade Forums is garbage. Totally juvenile. A total waste of time.

I have a knife collection worth $20,000 with 90 knives in it. I rarely post pictures of any of them. I did not know but in "Whine and Cheese" people that have been on the site for a long time tear everyone up. The staff loves it, because they protect the little bastards. Because I had not posted pictures of all of my knives, they had been calling me a liar in Whine and Cheese. I was supposed to take all of my knives, lay them out, take pictures, upload them to the forum, to prove that I had knives to satisfy them. I complained, one day and I'll give you one guess as to whose account they locked up(banned).

[bearfacedkiller]

Social media has hurt the forums. Facebook and Instagram are much bigger in the knife community than bladeforums.

Blade forums also practices censorship. It is a shill forum. I have had critical posts removed in manufacturer sub forums and when I complained I was told to move along. They also don’t want you to discuss knives or vendors who are not paid members of the site. The whole site is just a big marketing tool.

Lastly, as Naperville said, the site is largely run by an inner circle of trolls who have been around forever. If they don’t like you they will actively try to bait you into a fight so they can get you banned. There is just a weird culture there. We have had many folks on this forum who were banned from bladeforums yet they didn’t cause any trouble here. It is cultural.

I still use the site a little and a few sub forums are nice places and are filled with good people. A lot of the site is a train wreck. I think a lot of folks have moved along to other places.

[OldHoosier62]

Yup...Pretty much what the previous posters said. I was an active member from 2004 until 2012. Had lots of fun, many good knife conversations and bought/sold/traded lots of knives with good folks. Then I had to take a a few years off due to health problems and when I returned almost all the folks I had known were gone, some had became a***holes and others had been banned for fairly minor issues that usually consisted of disagreeing with the wrong moderator/maker. Sad to see. Was a knowledge rich and fun place at one time, now not so much.

[JD Spydo]

Doc I tend to agree with you but maybe for slightly different reasons. I've been noticing that it's just not a very friendly place anymore like it had been in the past. And it seems like it' been that way since the turn of the New Year. I've been a member over there about as long as I've been a member here and I've had some good times and made some good trading friends over there. But lately when I've posted on different sub-forums ( Spyderco included) I just don't get much response and it seems like there are a lot of threads on the same subject on several of the sub-forums.

Oh I'm going to continue being a Gold or Platinum member over there because I still find it a great place to find information on a wide range of kinfe and tool related items. The guy that runs it is a very good guy and I try to support him when I can. But I agree it does seem like a different crowd at BF anymore. I love the Maintenance, Tinkering and Embellishment sub forum and read it a lot during the week. But it truly does seem to be a different crowd over there.

[TkoK83Spy]

Funny you guys mention this. When I first got interested in Spyderco knives 3 years ago, I was doing a lot of googling for questions I had. The answers would either come from BladeForums or right here. I would read the threads, and there were definitely A LOT of trolls and rude people on that forum. Especially towards someone new to knives that had a question. That's not the way to help this community grow! I would see a lot of helpful answers here and that's why I decided to join this forum. I've never had a BladeForums account.

[Mike Slayer]

Bladeforums has always been full of trolls, wannabe experts and petulant children. I remember the first forum I ever joined was Knifeforums. Then I heard about bladeforums so decided to join and see what was up. I was young and full of questions at the time. I searched bladeforums a lot before asking any questions. When I finally started asking questions it didn’t start or end well. Only answers I got were from smartasses that didn’t know anything along with wannabe self proclaimed experts that gave vague answers because I should already know this stuff. Well I never went back to Bladeforums. I stayed at Knifeforums until it went away. I miss Knifeforums a lot. I use to hang out at Bushcraft USA but they have a problem with self proclaimed experts as well. If you don’t bow down to them and their way of doing things you are a amateur and not worth their time. Most of my life I have done things my way and never fault anybody for doing things their own way as long as they get the same results. It really sad crappy people can ruin a good thing almost right off the bat.

[Evil D]

Been a lot of years since I went there. Too many strong personalities for me.

[The Meat man]

I always figured one forum was enough for me. Why go there when we've got such a great community here? Plus this one's free.

[MacLaren]

The only thing I do on Blade Forums is buy and sell.

[jpm2]

I wonder what its net worth is, how much $$$ in ad revenue, paid memberships, sales income, etc that site brings in per year.
Vastly different than this site, complete opposites I'd say.
Probably has no effect on how it's run....

[remnar]

I haven't been to bladeforums since the update. The place has always been full of "gold member elites" that treat others like trash. Once they implemented the screwy update, I didn't see any reason to continue to visit the site.

[JuPaul]

Funny you guys mention this. When I first got interested in Spyderco knives 3 years ago, I was doing a lot of googling for questions I had. The answers would either come from BladeForums or right here. I would read the threads, and there were definitely A LOT of trolls and rude people on that forum. Especially towards someone new to knives that had a question. That's not the way to help this community grow! I would see a lot of helpful answers here and that's why I decided to join this forum. I've never had a BladeForums account.

Funny, that's pretty much exactly what brought me here about a year ago. Had a few questions, googled them, found helpful answers in the threads here, and found people fighting and being awful to each other in the threads there. So I joined this forum and never looked back. :)

[208 tim]

This was pretty much the same experience for me. It didn't take long to see the differences between the two forums. Family friendly, everyone is chill here and any nonsense seems to get dealt with quickly. Added bonus, this forum loads fast on all my devices. Glad I joined!

Funny you guys mention this. When I first got interested in Spyderco knives 3 years ago, I was doing a lot of googling for questions I had. The answers would either come from BladeForums or right here. I would read the threads, and there were definitely A LOT of trolls and rude people on that forum. Especially towards someone new to knives that had a question. That's not the way to help this community grow! I would see a lot of helpful answers here and that's why I decided to join this forum. I've never had a BladeForums account.

[Sharp Guy]

I haven't been on BF much lately because I've been involved with other interests. The knife hobby is becoming a little stale for me but I do still enjoy the community, so I choose to spend my time here in a more friendly environment. That said, I haven't had any issues over on BF but I've only frequented a few sections. Like most large forums, BF has it's share of knuckleheads. I just ignore them. You think it's bad on BF you ought to check out some of the knife groups on Facebook.

Still can't figure out what issue there is with the update that some of you have mentioned. I've never had a problem navigating the site.

[SpyderGrill]

I lurk over at bladeforums. I have been on several forums of different topics for years and always sense if your not part of "the good ole boys" you dont belong. I see that here also, just not as much

[James Y]

I haven't been on BF much lately because I've been involved with other interests. The knife hobby is becoming a little stale for me but I do still enjoy the community, so I choose to spend my time here in a more friendly environment. That said, I haven't had any issues over on BF but I've only frequented a few sections. Like most large forums, BF has it's share of knuckleheads. I just ignore them. You think it's bad on BF you ought to check out some of the knife groups on Facebook.

Still can't figure out what issue there is with the update that some of you have mentioned. I've never had a problem navigating the site.

Your experience there sounds similar to mine. Bladeforums was the first online forum I ever joined when I first got onto the internet, back in 1998. But I don’t post as much as most of them do. I don’t go on to every forum there; lately I’ve mostly been on the multi-tool sub-forum. Yes, there are people on BF who are nitwits, but TBH I’ve never had any real problems there. Most of those I’ve interacted with there have seemed OK, and I’m not part of any good ol’ boys club there or anywhere else. I can count the number of threads I started on BF on one hand, but one time I started a new thread asking about more durable types of pants for outdoor use in the outdoor/wilderness forum, and I received a warning (IIRC, from the head guy at BF; I won’t mention his name here) because it should have been posted in the gear forum. Which seemed ridiculous to me. From the tone of the warning, you’d have thought I’d posted something nasty or threatening to someone, but it was just a legitimate question I mistakenly posted in the wrong forum. It felt like an overreaction on his part to me.

I’ve taken years at a time away from even visiting/browsing any online forums, period. I joined here in 2004, made maybe a couple posts, then didn’t really even visit here again until late 2018. Of the three forum sites I still frequent, this Spyderco forum is the one I visit the most. Most people seem pretty cool here. I haven’t noticed anything bad here, but of course, like anywhere, some people you’ll get along with more, or share more in common with than others, the same as anywhere else you’ll go, online or in real life.

Jim

[Doc Dan]

Well, on this forum people are pretty nice and we self police trolls as a rule.

[bearfacedkiller]

That is the takeaway here. The difference is cultural. Sal and Spyderco set the tone here and we abide by it.

The crazy thing is that there is very little official moderation on this forum yet things run smooth and stay civil. Bladeforums is HEAVILY moderated and it is a free for all filled with toxic behavior.

[VashHash]

I'm fairly active in Bladeforums and here. I browse a good bit of the sections there and haven't experienced any negative actions against myself. I do check their sell and trade section a lot and it's pretty much the reason I joined. I once joined a California gun forum to buy a knife without realizing what I even signed up for. Not until the guy asked what part of California I was in. I guess I just haven't run into the wrong people yet on bladeforums. One thing I do notice is they're very strict with posts being in the wrong sections and will immediately move them. Don't ever post a picture of a knife with a clip in the traditional section. Unless it's in the modern and traditional pairing thread.

I also agree a lot is happening on Instagram and Facebook and whatever else is out there. Those places are more for pics and showing off. Not the best places for knowledge in my opinion. I think this forum is full of knowledgeable people and people wanting and wiling to learn. Every now and then we have Sal and Phil Wilson chiming in. Larrin is doing some great articles. Haven't seen Ed Schemmp post anything in a while. Mike will set a lot of things straight especially with history of designs. Overall this is my favorite forum and I spend the most time here.