[UPDATE! The Forums are updated and new! They had been using old software and spambots were getting in. They’re all sparkly now.]
Like most people, I use various Forums. There are some great ones out there. The problem is that they’re all scattered and they all involve different people—even though many folks have similar interests. Why so much segregation and division? One hand doesn’t know what the other is doing and divided we fall. Sure, it’s powerful in one way, but a touch lacking in another.
OYB offers a range of Forums to cover the whole world of DIY action and style. (You can add more topics, if you like.)
With other forums you have all these great folks being kept apart…if only by the need for multiple log-in’s! : )
To me, all these subjects are ONE. They are related. They differ only in seasons and settings.
So, sure, specialize for power, but let’s not forget our integrated communities for their reality and personal development potential. We DIY’ers can HANG OUT TOGETHER and help each other at a place like OYB. Yet we don’t all have to do the same things.
Focused Forums work because they offer so much pinpoint expertise. With no strings attached. Yeah, but… Experts could hop into an OYB Forum. Their participation could have focus yet they’d also be acknowledging the integrity of the big picture for small-world culture.
OYB Forums have been available since before most of the other web forums existed. They haven’t caught on, so maybe “one big union” isn’t what folks want. (Or maybe it was the bad old software that I used until 10/07.) They were actually somewhat popular before the other forums launched. So maybe bikie people just don’t want to be around outdoorsmen who don’t like foodies. But that’s not what I see among my friends!
Yet, the old generalist hangouts—the Well, Foxfire, and WholeEarth—are all shadows of what they once were. So maybe “one big tent” just isn’t needed.
Places like Salon.com seem to thrive—they’re generalist—but not practical at all—and they play to a type and they’re not about access at all. OYB is a generalist place YOU can write for!
Really?
WalMart will take care of us?
I still think that the Modern Folkways concept has something to offer. And for a folkway to survive it has to be passed around…at a central location…like a campfire…doesn’t have to be big…it can be electronic even, since we’re moderns…but it does have to exist. Otherwise we’re just hobbyists, eh?
Well, if OYB Forums don’t ever catch on, I’d like to at least create a place where you can go to at least get at all the great DIY forums out there. So I’m putting up a list of links to Forums that I use. Feel free to add your own links! Just use the Reader Remarks button.
So here’s a list of links to DIY Culture Forums that you might find handy:
Duckworksmagazine.com (DIY boat-building)
WaterTribe.com (DIY small boat adventure)
Advrider.com (adventure moto)
Outdoors-magazine.com (campcraft)
Tradgang.com (traditional archery)
thefedoralounge.com (classic style)
christianpipesmokers.org (pipes…politely)
primitiveskillslinks.com (not a forum, but lotsa links)
Survival.com/IVB (primitive skills)
forums.organicgardening.com/eve
Then there are Google groups, which seem less popular than forums these days—probably because many are unmoderated and dominated by creeps—but they’re still good stand-by’s. And of course there are jillions of them. I use and enjoy: rec.bicycles.*, rec.knives, alt.zines, rec.guns, rec.hunting, rec.skiing.nordic, rec.boats.paddle, alt.smokers.pipes, rec.backcountry.
Yahoo has plenty of good groups, too—but they seem smaller and more isolated, for some reason. (Are they googleable?)
I’m also signed up to the great bike culture email list iBOB, available via Bikelist.org.
(And actually there isn’t a good canoeing/sea-kayaking forum at all—a couple come close, though.)
OK, maybe one main place isn’t needed…maybe the Net itself ties everything together. You just google whatever subject you like and put “forum” after it and presto, a community!
Still, I find the results to be fragmented and fragmenting, in a way. Each hobby, worldview or enthusiasm tends to be all-consuming, a lifestyle in itself.
The OYB view is that they all need to work together. At OYB we work against getting carried away by all this stuff—even though we use a lot of it and knowing how to use it right is the key to liberation.
(For instance, I just sharpened my handsaws the other day—now they melt thru logs like butter. Nearly as fast as chainsaws. –Which themselves need to be kept sharp! Put blade-covers on all your saws right now! Grease em, too! With a sharp tool a job is done quickly, nicely, safely. Handling tools wrong is *self-defeating*—and who needs that? When you use tools wrongly you end up avoiding the task—hiring it out, going to the store to try to shop it away, making a lot of noise to blast it away, and generally overcomplicating it into consumerist hyperspace.)
https://www.outyourbackdoor.com/forum/
