Thursday, June 21, 2007

An Old Man Moment

I ran across Paul Southren's Blog today. He is the editor of Sword Buyers Guide, which I mentioned earlier this week. Frankly I'm starting to realize why I like his site. It reminds me of the way Sword Forum used to be back when I started reading it in college. Examples of current behavior:
Due to my publishing of a 'controversial' article on Backyard Cutting - which is in the eyes of Sword Forum International is effectively taboo without first getting proper instruction...
And...
And many people at SFI refuse to acknowledge or even look at swords priced under $500.
The sad thing is that it wasn't always this way. Frankly the site and people on it have changed a lot.

When it first got started, Sword Forum literally was a bunch of guys with little to no training doing cutting in their back yards with the best swords they could get their hands on. These were generally Deltin or Arms & Armor pieces that cost around $300-500. Maybe some Museum Replicas Limited swords snuck in, but back then they were just a Deltin distributor. A lot of the early days were spent explaining how to discern what was a quality sword, how to build a good pell, and how to do backyard cutting safely.

Now? Well to be honest the quality of affordable swords has improved and the quantity of instruction has increased in many areas. But most people still don't have qualified instructors close to them. Modern performance swords are also more fragile than the beaters of yore and much less forgiving.

Frankly, none of these things are a good reason to treat people like crap. SwordForumites have been known to do that. If someone comes in asking questions, the thing to do is give them answers, not tell them to use the search function and close their thread. Which is why this makes this statement from Paul Southern makes me feel good:
Since a lot of beginners tend to get shot down or mocked at SFI for posting or asking questions about entry level swords, I am planning to introduce my own forum for beginners and intermediate sword enthusiasts within the next couple of month - so watch this space!
Good for you Paul!

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