# Forum More Stuff At the end of the day  The decline of the internet "Forum"

## Marc

If you look around any forum on any subject you care to think of, there is one common denominator among all of them. The number of visitors be it members or guests is half or a quarter of what it was only 5 years ago.  
Some forum decline by natural attrition. For example the Toyota Surf owners club, was a product of the 90ties and the Toyota Surf grey import. Once the window was closed, the cars got old and people got rid of them, the club numbers have dwindled.  Other forum got killed by the so called GFC, particularly the boat related forum. 
This forum has clearly lost a lot of activity even when I can not point to any particular cause.  
Political religious and other ideological forum where the "activity" is all in the typing, even those have lost scores of members, so what is it that makes a forum a great place to go to and ask and answer, and what is that makes people go away? 
Is it the Google mentality of finding an instant answer and not wanting to wait for a reply?
Is it the always present bullying? the fear of ridicule? difficulties in writing, be it real or perceived?    
Clearly the internet forums have seen better days. I am just curious if you see the same and if you perhaps can tell the reasons for it.

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## phild01

If this forum has a decline I would put it down to the way people's enthusiasm for DIY has intentionally been dampened by regulation of what and how things can be done.  This has also increased building costs by trades taking advantage of their trade being upgraded to gold status.  Again I say it, the insurance industry looking for any excuse to influence the way things should be done and thus the publication of yearly updates to code, that needs vigilant attention.

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## SilentButDeadly

Depends on the forum and the topic at hand. Some I participate in are lively and growing while others like this one womble along quietly but consistently. It all comes down to energy and who has it. Phil is right though...not much capacity for or tolerance of diy in buildings these days so general forums like this one don't get to grow. Alt building and self sufficient stuff though is moving on nicely in other spaces where contemplation of fear and consequences is less prevalent.

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## Uncle Bob

I think there has been bit of a decline. Neil would've been able to throw some light of the figures if he had desired.
I put most of it down to Whirlpool allowing all and sundry topics these days. I'd hazard a guess and say they get more postings there per day in their "Home" forum regarding posts that are relevant here. Lucky for you guys and Whirlpool, I frequent both  :Wink:  
Hopefully the new owners of this forum have some plans to somehow turn it around.

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## Marc

*The Old Internet Neighborhoods* 
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN JULY 10, 2011 5:30 PMJuly 12, 2011 2:34 pm 105 Comments   Virginia Heffernanon digital and pop culture.  
It took my husband and me eight months to conceive our first child. Much of that time was passed in bored agitation, like a long wait at a Verizon Wireless store. To pass the time, swap information, and quiet my mind, I turned to an online message board for women who are Trying to Conceive — TTC, one of the first message-board acronyms I learned. Then, rapidly, I learned the rest of the lingo known to the voluble and surprisingly large community of women who turn to the Internet to ask intensely personal questions: TWW (two-week wait), BFN (“big fat negative”) and OPK (ovulator prediction kit).  That was in 2004. The message board was corny, but also a revelation. The voices on it were provocative, frequently ingenious and charged with emotion (and emoticons). Practical tips (and scientific reports) were exchanged, and subject to critique. Friendships were struck — and some even materialized in three-dimensional places like bars. Women whose posts suggested distress were often treated to “good vibes” and virtual hugs. You knew you’d been hugged on a message board when your screen name was rendered in double and triple parentheses, like this: (((you))). 
Not to get too misty, but the board format itself might deserve a nostalgic embrace. The Internet forum, that great old standby of Web 1.0., has become an endangered species. 
Many boards are stagnant or in decline, if they even still exist. Several once-thriving boards on the women’s site iVillage have closed up shop. Big fan-fiction boards haven’t seen real action in years. Last month, a once-popular eight-old-year British board about mental health went dark with a note: “The Internet has changed significantly.” These are serious signs of the digital times. Message boards were key components of Web 1.0 — the Web before broadband, online video, social networking, advanced traffic analysis and the drive to monetize transformed it. 
If urban history can be applied to virtual space and the evolution of the Web, the unruly and twisted message boards are Jane Jacobs. They were built for people, and without much regard to profit. How else do you get crowds of not especially lucrative demographics like flashlight buffs (candlepowerforums.com), feminists (bust.com) and jazz aficionados (forums.allaboutjazz.com)? By contrast, the Web 2.0 juggernauts like Facebook and YouTube are driven by metrics and supported by ads and data mining. They’re networks, and super-fast — but not communities, which are inefficient, emotive and comfortable. Facebook — with its clean lines and social expressways — is Robert Moses par excellence. 
Like other intimate forums — for baseball fans (baseball-fever.com), say, or inmates’ loved ones (prisonttalk.com) — the fertility board I visited borrowed traditions of anonymity, sharing and familial squabbling from the recovery movement that had its heyday in the 1980s and ’90s. The boards were always long on community, and short on dough. Between 1997 and 2007, they seemed to crop up everywhere. Though people who posted on these boards digressed almost as often as they stayed on topic, the forums flew under quite specific banners: not only video games, books, music and sex, but also Spanish cars, plastic surgery, grieving, paintball and bodybuilding. Only the very biggest, like fanfiction.net, sold ads; many ended up passing a hat for PayPal donations. 
But the forums were spontaneous, rowdy and often inspired Internet neighborhoods. For millions of users, they quickly became synonymous with “The Internet.” They were well-populated. Today the ranking general-interest boards, like Off Topic and Something Awful, have more than 100 million posts. (The biggest board in the world, Gaia Online, a Japanese board devoted to role-playing and anime, has nearly 2 billion posts.) Still, for all their importance to individual Web users, the boards were almost invisible to anyone intent on profiting off Web traffic — and so they’ve been nearly written out of the history of the Internet. A riveting 1997 article by Katie Hafner in Wired told of the rise and decline of The Well, a venerable online community that began in 1985, as part of the bygone dial-up bulletin board system. Historians have since written shelves full of books on Web search and e-commerce, but very few about message boards. (A notable exception is William Cast’s 2005 book “Going South,” about Yahoo’s HealthSouth board, which became a forum for the company’s angry employees and eventually gave investors tips about the company’s direction.) 
A message board is different from a chat room in that its entries are archived. The archive becomes a key component of discussions, with many posters internally linking to and footnoting archived entries. When, in 2004, someone started a thread on a site for digital-video buffs called MovieCodec with “i am so lonely will anyone speak to me,” the spontaneous replies by pseudonymous posters — some sympathetic, some teasing — came to form a master documentthat’s both existential and hilarious. Collaborative documents like that one — made famous at the time in articles in Wired and The New Yorker — are what the Web loses when forum villagers flee for the Facebook megalopolis (population 750 million). 
Lori Leibovich, the founder of Kvetch, the message board of which the fertility board was a part, told me she thought message boards were becoming “almost quaint, which I find sort of sad.” She likened boards like Kvetch to “group therapy,” adding that “conversations ‘stay in the room’ and you’re invested in the individuals in the group. Social networks are about broadcasting. More about your persona than it is about you as a person.” Sure, funny and stirring things happen on Facebook and Twitter, but their protocols, which stress accountability and striving over anonymity and play, tend to make social exchanges routine. The likelihood of an “i am so lonely” tone poem is reduced. I feel sure I wouldn’t post “((hugs))” to Twitter, either. “((Hugs))” belong in softer lighting; they don’t quite belong in the undignified glare of the fluorescent social networks. 
I recently returned to AltDotLife, a big message board for women. At the top of the page, one of them wrote: “Is there reason to be concerned about the health of the board?” The writer hit the problem on the head. “We had about 20K-24K posts per month in 2008-09,” she wrote, “and that number has gotten gradually lower so that in the past several months, it’s been more like 13K-15K. And here we are 2/3 of the way through June and we’re at only 8365.” 
She had some notion of what was up, and asked others to chime in. A chorus responded, suggesting that Facebook had snapped up some former posters, while others had just moved on. “I used to come to ADL as a main source of chit chat with friends … but now I tend to go to FB for that,” one wrote. “My guess is that as time went on and the archives got larger and larger, many people are researching old topics rather than starting new threads,” another wrote. “Every possible topic has already been discussed.” 
The lively analysis continued for several more posts, until the group had thoroughly sized up the state of affairs. Then the discussion petered out. 105COMMENTS SHARE   VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN, FERTILITY, INTERNET FORUMS, MESSAGE BOARDS, WOMEN

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## r3nov8or

Forums were once one of the rare ways to express oneself online. Now there is a plethora of social media options in which to spend time, many of them far more 'on trend' (hate that phrase!) than the humble forum, and people only have so much time everyday...

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## phild01

> Forums were once one of the rare ways to express oneself online. Now there is a plethora of social media options in which to spend time, many of them far more 'on trend' (hate that phrase!) than the humble forum, and people only have so much time everyday...

  It beats me why people are so absorbed by facebook.  I hate the thing!

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## Random Username

Some random thoughts: 
1) Increase in apartment style living, where maintenance is taken care of by a body corporate
2) Increase in renting, where maintenance is taken care of by the landlord/agent
3) Less emphasis on manual arts in schools
4) Easy enough to find answers on the web (even if the better answers are here)
5) Less enthusiasm for DIY work as you might get your hipster glasses or ironically retro tee shirt dirty and leave you with less time for slouching around listening to coffeehouse folk music (that is an actual music genre, horrible as it may seem),
and,
6) Admin rot - many sites go into decline when the original owner loses interest (see also 'gets a girlfriend/life/real job/other interests') or when the lure to monetise content leads to disappointment. For example, the owner of the original Encyclopedia Dramatica pulled the site off the web in a huff when a similar-content site was sold to the Cheezeburger Network for a few million dollars - the ED owner felt hard done by having a site that was not ever going to be work-safe. 
And...reading that article...did she say that there are less fan fiction sites?  Please let this be true - there are already too many Kirk-Spock (or Han-Chewbacca) homoerototic fan fictions!

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## Bedford

> If you look around any forum on any subject you care to think of, there is one common denominator among all of them. The number of visitors be it members or guests is half or a quarter of what it was only 5 years ago.

  
 An IP search of those visitors would show that roughly 50% are just spammers, and a lot are overseas people that rarely join the forum.     

> Is it the Google mentality of finding an instant answer and not wanting to wait for a reply?

   I think so, there are so many forums that weren't around years ago with so much info you only have to search Google and the answer will come up on several forums instantly, (in most cases)    

> Clearly the internet forums have seen better days. I am just curious if you see the same and if you perhaps can tell the reasons for it.

   In the past Forums used to tell members to do a search  before asking a question as it may already have been answered, a lot  did, and found the answer they needed so moved on, self destructive  really.

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## r3nov8or

> In the past Forums used to tell members to do a search  before asking a question as it may already have been answered, a lot  did, and found the answer they needed so moved on, self destructive  really.

   That's fair. It's just a fact that Google is far more happy to repeat itself over and over again...  :Smilie:

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## shauck

and with my bad memory, google does often have to repeat itself over and over again

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## Marc

I have a facebook account and use it to exchange photos with the family. A very good tool and keeps the family connected as the phone use to 30 years ago. 
The facebook tragics are a different story, and if they did not have that, probably would be part of some other tragedy. Does not bother me. All you do is keep your site private and select your visitors. You can post your DIY exploits for your extended family to see ...  :2thumbsup:

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## Marc

coffeehouse folk music...homoerototic fan fiction...hipster glasses...retro tee shirt... ha ha :Wave:

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## toooldforthis

> Some random thoughts: 
> 1) Increase in apartment style living, where maintenance is taken care of by a body corporate
> 2) Increase in renting, where maintenance is taken care of by the landlord/agent
> 3) Less emphasis on manual arts in schools *4) Easy enough to find answers on the web* (even if the better answers are here) *5) Less enthusiasm for DIY work* as you might get your hipster glasses or ironically retro tee shirt dirty and leave you with less time for slouching around listening to coffeehouse folk music (that is an actual music genre, horrible as it may seem),
> and,
> 6) Admin rot - many sites go into decline when the original owner loses interest (see also 'gets a girlfriend/life/real job/other interests') or when the lure to monetise content leads to disappointment. For example, the owner of the original Encyclopedia Dramatica pulled the site off the web in a huff when a similar-content site was sold to the Cheezeburger Network for a few million dollars - the ED owner felt hard done by having a site that was not ever going to be work-safe. 
> And...reading that article...did she say that there are less fan fiction sites?  Please let this be true - there are already too many Kirk-Spock (or Han-Chewbacca) homoerototic fan fictions!

  yep.
think 4 & 5 are the main contributors. search is yr friend.everyone wants everything already done or willing to pay exorbitant $ to get it done

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## Cecile

> I put most of it down to Whirlpool allowing all and sundry topics these days. I'd hazard a guess and say they get more postings there per day in their "Home" forum regarding posts that are relevant here. Lucky for you guys and Whirlpool, I frequent both .

  Whirlpool has a lot to answer for in some ways.  Many of the questions asked are answered by less than qualified folks who truly don't know what they are talking about, which leads to lots of arguments and finger-pointing.  Plus, there aren't as many highly skilled tradespeople there to jump on board and guide you through your question/building dilemma.  I know some of us also post there, but I know where I'd rather be looking for my building information.

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## phild01

Agree.

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## Normanby

As far as this forum goes any decline is probably not helped by the experience encountered by new members who may then decide it is too hard to make posts.
I have recently joined after finding this forum when looking for information as I was building a new deck and stairs. Much good info so I joined. However every time I have written one of a few posts I get a message telling me it has to be verified before it is posted. This would be ok if it was done in a reasonable time but I wrote and submitted my last post about 36 hours ago without it appearing on the forum
It was on the thread "Good brand dropsaw blades" where I was reading replies with interest two nights ago as there were quite a few current responses so I thought I would contribute into the discussion. Unfortunately my reply is still in limbo and that thread has settled down. I did receive two automatic emails telling me that two different members had posted replies. Why was I sent these and why have I had no reply about my post?
I admit that I am not an experienced forum user or proficient internet user but I think if posting replies is difficult for new members then they may decide to not to stay around.
In my case I will stay and hope I find it easier to post replies in the future. I read a post from another new member this morning who is having problems and who was a bit blunt in his comments so received a few unhelpful replies so maybe they may not stay.
I have read the rules for new members and the "FAQ"s but this did not provide any answers to my problem.

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## Uncle Bob

Hi Normanby, It looks like the forum might have a problem where it isn't showing all post that are in moderation. 
I'll bring to Admin's attention.

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## woodbe

Depends on the time we live in. 
Before the internet, we all subscribed to a bunch of magazines and bought handyman books about tools, plans and methods of doing the things we wanted to do. 
When the internet arrived we had email, mailing lists and newsgroups that supplied much of the same information at our fingertips. Forums followed in their wake and pushed them to the back of the room. Then search engines appeared, the first significant was AltaVista then Google indexed the whole lot which made answers available for most questions that had already been asked a thousand times. 
Social media arrived which spread the previously focussed structure into a paper thin layer over the top of all that history. No surprise that traditional forums are struggling to maintain their readership and new content.  
The forums that grow fast are the ones that are focussed on something that has not been discussed before, like new devices and tech. They level out after a while just like the older forums did if the subject of the site becomes mainstream or if it loses mindshare to something incrementally superior.  
Whirlpool of course tries to be both a new and an old forum with a bit of chaos thrown in.  :Smilie:

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## Random Username

And you have to remember that many people just want an answer, but not to actually join and participate in the forum.   
It's a byproduct of using site member numbers as a performance metric - you get what you measure. 
I, for one, am guilty of creating use-once accounts on forums where I just want to see a picture or follow a link. I register with a throwaway email, see what I want, and never go back to the site.  I've probably done this on dozens of forums.

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## ringtail

Maybe us tradies are sick of giving away our secrets for free  :Biggrin:  :Tongue:

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## SilentButDeadly

> Maybe us tradies are sick of giving away our secrets for free

  Yeah right  :Smilie:  
Just cause I read a secret doesn't mean I have the skills put it into practise. There's a reason that we had visits from sparkies and a plasterer today despite the fact I could've done both jobs myself. So your 'secrets' are safe enough...

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## Marc

Interesting comments.I don't even know what whirlpool is, besides the brand of my dishwasher  :Smilie: 
As far as "secrets", that is a good one. However the reason for tradesman secrets being rather safe generally speaking is because people don't necessarily want to learn new tricks, just tell their own. 
For example, I am a blacksmith, learned the trade since age 15 and had a master from Italy who had generations of experience passed to me. I was in a fete in St Auburn recently watching a couple of blacksmith doing their thing. Their work was good but had no finish. Plain steel, looking good when recently done but obviously will rust soon enough. 
I got talking with one of them and asked him if he ever thought of using plumbago for the finish, and passed to describe how to do it for a permanent nice finish like it was done by blacksmith in europe for centuries. You think he would be interested? you would be wrong. What does a wog know right?  Ha ha

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## phild01

> and asked him if he ever thought of using plumbago for the finish, and passed to describe how to do it for a permanent nice finish like it was done by blacksmith in europe for centuries. You think he would be interested? you would be wrong. What does a wog know right?  Ha ha

  And the secret is......?

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## toooldforthis

> I got talking with one of them and asked him if he ever thought of using plumbago for the finish, and passed to describe how to do it for a permanent nice finish like it was done by blacksmith in europe for centuries. You think he would be interested? you would be wrong. What does a wog know right?  Ha ha

  some people are too arrogant to even think someone else might know something; or too insecure to take part in a conversation that might show them up - especially if they are 'on display' at a fete or similar.
I remember being at a permaculture festival back in the 70's in Tassie. I was watching an old knarly bloke maybe in his late 60's, 70's, an axeman, splitting some wood for cladding, fence rails etc. A real craftsman the way he used that tool - used it the way a carpenter could use a chisel. In the onlookers was another knarly old bloke and the two got to talking - he also was an axeman, from about 10kms down the road - the two had never met before but obviously had much respect for each other and they got to talking about axes, and steel, and sharpening edges etc - neither showing off, but sharing a lifetime of hard earnt knowledge freely. I think all the onlookers that day learn't something, not just about axes, but pride in your skill, self confidence from a hard life well lived, and humility.

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## r3nov8or

> And the secret is......?

   This, I believe - Plumbago Powdered Graphite 1Kg, Artisan Foundry Shop 
Just Googled "plumbago metal finish". What secrets do tradies have that google doesn't? haha.  I guess I did need the secret clue "plumbago"...

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## Marc

Yes, that is one of the few suppliers left for plumbago. I use to buy it from the local hardware store when I was a kid. It was used extensively to polish among other things wood fired stoves, heaters and locomotives....
Yet even then it was old hat and most folks unless in the foundry business, wouldn't know what it was ... Plumba what? hehe

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## Marc

*DESCRIPTION* (OCR text may contain errors) t 1 UNITED STATES, PATENT OFFICE. JULIUS G. POHLE, OE GEORGETOWN, COLORADO. STOVE-POLISH. SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 501,845, dated Ju1y'18, 1893. Application filed April 8.1886. Serial No, 198,267. (Specinmns)- T0 at whom it may 0070667711.". Be it known that I, JULIUs G. POHLE, of Georgetown, in the county of Clear Creek, and in the State of Colorado, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Stove- Polish; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof. The object of my invention is to provide an improved polish for stoves, ranges and other metal work, and to this end my invention consists in the polish and method of preparing the same, as hereinafter specified. In my pending application, Serial No. 177,089, I have described and claimed broadly a stove polish containing plumbago and phosphoric acid, preferably the mono-hydrated acid. While a polish consisting simply of plumbago and the phosporic acid is a good one, far ,outlasting the ordinary stove polishes, and while, unlike such polishes, it can be put on the stove when the latter is hot or cold and will take a good polish, still I have found it desirable to make certain changes in its composition to better suit it for use and to neutralize the ill effects of alkaline earthy, or other impurities in the plumbago used. It has been found that the plumbago of commerce contains alkaline earths, earthy substances and metallic oxides as impurities, and that such impurities absorb and chemically combine with a portion of the free phosphoric acid present in my polish, as described and covered in my other application referred to, and thus proportionately diminish the noncombustible quality given to the plumbago by the phosphoric acid. To neutralize such impurities and thus prevent them entering into chemical union with the phosphoric acid, I add, either before or after the phosphoric acid has been mixed with the plumbago, a small quantity of sulphuric or hydrochloric acid. I prefer, however, to add such acid in conjunction with the phosphoric acid in solution, as follows :Redface: To the phosphoric acid in aqueous solution I add a small quantity of sulphuric or hydrochloric acid,and then add this mixed solution to the requisite quantity of plumbago, and incorporate the whole to the consistence of a stiff dough, adding sufficient water for this purpose, in case the solution of phosphoric acid with its admixture of other acid, was not sufficient toproduce this doughy consistence. The alkaline earths, earthy impurities and metallic oxides are thus neutralized by the sulphuric or hydrochloric acid, either of which acids has a greater affinity for them than the phosphoric acid, and the pure plumbago is left to the full and free action of the uncombined phosphoric acid which,"as set forth in my pending application referred to, renders the particles of carbon forming the plumbago incombustible. I prefer to use sulphuric acid for thus neutralizing the impurities, but do not intend to limit myself to such acid. The action of the phosphoric acid and its advantages in composition with the plumbago, need not be set forth herein at length, as they are fully described in my other said application. Instead of using the mono hydrated or glacial phosphoric acid, the chemical symbol of whichis PO HO, I contemplate using other kinds of phosphoric acid, as set forth in said application, such as the anhydrous, bi or terhydrate, or some salt or compound capable of yielding free phosphoric acid during the use of the polish, such, for instance, as phosphate of ammonia. The relative proportions of the phosphoric acid and plumbago which I use are, as set forth in my said other application,that is, the amount of each acid used is from five to twenty per cent. of the amount of plumbago. The proportion of acid which gives the best result, is about fifteen per cent. Of the impurities found to exist in commercial plumbago, the alkaline earths referred to hereinbefore consist essentially of the carbonates of lime and magnesia, and the earthy substances are chiefly alumina, silica, and sulphate of lime together with ferruginous compounds. To neutralize the objectionable ingredients existing as impurities in plumbago, I have found that one per cent. of the weight of the plumbago, of ordinary commercial sulphuric acid will be suflicient. Should, however, the impurities exceed ten per cent. a proportionate increase in the amount of the sulphuric acid should be made. The point especially desired to be reached is the neutralization of the salifiable bases, Viz: the carbonates of lime, magnesia, alumina and oxide of iron, and one per cent. of sulphuric acid added to or mixed with good commercial plumbago is enough to form with these impurities, chemical compounds known as sulphates of lime, magnesia, iron-and alumina. When the less desirable hydrochloric acid is used as the impurity neutralizing agent,the compounds then formed of such impurities are the chlorides of calcium, magnesium, iron, and aluminum. Sulphuric acid is the best for this neutralizing action, but I contemplate, if desired, using either hydrochloric or acetic acid instead. Stove polish made of plumbago and phosphoric and sulphuric acid, as hereinbefore set forth, I have found willlast many times longer than the polishing substances, as heretofore made by others and now in the market, will take a goodpolish whether the stove is hotor cold when it is applied, will retain such polish in spite of great and continued heat, and will not spot as other polishesdo when water is dropped on the surface. On account of the tacky nature of phos: phoric acid when the cake of compound of plumbago with phosphoric and sulphuric acids is broken up, it assumes a granular form without dust. In such form it is most convenient for use, as it is always loose in the package and, therefore, free to be poured out as desired, and when used forms no dust to be lost and scattered, and makes no dirt. While the compound as already set forth at length herein makes a good stove polish and is easily made into thin paste with water when desired for use, I- prefer to add to it a little saccharine matter to aid and hasten the disintegration of the particles forming the granules when the latter are poured into water just before use of the polish by the consumer. Such saccharine matter I prefer to introduce by adding it to the solution of phosphoric acid and sulphuric acid before such solution is mixed with the plumbago in the manner set forthhereinbefore. Theamountof saccharine matter best to be used is about three per cent. charine matter, but neither of them would be as good or desirable as the latter for various reasons. As indicated, the saccharine or other hygrometric substance is not a necessary ingredientin my stove polish, but can be dispensed with or left out without affecting or lessening the special good qualities of the polish, that is, the ability to receive readily a good gloss, whether the surface to which it is applied is hot or cold, and to retain such gloss for a great length of time unchanged by heat or by liquids dropped on it. Having thus described my invention, what I claim is i A stove polish containing plumbago, phosph oric acid, and a hygrometric substance, substantially as and for the purpose specified. In testimony that I claim the'foregoing I have hereunto set my hand this 5th day of April, A. D. 1886. JULIUS c. Po LE.  PS     I make no claim of ever having used the above concoction nor it is anywhere near what I use for finishing Blacksmith work, however if anyone feels so inclined to handle      phosphoric and sulfuric acid, it may even work!     You never know ...

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## SilentButDeadly

> This, I believe - Plumbago Powdered Graphite 1Kg, Artisan Foundry Shop 
> Just Googled "plumbago metal finish". What secrets do tradies have that google doesn't? haha.  I guess I did need the secret clue "plumbago"...

  Knowing what it is doesn't mean you know the secret. I know what dynamite is but you won't find me trying to figure out how it works on my own...

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## r3nov8or

> Knowing what it is doesn't mean you know the secret. I know what dynamite is but you won't find me trying to figure out how it works on my own...

   Secrets secrets secrets... Just google dynamite and have a go!

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## METRIX

> some people are too arrogant to even think someone else might know something; or too insecure to take part in a conversation that might show them up - especially if they are 'on display' at a fete or similar.

  
Prior to my current career I used to work an office job in IT. managed a team of suposed "IT EXPERTS", throughout my many IT years I gained a lot of skills on my own via research, experimentation and speaking to others. 
There was a few guys I worked with who would not help anyone, they would only provide "the minimal information that was necessary" to the asking party to get them by, then the other party would come back and ask again, and were provided with a little more, meanwhile the "expert" would big note themself how good they were - Tossers. 
This used to urk me, as when I was asked for assistance I would provide everything they needed in the first encounter, give them expectations of what they might come across and how to fix this, I hardly got them coming back for more informaiton as I had provided them everything they needed to get them out of trouble, I would see the others a few day later and they said it was exactly what you said, and your fix worked a treat. 
I used to freely say I had nothing to hide, and looked on it as when I move on I would hope I had passed on my experiences to my staff so they felt competent, as I was always learning more I wasn't trying to protect the informtion I had, after all this was my job, it was not to hide information, and make it hard for others to find what they needed, and "rely" on you to feed them little bits of this and that like a puppy. 
This was to be my downfall in that job, as when times got bad and retrenchments started to happen, the knives came out, and everyone was "protecting" their role at all costs, I wasn't interested in the games they were playing and refused to stab people I had worked with for many years and formed friendships with, unfortunately this didn't apply for everyone, I got stabbed by one of the bosses best mates in a bid to protect his role. 
Fair enough, I accepted that, if that was the way things had to be done to survive then I wasn't interested, I remember at the meeting we had where they told you the old unfortunately speech, I was not interested in anything they had to say as I knew it was all crap, they said their thing and asked do you have any questions, I said yes I have only one question, how much is my payout figure, they said is that all, don't you want to know this or that, I replied NO because I know what you are saying is not the truth so all I have is one question, they provided me the figure, I said thank you very much that will pay off the mortgage and get me a new car then I left. 
That company retrenched a lot of good knowledegable people because they were blinded by some nasty internal politics, and to this day has not recovered from losing all that knowledge, my mates that still work there say it is a horrible place to be, and they don't see it lasting much longer before they go bust, it just went to prove it's not what you know but who. 
After this I decided to start my own business in construction, and vowed to never work in another viral environment like that again, and in joining this forum I have enjoyed giving out information to those who ask, it cost's me nothing to do this except some time, but I am happy to do that if others can benefit, I have learnt there is "secrets" to every trade, these can be learnt such as how to do the infamos rubiks cube. 
A few things that are tied very closely to any secret is experience, respect for others, and a genuine passion for learning and teaching others, this is why I have no problems in exposing any secret information I have learnt along the way on this forum to hekp those asking, because I know that unless you have the past experience, you can have all the secrets in the world but doesen't mean you can do anything with them.

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## woodbe

Good post, METRIX.  
I had a very similar experience in my second career which was also in IT. Mostly 'consulting' lol. Management response to GFC basically wiped the staff out but not before I read the signs and left.

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## Uncle Bob

It's not the GFC that's now killing local jobs in IT, it's outsourcing. The powers that be are currently looking at doing this for my dept.

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## METRIX

> It's not the GFC that's now killing local jobs in IT, it's outsourcing. The powers that be are currently looking at doing this for my dept.

  Agree, that's what the company I worked for has done now, that was part of the 3 more retrenchments they did after I left.
But it all started out from poor upper management decisions, which just seemed to get poorer and poorer as time went on. 
Money was just walking out the door due to mis management, and in the end it was the lower grades that had to leave, but it cost them a SH*$ load in retrenchment payouts. 
But they did also get rid of the most senior management which was a good move but not good enough as they left a lot of junk behind.

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## Marc

Jealously guarded secret are revealed every day, and there are many reasons why.
Some "big" secrets do become irrelevant with time so they come to light as curiosity.
Some secrets come out because their owners, put more weight on showing off, than on the benefit of said secret.
Sometimes a secret falls in the hands of a complete ignorant who happens only to know that one little bit of information. So he goes around boasting about it until the right persons listens in and the secret is stolen.
Since we are into sharing stories, after the demise of the blacksmith industry, I tried my hand at heavy diesel mechanics. I worked for a Deutz gen-set rebuilding workshop. The head mechanic was a real genius who could rebuild anything that turned and made a noise, from Hot bulb semidiesel Lanzer Bulldog engines to the most modern Mercedez. However our specialty was Air cooled Deutz gen-set, and we were the only one that knew how to extract the steel valve seats from the aluminium head without damaging it. The secret was a simple one once you learned it but had stumped the most bright mechanics. 
The owner of the shop who once was a fitter, knew very little about heavy diesels yet had to show off with customers mostly local factory owners who needed genset to keep their factories running during the frequent electricity blackout. So since he happen to know how his head mechanic fixed the Deutz heads, he passed onto popooing his competitors showing them how it was done.
Ha ha, we never again got heads to repair from other workshops.

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## ringtail

Note to new forum owner. Please find and install a " sarcasm " emoticon immediately please.

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## Marc

> An IP search of those visitors would show that roughly 50% are just spammers, and a lot are overseas people that rarely join the forum.    I think so, there are so many forums that weren't around years ago with so much info you only have to search Google and the answer will come up on several forums instantly, (in most cases)   In the past Forums used to tell members to do a search  before asking a question as it may already have been answered, a lot  did, and found the answer they needed so moved on, self destructive  really.

  Yes, on the last point there used to be a few old time members in the boat design forum who would jump on you with recriminations if you happen to ask a question that had been discussed in the past. 
The reality is that the search feature does not always work as one expects, the search string may be wrong, or not close enough. Or ... the person posting actually wants to start a new conversation on the topic he likes. What's wrong with that? After all if someone does not like the content of a post all he/she must do is ignore it. 
I think that in some cases, not in this forum fortunately, it is the attitude of a handful of people who undermine the success of the forum and the harmony of the members community.

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