Is spudding dead?

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Gamification of social interaction, it fucking sucks.

To be honest a little way of showing appreciation for a post without necessarily replying isn't such a bad thing in my estimation, the issue comes when posts are ranked according to likes/dislikes and there is an algorithm that sorts them according to what it thinks you want to see.

[hectmarr]

There are a lot of people, hobbyists, who make their own stuff, from homemade PCP guns, to combustion springs, hybrids, and god knows how many more. It seems that only the scenario has changed, the forums for social networks. The hand above "I like it" is sometimes the only "affective" retribution of the one who shows "more or less proud", his work. It is a very personal opinion, which has no intention of being generally true.

[jrrdw]

" It is a very personal opinion, which has no intention of being generally true."

[hectmarr]

" It is a very personal opinion, which has no intention of being generally true."

oh yes, wielding the subjectivity of opinions and "analysis" is the first thing, especially when you think from the other side of the fucking planet! Cheers

[SpudBlaster15]

Returning from the dead to post once again.

As much as I too lament the decline of the hobby forum and shift to social media, in retrospect it was probably inevitable.

Hobby forums were typically operated with little interest in profit, and a large degree of interest in maintaining a community, archiving its wisdom and making years of accumulated knowledge prominently accessible, but none of this pays the bills or keeps servers and networks maintained. Users came to expect to get everything on the web for free, and so it should have been obvious that in order to pay to keep their services online and their own pockets lined, operators would eventually become good capitalists and pursue monetisation strategies, particularly ones that don't require users to pay up front, and their solution was to form companies and sell ad impressions.

The big downside of this, other than privacy issues associated with the personal data collection required to target users with relevant ads, is that revenue becomes proportional to engagement with the platform, creating an incentive for the operator to game users' neurochemistry with karma scores, likes, sorting comments non-chronologically, etc., to win the battle for attention, grow themselves and destroy interoperability with competitors. The information signal is highly degraded and becomes primarily noise, but noise arguably makes more money, so the social and epistemic disaster they have generated as an externality is not a strong motivation to stop. It only gets worse as the companies try to out-compete each other for more clicks.

I don't know how to solve it or if it can be solved, but the web is certainly in a dark place right now with perhaps darker times ahead. I spend maybe 10% as much of my free time on it as I once did, because it has turned into a steaming pile that makes the film Idiocracy look like a documentary.

Recommended reading: Who Owns the Future by Jaron Lanier, makes a similar point to mine above in much more detail.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

the web is certainly in a dark place right now with perhaps darker times ahead.

It's true, and it doesn't seem like it's going to get any better, your points about gaming neurochemistry are very accurate and it does not seem reversible. I suppose it's typical to bemoan the younger generations, but on the other hand it does seem that kids today are not growing up in the same way having been exposed to this in their formative years.

I spend maybe 10% as much of my free time on it as I once did, because it has turned into a steaming pile that makes the film Idiocracy look like a documentary.

It takes a certain discipline to stay away for most people and, in much the same way as for example populations are trending towards obesity, there is no incentive to cultivate that level of self-control.

[jrrdw]

To answer the question "Is spudding dead?' no. It is not. It's just mostly all been said before. Forums slow down when there's nothing new (a 2nd innovation contest?) and or a generation gap. Slowdowns happen, it'll be fine.

[hectmarr]

perhaps going down the path of COOPERATION and not COMPETITION is more profitable. A simple project or a series of projects and not so much is the way to encourage participation. I mean, do it together. A chimera? perhaps, but surely it is trying to give it shape and viability.

[mrfoo]

I like that idea, Hector.

There's a few people on here with machine tools (I'm one), maybe some community machining of specific parts? Maybe a design for a specific high performance hammer valve, something like that?

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

perhaps going down the path of COOPERATION and not COMPETITION is more profitable. A simple project or a series of projects and not so much is the way to encourage participation. I mean, do it together. A chimera? perhaps, but surely it is trying to give it shape and viability.

We did a bit of brainstorming on the subject just over 13 years ago, nothing came of it if memory serves but it was an amusing diversion.

There's a few people on here with machine tools (I'm one), maybe some community machining of specific parts? Maybe a design for a specific high performance hammer valve, something like that?

That's a good point, certainly things have progressed since we first contemplated such a project. Hector for example has some superb ideas that he manages to implement with limited tooling and materials, add machine tool access to the mix and we could push the envelope much further

[hectmarr]

It is a good idea to organize an international support of built elements to make real, (noise and holes) a plane, generated right here, together with a prototype, which is surely built by those who have more tool possibilities than the rest.

I imagine that users should be asked which of the projects proposed by the organizers are interested in participating. Perhaps an item is pneumatic weapons, combustion, hybrids? or something more than this?
The stage of design and preparation of a technical plan comes first. There are almost no plans with measurements and well drawn around here.
I think we should prioritize the newest things, not repeated, investigate and test, and then make a plan and then a functional prototype that is a demonstration of what the participating forum users can do... with pieces from everywhere? ...
You could ask through a survey, type of weapon, size, ammunition, power, etc. I am sure that the result can be very good, considering that there are many people here who really know about these things.
I'm thinking out loud, I'm not analyzing much other things, but as I learned in art forums, first it's a "brainstorm" half crazy, to define and put in the space-time-possibilities, this.
You can try, and it may not work, or maybe it does! The important thing is to try, because as the popular saying goes, " The worst management is the one that is not attempted".
PD:
It is necessary to analyze what was wrong with the previous attempt on this subject, from 2009
, so as not to make the same mistakes and propose superior options.

[hectmarr]

I do not know. I have almost completely read the publication that Jack brought here on this topic, and I find it difficult to make this more than fun, for a few, the usual ones.

[quinn whitsitt]

no spudding is forever

[quinn whitsitt]

unless you mean there is less spudding then there use to be in which case yes

[frankrede]

It's been a long time but I will be getting back into cannons again soon. Good to see some familiar names again