Well guys... and I have been thinking about this.
There’s some factors at play here. Except for some temp probe calibration stuff (which I am nearly done with... if I just would sit down for a night and finish it) I personally don’t have the gear, the smarts, or the time to do cooling related testing. I wont attempt to do cooling reviews if I cant do them properly, there’s no reason for it.
Because of that, and the earthquake like collapse of long standing theories on how to test in the last 3 or 4 months... PC has stalled from a cooling standpoint completely.
Cathars observation is keenly accurate (about the life cycle of a site/forum). But the decline has been artificially accelerated by the down right abusive, immature (like the constant barbs Bill keeps throwing around in reference to Cathar... and vice versa), and overall condescending assaults that happened in the last 3 or 4 months. Seeing the best people in this lil niche scene going at it like high school girls trying to educate themselves with their own brand of logic, scared many people away (including pH). Not saying some or most of it wasn’t justified... but I think everyone can look back and see that emotion and ego took over the arguments far before actual technical discussion did.
ProCooling has gone in waves like this... if you remember back when the site started it happened (with me being the dumb shit), then years later, it was JayDee vs the world, and then it was BillA Vs the world. Yeh it will get boring, or what people perceive as boring. But its all relative to the action in the last few months with people daily tearing each others head off to prove some point. The "quiet" is a good thing now and then... hopefully lets people cool off, look at where stuff is going and come back to discuss it with a more level head.
If it doesn’t and people leave for good... so be it. The way I see it, while it may be wrong, but those who are too pussy to step up and help change this decline have no reason to bitch about it. I put months of work into getting the site updated so it survives, and more time into getting companies and sponsors working with us again. I am doing everything I can at this point. While Les, and other may give crap about LCD reviews, or "bogus" case reviews... it means nothing to me. What are you offering instead?
If you guys have an issue with the direction the site is going, speak up and clearly say it. This cryptic jabs and barbs get you no where. I think its pretty clear that pH nor me take ourselves or the site too seriously, we are guys who have outside hobbies, outside time requirements like everyone. We don’t get paid to work on the site, and we have no money paying for all the doodads and gizmos that you may want us to have. We also don’t have the time to do the testing you may want. So where does this leave us? Theres really no way we are going to "keep" people who are so arrogant, angry, or just overall "superior" to everyone on the site if they think they are just talking to neophytes all the time... So how do you fix that?, there is no such fix! It comes down to people becoming maybe a bit more humble or showing some humility knowing that they were once there themselves. Maybe getting over themselves? Either way its a fix we cant do... only they can.
So... in the mean time... we are doing what we can, when we can, and how we want.
This is just my rant on the state of the forum/site.
