Where does Everyone hang out these days?

Seems a little sparse in here, where is everybody hanging out these days? Is there an active community anywhere?

Really? This seems pretty active to me.

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I should probably apologize for my question, I didn’t mean any harm by it, I guess in a way this is a specialized community and I’m used to a much larger forum community where there is a large user count and things are replied to/interacted with more.

I remember years ago when I was here after purchasing my part kit things were absolutely zoomin as far as participation/interaction, It could be that there’s just enough collective information here now that using the search negates quite a bit of the regular sorts of questions :slight_smile:

I probably worded my question a bit too bluntly, I do see new topics/posts, I just remember it a little busier in 2018 :rofl:

I’m not offended. I was here in 2018 and it seems pretty active to me. But maybe I have forgotten.

I read almost every post. Sometimes I get swamped with how much is going on.

Posts are generally these types:

  • Help Me posts. Someone is experiencing one of our common problems and we are going through the debugging with them. Ideally, these would be less frequent over time as the design improves, but we will always have loose grub screws and wiring problems.
  • Build logs. I love seeing builds. There are quite a lot any time Ryan posts a new version of something. I think there are still a lot of builds all the time, but people are more likely to share new stuff.
  • Additions, design discussions: This has probably died down a bit since 2018. Partly because Ryan’s parts are better. Partly because we have a lot of older posts investigating common ideas. Things like lasers aren’t a mystery anymore.
  • Random, off topic, or general discussions. These still exist. But only the regular members really partake. There seem to be more regulars now. But people come and go.

There aren’t many people posting about other maker things, like 3D printing projects or woodworking projects. IDK if that was ever that popular here.

There is also a fb group (which I haven’t visited in years) and a discord server (which is mostly a ghost town).

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Curious why there’s multiple platforms being used to build a community. For example the Discord seems like a bad place for people to visit. It’s like a ghost town and could make a new member question whether the project was abandoned.

Would expect one forum, or for the others to exist as just placeholders pointing folks here (or where ever most of the momentum/effort is happening).

Am on multiple Discord servers, so not a Discord hater, but it’s a PITA for creating/tracking threaded focused conversations.

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I have an official, discord, FB, reddit, etc, and all that set up but the new site clearly labels those as User supported and the forums as the official.

It seems most people have once place they are willing to visit and HATE the others. So I make them all available but the forums and FB group are by far the most active.

Your question got answered very quickly. In terms of user numbers and interactions, we have been extremely consistent with no drops in activity in many years. What do you feel like you are missing maybe I can change that?

If anything our time to solved has probably dropped significantly in the last two years. So maybe it seems less active because “fixing” only takes a few messages.

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I think I didn’t flesh out my OP enough, but regardless I have been shown just through this thread alone my initial observations aren’t true, this is very active lol

I appreciate how long this place has been here, it truly says something about your commitment and the versatility of your machines!

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7 years, 8 months, 14 days!!

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For me, the fact that I bought a kit back in 2018, took a long break when life got in the way, and find this place is still alive and well even today, and see that there have been multiple versions since, is just simply amazing. Too many times I’ve bought into a project and it fizzled out.

If I wasn’t building a house right now, I’d be planning on jumping feet first into more of the machines :sweat_smile:


Building debt free takes time haha. Also 4 years in the making.

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Worth the time in my oppinion.

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I wasn’t even aware that there was a FB group! I’ve joined it, but I like being here for many reasons, the least of them being the resource it provides. Historical answers build up an knowledge and experience base faster than anything else I know.

There appears to be a lot of “activity” on FB, but is it a resource?

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The Facebook group is only as good as whoever is reading it at the moment. Kind of like discord. You CAN search and find answers, but a lot of times the answers given are by folks who may not have a deep understanding or maybe only JUST figured out the same thing themselves (or something similar) so the response may miss something really important or might be incorrect, but only by a little bit.

It’s my experience that the forum interactions are much deeper, more comprehensive, and somehow a little more careful in approaching problem solving. I don’t know if it’s just different people or qualities inherent to each medium, but maybe it’s a little of both. I definitely prefer to send people here when they have a tough question.

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I joined the facebook group, abd sometimes scroll through it, but there doesn’t seem to be nearly as rich a culture there. Occasionally I answer things there (I’m probably recognizable by my avatar/profile pic.) But less often than here. I also see far more bad advice™ there from people who got away with doing something less than ideal to cringey…

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In a short time on this forum I’ve gone from completely ignorant to just modestly ignorant. :joy:

I sometimes hang back on answering because I don’t wanna be that person who gave wrong advice. I have occasionally given wrong advice and then later realized it with regret. :joy:

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We appreciate all answer, as long as you don’t mind if we disagree or correct you. I think we all do it very politely.

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I’ve checked you once or twice. I never say it, but I appreciate the answer even if it isn’t 100% correct. The difference was probably me being pedantic more than an effective difference.

Is should probably thank responses more often. Perfection isn’t the goal. Friendliness is a requirement.

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Facebook killed a lot of forums. Since there where no hosting costs, and it was easy to join.
Now people start to realize giving Facebook all the power on this is a terrible idea.
Same stuff is happening with Discord.
Self hosting like this is the only way to go.

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I try to heart responses (or like them on facebook) to let people know that I agree. If I’m looking for an answer later and i see a response with a bunch of likes, I take it more seriously.

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Very new to the forum and so glad I found my way here.
I am probably too much for some ppl and I try my best not to be a askhole, and read a lot of stuff. So many helpful tips and suggestions on here. I am at the phase where I want to help but don’t have much useful knowledge to help others, and the regular guys are on top of things.
Also I feel bad sourcing parts locally but shipping is so pricey for me and long. (That’s probably where my have to help guilt comes from)
Pretty much a hype girl rn haha thanks again to all the helpers and ppl that put such great detailed responses.

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I just fell down the Factorio rabbithole. God have mercy upon my soul. This wasn’t what I needed right before Christmas…

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