[TheForge] History of The Forge/OT

[David E. Smucker]

Dave this is in fact a good idea -- but as you know lots of work.  I keep 
files of "theforge" items that are of interest to me and I think would make 
good information for newsletter articles and hope to have of them together 
in the next few years.  Writing articles -- even when using the "theforge" 
as a source takes a lot of time and effort.  I generate somewhere close to 
100 pages of original text and illustrations per year for the AACB 
newsletter and that is a lot of hours at the computer and drawing board.  It 
works out to something like 6 hours per page.  (The time is well worth it 
from my view point and I hope to keep it up for a while yet.  There is no 
way I could do this if not for my "retired" status.)  I only wish that more 
of the newsletters could generate original material and that includes using 
the past, current and future issues of "theforge" for some of the 
information.  Sharing Blacksmithing information has been key to the "rebirth 
of blacksmithing" and I think will continue to be so.

Dave Smucker

And I still owe you a CD.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Mudge" <dave at magichammer.net>
To: "'terry l. ridder'" <terrylr at blauedonau.com>; "'Sponsored by ABANA'" 
<theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 12:35 PM
Subject: RE: [TheForge] History of The Forge/OT


> Speaking for ABANA, I appreciate the effort that you are putting in to 
> this.
> I can also tell you that "ABANA" as an entity is not going to archive the
> old records from TheForge. I had to fight just to get funding for 
> TheForge.
>
> I personally wonder if the effort would be more productive if someone went
> through those "archives" (considering that they can actually be found and
> downloaded into a readable form)and put together articles for chapter
> newsletters, or AR or Hammers Blow or MetalsmithingHow-To dot com, and 
> then
> many people would have access to the valuable information contained 
> within.
>
> TheForge serves about 350 people at any given time. Not more than 20 
> people
> are going to go to the trouble to download the archives once they are
> updated. ABANA has 5000 +/- members and 3 to 5 people read each copy of 
> the
> magazines. There are another 6000 - 10000 chapter members that are neither
> ABANA members nor TheForge members. The ABANA web site gets millions of
> visitors a year. If articles were put together, there are several good
> websites that would carry them including mine. That way the information
> could be easily accesses by millions of people around the world, and isn't
> that what we are really all about? The dissemination of information.
>
> dave mudge
> dave at magichammer.net
> http://www.magichammer.net
> http://www.metalsmithinghowto.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: On Behalf Of terry l. ridder
> (SNIP)
> it would have been nice if abana had had the foresight to archive
> theforge over the years. that unfortunately did not happen. perhaps now
> abana will begin to archive the qth.net epochs.
> (SNIP)
>
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