[Chad Arnow]

Hello all,
myArmoury will come up on the 20th anniversary of its current forum-based format next August. Back in 2003, forums were all the rage and the discussions here, combined with articles, reviews, etc. made this a very active place. In 2022, it's clear things have changed.

So, here are my questions to the masses: What does the online sword community of the future look like? What do people want it to be? How does something like myArmoury evolve into the future without losing what's been built in terms of culture and content?

I have my own thoughts, which I'll save for a later post.

[David Lewis Smith]

First I don't hate facebook, I do not love it either.

Facebook does something the forums does not at a rule do, give instant gratification. People can post to facebook and an hour later have a hundred likes on their photo or post. On myArmoury things are slower and more academic. I think this is better for any kind of study or debate, debate in the classical sense of two or more people seeking truth or how to do something, or how something was done.

[Matthew Amt]

A board like this one stores discussions indefinitely (even if images and links may go bad), in a more-or-less organized and *searchable* way. If a question comes up that we've gone over in detail, it's easy to link to that and save a lot of repeating.

On Facebook, discussions rapidly disappear down into the black hole of eternal scrolling, and you end up saying the same thing every week to each new member.

Seems like an easy choice, to me.

Matthew

[Anthony Clipsom]

Interesting how folk assume a jump to facebook. It seems to me its a horses-for-courses thing. It doesn't seem to me that instant communication is what people are looking for here. Nor is it particularly a news feed, though there are news elements. People like to be able to ask questions and get answers from better informed community members or to discuss points of interest in a long form, sometimes adding to threads years old. Any new format should be able to handle these things.

One other thing I'd not like to lose and that is visibility of threads here on Google (and presumably other search engines). If I'm researching, I find myself often pointed back to older discussions on the forum, which provide links to articles or experiments not easily found by other means.

[Greyson Brown]

I'm not as active around here as I used to be, but I still check in several times a week. Maybe it is the fact that myArmoury.com is almost literally the only thing in my life that hasn't changed in the last 17 or so years, but I rather like things the way they are. That said, I would consider adding an @media query to the style sheet to make it a little bit responsive. Right now, the home page can be a little hard to use on a phone (not something I do often, but it crops up, and I'm sure there are others who do it more than I).

-- Greyson

[Victor R.]

I'm here almost daily, but am not as active in arms, etc., as I used to be (researching, acquiring). I've been an admin in a few FB groups, and they can be used similarly to this, but it's much more difficult. I think the concept of a FB "page" (versus group) could work better, but I really don't like a social media platform where it's so easy to be censored and cancelled by the host. Dealing with weaponry, and having a market aspect to it, can get you in trouble quickly.

There's also the issue of convenience: posting here can be very inconvenient with the strict media rules and a few other aspects of the board. However, this place does generally make you think about what you're saying and posting, so it is better in that way as FB based forums can be too easy to post on, so you get bigger flame wars and rampant stupidity at a much accelerated pace. You're also much less likely to have a massive influx of trolls and scammers on a site like this.

An FB based site also requires very active Admin/Moderation oversight. There's a group I followed related to the HRE that has recently been overrun with pornbots. It's admin is another "page" that seems to be defunct - you can't message them - and it's single Mod hasn't been active there in well over a year. Whether he quit social media, lost interest, or is dead isn't known, but it is obvious that no one is at the helm and that ship is just drifting to its inevitable demise.

I think a solution, or at least something to try, is to make the existing FB page/group that's already out there more active, with posts linking back to interesting new items/featured discussions, here. This will be the repository and deep discussion forum, FB will be the carnival barker calling people into the main event. Whether posts are daily, weekly or something in between will have to depend upon both the Admin/Mod presence and engagement on the FB site - one or two people would really have a hard time because there is life to be lived and responsibilities to be addressed outside of this place - as well as engagement by members/followers.

If this place can be made a little more user friendly on the photos side, that would be beneficial. Of course, server space limitations could be an issue from that perspective.

A little stream of conscious, but I think y'all will get the idea.

[Alan Schiff]

Personally I prefer the forum format to other social formats I've seen. As others have said, there just isn't enough organization to most social media for the repository of information we have available on the subjects discussed here. It's too difficult to find older posts, search for specific info, or give a nicely-formatted academic response.

One thing that the community needs moving forward is a more mobile-friendly format. I myself mostly use my PC and only rarely use my phone or tablet for the forums, but a lot of people have moved to using mobile devices as their primary browsing device.

I will also mention here that other forums are still more active then myArmoury has become. Partly that may be because they are more mobile-friendly, but I also know that several people have mentioned on SBG that they can't get an account here. That needs to be addressed.

[Sean Manning]

Aside from searchability, having your own site has two other advantages. You can create your own social norms and base of knowledge, whereas its hard for people to remember that a random post on their feed comes from a space with one set of expectations about behaviour. And you are not at the mercy of someone else's charity or fashions. We've all seen 'free' sites and services vanish or start charging and anything to do with weapons is precarious on corporate social media.

[Mark Millman]

Dear Chad and folks,

[Eric Bergeron]

I much prefer the forum way of viewing and posting vs the "facebook" way of things. I think a change of forum software would help with some of the mobile things people brought up as this software that runs this forum is quite old and not as feature rich as some of the newer software companies out there. Also I have been told that the board isn't allowing new members to register and that could help drive more business/talk to the forum. Just a thought.

[Chad Arnow]

Thanks for all the thoughts so far.

Re: the forum software/mobile/registrations. My understanding is that we are running an old version of the forum software. This is largely due to the amount of customized features Nathan built in through the years (Marketplace feedback, the Reading Lists that broke due to Amazon, and many, many other things behind the scenes and more visible and that tie to other parts of the site). Those features would need to be rebuilt or would be lost in an upgrade. Absent the time to recode those, we've gotten behind on software updates. Because we're behind on software updates, forum registrations had to be disabled due to security holes in the version we're running. Any relevant future iteration of the forum/site would need to upgrade so more people can join/post. Newer iterations would almost certainly allow inline video posting, have fewer limits on image size and would be more mobile friendly. It may never be as active as it used to be, but would likely be more active if the software issues were solved.

It sounds like there is still some desire for forum-based discussions, which is good to know.

What about in terms of other content? We have hundreds of written articles and reviews. Do people still want content in those formats? What about video content? There are many great video channels out there already. Is there any room/desire for myArmoury-style content on YouTube?

[Sean Manning]

[Wilhelm S.]

I am much more of a reader than a poster. I prefer forum based to social media based. That being said you can do specific searches on FB in groups to find what you want. It just is not usually as easy as on this forum. I think YT channel could be very interesting.

[Anthony Clipsom]

On the subject of features, it might be worth asking specifically about them. In several areas, there seem to have been no new additions for many years. This doesn't make them without value as a record but it might reflect on how people use/don't use these features.

I also think in the articles area, some editorial work could be valuable. Articles here vary from the technical through to popular historical and their scholarly component is variable. Some editorial thought on what qualifies something to be included here as a service to the Arms and Armour community of scholars, collectors and users, what content might be retired or updated and what new content might be sought are worthy of a few hours consideration, I think.

[Ryan S.]

I think the ability to produce features is one of the things that sets myArmoury.com apart from other sources. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any updates to them since 2015 as far as I can tell. The news section is also outdated, which is certainly confusing to new people who come to the home page.

I think that it is not just Facebook, but also Reddit that has taken away interest from forums. I think a big plus to those, is that many people already have an account. I think, however, that myArmoury is better. I think the best way to improve it, would be to create more feature articles and learning resources. Of course, I understand that doing that requires people to put in time and effort, and quite frankly if people write an article for their own blog, they could make money on it, even if not much.

I think this is a wonderful site, and it is amazing that it runs like it does. There are reasons why I am here and not on FB or Reddit, and I think the key thing is to preserve what makes it great.

[Jesse Belsky]

To offer a brief perspective as a maker who learned a tremendous amount here on myArmoury and really appreciate it as forum, repository of knowledge, and generally well moderated site for people who behave like adults, the principal reason I stopped posting work here was ease of use (or lack thereof).

Reformatting and re-sizing images just so they could be posted here was a real pain, and eventually I stopped. Not a great reason, but I'm a 1-person operation, so speed and simplicity are key. I already spend a lot of time answering emails and communicating with customers, I manage and update my own website, and then I need to do advertising/outreach. It was a big timesaver for me when facebook made it possible to simultaneously publish a facebook and instagram post from the same interface.

I don't need to have a mobile upload functionality, but being able to just drag and drop a photo into the website interface would make a huge difference.

I think if the back-end of the myArmoury website was upgraded to make it easier to post content, you'd see more makers sharing here again. Even if facebook and instagram are better for some kinds of customer outreach and communication, this is a highly knowledgeable audience. For my part, I would love to share my work here again.

I appreciate that upgrading the site is no small (or cheap) task, and I thank Nathan and Chad and others who have moderated and managed and kept this content online.

Another poster mentioned how most deep searches for sword info lead back here, or to old SFI and VikingSword pages. So much of the "internet knowledge" in the last 10 years or so has vanished into the ether on facebooks threads instead of being logged here on a forum, and that is a real shame.

[Don Stanko]

Aside from one or two bad actors in the last 20 years, this is one of the rare online platforms where dignity and respect are the norm. It would be a shame to lose that.

[Leo Todeschini]

Firstly I would to say how important I have found this place. I started hanging out here in 2006 and it has been amazingly influential to my knowledge and thinking and for that I can never thank the whole community and of course Nathan and the admins enough. What I also have found to be massively important is the absolute discipline of politeness and respect that this site has always required and fostered and that has influenced how I deal with my social media.

Like Jesse, I am both an interested user and a professional seller. I used to post up everything I made, but yes the picture handling process is clunky and I suppose for me as I got more exposure, I needed the site less to display my work, and Facebook and Insta are easier ways to display what I do.

So I personally do not need the exposure that this site offers to people like me, however as a source for information its is unparalleled. Facebook and other social media platforms simply do not have the ability to search, and go back to old threads, research, look up and engage with conversations; they just don't work in the way that I want. So I have no interest in looking at 'sword' or 'dagger' pages etc. and more particularly my interest are wide so I love myArmoury because of the breadth of threads that appear. This site is just amazing, but ...........

My interest waxes and wanes with everyone else. If the site is not vibrant then I don't pop in and I feel that many others also have their own reasons for not popping in and joining in and so it spirals down.

So my problem is also, in different ways, everyone else's problem; people don't come any more.

To make it better, to make it live, it needs to be easy to join, to post, to link, to upload. If it was as easy as FB or Insta then it stands a chance.

I think we should concentrate on what it is best at and that is being an amazing resource and so make it really easy to search and find information and to add to it.

Whether we like it or not, smart phones are a massive part of modern web browsing and so it should absolutely be smart phone friendly.

So to conclude, easy to post, easy to search, polite, smart phone friendly and modern and that gives it stand the best chance.

Tod

[J. Nicolaysen]

I vastly prefer the forum for searchability, in-depth discussion and the features/reviews sections, although these are really a bit stale with no new articles for quite some time.

The book section was very good as well, but I never used the albums much. I still like to look at the collections pages even though they are all out of date. If I could take consistently good photos, I'd build a collection page here..

Uploading and storing photos here should be easier. There's nothing worse than finding a cool old thread where the photos were hosted on photobucket or something and so they just show a stupid little icon. It's very easy to post photos and update albums on FB etc, but that is really the only advantage I see.

Although yes it is very hard to view this site on a phone. But I would hate to give up the good points to just try to make it mobile friendly.

Really wish there were new features/reviews/collections posted. I hate the idea of this place going out like Swordforum and other sites. This one really educated me, and gave me a lot of connections and more than a few second-hand swords and books.

[Chad Arnow]

Thanks to everyone who has weighed in so far. I'd love to hear more thoughts, but here's what I'm hearing so far:

1. No one seems to want myArmoury to go away completely. There seems to be a place for it, even if not as prominent/active as before. Good to know.
2. The forum software needs to be updated, as it limits current user participation (due to images and a less mobile-friendly layout) and new users can't currently register. This is not news to me.
3. There is some interest in more reviews and/or articles.
4. Some of the other portions of the site might be nice (bookstore/reading lists, photo albums), but are less important to most people than forum/articles/reviews.

Is that the general gist?

Keeping in mind that I'm not the admin/owner of this site, just a fan and volunteer, here's what I see. Numbers 1 and 2 above are related, and both involve continued (and possibly expanded) financial support from the community. This community has been great about that in the past and it will be necessary for that to continue.

Number 3 involves a lot more volunteer time. When the site was actively publishing content (every two weeks for a while!), there was a small (~6) enthusiastic core team of people who moderated the forums (never more than 3 people), authored reviews/articles, brainstormed new things, edited submissions (their own and outside authors), and posted actively. Published content drove a lot of forum discussions. Getting back to publishing involves more volunteers and some changes to how we do things behind the scenes. Currently, every article has to run through Nathan to get made into a webpage and posted. He's a busy person and having a life (how dare he.... ) creates a bottleneck at times. We have submitted content in the pipeline, but not enough available editors/webpage producers/etc. to get it moving. To revamp anything in the processes, though, we need to know that there is enough interest, financial support, and volunteer help in the community to make things work.

A (valid) comment was made above about the variation in the scholarly quality of the articles. This is due to a couple of factors: first, early articles were sometimes experiments to see what people wanted vs. what we could actually do. I'd like to think we generally got better over time. But, all of our authors are unpaid volunteers with differing levels of expertise and scholarly qualifications, and some natural variation in articles is to be expected. But, we need good volunteer authors if we are to continue doing anything. We need good volunteer editors to put the final polish on their words.

Behind the scenes myArrmoury, as it stands now, is a 2-person effort (me and Nathan). We're both busy with jobs/life/families at various points, which slows things down when the wheel only has two cogs. For the site to be more active, we need more people willing to share the load financially and logistically.

I intend to have some discussions with Nathan about what the future looks like and how we can make it happen. For the site to move forward, I see us needing help in a lot of ways: technical help, authoring, editing, moderating, brainstorming, liaising with authors, curating types of content, donating, etc. If you're out there (current member or not!) and want to get more involved, please contact me via the Contact page on my personal website. I'd love to talk to you about it.