45nut
03-10-2008, 07:18 PM
Five Thousand! ? Whodathunkit?
In less than a week we will be commemorating the Three Year Anniversary of our move to the Gunloads.com domain, when we were offered the chance to be hosted here our former home had about 650-700 members in a little under two years. Since that time and the switch to new software and better and better hardware we have been gathering new members at a rather remarkable rate.
Now, we have solid servers and software tended by a webmaster that truly cares about this group of Booliters.
I really can't remember our last server downtime, it has been a non-issue.
I remember well the trials and tribulations, stress and despair of a ghost forum.
That simply has not fallen on us here but in truly rare circumstances.
We have gained many and lost few but everyday the effort is to provide the best experience possible, sharing the skills we have and enriching and passing along the craft to new faces and generations. The collective knowledge was once polled as to the years behind the handles and names represented here, it was in the thousands of years with but a percentage tallied.
When I was looking at the future of this forum I was certainly not expecting this kind of member list. I had just a vision of some folks gathering and talking about this alchemy we call casting and putting the lead to the bore and thence fore to the targets.
I see the tremendous gains lately driven a lot by the costs of factory offerings, there are still folks that simply want to continue to practice without taking out a loan, others come here because the gun old dad passed on hasn't seen a factory offering in decades.
We now offer through some of our members products that simply would have no voice were it not for a forum such as this. We have proven and dis-proven myth after myth and resolved too many issues to count.
Our thread counts and posts are not as transparent as they may appear because so many can just wander and do a search and come up with the answers they seek. Many more are due to wander by and lurk, preferring to keep in the background. Yet daily, sometimes hourly we gain more brothers of the silver stream.
As brothers, and sisters and dare I say, family we of course squabble.
Such discussions it appears cannot be avoided, sometimes such talks produce no fruit and what purpose they serve is still unknown to me. Sometimes they have settled more than meets the eye.
I guess such will always be the case when it is humans behind the icons and handles we see and not ones and zeros of the bit and byte. Behind it all we are men with the strengths and weaknesses inherited by nature and nurture.
The only reason I mention this is to ask yourself to remember the true reason behind this forum is not political or confrontational, exactly the opposite is true.
We gather here to share and learn, to pass along those skills we can or gain those skills to better ourselves and others.
There was no college degree of forum administration when I started this forum and I freely admit faults, but always, the success of this forum was utmost in my mind and represented by the staff.
It is only through the membership that was can show our efforts are worthy of logging in. I am very proud of the value of content that is the basis of this forum.
We are successful because of our membership, the customer base that IS Cast Boolits the forum.
I am in your debt, thank you all for the help in this journey down the Silver Stream.
In less than a week we will be commemorating the Three Year Anniversary of our move to the Gunloads.com domain, when we were offered the chance to be hosted here our former home had about 650-700 members in a little under two years. Since that time and the switch to new software and better and better hardware we have been gathering new members at a rather remarkable rate.
Now, we have solid servers and software tended by a webmaster that truly cares about this group of Booliters.
I really can't remember our last server downtime, it has been a non-issue.
I remember well the trials and tribulations, stress and despair of a ghost forum.
That simply has not fallen on us here but in truly rare circumstances.
We have gained many and lost few but everyday the effort is to provide the best experience possible, sharing the skills we have and enriching and passing along the craft to new faces and generations. The collective knowledge was once polled as to the years behind the handles and names represented here, it was in the thousands of years with but a percentage tallied.
When I was looking at the future of this forum I was certainly not expecting this kind of member list. I had just a vision of some folks gathering and talking about this alchemy we call casting and putting the lead to the bore and thence fore to the targets.
I see the tremendous gains lately driven a lot by the costs of factory offerings, there are still folks that simply want to continue to practice without taking out a loan, others come here because the gun old dad passed on hasn't seen a factory offering in decades.
We now offer through some of our members products that simply would have no voice were it not for a forum such as this. We have proven and dis-proven myth after myth and resolved too many issues to count.
Our thread counts and posts are not as transparent as they may appear because so many can just wander and do a search and come up with the answers they seek. Many more are due to wander by and lurk, preferring to keep in the background. Yet daily, sometimes hourly we gain more brothers of the silver stream.
As brothers, and sisters and dare I say, family we of course squabble.
Such discussions it appears cannot be avoided, sometimes such talks produce no fruit and what purpose they serve is still unknown to me. Sometimes they have settled more than meets the eye.
I guess such will always be the case when it is humans behind the icons and handles we see and not ones and zeros of the bit and byte. Behind it all we are men with the strengths and weaknesses inherited by nature and nurture.
The only reason I mention this is to ask yourself to remember the true reason behind this forum is not political or confrontational, exactly the opposite is true.
We gather here to share and learn, to pass along those skills we can or gain those skills to better ourselves and others.
There was no college degree of forum administration when I started this forum and I freely admit faults, but always, the success of this forum was utmost in my mind and represented by the staff.
It is only through the membership that was can show our efforts are worthy of logging in. I am very proud of the value of content that is the basis of this forum.
We are successful because of our membership, the customer base that IS Cast Boolits the forum.
I am in your debt, thank you all for the help in this journey down the Silver Stream.