Would love to see BLF get more social

First off, I love BLF so please don't take this as a slam of BLF. It is certainly not. But I've been a member of numerous forums for various topics/hobbies over the years and most of them have members posting things in the "Off-Topic" section that relate to everyday life, or humor, or whatever.

We all know BLF is about flashlights. That's why we are all here. And 99% of the threads are about flashlights or related equipment. That's all fine and dandy.

But the other forums I've been on or am still on have things like:

Joke of the day

Pic of the day

Video of the day

Personal stories like "How I used my flashlight at work today." Or "I went camping this weekend" followed by a story and usually pics.

Many forums also have get-togethers where members meet each other for a BBQ or a camping trip or some other event that interests many of the members.

Just curious why I don't see much of that here and wondering if other members here think it would help BLF as a forum if some of those things took place?

Heck, I've been reading here for a while now and I don't even know the Admin's real name. Don't even know if our Admin is a man or a woman. LOL

Just thinking out loud here people, please post your opinion.

That sounds good. Videos are good! I did post some stories. But guess meetups are bad as we are quite a diverse lot.
Jusr recently posted some vids of tk-703 torture test, lights beamshots etc.

One thing about this place is that we get off topic in a number of threads and are just generally all around friendly. The type of discussions you are mentioning already take place but are buried within various threads. I kind of like it that way.

Its true there is not a lot of interaction outside of the board. But also, get together's would not be likely because we really are a global community. We are not a huge community and very few of us actually live close enough together to make a get together doable. You may get a get together of about 3 people. Since we are a budget board, very few of us have the money to go to make huge travel plans just to get together for flashlight community. That money is better spent buying more flashlights.

However, with that said, anyone is welcome to start any type of thread they want so please do feel free to start any type of community building thread you please. Also, a thread asking where everyone lives may be a good idea as I'm sure it will be nice for even 2 or 3 people to get together and compare notes and lights.

I admit I don't generally participate in the "general chat" forums because I tend to already be more casual in the regular threads. That's just me though :)

He's a man. :bigsmile: Aside from that I don't mention my name on public forums due to "an abundance of caution" as they've been saying in the media recently. No offense to anybody here, it's not that I don't trust our great group of users, it's the random scum that trawls the internet looking to do identity fraud that makes me be slightly guarded in this respect.

I like your idea of a "How did you use your flashlight at work?" type of thread. In fact, I tried to start a similar one a while back... Lets see... Here it is.

Thanks for the reply "sb56637." I posted to the thread you linked to. I understand privacy issues, but it sure would be nice if you let us know at least a first name or a nickname. For example, "Steve." We all know if someone Googles "Steve" they will get a bazillion results. To be more accurate I just did and Google had 954,000,000 results for "Steve." :D

He does have a nickname... "Admin" :D

Feel free to call me whatever you want, I'm not easily offended. ;)

You're the boss Dimwhit. ;)

I've been called worse. :p

This past weekend my Mothers fridge croaked. As a good son I wanted to do some research on particular models/sizes/ energy star rating. to help her find a new appliance. In the meantime I took my keg out of my keg fridge and took an SUV cab to her house with it so she could keep her meds and her cats meds cold. The corner store wanted $19 for the amount of bags of ice she would need to keep stuff cold in plastic bins. The cab ride with my fridge cost $26 to the Bronx. My mother has had refrigeration since Saturday because of it.

We found a fridge that meets her size needs and all of everything else. It was delivered today. all is well now :)

Just an example of how some posts have embedded material :)

True, many threads have embedded material. And that's OK I guess. I'm not the boss here, Dimwhit is. ;)

However, to embed further... I have never been to NYC and can't even fathom needing an SUV Cab to move a fridge. Here in AZ nearly everyone owns a truck. And the few that don't own a truck call a friend with a truck to move a fridge.

I hear ya. I was born here so just in my upbringing you were lucky to know someone with a pickup let alone a car. I now own two cars, one is my baby (Toyota MR2) and the other a Lancer. I'm a car person. In NYC it is really easy to pick the cab you get now since they use Hybrid Escapes. Said fridge fit :) in the back. Come to NYC, it's really a nice place despite the stigma :)

EDIT: not to say any (stigma) was attached to my comment. BLF is the best place globaly to discuss anything. Good people here. thats why we like it :)

Well i'm not offended by OT posts as long as it's useful. This is the beauty of this forum.

The other forum wont be so kind to you.

Its MR Admin! lol

BLF is very social. You will see some very funny stuff sometimes. I have sprayed my screen with coffee on more than one occasion.

Would it be possible to add a sub-forum for Severely Off-Topic (tm) chatter? And have it set so threads posted there are hidden from the front page and only users with a pre-set number of posts in the flashlight threads can see/access/contribute? Give us a place to ask questions about working on cars, post pictures from the last fishing trip, things like that?

That probably would make some people spam just to see that area...

        "Call me sir damn it !!!</p>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30UeDkV0YyQ&feature=related

…What happened to the BEER ? You’ve omitted a seriously important detail here ?

I just sincerely hope we don't get the reverse CPF syndrome - wherein if it's not a "budget" light it's given a barrage of "hey! how can that be budget?!", " You call that budget?!", etc..

sadly I've seen some

I dunno... It's BUDGETlightforum after all... Some people's ideas of budget is far higher than mine! The most expensive flashlight I own cost $35, and that caused serious nail-biting before I bought that. Now, I really want one of the FandyFire STL-V6 lights, but at ~$50, that's well out of my "Budget" category. Maybe we should add a sister forum: www.notquitebudgetbutstillcheaperthanasurefirelightforum.com

Laughing