Your post is spot on and sums up my feelings about this place much more succinctly than I could hope to. Cheers to you man!
Being a newbie to the flashlight hobby and to budget light forum I find there is alot of good members here. You do have the occasional member that don’t care and write stupid things but you can’t let them bother you. You have more good member than bad.
^
Is that a poison apple?
Kidding of course, good praise delivered with venom. 
Most forums have lost some of the pleasantness because of a couple underlying serious national (USA) and International issues.
When someone or something threatens your way of life ( Unaffordable or Non existent Healthcare) or your ability to provide for your family (Downsizing, Loss of Jobs)
It will lead to lots of stress and high tension.
Threats of another War in many parts of the world is serious stuff and is hard to ignore. Troubling times as it were. This cannot be ignored.
Personally I have taken to not reading the news just before bed time as it just torques me off and is not conducive to good rest.
So as others have said, if you read something here that hits your buttons, just walk away and come back later or just ignore it.
This group has grown as all popular groups do, and I have no hatred to new blood and also do not think time of membership or high post counts gives anyone a higher rank or super powers, we were all the newbie once:)
The recent amount of members joining only to re-list/copy and paste well known discount links just to spam their affiliate links is depressing, however it is easy enough to just ignore those folks and use the couple good members that have actually done the work and provided support to the group for a long time and still support them.
In closing, BLF is still the best damn flashlight forum on the web, hands down.
Later,
Keith
Well said!!!
Nope just the forbidden fruit. 
Ah, you must be married! ROFLMAO
I’m lucky, my wife is ok with this addiction of mine. She doesn’t gripe at my 100+ lights, and really enjoys the 6 or 7 she has of her own. She comes home telling me stories of impressing Dr.s with a light, or how she used the brass beauty or the 4Seven’s pen light… (she’s an LVN) So yeah, I consider myself lucky…
Edit: Ya know, that’s brings to mind another aspect of BLF that I can’t take lightly, the way members here will rally for a fellow member. Like when Justin lost his Night Security Officer job and this forum rallied to buy him a Lathe. Remarkable! And I ended up with that lathe when Justin couldn’t keep it. Justin made a choice, kept the lathe in the family instead of selling it off on Craig’s list or something, and virtually everyone was cool with all of it. There were some grumblings of course as some really wanted to see what Justin would come up with, sadly he went downhill from there and we soon lost him. 
And when I found myself overextended, with 2 new car payments and insurance on both while Volkswagen took their time buying my Diesel back in the big scandal… my wife was totally freaking on that one, no way could we afford 2 new cars and the insurance on both! So I sold some 30 or 40 lights here to help make ends meet til all the plans came through. And members here bought up the lights in mere hours! This really REALLY solved a lot of stress with my wife, and just couldn’t have happened without the support of BLF. Great place, for so many reasons….
I’m very new to the forum, and it’s interesting to hear from all above what their perceptions of changes in forum culture over time. However, what I’ve experienced has been a generally very friendly, open conversation that’s well set up to help newbies like myself learn. Thank you to the long-timers for creating this space!
As I read this, it’s time to reflect and put the friendlier side back on. That’s a choice we each make.
Maybe we can all try to be a little more relaxed, a little more kind, a little more positive towards others... and maybe this will solve the current problems ? :)
It’s not like no one was ever banned in the good ole days. I used to cringe whenever I saw certain member postings. Remember Chloe’s request for an ignore button? I don’t think current membership is any better or worse than previously, just different characters/same play and a bigger cast. the biggest differences I noted between this place and where I used to discuss this hobby are in the behavior of mods(none here) and the members(generally more helpful here). We’re self moderated which gives more latitude and less looking over one’s shoulder but can lead to more heated discussions before SB steps in. Seldom do you read “use the search function, you idiot!”, almost always either a link is provided or some other means of direction attention in a useful way. Sometimes I feel left behind by the programming aspects but that’s hardly different from not having a lathe and making do some other way.
My girlfriend doesn’t understand any of my hobby. She thinks I should spend my money on her only. The way I look at if we decide to go on seperate way at least I still have my flashlight to lighten a different path.
sounds like we are coming around to what I was taught was a criticism sandwich.
back when teaching sailing we (the company) were asked to use criticism sandwiches. “complement - criticism - complement”
We are usually pretty good at having critical thoughts just pop up. but if we can think about it long enough to lightly soften the criticism then it takes hold better and costs less greif.
.02 worth
I’d say no. I’ve been here for as many years as David and Ronin even if I didn’t post much at all, but I lurked a lot and haven’t noticed any long-term changes in tone to speak of.
Yeah, maybe a little bit. But IMHO its no where near as bad as other gear-related forums. I mean its still first and foremost budget consciousness that underlines everything. IMHO that simple aspect seems to filter out a good percentage of the elite-ist, brand snobbery, and pretentious arrogance that can overwhelm most other gear-centric forums.
my .02….
I agree. i joined the EDCforums and that has the be the most unfriendly place i ever seen, i left that forum in just a week after i got slandered, attacked, etc. (its even worse than the “other” flashlight forum we know of)
I pretty much agree, Glenn.
In the old days, if I asked a question, or posted something I just purchased, there was always a friendly response. These days I’m lucky if I’m even noticed.
Many years ago I heard about the phenomenon that people are desperate to assimilate to be part of a group, in our case (budget) flashlights. But once we have integrated into that group, then we do our best to differentiate from the norm to be different. So this is how these cliques are formed…
Anyhow, everybody is my friend until you prove otherwise. You can also pm me for whatever reason if you feel like it. Cheers!
I think I may have noticed you if I’m not mistaken Glenn. It was some time ago so I could be wrong… but… Did you used to play a Rickenbacker bass?