BLF dying?

Off-topic Chatter
93

Thanks for the insights sb! BLF seems to be very well-managed and moderated, and is generally much more welcoming and helpful than many other online spaces.


It may not be as active as it once was, but I don’t think BLF is dying, nor does it seem likely to die anytime soon as the hobby is still quite popular. Mods and forum-designed lights aren’t as common as they used to be, but this is still a great place to go for information and reviews from many different viewpoints that can cover different use-cases. Elsewhere on the interwebs I still see people linking to BLF pretty frequently.

However Reddit has eaten a lot of this site’s traffic. Just to throw my own experience in, I find Reddit is far superior for the more ephemeral stuff, not everything needs to stick around forever. It’s nice to have a place to ask a simple, quick question, or to post a dumb meme and generate some fun discussion. What’s most valuable to me is the tiered-comment system, which makes organizing threads far easier, and unhelpful/toxic comments quickly get buried or can be collapsed and ignored. Meanwhile the traditional single-thread forum system can make sifting through threads very tedious.

On the other hand, BLF has the massive advantage of longevity, which is really important for informational threads and ongoing discussions. Longer written posts, such as reviews, are much better here.

So yeah, Reddit is great for most of the basic questions and simple posts people make, and has rightfully taken much of that traffic, but BLF serves a very important role in the hobby and I doubt it will die in the near future.


For me the biggest annoyance are the occasional toxic and or unhelpful comments, it’s very annoying when threads are derailed or evolve into pointless arguments. Thankfully that doesn’t happen often, far less than other forums I’ve read, but it does really turn me away from the discussion at times when it’s over-filled with distracting comments.

IDK if this can be done but I would really love some sort of subthreading system, where replies in a thread can be linked to each other, and then collapsed if they aren’t useful to the reader. Not a tree system like Reddit, just a standard single thread like the current system, but with relevant replies linked to each other. Even just having the ability to collapse single comments so they don’t take up space would be useful.

94

I guess that depends. Now that I have no log-in and don’t use an app, the mobile site is highly irritating. It constantly tries to get you to download an app.

95

If a post is not relevant to you, you can still scroll on.
A collapse feature will add complexity to the usability and call for display errors on different browsers.
What about a “skip” button that scrolls to the beginning of the next post?
Can be made with the # fragment in the HTML, but then that has to be on top of each post and once you decide in the middle of reading the text to skip, you’ll have to scroll back to the top of the post or scroll on, anyway. So, a skip feature does not really make a big lot of sense and the same applies to a collapse feature.
Making this with a CSS fixed button or even worse JS, will call for a big box of compatibility problems.

96

.uk :slight_smile:

We mostly have discussion about new released nightvision devices, issues, repairs, IR lights etc. Modding(DIY nigh vision devices) really died at that forum. China manufacturers nailed it …

In our BLF case modding will never die! Why? No matter how good they are made; brand flashlights also tends to fail(especially hunting lights under heavy rifle recoil). So I guess someone will always need repair or learn here how to repair or improve it :beer:

97

Well i came here as i wanted to get a few flashlights, and thought i better educate myself a little first, and lean on more knowledgeable people.
I now have all i need aside for a LEP, which i am in no hurry to procure.
So i dont drop in as often anymore

98

@sb, you make a good point, and I just realize something.

We don’t ping you enough. That might be why issues are passing under the radar.

99

I realized, i got every light i needed in the last ~9 years of membership. :slight_smile: :+1:
So i am not as frequently here, as i used to. Additionally there is a modern trend for lights with electronic side switches, which i don’t like. I like the (antique style?) mechanical tail switches and side switches only for switching modes etc. I know, i’m a lost reminiscent - i still prefer P60-lights! :heart_eyes:

PS: BLF won’t die - Basta! :wink:

100

I’m surprised you weren’t banned for even broaching the subject …

Mr administrator is a kind sole . Personally I would have had you keel hauled ,drawn and quartered or burned at the stake using many, many, many flashlights . Eventually throwing into the fire batteries that never made it to recycling

who doesn’t want to throw 18650’s in a fire ?

Blasphemy Burn the heretic

101

There is still a large proportion of tail switch lights, for example models from 2019 onwards : Parametrek Flashlights

291 tail switch lights vs 332 side switch. Most of the fancy ”custom” lights are also clicky tail switch.

There are tail e-switches in there though, some big manufacturers (e.g. Olight, Acebeam) prefer to use them, higher current handling and better efficiency (mechanical switches have fairly high resistance), and it allows more advanced UIs (or not)

102

best thing about a tail switch is - you never have to fiddle around to see what side it is on

103

I do that all the time with my fw3a.
Finger prints all over the lens. :rage:

104

I have been saying this at every opportunity that has presented itself. Many times we behave in a way unbefitting of this community and unbefitting of symbiotic relationships with sellers. How can we be friends with sellers, if we’re constantly demanding they treat us a certain way or we’re not gonna be friends anymore? People are constantly using flimsy excuses to “be done with” some seller or another. And they can’t be done with them quietly, it HAS to be projected on a loudspeaker. I’m honestly disgusted with that behavior. I couldn’t be more happy that someone had the presence of mind to say this, and equally happy that SB noticed it being said and agreed. Hopefully this is something that becomes a standard around here,

People on Reddit think I have some special link to Jack at Fireflies or that I’m employed by him. But the truth is that Jack and I get along because I have been NOTHING but ultra respectful to him. In good or bad times. So Jack is comfortable in asking me things or just sharing things. I’m glad to say that I know now of many people that are forming this type of relationship with Jack. Jack is a ridiculously dope guy who loves flashlights and wants to do right by this community. Before I had this relationship with Jack, I had a very similar one with Sofirn too, and for the exact same reason, respect. BLF seems to absolutely have lost their ability to attract that as a community. I see it’s now a few respectful individuals that still have these direct connections to some sellers This sub as a whole now gets mainly coupon distributors more than anything else, and they are the ones that end up being our new liaisons to sellers. They make money off the sales to deal with a lot of the nonsense being here brings sellers. Whenever a seller comes around, there’s always someone who had a bad experience that wants to publicly embarrass them or just get their rocks off talking shit about how they aren’t worth our business. What seller is gonna want that? Everyone knows how to file a PayPal claim right? Hank is here and on Reddit because he gets essentially coddled, so how can he not be comfortable? Even when he makes mistakes, everyone all of a sudden has restraint but just for him. But I promise, ya’ll start childishly turning on him too, and watch how quickly that connection is lost like it has been with others. It’s such an obvious end-result.

Jack has started to get a better welcome on Reddit because a few people have had to stand up for him. So he feels a bit better coming around when idiots aren’t insulting him because he had a tough early start as a company. Jack was trying to give this community some gems, and because he had QC issues early on and probably wouldn’t have survived fixing them all, people decided that they HAD TO destroy him and his company as publicly as possible. You think other sellers can’t see that and ask themselves if “WE” are worth that headache? Honestly, what the actual FK people, we should relax and be more grateful to have that kind of access. Imagine if those attempts to destroy Jack succeeded? Fireflies has put out better lights in recent years than any other manufacturer, but that never would have happened if some people got their way. BLF is clearly a little more isolated from sellers, and people still wonder why? They likely don’t feel the respect they once did around here is all.

People need to learn how to buy and protect themselves if their gonna be in this hobby. And then when an issue happens, address it accordingly. Not feel like you now have a green light to go crying on a forum for everyone to give you sympathy while you trash a seller. This is supposed to be a friendly and welcoming space for them. I understand someone new making that mistake, so you then tell them so others will see that. And when others have an issue, they aren’t gonna want to be told not to be making this forum their own personal complaint department by everyone. Mistakes just happen, it’s all part of the game. But making sellers uncomfortable is just bad FKN form and will only isolate us from sellers like it has been.

Anyway, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest…

Onto the topic of “Is BLF itself dying”

If we look at SB’s Comment Signature, it says. “Where frugal meets with flashlight”.

That is the essence of what MADE BLF. In a time where flashlights were weak and expensive, and where LED tech was being developed and not being implemented, this was a beacon of hope and understanding to that end.

But you know what happened? BLF became a raging success. So much so, that manufactures felt they NEEDED to be here. But what then happened was that manufacturers learned from BLF. They became more in tune with the needs of this community, and before we knew it, the marketplace had taken on the image of the BLF community. Where frugal meets flashlight, is what the whole flashlight community & sellers became. BLF very literally and directly shaped the community to monumentally benefit the buyers. It’s a mind-blowing feat. But we now may be at the stage of diminishing returns. We have become too comfortable and entitled in our more enlightened roles, and many times we broke the trust that put this place on the map and made it a legend. What BLF is and how it has shaped the flashlight world is undeniable and will always be a legendary place for it, BLF can only die when the climate it created in flashlights dies. But whether or not we do anything else going forward, will be directly dictated by our attitude and our willingness to basically be decent humans to each other .I sure hope there is still time, actually I know there is. But it isn’t gonna happen on it’s own. We all all have to take responsibility for how we let people talk to others, as well as how they talk to sellers. This is my desire and my hope for this community.

105

I’ve visited BLF fairly infrequently over the last couple of years, simply due to a lack of time. Although I was never been a very active member of BLF, before the COVID-19 I used to read BLF daily during my commute. When the pandemic started I became much busier with work and family commitments, and working from home meant I no longer had the enforced down time of my commute.

A more mobile-friendly UI might help increase engagement, although there doesn’t seem to be a lot of support for the idea in this thread. Most of my interaction with BLF is on my phone (while commuting), and it can be pretty painful. Writing posts on a phone is even worse, and might have posted a bit more often in the past if it had been easier.

I agree with many of the comments about the quality and variety of ready made flashlights reducing the need and desire to mod. It also seems much easier to get interesting emitters without needing group buys these days. However, I still love seeing what other people - it doesn’t matter whether it’s a scratch build, a complex mod with five different emitters and an OLED screen, or a simple personalisation of an off the shelf light.

I was disappointed to read the comments saying a few individuals are causing problems. If these are recent issue I might not have seen them. I’ve seen occasional complaints about the declining standard of discussion in the 5 years I’ve been a BLF member, but I’ve always thought it was pretty civilised. I can recall a couple of very unpleasant people, but they’re long gone, and there are some members who seem a bit abrasive to me, but I think they’re generally still contributing to the discussion.

I do think some people are a bit too demanding of manufacturers and the members who share their work/organise group buys/etc. Even if no individuals are being unreasonable, I imagine some manufacturers might despair at the contradictory requests and feedback they get, but there’s not much that can be done about that.

My favourite thing about BLF is the collaboration and generosity of members in sharing their expertise and work (and also the parts sold by members). I love the BLF projects, and also lights I’ve assembled with parts from BLF members. I love that I have a (for example) a Chinese flashlight host, with pill machined by someone in Russia, a driver made by someone in Croatia, and emitters from a group buy organised with someone in the US. Thanks to BLF projects, collaboration with manufacturers, and open source firmware I have flashlights that are practical, affordable, and a joy to use.

106

I find this convo very interesting, and i want to chime in. As i feel like it relates HEAVILY to my last year of being in the flashlight hobby and some aspects of which platform i use and why i use them.

But, like many day sin the last year, i have limited time. I will be back with a thoughtful response, as i know that is what is valued here more so than other places.

The short of it:

It is "easier" to make a quick post on the r/ app, with photos. For someone who is often excited about a mod they did or a new light they got, that is a draw to "the app".

It is easier to tag people you want to see what you posted/you want input from on a post.

^Those two things alone have accounted for 90% of my slow transition to r/flashlight from BLF. And i will say it here or over there, i love BLF. I feel more at home here, and everything i learned the first 18 months in this hobby was here and from the fine, generous people here.

But when life gets busy, and you have 30 seconds here or there to make a post your excited about, or make a comment and tag someone, its just easier on the app, unfortunately.

and it really is unfortunate, bc if im being honest, id rather drag the 10-20 good friends ive made over on reddit in the last year to BLF. I really still dislike a lot of things on reddit, like the massive amount of group think, and some overzealous moderators (and influential members where its more social than knowledge based). But its hard when its a little more daunting to make a "quick" post on BLF about something you just want to basically "show off" to your friends.

I dont know what the answer is, and i think it boils down to a lack of time / me being lazy and wanting to be in and out quick, but i often feel bad that im here on BLF less and over there more. I feel more comfortable here. the upvote/downvote thing on reddit can be toxic and distracting. it can promote good info too, but does that a lttle less. Overall reddit is more superficial "look at my new light" with maybe about 10-20% of the info being "check out this new mod i figured out" or (the freeman) "look at these amazing drivers i build". where i feel like that is 50% or more of what is on BLF, which i like.

if, somehow, posting pictures were easier, and tagginf people were possible, or if it was easier to navigate BLF from my phone, i would probably never visit reddit. Though, now, i am gratfeul to have a small little side hustle of modding lights over there which i wouldnt walk away from. I feel gratfeul for that and most of the people i interact with on rdddit becasue they are good folks. But i feel like most of those peiple i interact with would love BLF. and i still try to push BLF to people often, its where most of the new and "developmental" information comes from. Not "Convoy is making a new light" information, but "so and so is heling develop a new sofirn driver for a new light that isnt out yet" information. THats the stage where enthusaists have input and a say, which is awesome about BLF. BLF isnt dying bc mfg's still value this communities opinion on many things.

ok, that was longer than i thought it would be.

107

I agree 100% with this sentiment. Outrageous mods especially those made between 2011 and 2016 (or so) spurred manufacturers to compete to incorporate features pioneered by BLF contributors.

BLF pushed the state of the art, and I think the lowest hanging fruit have mostly been picked.

108

Hi everyone, I’m still reading all of your posts here. Many thanks to everyone for the highly insightful and well thought out replies, and above all for the civilized tone and discussion. Well done!

109

Picture hosting would be nice. Also auto hide super long quotes like some other forums.

110

late comment: I don’t think it’s BLF that’s dying, flashlights have just gotten so much more refined in the last couple years that there is very little need of modding, which was a big contributor to this forum’s growth. Reddit format works much better for showing off something instead of engaging a deep discussion.

There are flashlights now that offers insane value, such as Hank’s quad lights for $55 when a couple years back we’d have to pay $20+ for the driver alone. Convoy, Sofirn, Wurkkos and many others made it possible to have great performing lights for as little as $25.

Almost every single flashlight I’ve bought in the last 2 years have been excellent, I’m spending less and getting more, I feel like this is a golden time for this hobby. (maybe not THE golden time)

111

Hi everyone, I’d like to take up this very important topic again. It looks like the consensus is that BLF is definitely not dying, and this lively discussion has proved that. I also gather that the majority recognize the negative aspects of Reddit and would like BLF to continue as a more traditional forum, while also mentioning some important features the BLF currently lacks.

So BLF is not dying. However, what is dying is Drupal, the engine that runs this forum. A bit of background: When I launched BLF in 2010 I already had some experience with installing and administering a non-flashlight-related forum with a different forum software. Frankly, it was awful, and most of the other alternatives at the time were also really bad, even the proprietary paid ones. Drupal version 6 at the time had a much more clean and logical architecture by design, and it got a lot of the fundamentals right that other platforms just didn’t have at the time. For example, I believe that one of the reasons that BLF took off so quickly in the early days was thanks to Drupal’s search engine friendly URL scheme, which was really unique at the time. Drupal also had a much better security record than most other content management systems and forum platforms from that period. In terms of forum functionality, Drupal has never offered much beyond its barebones core forum engine. But at the time Drupal 6 offered a huge array of community-developed add-ons that made it look and act like a fairly traditional and featureful forum for its time. From there I eventually upgraded to Drupal 7, which was an extremely painful and problematic migration, but there continued to be good support from the Drupal community for necessary forum functionality. Drupal also is a general-purpose site engine (“Content Management System” / “CMS”), and it offered some extremely flexible tools that allowed me to create our unique-to-BLF email notification system and community spam control and offensive post reporting system. This allowed for a very unique and flexible paradigm that contributed to making BLF such a unique community. Of course I would remiss if I didn’t mention the BLF users; this site would be nothing without all of you, so a huge thank you to all of you.

Fast forward to roughly 2018 and the Drupal project started posting notices about the end-of-life of Drupal version 7 within a few years. They of course encouraged site owners to migrate to Drupal 8, which had been available concurrently with Drupal 7 for some years before that. But Drupal 8 was such a radical paradigm shift that not even the official drupal.org website was migrated to version 8 for a long time after its release. All of the community-maintained add-ons that almost all site administrators depended on for basic functionality had to be re-written, and since Drupal always required a lot of tweaking to make it work as a forum, most of those add-ons fell by the wayside. Drupal has always been very barebones out-of-the-box, and site administrators have always depended on community add-ons, but with the advent of Drupal 8 they started treating it as more of a development framework for experienced web programmers, which personally I am not. And I’m not the only one. There were lots of upset Drupal 7 site administrators, and their complaints together with the COVID-19 pandemic made the Drupal developers decide to extend the Drupal 7 support lifecycle for another 2 years. This year it was supposed to end definitively, but they announced that it would be extended again for another year and possibly extended again after that. So I want to be clear that I have always taken the security of the BLF website very seriously, and the site continues to receive regular security patches for Drupal 7 directly from the Drupal project team. However, there will likely be no new features added to the Drupal 7 ecosystem, and Drupal 8 will soon become Drupal 9, which is no longer a general-purpose extensible site engine that normal web administrators like myself can install and mold into something useful without coding custom modules. The migration from Drupal 7 to version 8 or 9 would also be an absolute nightmare, with basic forum functionality still lacking and/or provided via limited third-party add-ons.

So, that wall of text is a long way of saying that we need to start seriously looking at alternatives for migrating BLF to another forum platform. I will only consider free and open-source forum platforms that I can host and administer myself, and that’s non-negotiable. There are a bunch of options in that field, some better than others, but only a few come close to providing what we need. It’s important to keep in mind that the unique BLF culture has largely grown around the hands-off community moderation systems for flagging and banning spam users and also for reporting and automatically removing posts that violate the BLF rules. This was implemented via a flexible framework that Drupal offered, and it’s really hard to reproduce it in other platforms. There are also some potentially useful new features such as pinging @usernames, thanking users for posts (an up/down Reddit-esque voting system is not and will not be considered), uploading images, and improved threading and searching functionality. And finally, as much as I hate to admit it (I personally detest using smartphones if I have access to a real computer), we need a “responsive” (i.e. adaptable) website layout that is easier for mobile device users. It also needs to be a secure platform with manageable security and feature updates and a solid development community behind it with high probability of remaining viable for the long term.

Of the very, very few options that come close to meeting the above requirements, the one that most stands out is called Discourse. In your web searches you’ve probably run across posts in Discourse forums, and there’s a good chance you’re already using it in forums about other topics. I have some experience installing and administering a Discourse forum from a few years back, and it has continued to improve since then. It has tons of useful features and is generally user-friendly, mobile-friendly, and administrator-friendly. It also is unique in providing a community moderation system with automatic tiered levels of user privileges based on the user’s behavior and level of trust, similar to what I’ve put together piecemeal over the years for BLF via the Drupal framework. Discourse has been very much developed from the ground-up to cope with the glut of spammers and trolls on the modern internet.

It will still be a gargantuan undertaking to migrate BLF to Discourse, and it will take some time to plan a path forward. There are still some major technical challenges to migrate the massive amount of users and threads and posts with different post formats (Simple Post Editor vs. Advanced Post Editor) from Drupal to Discourse. I’d be happy to discuss the details of those issues with our technically minded users that are interested in helping to find a solution. I’m still not entirely sure if it would be more feasible to migrate all of the posts and private messages, or if it would be better to just migrate the current user accounts to the new forum while maintaining the current Drupal site in read-only mode or even converting it to a static HTML archive. But please be assured that I deeply respect the wealth of information that has been created by our incredible user base, and it won’t be disappearing.

There is no rush to commit to this migration. Let’s take it slowly as a community, and I’ll do my best to listen to your useful feedback. The Discourse forum is highly configurable and extensible. Both you and I need to kick the tires and see how it works in practice, and as time permits I’ll slowly start working through the checklist of how to configure it and customize it for our needs. So to begin this journey, I’m please to present you all with this temporary testbed Discourse server :

https://blfdev.site

The test site is open for registration. At the moment none of your current BLF accounts have been migrated, although account migration is probably the most easy and straightforward aspect of this process. So at some point I might try to migrate all of the current BLF user accounts (username and email addresses, possibly the location if filled out in the user profile, possibly the avatar, and probably not the current password) to the testbed server, and I’ll let you all know if that happens. Meanwhile I’d encourage everyone to create an account and play around, keeping in mind that the testbed server will eventually be deleted with all of its posts, and the final migrated version of BLF will continue under the budgetlightforum.com domain name.

I just got the new testbed up and running today. I’m also evaluating some different server OS options behind the scenes, but that’s not very relevant in terms of functionality to BLF users. So I was mainly focused today on the core aspects of the new server OS and setting up the email notification mechanism (the entire internet email system is a dreadfully complex and arcane maze of gotchas and little-known rules and protocols that make my head spin). The new site is still in its stock form and has almost no customizations to its behavior, so don’t judge it as the final product by any means. Since it’s using a brand new temporary domain name, outlook.com and probably some other email providers will not accept the new account registration emails from the test server, but Gmail and Yahoo do work in my tests. Please let me know here if you can’t register a test account there and I can probably set it up manually for you. Again, please remember that it’s just a testbed server that we will gradually customize and test before installing a different instance for the final BLF migration, and all of the testbed data will eventually be deleted.

Hope to see you over on the test server! But please don’t stop posting here either because we’re not done yet. Have fun!

112

Discussion continued here: