You don't have to be rich to buy a $50, $150 or $500 Ti light. Ti isn't practical but then SS isn't practical either and it's still very popular on this forum.
You don't even have to be rich to spend $30,000 on lights. If someone spent the same amount on a car or a boat, would you call them rich?
You're right... I don't want to ruin things here, so I'll hold my tongue/typing in the future!
Rich
Hmmm interesting points. Thanks to everyone for your comments.
I personally haven't noticed any major issues around here recently. Most people are consistently polite. Even those who aren't consistently polite also aren't consistently rude. Just a few users have had a "bad day" here and there. We had one user who was upset about his -1 SPAM rating who left, but that seems to be due to a misunderstanding about the function and purpose of the SPAM button.
Apart from this, I personally need to set aside time to write some reviews. Everyone else has been doing a great job with reviews, though, so there hasn't been a shortage of new reads on BLF. As far as the post quality, I personally feel it's still very good. When a new user comes along asking for buying advice, nobody has ridiculed a user for asking about cheap lights, even in the $5 to $10 range. We all have our own budgets and price ranges, which is just fine. I'm glad to see there are still users who appreciate a nice ultra-cheap flashlight, but I also find the reviews of expensive brand name lights to be interesting for comparison.
I'm not opposed to having other moderators here, but I really don't think they're necessary at the moment. The SPAM button isn't perfect, but it works admirably well thanks to you guys. All I really do with my moderator privileges is make posts sticky and frontpage. I try not to move peoples' posts around or be too picky about posts being in the right category, people will figure it out with time.
Any other suggestions about changes you would like to see around here or issues that bother you? My only personal complaint is about the increase in profanity and lewd posts. There's usually a powerful but clean adjective available in English if you feel the need. 
And this isn't only due to my personal dislike of dirty language. It's also to avoid having BLF blacklisted by search engines and "safe browsing" filters.
Again, please feel free to post concerns and/or suggestions. Cheers!
what gets me sometimes is when a new person comes in asking for help about something, someone quickly jumps at them with did you search first and heres a link look how i easily found it. how about a nice hello like most everyone does. we were all new once and its ok to ask without looking first. ive been to many places like that and its not very welcoming.
+1
Very true. Have you seen this around here on BLF?
not too often but ive ran across it before.
That's very common when the userbase gets "old" and the same question is aked the zillionth time. Most that do reply with: it has already been answered a zillion times here + link - do not know the are being percieved as unwelcoming. It's up to us to keep thet friendly smile to whicever asks the usual staples:
Reccomend me a good 18650
What charger for xy
The most powahfull led flashlight with lotsa lumans and days of runtime powerd by 1 AA
Which led emitter si the best
rccomend me a good light (very tedious question)
Yes we have to use the smile on those even if the qustions are aswered a million times. It ain't that bad if a newbie asks such things a few times eventually he will have a good read and be done with the basics. You can never know if you could learn from him a few months later. :)
True, Budgeteer. In fact, I would even say that posting links to other posts that answer the question aren't necessarily rude, as long as we say "Hi, welcome, these links might help answer your question". But as james mentioned, no need to flaunt our search skillz or rub it in the user's face if he didn't search first.
One thing I've always disliked about other forums is how members rag on a noob for not searching for the answer yet because they are sick of hearing the same questions asked. In some of the older forums you'd hear it all the time but in reality, if all we did was search for old info and never repeat a question the forum would be quite stagnant. Besides, technology is always changing and information changes. What was once valid info in an old thread may need some updating. I for one would much rather have questions repeated and asked if only to keep the forum alive. My fiance always teases me for being on this forum constantly but there is always something new being posted and information added all the time. I like that about this forum! It's like a living entity teaming with good people and fresh info. The day we start telling noobs to look it up is the day this place goes downhill fast.
Also, do you really want to set a standard for "quality of posts"? Only reviews, deals and group buys? I sure as heck don't. I think this is a fun place to spend time and pushing certain standards will only make it end up like CPF.
Well said, JohhnyMac.
One thing that might be of use is a "beginners section". Ted already has most of this on his most excellent Wiki. Maybe just a link to his Wiki as a place for useful reference material.
OK some folks consider the Web a write only medium, but it might be worth a try.
A link to things like Boaz' "Which light would you recommend" thread might be handy too. though the list might be a bit overwhelming by the time we've all chipped in since we all want different things from our lights.
But it would take a bit of figuring out to discover what a Foybezel™* ** is and there may be others. A basic glossary specific to here might be useful.
And if everyone waits for me to write it, we'd be here a very long time.....
By that time we might have zillion lumen lights that run forever on a cell the size of a grain of rice that only needs recharging every other decade and never wears out, explodes or does other Bad Things.
* If I could find the trade mark glyph I'd put it in there :)
** Thanks Mr. Admin :)
I like the idea of a special beginner's section with links to the most common questions and essential info.
On a similar note, I would also suggest that a special "Reviews" category be added under the section for each type of light. For instance in the 18650 section there are so many good reviews stickied and on top that shortly you will have to go to the second page just to make a new thread because the first page will be filled with reviews. Too much scrolling to get to new threads. A review section would make it real easy to find a review when you want to check for one. With every review stickied anyhow at the current time you might as well make that sub-category. Just a thought.
Here, I'll loan you one. ™
:)
Not a bad idea at all about a beginners' section. And we do have a lot of great "Top Reccommended" threads, I just need to sort through them.
Thanks, I was kinda thinking about doing this as well. I'll put it on my TODO list.
I did that when someone asked about QTC. There were some good posts already started with all the info anyone needed to know about the subject without splintering the subject into a new thread (which is what happened anyway). One of the reasons for CPF's over-moderation is they don't want information about a single subject scattered over dozens of threads or different sub-forums. QTC was a unique enough word that it was really, really easy to search for and get good results (BLF threads are pretty fragmented so searches usually don't work that well here). The downside of the CPF approach is you have to read through hundreds of posts about a subject and the first 80 posts will contain out-of-date info. Or the thread will never point out that there is a new product that makes that particular product obsolete because that new product is in a different thread.
I think that's where the Wiki can come in handy, providing a well organized source of current info. But you can only wiki so much. I'll leave links for people to the wiki just so someone doesn't have to explain bin numbers all over again or whatever other subject that can't be answered quickly without raising even more questions (in that spirit, here is a link to the Materials article which has a table of material properties for aluminum, titanium, and stainless: http://flashlight-wiki.com/Materials). Sticky posts help too, but even that is getting to be overwhelming with some subforums having more than 30 stickies.
You certainly don't want to squash conversations. I remember hearing a story about a Peace Corps Volunteer who set up a water system for a village so the villagers wouldn't have to walk a half mile to the well outside town to get water. After it was set up the villagers said the new system was great but now they weren't hanging out with their neighbors as they walked to the well and back every day. That was a big part of their community, or had been. So I think they set up a sewing group . . . anyway, unintended consequences.
I think the quality of the posts is still very good, but I think there aren't that many great new products in the last couple of months. Things got slow around here before the XM-L's came out. Then it got really lively and now it is slowing down again. I just think that's natural. There are still a lot of great discussions going on.
We're a very diverse bunch from all parts of the world here so I could easily be wrong but I reckon the fact that it's getting warmer outside has a lot to do with it, as well. Don't get me wrong. I think BLF is awesome and I really enjoy hanging out here but given the chance, I'd rather go outside, do stuff and spend time with my family. I like flashlights. And it's no secret that I'm a knife nut. But if I had to choose between lights, knives and guns and spending time with my wife and kid, I'd be out of here in a heartbeat and I suspect it's the same for a lot of people. We probably have people from six (heck, maybe even seven - who knows) continents here but for some reason, a lot of us tend to enjoy the same things. So, while I can only speak for myself, I assume many of us actually like to go outside and maybe even put our flashlights to good use in the summertime. And I agree with you. I think in terms of SNR, BLF is still doing great.
I'm sure we can all get along here, and maybe have a beginner's section, and maybe also have a 'bash cpf' section. I think that would be very sporting 
Very productive thread here. I think welcoming someone and posting links to the information they ask for is very helpful and friendly. Sometimes you don’t even know the right questions to ask, let alone know what to search for, when you are starting out. I think it is very rude to just tell them to use the search function and leave it at that. Like they are bothering you. That’s why I love it here, it just doesn’t happen much. An interactive forum benefits from interaction. Sure some of us, myself included, show our rears every now and again but as Mr admin said, nobody consistently does.
I frequent two other non flashlight forums and don’t participate much because I get annoyed with heavy handed moderation and user one upsmanship. Here we are dealing with budget lights, nobody is bragging and putting anyone down because their $13 light is better than the other guys. A lot of people here came from a really over moderated board so appreciate the more relaxed atmosphere here. If you make a mistake or misstate some fact or figure here nobody will berate you.
Sorry, I don't agree. Spending $30,000 on lights is like spending 2 million dollars on 5 Bentleys. One Bentley says "I'm a snob", 5 Bentleys says "I'm not like you, I have stupid money to blow on anything I want to, I'm a first-class p^%k". It is an ostentatious show of wealth, it is over-the-top, it is almost obscene. If I was dumb enough to require that level of spending on a hobby like ours, I certainly would not tell people about it, it would be my own dirty little secret.