Community, Governance, and Economics

Recent drama on the other KKF reminded me of
Hirschman’s framework: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty

'New membership tiers - bst access'
https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/new-membership-tiers-bst-access.80152/post-1251124

That thread has just been shut down by the owners, by fiat. One can interpret that act as promoting exit, over voice.

Some prior research about these issues:
https://g.co/gemini/share/514d49f4ee52

Running a community doesn’t come cheap: while server and bandwidth cost less than they used to, moderation and management scale with the success and size of the community.

 

it just sucks to know that every time you get a message about 'donate to help the community!' it's not because they couldn't afford server fees that month, but because the private equity overlords get pissy when they don't make as much profit as they were counting on

 

And apparently you get your account deactivated at will be the overlords ..... Lol.
Glad to see familiar faces here though . I suspect more will come sooner than later .

 

Jim has kept the Fora going for years, even though traffic moved back to KKF. He's been a trooper.

 

I'm struggling with the lack of a like button.... But glad Jim has kept the flame alive.

 

Was it Vertical Scope? they own like 900 forums. They move in, institute membership fees, collect the money, do whatever they can to maximize profits, and don't give a BEEP about members. They are widely known for killing forums.

 

Cultured media DBA

 

https://www.freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?t=31607

This was posted a while ago on the other forum.

 

That was a very insightful read. Thanks for sharing.

 

You should share this directly with all the key KKF folks

 

What are the fully loaded costs of running the forum, anyway? I know someone started an analysis but I’d like to see how the forum software plus hosting fees plus disk space plus cloudflare add up.

 

Good read. I wonder how long that would stay up on other forum.

 

It was up for about 10 posts until locked. But still there if you want to search.

Regarding the supporting memberships. I don't understand why people pay them over there except for instant access to the BST. After posting a few times why not can the membership and continue without? Re ads, 99% of the time I use mobile and ads are minimal. You can even turn them off in the settings...

The forums are clearly not independent and the transparency of it all is what I dislike. I've reported a scammer before and nothing was done as they were paying the membership (I can't say this for sure but seems like they're happy to ban any non supporting members).

I'd be happy to pay a supporting membership if it really were independent and fees mostly went to supporting the community.

I have no knowledge of the history of these forums and why this forum was created, but if it's really independent, why not try and shift the momentum and get this one to become the primary forum?

 

I agree. Even though the other forum back tracked on the early bst policy I would feel a lot better paying for a membership here and supporting a place that actually has the community at interest.

 

I'll bite. I was a founding/ supporting member from the time Jim and Dave M started the forum, after Dave had a dust-up with some others in Blade Forums ITK subforum. It was largely community driven, even though it was 'under' Japanese Knife Sharpening. Dave M sometimes butted heads with some of the other vendors/ knifemakers, which was unfortunate. But many benefitted from his knowledge. I've kept supporting it over the years because it seemed like the right thing to do. J-knives were not all that popular in North America back in those days. Then when KKF was initially sold, Jim and Dave started the Fora, and I joined as a founding membrane and have paid annually since. Jim is not living in a Caribbean plantation due to Fora memberships -- in fact, he's probably struggled to cover costs the last couple years.

The new membership policy at KKF is a real bummer. It drives home that forum is a business venture, and has ceased being a community BBS. Here at the Fora, it is still very much community, in my opinion.

I belong to a car, watch and audio forums that are not corporate owned. Two of them solicit donations, and one has 2 set membership tiers, with the only benefit being no ads. But I get a lot out of them, and am happy to pay to keep them running.

 

Thanks for the background. Since we’re at the knee, I want to ask: how did ChefKnivesToGo become a dirty word?

 

Because Dave Martell co founded KKF and he had beef with Mark Richmond dating back to the ITK knife forum days (pre 2010). If memory serves Dave alleged that Mark of CKTG started carrying lots of stones and other stuff that Dave had been selling for years domestically but also at lower prices.
In this 2008-2012 era American knife vendor scene was much much much smaller than it is today with a lot less customers and sells so it took a huge impact on Dave’s business. CKTG, and all its offerings was really a new unprecedented thing back then. It felt like the Walmartization of knife vending.
At the time it felt like Walmart had just opened up in town and was driving the mom and pop places out of business. But as time went on things didn’t really work out that way.

 

I guess I'm lucky....never was a member at the other KKF

 

Thanks for all the info!

 

https://www.rother.com/
This is who actually owns KKF when you cut through the Panama registered front that is Group Builder. I did some math late last night, and I think it’s realistic that KKF runs $25k/yr+ in profit. There is a reason they’ve ignored my 3 overtures through the years to discuss buying the other KKF. Considering there are hundreds of sites in their portfolio, it’s a pretty darn healthy business… never underestimate America’s ability to turn anything into a profitable enterprise I guess. Anyways, glad this place is here and I hope to see it become more active.