It has been coming for a long time. The venerated old SolidWorks usenet newsgroup which was started in 1997 has been on a long downward slide. Some of you may only know this newsgroup through the Google Groups access point, but many folks like me read it through a news server with newsreader software mainly to use the filters provided by newsreaders like Mozilla or XNews. The very things that are best about the wild, wild west of the internet are also the things that make it most detestable. For a long time, the newsgroup has been a place to find a lot of expertise. I used it to research material for my book. I’ve used it to find content for many user group presentations. I have met folks from the newsgroup who have become good friends. There has also always been a lot of junk, bad information, and other things to avoid, but finding a gem here and there generally made that tolerable.On the other hand, Usenet is very much like a public toilet. It is there for a purpose, and it does serve that purpose. There are people whose main goal in life seems to be to spoil things for other people, and if the only way they can do that is by spreading feces around a public toilet, well then that becomes their calling in life. These must be the same people who piss in public pools and destroy public telephones. There is no reason for the destructive mindlessness.Public resources depend on everyone to show a little civic courtesy, responsibility and communal respect for the resources to remain usable. c.c.sw has become so diluted with cross-posted garbage from other infected newsgroups that my junk filters remove more posts than they allow. People like Jon Banquer, Cliff H., neil, FlowerPot have lowered the level of discussion to unending personal attacks and adolescent insult. I suppose these people can celebrate, because I’m not going back. They can have it. It’s a waste of time waiting for the air to clear in there. I’m in general not a fan of censorship, but when it is the choice between censorship and anarchy, that makes it easy. Aside from the thousands of spam comments I get on this blog, I’ve only had to censor comments from two individuals. It is no surprise that they are both among the spoilers of c.c.sw.It should be said that there are still folks giving out good advice and helping people there. Paul Kellner, Jerry Steiger, Paul Salvador, Dale Dunn, Wayne Tiffany and a few others are still good sources of info who are hanging on, and maybe a little more patient than I am.
Part of the demise of any institution on the fringes (such as uncensored usenet) usually has to do with some mainstream resources coming available, and things are no different here. Comp.cad.solidworks was definitely the first of its kind for SolidWorks software, but now as it passes out of usefulness for some of us, there are other forums which have become more attractive, with additional features and some form of moderation, mainly to protect you from the spoiler types mentioned above.
– SolidWorks Corporate Forums – These get the most traffic of any of them. The main “missed opportunity” with these forums is that SolidWorks tends to look at them as a way to gain information about users, instead of a way to communicate with users back and forth. Some SW employees can be found up there answering questions, and the others should follow their example. These forums are on the SW website, and are among my favorite places to go looking for information. They have the advantage of the ability to do polls, add attachments, images, links, and several other things. These forums are only lightly moderated, and definitely allow you to express your opinion. The only things I have seen removed have been very clearly over the line. This forum is very highly recommended.
– SolidMentor – http://solidmentor.com SolidMentor is a site that is gaining momentum, and has been created by the master mind Ben Eadie. The site has a log in, but that is really just meant to act as a spam and bozo-filter. He has a forum, a wiki, a blog aggregator, and a lot of tools and options for people to use. It needs a bit of traffic, but it is this kind of private non-commercial effort which I would really like to see succeed. For a one man show, Ben has done a really outstanding job! This forum is highly recommended.
– Eng-Tips – http://www.eng-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=559 This is a popular forum. I used to contribute here, but have stopped. It is far too heavily moderated, and when you read it, it sounds like the folks are on valium or something, everyone is very happy and even keeled. I had posts removed because I answered someone’s question about how to become an independent contractor. It was seen as advertising, I suppose. Nowhere near offensive or solicitous. Seems odd because there is advertising on the forum site itself. It is also annoyingly in your face with the login pop-up. This forum is recommended.
– 3DCadForums.com – aka 3dcadtips.com. I’ve had problems with these folks capturing my website within their frames so that it looks like my site is actually their site. Plus, they have a bit of advertising. I’d skip this place unless you’re looking for non-solidworks type data. There seems to be a lot of content, but it seems to mostly belong to someone else. Just because its on the web doesn’t mean it belongs to you. This site was recently purchased by a marketing organization or a magazine, as I remember it, and copyright ethics do not seem to be high on their list. This forum is not recommended.
– Google Groups –
http://groups.google.com SW Cad on Google Groups has been recently revived and is pretty active. It does get spammed here and there, but the moderators react swiftly. Good questions and answers. I use it as an email list. This forum is highly recommended.
– Yahoo Groups – There are several Yahoo groups for SolidWorks.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/solidworks/ is the main one. There are many used by local user groups, and non-english groups. Even one on the old Piping module, which appears to have been taken over by spammer anarchists.If you have a favorite forum, web site, blog or email list, please nominate them in a comment!****************
Following this blog entry, a few people on c.c.sw demonstrated why I have the opinion of the news group that I do. I just checked it because someone suggested to me in a private email that I should at least give it a look. I read enough to get the general idea. The continuing soap opera being played out there isn’t worth notice or comment, it’s just more of the same.
