Hello and welcome!
This is a forum created by people that have a passion for the outdoors, as well as knife making and all things sharp. This is not your everyday forum, where topics are limited to one specific genre. Here, we like to discuss personal outings, past experiences, self made and homemade gear and tools. You will not be strictly limited to the topic of outdoors and bushlore.
Our goal is to provide a place where like-minded people can come together to share ideas, experiences, knowledge and opinions. Our focus will always be weighted toward knives and other sharp tools, and outdoor pursuits like camping, hunting, hiking, etc. Not just woods knives or hunting knives, but ALL knives! This is a place where we can openly and freely discuss grinds, edge geometry, steels, all aspects of knives and knife making. Have no fear; your topic will not be locked if you want to discuss what grind you like best.
We do want our members to feel comfortable discussing a broad range of topics, with a few notable exceptions. Below are our forum rules. We anticipate the need to update them as our community grows, but for now this is our code of conduct. If you abide by these simple rules you will enjoy a great forum experience. We reserve the right to take corrective action up to and including termination of your account for rules infractions. **Participation in this forum implies an understanding of, and agreement to abide by these rules, whether or not you have actually read them.**
Politics: Keep your political opinions to yourself. We'll do the same. Nothing causes online fights faster than talking politics. There are people from both sides of the political spectrum who are passionate about knives and the outdoors and we want all of them to feel welcome here. There are plenty of political forums online where you can discuss politics.
Religion: There are many different and distinct religions in this world. We want people to feel comfortable here regardless of their religion. To that end, we ask our membership to refrain from posting things of a religious nature.
Pornography: Let's keep it clean. There are plenty of porn sites on the internet. This is not one of them. Don't test the limits to see what is or isn't accptable. If you aren't sure, then just don't post it.
Gore: We don't want to see images of dead people, blood and guts, body parts, wounds etc. It's ok for hunters to post pictures of their harvest. But be tasteful about it and let people know what to expect in the thread title. We might set up a separate section specifically for shop accidents and cautionary tales where you will be allowed to post you own injuries as a way to remind others to be careful. But we will not tolerate gratuitous gore just for the sake of grossing people out.
Illegal activity: Don't discuss it.
Personal attacks: We don't want to hold anyone's hand here. Be courteous to your fellow members. We don't want any name calling and insults. It's ok to point out when someone is wrong, but be diplomatic and tactful about it. By the same token, if you are wrong and someone calls you on it, take your lumps with dignity. We don't want to waste time and resources settling petty disputes. Best thing to do is if you disagree with someone, don't post anything here that you wouldn't say in person. And remember that we all share a common bond. Don't burn any bridges with other members, you never know when they might be able to help you out. Ultimately we want people to feel welcome here, so with that in mind, lets not run new members off by giving them a hard time. Administrators may choose to remove posts containing personal attacks from the board. Please don't make us have to do this.
Foul language: Keep it to yourself. This is a public forum. We don't want to project the kind of image a profanity ridden website would. We're not particularly uptight people, but we want this place to stay classy. Do not attempt to circumvent the software censor.
Search Function: Other forums like to scream "Use the search function" at new members every time they see a repeat post. Here's our take on it. We would prefer that you search for the information before starting a new thread. But we understand that sometimes finding the right keywords to get the desired results can be a challenge. Some forums have a strange paradoxical attitude where they frown upon new threads about old topics, and at the same time discourage digging up old long-forgotten threads. So while we'd prefer not to see 10 new threads started on the same topic within a few days of each other, we understand if your search doesn't yield useful results. We want you to find the answer you seek so don't be afraid to ask an old question. There are plenty of people who enjoy sharing their knowledge, even if it's the same knowledge over and over again.
"Give Aways" and Contests: We understand that some folks may wish to celebrate forum milestones with giveaways. That's fine by us, but the person conducting the giveaway and the "winner" or recipient are responsible for complying with all applicable laws. Don't give away contraband, make sure it's legal to transfer ownership of the items, make sure the person receiving them can do so legally in their jurisdiction, etc. We admire the generosity of folks in the outdoors community, and we want to make sure that generosity isn't punished because of a legal technicality. Also be aware that raffles are not legal unless the proceeds go to charity.
Advertising and Selling: We like to hear about new outdoor products from our members. We like to see things people have made themselves. But what we don't want to see is a knife you made yourself, with a bunch of close-up pictures, then a link to your knife making website in the signature line of your posts, and other members posting about how they bought a great knife from you. Basically if you profit from a post you made on this forum, then that would constitute advertising. If you wish to advertise a product or service, you may contact an administrator to make arrangements. We welcome and encourage knife makers and makers of other outdoor products to join and participate in our forum. We understand how frustrating it can be to pay for advertising only to compete for customers with folks who do not pay to play. That's not how we do things here. That said, the administrators of this forum are knife makers and businessmen, and we reserve the right to give our products (and only our products) preferential treatment. We pledge that we will not give any breaks to our friends, or give anyone a pass on advertising fees. Outright spam will be dealt with swiftly and surely. Update: We will now allow members to offer new and handmade items through our classified section, up to 12 items per year (18 for supporters). That will allow you to list one item per month. If you wish to list more than 12 items in a one year period, you may get a vendor subscription. We want to allow our members to list the odd item here and there, but are limiting the total in order to be fair to our vendors. Please conduct all transactions in the classified section. Reselling new items as used for off-site businesses in order to circumvent the vendor subscription is prohibited.
If you are contacted by another member interested in either selling or buying something "under the table" outside of our barter, trade and classified forums, please inform an administrator immediately.
Post Signatures: Please make sure that the signature line of your posts is in compliance with the rest of the rules. Links to blogs and youtube channels are ok. Links to "for profit" websites where you advertise products are not ok without first making arrangements with an administrator.
Multiple User Accounts Multiple user accounts are prohibited.
Content: Members, visitors and guests of Bladesandbushlore.c om, agree to use the content of this website at their own risk, and agree to indemnify and hold harmless it's owners, administrators, staff and members for any damages arising from the use and/or misuse of this website or information contained within. Bladesandbushlore.c om, it's owners, administrators and staff are not responsible for content posted by members and assume no liability for damages arising from the use and/or misuse of that content. Members, guests and visitors to this site agree to indemnify and hold harmless bladesandbushlore.c om, it's owners, administrators, staff and other members for any damages arising from the use or misuse of this site, it's content or information contained within. Once content is submitted, Blades and Bushlore reserves the right to preserve, copy, publish, reproduce, monetize or delete the content. This applies to any content stored on our server, including uploaded attachments and avatar images. Individual members are required to comply with all copyright and trademark laws. Copyright and trademark infringement liability is the responsibility of the individual member who posts the copyrighted or trademarked content. All members posting content hereby certify that they have the right to reproduce said content and transfer usage rights to bladesandbushlore.c om. Make sure any media or content you post is either created by you, or is public domain, for example. Owners of copyrighted or trademarked material who post it on this site agree to give bladesandbushlore.c om, it's staff and administrators unrestricted use of that material for any and all legal purposes. The intent of this provision is to assure current and potential members, guests, and visitors that they alone are responsible for using information from this site in a safe and responsible manner, and to protect the site from copyright and trademark infringement liability. Nothing herein constitutes an intent or obligation to use, distribute or publish any content provided by users of this site.
Conflicts of Interest In the interest of maintaining a fun and relaxed atmosphere, it is important that B&B members have the forum and their fellow members' best interests in mind. We will not tolerate intentional attempts to undermine or sabotage the forum community. Inter-forum espionage is forbidden. Member accounts being used for the benefit of competing websites will be deactivated. We do not care if you are a member of other websites. However, helping those websites disrupt our forum, or relaying privileged information is forbidden.
Scamming members Deceiving, scamming, or taking advantage of other members for personal gain will result in a banned account.
We pledge to apply the above rules fairly and without bias to all of our membership. The administrators of this forum know how frustrating it can be to carefully abide by rules only to see others get away with breaking them. We don't want any of our membership to feel as though they were treated unfairly. So we will strive to hold ourselves and our dearest friends and family to the same standards as our newest member.
We believe we can offer something existing knife forums and outdoor forums cannot; A fun, friendly environment free of favoritism, "good ole' boys", and exclusive cliques. We understand that our membership is made up of folks from all over the country and the world. We don't want anyone to feel left out or excluded. We won't come down on you for discussing TV shows. We won't poke fun at people who can't get out and camp every weekend either. We love to see people out demonstrating skills. But we aren't going to take a smug, superior attitude towards you if you would rather "talk" than "do". This is a discussion forum after all, so we welcome discussion! Here, you will find that there is no "inner circle". We are all equal, from day one to the end of time. You will not feel left out because you are new. We will not tolerate it, and members trying to stir our pots will be dealt with immediately. We are tired of other boards showing blatant favoritism to specific members. It won't fly here.
We want you to enjoy being a part of this community. We hope that you will share your knowledge and experience with us, and help us make this the most laid-back, inviting "home" on the world wide web.
