Martyn said:
Some people on this site cant spell very well - so what? Who cares?
I do. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to sit and re-read a post to try and work out what the person is actually trying to say. That is bad communication. I'm not asking for the Oxford English Dictionary, but some posts are almost written like phone texts - and poor ones at that. No punctuation, no capital letters, no structure, p**s-poor spelling - no sense! In fact, there are people writing posts on this site in their second language that are far better that some of the ones you see in people's so-called first language. The whole idea of a forum is to communicate so I believe everyone should at least make an effort!
Anyway - that specific rant over - but that's not the question...
Sodajoe said:
Most of the people on this site are more concerned about gear and equipment rather than actually learning about plants, skills and techniques.
Discuss.
In principal, I agree with you. In practice, I looked at the number of posts I've put in the kit forum and there's quite a few! I do have a bee in my bonnet about people asking the same rubbish questions (ie, "Poll: What's Your Favourite Colour?" and "What's the best {insert random object here}?") but when we actually go out and do something, we do it with kit, don't we? We wear clothes, shoes, carry things in backpacks, etc. And sometimes it's good to get someone else's perspective before you spend your hard earned cash on kit that could be quite expensive.
One of the main problems with the kit forum is repetition - there are so many posts which have been discussed before, so it looks like there is more emphasis on kit than there actually is. That's what the search function is for.
So, I reckon there is certainly a place in the forums for kit discussions but I agree that it should not be the focus of bushcraft. We do actually need to get out there and learn to use it at some point and that's where the skills, plant identification, etc, come in.