My introduction and a plea to be active

My introduction and a plea to be active

Hello and a warm welcome again to you who found the English corner of our forum!

Nice that you managed to log in!

First I´d like to introduce myself. My name is Daniel Lea, I am 19 years old and from Germany, close to Frankfurt am Main. While I study laws and economics on the EBS Law School in Wiesbaden (also Germany) blacksmithing is a great hobby of mine.

Via my activity on YouTube, forums and social networks I got in contact with people all over the world. Some of them I visited, some visited me and a few became really close friends of mine over the time. I myself have been to blacksmiths in France, Holland, England, America and Sweden and I plan on going to Finland soon.

Although I really admire the German blacksmithing culture and am fond of a forum in German language for the German blacksmithing culture I thought it would be an enrichment if we got people from other countries and other cultures included in our community as well. So Peter (the founder of this forum) and I created this corner for non-German-speakers.
We do organize big blacksmiths meetings and HAMMER INs with a lot of good hand craft and... you guessed it – good beer as well! We´d be very happy about anyone who can come!

I personally don´t have a fixed preference of what I forge. I usually go by what I might need or what I´d find interesting to make. I do have some specialized expertise in tool making and techniques for efficiently moving large amounts of metal from my class with Brian Brazeal in America and my time with the Young Smiths team. I make my own tools and sometimes I make tools to sell.

Otherwise I like making elegant and functional decoration for the home and every now and then I also make knives.

Now please it is your time to write about yourself, where you come from, what you make in your shop and what projects you just attempt or finished. Make this platform go alive!

In this mind I wish you a great time enjoying this forum and I hope to read your posts soon!

Cheers
- Daniel

Re: My introduction and a plea to be active

Hi Daniel, I'm trying to navigate here, not that easy yet......I guess I should start learning German. I'm guessing there are a lot less "arschlöchers here than on FB, LOL, (can I say that ?). You may know me from around the Net, recently retired Blacksmith from NYC. and propieter of nyblacksmith.com, I'm looking for a new forum that has professionals, I'm getting sick of all the bullshit I read on facebook, good luck with the forum

Re: My introduction and a plea to be active

Hey Larry,

The English corner is still in the making but if it will be actively used we will continue developing it further. The rest of the forum will remain in German but some things like the headlines of the forums can be displayed in English by clicking on the flag at the top of the page (next to "account"). You can also use the built in Translator Plugin which can help you translate entire posts into English.

We are not solely a professional's forum here. We have users that are hobbyists and users that are trained professionals. There are various sections for various types of work. Both differentiated by type of work (artist, blades, tools, etc.) and level of quality (hobby, more sophisticated, commercial work). We also have a greater control over every forum here, than it is possible on Facebook and fewer members, which allows us the keep the "Arschlöcher" and the shit mostly out of the threads. However I´d also like to ask you to be kind to people and do not insult them or their work on a personal level and keep your language on a level appropriate for this forum.

Cheers
- Daniel

Re: My introduction and a plea to be active

Hi Daniel, I managed to access a part of the forum, the consensus is they don't want us here, I have deleted my facebook membership on your page, I can't find a place to delete this account, please take care of that for me, as I don't be a part of a group where I'm really not welcome. happy smithing
 

Re: My introduction and a plea to be active

Hello Larry,

as a German native speaker I can assure you, that there is no problem of "don't wanting you here". It is just true, that there is a lot more information in English on the net and not everyone is comfortable reading an writing in English. So these people feel, that a corner of German information should be preserved. This is not personal, just a language thing.
Please don't leave this early - invite English speaking smiths for the test drive of our English speaking corner.

Cheers,
Bernhard

Re: My introduction and a plea to be active

Hey Larry,


it is not a matter of not wanting people like you here. It is just some blacksmiths that are afraid their little German speaking "oasis" in the big wide english speaking internet will vanish. Which is not what we have planned. We rather want to create an english speaking "oasis" for non-German speakers in our forum. I assure you no-one here has something against foreigners or doesn´t welcome you in our community. If you were to partake in one of our meeting you would feel very welcome and integrated. Whenever there is change to a running system there will be people that are skeptical about those changes and afraid the changes will be to their disadvantage.

I hope you understand that and decide not to leave this forum. If you still feel like not wanting to be a member anymore I can help you delete the account. But I would find that very sad.


Cheers
Daniel 

Re: My introduction and a plea to be active

Hello Larry!

Nobody has any Problems with you as a foreigner in this Community.

We are not afraid of giving up anything to anybody.  "Schmiede das Eisen" will not vanish into the depths of the Internetnor will it be overtaken by anyone...We are a German blacksmith community. Most of our members are speaking German and only German... Thats the only "problem" here!

Thats one of the reasons that there are not a lot of answers to your postings and questions.

We discussed long hours in our Community wether or not there should be an "English corner" but not because we dont like Foreigners.

The Agreement of a great part of our active members was, that we don't need an English corner because there is a lack of abilty in speaking or writing English by most of our people.

By the way: We have about 1600 Members... And only 10% are writing here regularly... And roundabout 30 professional blacksmiths...

So it's up to you to stay active or go away...



Oli

Re: My introduction and a plea to be active

Hello Larry,

the most Germans feel more familiar to post in german than english, but germans are more open minded to foreign languages than (for example) french people (from france not from Queebec) But queebec is a good example, everywhere where i was in Queebec, at first the people talked to me in french. it was not that they don't like me but it was natural for them.

Regards, Olav Keil

Re: My introduction and a plea to be active

Hallo everybody,
also i speak better Englisch than German and im shy to post something (the most in gasforge topic) evan i will can help to somebody because im scare nobody will understand my German
What about German people.. before i lived in Frankfurt am Main and i was so surprise, close to everybody spoke englisch. The seller in shop, one time a little bit older woman she saw i had problem to understand german so she started talk to me in english!
I found the English corner it is to much hidden, on the end of forum, maybe is a reason whe nobody is writing here..

Regards
Rafael