I've finally figured out what this hobby needs ..............
I get this feeling that someone is leaving out the bulk of flashlight interest when they call it a hobby. You're certainly not the only one calling it that. I've seen the topic of flashlights addressed as "this hobby" from many. For some, I'm sure, the hobby aspects of the topic is their only interest. But flashlights are more.
Certainly, hobby interest is as welcome here as much as any other interest in flashlights. CPF has embraced nearly every aspect of portable lighting concerns. We've provided forums and sub-forums that actually address the hobby aspects of collecting, modding, building, trading, selling, designing and many other hobby uses regarding flashlights that completely escape my mind at this time.
While there may be some manufacturers of flashlights that primarily target hobby interest, I'd suspect that the bulk of manufacturers target a more serious, practical, and often professional market. Just as the post office or mint may recognize that some make a hobby of their product, and actually attempt to give those hobbyists something, they primarily aim their products toward the applications of their serious user.
What should it matter, you might ask? To a great extent, the serious users, the professional users, and those applying their tools to demanding tasks like diving or caving want and need a board that addresses their serious questions along with their serious observations and commentary. The most dampening activity that can occur to threads such as these is to be sidetracked or trashed by hobby interest. After awhile, you no longer have those issues addressed, because those interested in that aspect tire of being stepped on by hobbyists. To an extent, the recent
brand x vs brand y train wrecks suffer from the failure of both the serious application user and the hobbyist user to recognize the different language and interests associated with each. I know I said "failure of both", but I've got a personal feeling the greater fault lies with trying to force the hobby viewpoint into the topic.
CPF should be home to all flashlight interests, whether it's the hobbyists, law enforcement users, firemen, search and rescue personnel, cavers, divers, mountain climbers, outdoor adventurers and others. Indeed we do refer to ourselves as flashaholics, but let's not forget that flashaholics is really a term coined to refer to how prolific you are in posting messages on CPF. Like other boards, ranking titles are applied as your post counts rise. Like other boards, we developed terms for those rankings, including "flashaholic". It does not indicate a true disease (well... maybe it does), nor does it measure how much of your interest in lights is hobby.
I guess that's all I have to say about that, other than to ask the hobbyists to recognize that our topic is not hobby by practical application. Please, don't try to force hobby into every discussion. The flashlight industry is essentially not a hobby industry.
No amount of explaining would get the point across that although those things look and sound cool they do not always make for a quicker car. You'd just get back "but it's so cool" The guy I sold the car to wanted to put a BOV on it, I could have killed him.:scowl: But I needed the money, so no killing.:devil:
