[DIYaholic]

I may not be a machinist....
however, I'm NO elitist either!

Randy,

[Geof]

..... Practical Machinist is a way better place for machining advice than here.

I think it depends on what level the advice is being sought. A novice asking an introductory level question is likely to get a tirade of contempt over there but more likely to get answers here geared toward the level of the question.

[dertsap]

Practical Machinist does not want to associate itself with hobby machinists .

thats what makes that site so its not as interesting and I don't say it to slam them by any means , i visit cnczone because of the vast amounts of cool cnc related stuff ,certainly not because i live and breath work , cnczone has an array of different levels of getting things accomplished , many machine builds range from complete abortions to completely professional setups , my personal interest has always been the fun of creating stuff , so i applaud the guys who build an abortion out of crap they've scraped together and who are proud to see it finally move , the level of creativity here is probably equally matched by the knowledge base which has a great benefit ( helps stupid ideas grow into bigger things and vise versa )
cnczone is probably more geared for the guys who are more creative than practical

[Dualkit]

I think it depends on what level the advice is being sought. A novice asking an introductory level question is likely to get a tirade of contempt over there but more likely to get answers here geared toward the level of the question.

I wasn't being elitist, just passing on the attitude of the site owner. The knowledge base is stronger over there, but it is a tough crowd. People asking novice machining questions have a habit of getting flamed, but if they grow some thick skin PM does have a lot of older knowledgeable machinists. This site seems to have a lot of guys building their own CNCs. On PM if somebody starts any threads asking for help on do it yourself machine building they immediately get locked, I will usually private message them and tell them to come over here. The PM owner can be a quirky hypocrite at times. He is a used machinery dealer. I think he started the site to solicit help in machine repair. He only sells industrial grade machines, so anyone discussing hobby grade machinery gets tossed. I actually bought a machine off of him 5 years ago. I got a good honest deal. The guy is honest and straight forward, but won't win any Mr Personality contests.

[Al_The_Man]

The PM owner can be a quirky hypocrite at times. He is a used machinery dealer. I think he started the site to solicit help in machine repair. .......... but won't win any Mr Personality contests.

You got that right, personally I think he is cutting his own throat, I know of a few that do not bother with the site anymore due to the unnecessary abuse.
Before I posted an answer there I always checked to see if anyone had posted the same here and got to the point I did not bother to post there if I could help it.
Al.

[RomanLini]

...
People asking novice machining questions have a habit of getting flamed, but if they grow some thick skin PM does have a lot of older knowledgeable machinists. This site seems to have a lot of guys building their own CNCs. On PM if somebody starts any threads asking for help on do it yourself machine building they immediately get locked
...
so anyone discussing hobby grade machinery gets tossed.
...

It sounds like a best possible scenario to me. Anybody keen to start in the hobby ends up here. Anyone whoe wants to DIY, or fix up low end equipment ends up here. Anyone interested in the electronics, software, retrofitting etc ends up here.

And grumpy elitist intolerant know-it-alls end up there.

[derekj308]

Hi Guys

Aside of the fact that you can't link to www.cnczone.com, www.practicalmachinist.com is poorly moderated but more importantly has very poor culture. People behaving badly and being allowed, if not encouraged, to do so. I thought the purpose of forums in general was to generate robust, constructive discussion about topics of common interest. I am sure that there is plently of good information and a wealth of experience on that site but it is far outweighed by the unprofessional manner in which people frequently treat each other.

I am proud to be a www.cnczone.com member because it is well moderated and the members are here to help. It is in our best interest to welcome 'newbies' as they are the future of all machining related sites, hobby machining and in general, manufacturing. No apprentices, no future. 'Elitists' in general were also 'newbies' at some stage of their 'elite' careers but have forgotten their roots.

On principle alone I will not be subscribing to www.practicalmachinist.com regardless of what treasures may lie beneath the ugly surface.

[ImanCarrot]

You got that right, personally I think he is cutting his own throat, I know of a few that do not bother with the site anymore

Me too I got a one month ban for having an "innapropriate avatar" : I made an avatar of a Native Indian's ear (Injun Ear) lol

Fuk dem.

I am at the top of the tree in my profession, I'm the best in the country, there's only four companies that do what I do. I shall not ever give them my knowledge again.

I urge everyone to unsubscribe.

(Oh, my posts on there are under the same name (ImanCarrot)).

End Rant. lol life is too short to bother with arseholes.

[LeeWay]

Actually I joined there first IIRC. It was those guys talking about here but only calling it a few choice names that lead me to look for the Zone.

Tool snobbery irks me to no end and is something I won't tolerate if I don't have to. While it may be a good place for upper echelon or uber machineryisticalismists, it ain't my kind of place. I did receive some help back then though.

If you can't find it on the Zone, then post when you do find it and it'll be here then.

[Switcher]

Ha, Ha!!

I think you guys will like this.

So PM likes to delete any external links pointing to cnczone (this is funny).

Google pretty much says who cares, we already crawled the PM forum post that includes links & conversation about cnczone.

Here you will find 139 forum post on PM, granted a few will return a 404 (Page Not Found), still a lot of the dates on those are a few years old, so that says Google hasn't returned to crawl the forum post in a really long time (years), & in return Google thinks PM & Cnczone have related content.

Check this out:

1) This PM forum post (first post) hides cnczone in the URL

2) Google could care less that PM hides the cnczone text in the URL. Here is how Google looks at that exact same page (again this link is straight from Google) Link Here (notice how the cnczone URL is complete), lol

Back to the 404 (Page Not Found) issue, Google still says tuff luck we already crawled the page before PM deleted the entire forum thread.

1) PM - 404 (Page Not Found) includes cnczone text.

2) Google already crawled the page, before PM had a chance to delete the thread (lol),

Note:
That last link, may not have been deleted because of the cnczone text, still Google crawled the page before it was deleted & has been keeping that same page in Google Cache & re-indexing the Cache page over & over,

[Karl_T]

I was on PM and the administrator said all the avatars had to be on topic, whatever that means. I said I wanted to keep the same avatar because I used it on CNCzone. So, he bounced me off the PM ability to post. I haven't been back.

Do you folks find my avatar offensive? Its the logo for my business.

Karl

P.S. I was going to let you folks read the thread where the administrator banned me. I see its been removed. A whole bunch of people had posted things the effect of "Come on, you're kidding"

[Al_The_Man]

Do you folks find my avatar offensive? Its the logo for my business.

Karl

Evidently it has to be recognizable as a 'Machinist Theme' logo?

There is at least one member there that runs this forum down, but he sneaks in here occasionally for advice on a retrofit subject.
Al.

[Karl_T]

Your avatar makes me think you're a crack refitter of CNC machines with years of experience

Karl

[LeeWay]

I'd say that was censorship at it's best. Why bother taking your own valuable time to help or seek help to have someone else tell you you can't do that? Okay if all that was laid out at the start, but these guys make it up as they go along. I guess it is good to be the king.

[Al_The_Man]

Your avatar makes me think you're a crack refitter of CNC machines with years of experience

Karl

I hope you mean 'crack' as in 'Ace' not the 'user' kind
Al.

[MyCattMaxx]

Maybe they are afraid of you learning something that is new and wild.

[tobyaxis]

LOL, if practical machinist is such a professional website then why are they limiting the information that their members read?

No matter what practical machinist does on their site, they do not have the member base and accumulative knowledge of CNC Zone.

BTW: It is known that 25 to 40% of the members of practical machinist have been banned from CNC Zone. It's no wonder why they have a childish atmosphere over there.

Last but not least. Ger21 and Al_The_Man do a lot of work here along with the rest of us. If anything the members here should show a little respect and gratitude. Without them spending their time here this forum would be overrun with Spam and Jerks like practical machinist.

Thanks Gerry and Al

[LeeWay]

I'll second that notion. Thanks a bunch. Plus a couple attaboys. I'd send ya'll one, but I can't figure out which Cam to use.

[Geof]

I was doodling around on practicalmachinist and came across this statement in a post; Don't mistake for a minute that PM isn't one of the highest ranked and most crawled sites for subject matter relevant to machinists. You post something today, and tomorrow that subject is either the first hit or first page on Google.

So I figured testing this statement might be a good idea and started doing Google searches on machining related topics; guess what forum showed up at the top of the list most often?

[LeeWay]

Pam's tips for personal machinery care and operation?