It is fundraising time, and the site needs your help, now.
The domain and hosting of the Secret Society of Lathe Trolls chat forum site are up for renewal.
You are using the site, or you have enjoyed it in the past 10 years, as a rabid post-er or lurker or somewhere in-between; as a giver or consumer of knowledge and equipment.
I, Steve E., administrator, am running this magic, one-of-a-kind place on a frayed piece of shoestring, which is being used to hold the door shut so the landlord can’t kick it in. We have no major grants. We have no corporate overlords. We don’t have fees for membership or even, as of now, for the "Classifieds & Tip-offs" section listings. All we have are your friends and you: quirky brilliant individuals; operators of niche businesses; researchers; and/or home tinkerers. You are the Lathe Trolls. You make the site worth visiting. I, with your help, and the generous volunteer efforts of our mods, keep it functioning.
Immediately, I must implement a bunch of updates to keep the site’s software working. A new crew of moderators must be put through boot camp. A blog/magazine is being reworked, to showcase the work and services of our members. There is also the daily maintenance of the now-whopping 1800+ users: Forgotten passwords, swarf fires, the works. This stuff is generally handled by this one guy writing you, who is a freelance musician and audio editor living in Brooklyn.
Good stuff you already know:
- LatheTrolls.com enables the passing on of record-creating knowledge and experience that had been on the verge of being lost.
- It encourages innovation, while aiding in the salvage and repair of irreplaceable older equipment.
- It showcases vinyl art.
- It singularly promotes businesses in this reviving industry, offers problem-solving data and schematics for everything from old home units to Neumann VMS-80s, and helps sellers and buyers of equipment find each other.
- It is a unique, invaluable, deep, massive, sprawling database of the world's living knowledge of record-cutting and record-pressing.
- Its users volunteer, daily, to solve the most maddening of technical problems.
- It connects record-making professionals and hobbyists on every continent on the planet. And...
- It's fun!
And, if you have not logged on in a while….Please come visit and post again. We'd love to hear what you are up to.
Yours in grooviness,
Steve E.
Administrator
The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls