I personally am not into the restoration of vintage TVs or the construction of tube audio equipment, but have no objection to these topics being voiced on this site, and do enjoy reading about what others are doing. One danger I see is that we get too caught up in defining the narrow areas of interest. We don’t have a whole lot of posts every month, and it’s not hard to read them all in the current “All Topics” catch-all list. After all, isn’t the purpose of this site to exchange information as easily as possible? For simplicity, I would prefer a minimum number of Forums with relatively broad ranges for discussion, and slice the forum lists finer when the demand for specialty topics grows.
I do like Murray’s suggestions for Forum discussions in addition to the traditional repair and restoration threads. For example, I personally find the social impact of early wireless communication to be a fascinating study, and so can buy in to Murray’s first point “Technology History”. Being a Tesla fan, his second point about “Tesla technologies” resonated with me as well, and perhaps Canadian Tesla buffs would buy a CVRS membership to have a soapbox.
My experience with nation-wide projects in other tech fields makes me apprehensive of the third point.
And as for a separate Opinion Page, I don’t see how “social” opinions differ from “technical” opinions, i.e. why should an opinion about the role of radio in shaping consumer tastes in the 1930’s have any more or less volume than an opinion of the best spray lacquer on the market? Seems to me a few well-titled Forums would catch most of the discussions.
Gary
