Ravelry

I enjoy Ravelry because it is a specific-interest website for knitters and crocheters. I love that it has a drop down menu for an individual's personal notebook, which includes a messaging function, as well as creating one's own library of knitting projects, yarns, patterns. I also like the navigation bar where visitors can go to find patterns, yarn, fellow knitters, groups, and a discussion forum. Public vs. individual is very well delineated ~ horizontal navigation bar for public information and vertical menu for individual information.

I love Ravelry because they have provided a site to find patterns, designers, and yarns, as well as a wonderful, safe place to talk with fellow fiber artists all in one spot.

It is an easy website to use. I love being able to create a personal database of my projects, patterns, and yarns all in one place as well as meeting fellow knitters in their forums.

They are an inclusive community dedicated to making everyone feel welcome.

I have used Ravelry as a resource many times in the past for patterns and help with patterns. No more. My last post for help regarding an unclear instruction in a pattern I downloaded from the site got three responses that did not answer my question but told me I had not used the right thread. Though I had searched for a thread regarding my particular question prior to posting it, the search engine had not returned any matches and scrolling through the threads did not yield any obvious connections to my particular question, hence my post on a new thread. The general snarkiness - you could almost see the fingers shaking at you - and the lack of helpfulness was a marked departure from the previous helpfulness I'd experienced before. I will not be using this site again for anything.

Ravelry combines the best of social media with an unparalleled database of knitting and crochet patterns.

Site owners are prompt to respond to issues, and frequently implement changes to improve functionality. The site is easy to navigate. If you want only patterns, the search function will allow you to find what you need without having to participate in the forums, and if you have questions about materials and techniques there is an enormous community of crafters who are happy to help.

I was a member of Ravelry for years, contributed many pattern books from the 60s-80s to their database.

My favorite button was "ignore this thread" which I clicked whenever subjects or commentary disturbed me. Obviously not enough members used this feature because the community imploded, and rather than getting control the owners threw gasoline on the fire.

I empathize with the advertisers and independent business owners that were heavily invested here. Several have publicly stated this has hurt their business, they had no warning and choosing political sides is unprofessional.

Since I started tracking they've lost 30,085 members, and I've attached screen shots to prove it. As members close their accounts, their data leaves with them and participation numbers continue to plummet.

They can keep their illusion of superiority; better sites that are truly neutral and inclusive are quickly stepping up to replace them.

Ravelry is a necessary resource for any knitter or crocheter. Information about every yarn and pattern in existence is listed and cross referenced with users' projects, stash, and library.
An independent designer can sell their patterns through Ravelry with the site taking only a tiny percentage, and only when the designer makes a certain $ amt in sales in that particular month.
There is also an extensive list of social groups one may or may not join, many based on other hobbies & interests, or offered by local yarn shops and other industry groups, to keep one in the loop and to offer a platform for respectful discussion. The owners are doing an excellent job of curbing hate speech against marginalized folks to make Ravelry's message boards a more pleasant space for all.

If they started out this way I would have never joined. But they sucked me in, took my money, then turned into a biased bigoted whining fest for wokeness but no fairness for any difference of opinion. Why not just ban all politics? Because it's just too much fun for them to bash Christians, Jews, conservatives or anyone they disagree with.
These forums are chock full of hate hate hate, nastiness and vulgar comments, but all that is A-ok if you agree with their bigoted ideas.

Ravelry is a knowledge site for crafters, run by real people who are some of the best coders, UI developers, knowledge managers and customer service team I've encountered, anywhere, in a 30-year (so far) IT career. The site aims to catalogue all things yarncraft and makes massive databases of patterns, supplies, and projects available for free to its users. It is a sustainable and ethical small business, subsisting on voluntary user contributions and relevant advertising content from human-vetted small business contributors.

An originally small part of the site was its extensive forums function, which is moderated by volunteers and governed by an exceedingly well considered Community Guidelines that the rest of the social media world could stand to take a few lessons from.

Ravelry is a site for people to share their love of fiber arts. Pretty hard to do if some people are doxxing and harassing some of their members, and others are blowing up public boards with horrible slurs and gleefully posting "designs" promoting racism and intolerance.
I've been a member since the wild and crazy beta testing days, and I'll be with Ravelry until the day they pry my knitting needles from my cold, dead hands.
I'm not much of a political activist, but I support their policy decision and more to the point, the site is a lot nicer without those people there. Discussions of everything from pattern design to fiber content are so much lighter and peppier, now that we don't have people afraid to join the conversation.

I was introduced to Raveley after being taught to crochet to cope with a cancer diagnosis. I have forged some of my most important friendships due to meeting people on ravelry. Casey has done such a magnificent job creating a site that is pleasing, operational an amazing amount of the time, despite heavy traffic, formatted in a groundbreaking way so as to combine a massive database with an inclusive, safe, and friendly social media platform. The attention to detail and personal safety of all members is truly visionary.

The political patterns and forum posts have gotten out of hand in Ravelry. And if you are to comment that Ravelry is supposed to be for fiber arts, not mean, hateful political stuff, you are bullied and attacked. Never mind that this behavior violates Ravelrys terms of service, they wont do anything about it. Ravelry does not care about a safe, peaceful environment for knitting, crocheting, etc. And why would they? They make money when someone sells a pattern, regardless of its content. If you dont want your kids exposed to such nonsense, keep them away from this site.

I was a member of Ravelry for many years and used it frequently. The owners of the site decided to employ fascist tactics by banning any discussion or patterns that were pro-Trump and calling anyone that supported Trump a white supremacist yet continuing to let anti-Trump, -Christianity, -Semite patterns, posts, etc., to flourish. I want no part of that regardless of how I voted.
The good thing that has come out of their stupidity is a lot of new sites and pages that we can go to and do the exact same thing but with more contemporary design and technology.
Enjoy your hate-mongering and bullying bubble.