The moderators have been kicking around the idea of defining the meaning of "ethnographic" for this purposes of this forum.
Personally, I hate to give the impression that we are imposing a bright-line exclusion of any one group of collectors. On the other hand, rather by definition this forum is directed to a particular sub-group of weapons & armor.
Anyway, Lee pointed out that he has provided a definition on the main page of the Ethnographic Edged Weapons Resource site page. I have added a sticky note at the top of the General forum, providing this definition.
We are not going to create any particular class of "prohibitted" weapons/armor, though. I think that the natural flow of the forum will be away from discussion of things that do not fit this definition of "ethnographic," so the definition I put up in the sticky post should not be taken as a strict prohibition against any discussion of things falling outside that definition. As several people have pointed out, often there is a direct relation between more standardized weapon and tool patterns and what can be considered "ethnographic," so some discussion of things like military pattern weapons can be enriching to the overall discussion.
The tastes and interests of the forum membership naturally control the type and extent of discussion of weapons and armor on the forum. If a topic has some relevance to our interests, discussion will obviously continue as long as that interest lasts. My guess is that in many cases, a post on a pattern European sabre will be met largely with indifference.
Of course, a post on the latest fantasy offering from Museum Replicas, or a Paul Chen Practical Katana is going to be met with a polite "wrong forum" message from the staff.
