Remember when? Ravelry

Remember when Ravelry first came on the scene?
Remember how totally wicked AWESOME! it was?
It was a great idea, by great people.

An online notebook for all of your knitting projects. People could follow your project along as you went, and in my case, probably wonder what the hell was taking me so long to mark a dishcloth as "FINISHED".
You can organize all of your patterns, yarns, and needles, if you were so inclined.
You can chat, join groups, KALs and "hangout" with all your knitterly friends.

Now........
Ravelry is still the best idea for any crafter.
Anytime I am going to start something new, I look on Ravelry, at completed projects to get yarn ideas, pattern adjustment ideas, just about anything you need to know about a project before you start.
But......

Ravelry has become a designer showcase. There are more designers selling on Ravelry than there are just plain old knitters, and hardly any crocheters.
People have gotten away from what it was all for in the beginning.
Now, if a project gets listed, it's because the designer wants you to "prepare" for it's debut!
No more pages and pages of new projects being worked on and finished by crafty friends, just more 'designs'.

And on that note....WTH is up with all these people changing a stripe sequence on an item and renaming it and calling it a 'design' and then selling it?

If you take a basic fingerless glove pattern, change the color of the yarn you used, add a stripe around the thumb, rename it and then list it as new pattern for sale, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, you are not a designer. You just changed a color, and honestly, most of us have probably already done it years ago and have a pair that look just like yours in our drawer somewhere.

I think what Ravelry has turned into is absolutely awesome for the people who started and run it.
It was supposed to grow, become it's own entity, and it has accomplished that very well so far.

But I miss the old Ravelry, where you could look through and share patterns for hours, and no one tried to pull a stripey color change over your eyes!