Good points, HP. I agree with your basic point, but a significant number of the users here are at most casual users of computers, not terribly familiar with doing forum searches in an efficient way, and can have difficulty finding what they want to know. Agreed
I'm not proposing a new forum in any way. nor do I necessarily agree that just adding yet another subforum here is necessary or terribly useful. Frankly, the number of persons interested in actually building bikes for others doesn't seem terribly large, just based on this forums posts and those on other biking forums. Also agreed. On average, there's about 10 visitors to 1 member. No-one actually knows anything about them and some of them could be looking for a bike builder or simply fishing for info.
What I have in mind is more of a reference page where builders can give a summary of their interests/expertise, maybe a couple pics of their work, and make it as straight forward as possible for the casual user to enter their location (perhaps by zip/postal code) and find out what builders are fairly close to them. I think that is an excellent idea, but I think that could already be done in the forum. Problem is that there is no way to find bike builders by locality on the forum. I will set up something on the HybriPed site, but it really needs to be a Google Maps sort-of thing
If that idea appeals, then I'd suggest that a simple clickable button in the vendors area is all this forum would then need, that opens the reference site. In all honesty, the forum is already very "busy" in terms of the number and specificity of the subfora. I'm not sure a new additional subforum is warranted. At present, that is probably correct and it probably would never be popular. However, I see it as a chicken and egg thing - if it is not there, you don't know.
Mostly, since I'm in the apartment pretty much 24/7, my health issues are escalating, and I'm not able to provide custon design/fabrication services as a builder myself, I see this as an idea of a way to contribute to a community that I derive great pleasure and mental stimulation from. It's great that you are participating - Have you thought of offering to moderate?
So, if there's significant interest, I'd be glad to follow through on my offer.