You think gun boards get cranky?

[MarkCO]

One of the nicest boards I am a member of is the GTO (2003-2006) forum.  I've met friends there that I now shoot with, one does my companies IT and another one manages my GTO tunes.  Kind of "refined" gearheads.

I was at a match and ended up talking to one of the owners of ARFcom.  He asked me how I liked the forum.  I told him I don't know, have not been there in years.  I think I am banned.  He tried to "sell" me on how great it was, but I still don't go there.

I think one of the problems is that some people feel empowered behind the anonymity of the keyboard.  In this information age, someone can get pretty close to sounding like they know what they are talking about without even owning a firearm.  Then you have the old sages who learned at the school of hard knocks get shredded and go away for good.

[JoeG]

Funny, I asked 1 question there and got no answers. given that it was a newby question and I later found it in their monstrous stack of FAQs, I was probably lucky to avoid a flood of total disdain.

People confuse ignorance with stupidity and facts with knowledge. I am a fan of the "If you can't teach it, then you don't know it" school. One of the reasons I love to teach scout to shoot. I always relearn what is fundamental.

[TAB]

About the only good thing about arf is the knowledge base. Not just on guns, but on just about every thing.  Same with reefcentral , rdp( best i have found at that) and a few others.   so hobbys have such a deverse group of people in them, you can litterly ask a Q or " I need x" on them and some one will know or direct you too the right place.

[TAB]

One thing that can kill a great forum faster then anything else is bad mods.   happen to Reef central.  They got some really power trippy mods.  I left.  That was a while ago.  Damn shame.  I have never seen another knowledge base on anything, like there was on RC.  I wrote several faqs(all of them still up)  had a few threads crack the 200 page mark in the diy section, mainly on me helping others.  Was a supplier of god knows how many acrylic diy "kits".  Then about the time it went to a pay for faster access/ more features bs. It went down hill quick.  From what i hear things are much better now, still not logged in for years.  No plan too any time soon.  whats really funny is i was raving about ats( alage turf scrubbers 10+ years ago)  and how they were much better at removing docs and other nastys,   the rest of the hobbie finally cuaght up with me  lol.   i would love to set up another reef, but rc left such a bad taste in my mouth i won't.   besides, i like planted tanks more and they are cheaper. Lol