Keep M4C a good place to hang out at.

General General Discussion
1

The past year I have noticed that all Internet communities I am involved with becoming a bit more edgy and angry. Considering the political and economic situation in the US, this is understandable. This does not mean that you should take those frustrations out on those who share your interest in the defense use of firearms.

When you are starting a post that you feel might be a bit provocative. Hit the “preview post” button and read your post. Is it going to piss off half the people that read it just by your tone? If it is, change it enough to generate a discussion not an argument. You have your written words and a few smilies to communicate with. There is no body language reading via the Internet and most people do not know who you are, so they will not realize that you are a wealth of knowledge and a great guy.

When you are replying to a post, do the same thing. It adds perhaps 30 seconds to the time you spend on a post, but it might advance the discussion instead of turning the thread into a CF.

Also recall the CoC. Do not post hearsay in technical discussions. If you know that X part breaks on X gun as you have seen it happen, groovy, state as such. If you have spoken to expert Y about this part breaking, state that is your point of reference. If you cannot do so, do not post something as being a fact. If you have to spend three sentences explaining how you came to “know” something, you might want to reassess the validity of the information and see if you can eliminate a bit of the uncertainty.

If you do get into a factual disagreement, avoid ad hominems, attack the facts and methodology not the person. Basic debate rules, real basic rules. Throwing too much Latin debate nomenclature around might make it clearer to you, but realize that it might make it less so for the other parties. See my above usage of ad hominem, used it and then expressed a short definition. Easiest way to do it, not everyone is a JD and will need the English explanation.

This forum is a real wealth of knowledge and experience that doesn’t need to go down the road of a few other forums, where there are cliques and real anger towards other members. So take a minute before you make a post and read your words. If they are unclear or inflammatory, edit them. When you disagree, disagree with the facts. Remember we are all here to learn and exchange knowledge about the defensive usage of firearms, not to beat our E-chest and insult people.

PS: If you are reading this and you feel that I am picking on you and wrote this because of you, that’s called a clue. In all honesty, though, it was the behavior of another forum and seeing 4 locked threads on the first page of the General Discussion area that made me decide to write this.

2

All forums go through a life cycle. They start out with a small and dedicated following, experience growing pains and then either sail on or collapse. I think M4Carbine is sailing on smooth seas.

M_P

3

Ditto, M4Carbine is pretty much the only gun board I visit anymore. I am a member of them all under various usernames. I rarely visit/post in the GD forum cause I tend to not see eye to eye with most folks on various topics. I’m here to learn about the subject at hand.

4

this is an awesome board. about the only places i go for gun info are here and akforum. this place has tons of armed professionals and industry folks, and akforum has lots of dedicated shooters and collectors who really know their stuff. I don’t actually own an AK or AR anymore, due to fiscal constraints… Both boards are moderated with an iron fist, which is really essential to any board to get serious subject oriented discussion going. overall just a great place for anyone interested in becoming proficient with firearms.

5

Well said NB. However, I don’t know about this guy talking about his cycle :smiley:

6

Great site here for sure and lots of experience/expertice which is what I’m looking for. M4C is a part of my daily routine :slight_smile:

7

Absolutely agree. The internet is the worst place to try to judge someone’s character, and a forum (of any sort) gives very little to the substance of a person beyond an opinion or thought they may have posted.

For this reason I have discouraged myself from participating in General Discussion topics, though I’ve often wanted to chime in with my thoughts. I take this attitude mostly because often people tend to jump to misinformed conclusions about my character, judged solely on what I had typed on one topic, and this in the end just sours my willingness to continue a discussion or debate based in reason and logic and less in emotions. (Soon enough though, I will be participating in the AR/M4 discussions. That is, once I start building my first rifle in the summer).

That said, M4C is a great forum with awesome members, and I visit almost everyday just to see what’s going on and read some very good opinions about various topics outside of rifles and weapons.

8

I’ve begun hanging out here more and more often.

9

I would like to see fewer threads closed. I realize I’m a relative n00b here but have been staff on larger forums for over a decade now and have a pretty firm grasp of the topic at hand. It seems at times I click a link in an email to check out a new thread because I’m interested in the topic only to arrive to a thread that was closed after one or two posts. It’s not like this forum is out of control busy and I understand that sometimes it’s necessary (fourteen ACR threads for instance) but there are other times when a topic is unique and members would like to discuss it. It may not even be completely firearm related but this is General Discussion after all. I know that the idea is to keep things from getting out of control but this can be taken too far at times and I’ve not only experienced it but have heard from other newer members as well and fear some new members may get run off as a result. I know that’s not the wishes of the staff so just an impartial heads up I guess. Take it for what you will. Great forum though and better then most of the others in the same category.

10

I also belong to several other forums and I just recently found this gem of a site. I always used to be on a certain 1911 forum with some of the top guys in the industry on there and I had to leave due to the constant fighting about brand x vs. y and everyone calling each other a dumbass of something every 3 seconds. Real shame as there was a ton of wealth to be had I just couldn’t stand digging through the bs to find it.

11

Quite a few of us have requested that GD be shut down, almost from the inception of m4carbine.net. I participate in it when it’s there, I even start a thread or two there from time to time, but I am of the opinion that it offers nothing to the USERS of the site. As it has been explained to me, however, GD generates traffic and users, and traffic and users make site sponsors happy, so GD isn’t going anywhere.

When I had my GTO I belonged to a forum for them and they had a rule against any political discussion at at all. Tough to do on a gun forum where our topic is threatened by politics, but I thought it was one of the best rules I’ve ever seen on any forum.

12

Why would you want it shut down? If you don’t like it, don’t go to it. Seems simple enough to me anyway. I have no interest in some of the sections here so I just don’t go to them… doesn’t mean others don’t like them. The GD sections are a good place to talk about lots of topics that aren’t always forum specific but when the forum gets to a certain size it’s nice to have that outlet to share ideas, thoughts or ask questions and have those who you’ve grown comfortable with help you out here and there. I’ve made some good friends over the years from forums that I’ve eventually met in real life and kept in contact with so it’s nice to have this section to be able to make connections that are more than just ‘Hey what type of powder do you use for loading .338 Lapua for wide temperature swings?’ or other specific topics.

On one of the other forums I’m on (motorcycle forum) we actually got tired of the political threads or threads that would turn political (especially around election time) so we created an entire subforum for politics and religion that was completely unmoderated. This way whenever a thread got off topic and start going the direction of either of those two topics we simply relocate it and those who are in the discussion can argue until the cows come home w/o bothering the rest of the members who didn’t care. Seemed like a pretty good solution to me and worked quite well.

13

I like the GD cuz I think it’s kinda cool to see how the various members are wired on various subjects. Especially the ones who really go out of their way to help us the other topics. Plus, you can usually tell when a gd is gonna be shut down. I simply enjoy most of them.

I do have one hot button that the really helps me on the GD and when I see a poster suggesting we need more gun control for this, that and the other…I’m inclined to never offer any suggestions they may have that are gun related and need help on the other sections. Maybe a character flaw on my part, but at least I know who is with us & it weirds me out to help a guy who wants to restrict my freedoms.

I view it as a guy going on a hot rod forum, asking how to get faster times on his 1/4 top fuel, but insisting the world drive hybrids & bycylcles to work…the hell with them.

rant over.

14

Worth repeating:

If the owners and staff who have built the site decide to keep GD open , then locking threads and banning people are very efficient tools .

What sets M4 carbine apart and above most sites is very high quality and integrity.
That is a huge competitive edge for the site and the commercial firms that help to support it.
Some very high quality sites ban religion and politics – but allow gun civil rights news , info , and discussion. If some individuals can’t understand the nuances of that policy – then locking threads and banning people become very useful teaching tools .

15

I think GD is a great way to grow a member base, as well as turn members away. Lately it seems like some random troll accounts have been created and caused a little stir in some threads, but given the nature of the threads, who knows. The idea would be to keep the threads of a certain caliber as to promote intelligent conversation. There are a few long threads that capture a lot of BS here and there, such as the “gear heads” thread, and I think as things move on, more condensed threads may be developed, who knows. I am unsure of how the moderation works on the site, but perhaps some threads can be deleted rather than closed if they are a few posts long and worthy of being closed, it will cut the clutter, unless of course the idea of thread deletion is opposed in general.

The other part of it is it allows people who have no real background with guns other than hobby to get involved in more discussion with those who are willing to partake. It is one of those mind-trick things that makes me feel a little better having no background in this at all.

16

Clutter can become a serious problem in and of itself.

17

People who quote previous posters with out adding anything new are the worst.
:stuck_out_tongue:

18

+1:D

I’ve been fine with M4C’s GD forum and how it’s run. I usually don’t patrol GD here much, but I’ve found it to be informative(I figure if a news piece is worth knowing about, it’s being discussed here). I don’t have a problem with how things are here since I’ve seen how sometimes GD sections can be detrimental to the site as a whole.

19

general discussion is good for funneling various drivel away from the more topic oriented areas. AKforum’s general discussion is politics free. they’re pretty serious about it too. a politically charged thread might go 10 posts before it gets the lockdown… so it can be done. This site is a bit higher traffic though.

20

An alternative that some of us have suggested is a 30, or 100, post threshold before posting in GD. Unfortunately it means more work for the mods and staff as they would have to police up the trash posts some of these GD gremlins make just to be able to get in there and argue with people over stupid shit.

on TOS there are thousands of people with nary a post in anything other than GD, or ratios of 100:1 or even 1000:1 GD:tech.

It’s called “m4carbine.net” not “I’m sorry you have no friends in real life to discuss shit with dot net”. :wink: