This. If we have already witnessed a train wreck, there is no need to do it again.
The other main reason for locking threads is because the topic has already been discussed X 10. M4C uses all of its BW every month. The less threads we have talking about the same thing keeps us from having to pay additional money.
As someone who has been on internet forums for a LONG time, let me explain something to you…
Every single post you make contributes to how you are perceived, and colors how future posts will be responded to by other members as well as acted on by moderators. You can lament this as “unfair” or you can accept it for the reality that it is, but in either case it is a truism. Posts like the above included. So while you may not grasp the idea just yet, every post complaining about being persecuted and treated unfairly contribute (negatively, if you’re not clear) to that overall perception and color how threads on things like painting a (meaningless) number on your stock will be received and treated. Act like a whiny child long enough and often enough and you’ll be treated like one. No, your posts are not, and never will be, taken at face value. They come with the baggage associated with your screen name that YOU YOURSELF tie to that screen name with every new post.
This leaves you with a choice. Do you attempt to conform and make your posts reflect how you would like to be received, or do you say “fuck it, I’m me and I’m gonna be me” and continue to post however you want? I think it’s obvious which path I chose myself. But in either case climbing up on your cross and whining about it only serves to further poison that perception so not only is in non-productive, it in fact becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and makes itself true.
If you want to be taken (and treated) seriously, post seriously. If you want to be taken (and treated) frivolously, post frivolously. If you want to be seen as a child, complain that your frivolous posts have resulted in a like reaction. You can’t show up to church in a bozo the clown costume and complain that nobody takes your sermon seriously.
Didn’t know this.
You’ve never written your initials on anything you own before? What is so offensive about this just because it’s my rifle? It’s mine, I like it, I am proud of it because I had to save up quite a while to get it… and I want to identify it as mine…
If you pretend that you can’t understand that- then it just proves what I’ve said. You’ll disagree with me and go against me just because it is me and for no other reason.
The fact that all you got out of my post was to interpret it as further evidence of your persecution not only furthers my point, but further digs the hole that you keep crying about. The hole that you continue to dig yourself into.
The point isnt that theres a thing wrong with you doing whatever you like with your personal property. The point is, this site isnt about that kinda internet ranger crap.
If you want to do that stuff, its your money and your gear, go nuts, but dont go getting asshurt if it doesnt get welcomed here.
This site is about furthing MEANINGFUL discussion for our hobby, and frankly painting a rack number, color filling a roll mark, or whatever else is the latest gucci shit for the internet ranger, just isnt welcomed here by the staff, the major contributors, or the majority of the members.
Now get the sand out of your vag, suck it the fuck up, and use the site for what its intended for. There is a metric fuck ton of useful info posted here, I learn something new every day, and Im by no means a novice. Take the gucci shit to a site where its welcomed.
Your thread was just plain silly and would have caused much pain and suffering as you would have been attacked from all sides. The very first post did this. So the mod (realizing that a train wreck was about to take place) locked it (correctly so).
Are their stupid threads in the GD? Yes. Are they going to start a riot? No.
The mods here have a long history of arbitrarily locking or moving my threads with no legitimate reason being given. I started a thread a few months ago on the details of a new upper half I had received from a company that was fairly new… posted it up with detailed observations in the AR Technical Discussion section. It was moved over to AR General Discussion. I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t quite understand the logic there.
After reviewing many of YOUR threads, they do seem to get locked a lot. This might be your fault of the fault of someone else. After awhile though, a pattern develops and if you are always in the middle of it, then that is a clue.
Doing a review of something you bought does not belong in the AR technical section.
The “reputation” you’re upholding is one of personal grudges and bias dictating the actions of the mods, apparently at complete random, with little adherence to written rules.
Make no mistake, the mods and staff dislike everyone the same. So no personal grudges.
If we took the time to write out all the rules, we would have hundreds of pages. On top of that, no one ever reads them so it doesn’t matter.
To make it easy for you though, if a mod or staff sees something that is of no benefit to the forum, they will lock it, remove it and or ban the person. This should about cover all the whining about the rules either not being there or written to cover that exact issue.
I think we can all understand the frustration of watching a thread go down for no apparent reason, and whenever possible, we do try to provide some warning before the fact, as well as a quick note of explanation whenever the lock is employed. That isn’t always going to be the case, of course, but that is our preferred method. It really depends upon how far afield the thread was to begin with, how many other “clean up in aisle 6” calls were going on at the same time, and which staffer was intervening. We all strive to adhere to a common standard, but it’s entirely true that we have our own personal styles, different tolerance levels and varying degrees of familiarity with the members involved in a given discussion. At times, I’m sure that individual members might feel that they are coming under the microscope, but the truth is that we aren’t focused upon contributors nearly so much as we are focused upon content – and I think that has a lot to do with the friction points identified elsewhere in this thread.
Every user of this site understands that there are certain things that just aren’t going to be tolerated here. We’ve codified these in a set of formal rules, and insist that they be followed to preserve good order on the boards. What might be less immediately apparent is the fact that we also apply a more subtle set of quality standards to keep conversations biased toward a professional bent. Thus, we will occasionally cull a conversation, not because it crossed any real line in the sand, but because it was problematic from a signal-to-noise ratio perspective. Put another way, just because something might be permissible, that does not mean that it will ultimately lead to the kind of well-reasoned discussions that we aspire to host. This isn’t about being mean-spirited or singling anyone out: it’s about insuring that the site does not descend into the kind of triviality and chaos that so often pass for the norm elsewhere. We do try to explain these actions when we can, but if a member feels that he’s getting the short end of the stick with uncomfortable regularity, the odds are that he simply needs to read more, post less, and take a bit more time to immerse himself in the site culture. In time, either he will “get it” and graduate to a more productive level of participation, or he will find that he might be better served by other communities which are more aligned to his interests. It isn’t our aim to cater to everyone, but neither do we wish anyone ill. We simply are committed to preserving the character of a site that occupies a unique place in the vast expanse of shooting-related resources.
AC
Lmarbrog…seriously?
I understand that some here are “elitist”, but your thread was worthless.
Neither did I. Shines a bit of new insight. That beings said, some threads last WAY to long while others are killed very quick.
Now onto the whole “use the search button” deal. While I do agree fully that sometimes threads just get so repetitive the the horse is just a pulp and can no longer be beaten (such as: Can magazines be left loaded for a long time? Is .223 the same as 5.56? Are the lower and upper supposed to rattle?), other times I think its OK to start a new thread on a subject that might not have been covered in several years.
You may find 5 or 6 threads about your question from 2008, but none posted in the past several years. Opinion on that object may have changed since then. Ammo quality might have changed, choice in optics or optic mounts might have changed, ect. You can’t neccesarily always tell someone to go back to previous info, when that info could be outdated.
When so much information has been covered in that kind of way (such as on this forum) and you still enforce a strict locking technique on threads that appear to “beat a dead horse”, the forum will begin to slow down. I have seen this happen on countless other forums over the years. When people run out of things to post, the forum will slow down and less will participate. I’m not saying its happening now, but It could happen any time. I do notice that the AR General Discussion seems to have slown down considerable in the past year. I think that it may also have to do with a lack of new products recently, but I don’t know. Just an observation.
Thank you mods for the work that you do.
In my opinion, we could stand to have a few more threads locked, and earlier, to preserve the excellent signal:noise here.
this is still the best AR/M4 related forum on the net…
I dont buy anything w/o searching here first (yellow button next to the calendar ) 
No one is going against you, and to be honest, I think you’re probably an all-around good dude. You are, however, still fairly young. That doesn’t mean that you are stupid, that you shouldn’t have a voice, nor that your opinions don’t matter. It does mean that you occasionally run the risk of coming across as a bit over-the-top, disproportionately enthusiastic, or preoccupied with things that really don’t matter all that much in the big picture. Been there, done that. Most of us on this site have.
Colter, in time you will come to understand the lovely, pained patina of skepticism, the finer points of growing hopelessly-jaded and the outright delightful disillusionment that come with age, but on a more serious note, you really just need to post with your audience in mind. If I told you that the average M4C member was a somewhat older guy than his ARFCOM counterpart, who is probably a veteran, has some experience working in the security or public safety fields, is active in the industry, or is still very much engaged in the profession of arms, then perhaps you can understand why something like your “rack number” thread might have resulted in some behind-the-keyboard eye rolling. Rack numbers? Really? Sure, they’ve appeared on more issued weapons than most of us can even remember signing for over the years, but what would be the point of doing this to a privately-owned weapon?
Again, I’m not suggesting that your ideas are stupid; merely that guys with a professional or operational frame of reference are going to find some of them rather silly because of where they’ve been and what they’ve seen in life. These members read your posts and immediately pick up on the inexperience. The response isn’t always kind because they can’t tell the difference between a younger guy and a total poseur, and you know how they feel about the latter. That is why you sometimes see staff intervention to prevent a feeding frenzy. It isn’t a personal affront nearly so much as a rescue in progress, and I suspect that particular point will become clearer in time if you stick it out. Until then, please just try to give us the benefit of the doubt.
AC
When a forum starts to feel like facebook, or twitter, I am Ok with slowing it down some.
Our most important guidance to mods/staff is attempt to keep the signal to noise ratio as high as possible, but don’t stifle new users.
Someone with claimed, or demonstrated knowledge will get far less latitude than someone who explains their position on the M4 totem pole of knowledge, and accepts that it’s nowhere near the middle bottom.
Act like a pro, get threads locked like a pro. Then conduct yourself, after the locking, like a pro.
When things are going well, you can tell nothing of the character of the person with whom you are dealing. It’s only when adversity presents itself that you see the character of the man with whom you converse. I’d say whining over a locked thread moves you straight to the bottom of the totem pole.
To be clear, GeorgiaBoy asking about why threads are locked isn’t the same as crying.
I think the mods and admins here do a great job of keeping the BS down.
If they just slack a little, the BS can start building up fast.
If ypu look at some really wretched gun forums, you see a conglamoration of stupid theoretical ‘what-would-you-do’ threads, ‘it-happened-to-me’ stories that either don’t ring true or reflect extreme stupidity on the part of the posters relaying the stories, a mix of gunstore commandoisms and gunstore liability lawyerisms, and threads that go on foreever debating whether it is a good idea to keep a round in the chamber.
I often wonder how these messageboards get as bad as they do and the answer is that they may start off well but are allowed to deteriorate. Stupid posts beget stupid posts and attract stupid people until eventually the more sensible and knowledgeable people stop posting. It is similar to the way a formerly good neighborhood deteriorates.
I’m glad that the mods and admins here do the work to prevent this from happening. As already stated upthread, this is what atttracts the SMEs and reknown instructors here and keeps them active on this site.
Think this forum is harsh?
Try Lightfighter…
Start a thread on fake rack numbers there and watch what happens.
The best forums, IMHO, are the ones that won’t tolerate noise. (M4C, Wevo, LF)
A lot can be learned from them if one learns to shut up, and stay in their lane.
Keep up the good work mods!
:thank_you2:
10-4 that
There’s something to be said about keeping your eyes and ears open and learning from the greats, and having a thick skin when they rip on you for some amateur nonsense you foist on them.
There’s also something to be said about being welcoming and never letting the idea that this is a business and that the patrons make it or break it leave your thoughts. Too much ridicule or sarcasm against patrons may eventually hurt the advertisers bottom line.
Everything in balance.
Sad thing is, those who this refers to, especially the part in blue, will be ignored or misinterpreted by those who need it most. Hopefully those complaining can find a place where they feel more at home, and the rest of us can move back to the m4c we used to have.