Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to the TASKER Network. I am its founder and CEO, and therefore the new owner of M4carbine.net. By now I’m sure you’ve heard, the TASKER Network was chosen by SOLGW to acquire M4C and succeed them as its steward, given our experience maintaining other discussion hubs in our space, within and beyond social media.
The long and short of it is SOLGW simply didn’t have the time to dedicate to running the place and keeping up with the upkeep, which I can see you’ve noticed and have been complaining about for some time; so, they offered it to me and I accepted. Let me provide some background about myself and how things have gone up to now.
In my day job, I am a 16.5 year veteran of the NYPD on patrol, and an avid student of the gun in the meantime. In 2017, I started the Facebook group Tactics & Applications (T&A), a vetted curation of the best and brightest across the industry and the surrounding firearms community. In 2021, I purchased Lightfighter.net; they, now along with M4C, constitute the TASKER Network, which launched formally in 2022.
Having already been a member of both LF & M4C prior to owning them, my approach to the latter will be similar to the former; which is to say, I’m not looking to change much about what and how you’re used to things being around here. It’s not about me, I am not seeking to interject into your day to day dialogue and make myself the star of the show. My priorities are to respect the place’s culture, and secure it and all the data accumulated over the last 20 years, that it may serve as a fallback point should social media ever become hostile to the greater 2A community, and so that we and our successors can have this resource to utilize going forward.
I know many of you are unhappy with the switch from the vBulletin to Discourse forum software. This was done before my time, and having been a member from the vBulletin days, I remember looking at the Discourse version once SOLGW bought the place and thinking “What the hell have they done to the place? That’s not the M4C I remember.”
In short, I sympathize. The tan and green color scheme some of you may have seen (compared to the black or white defaults) is an attempt to at least make it look familiar to what we remember M4C looking like back in the day. It is a work in progress, and your patience is appreciated as we finish tweaking things to get it closer to looking like what we’re all accustomed to a forum looking like; you’ll notice we’ve fixed and rearranged a few things already, towards that goal.
My understanding of the switch to Discourse is that it was SOLGW’s intention to “future proof” M4C in the face of the vBulletin software basically losing support and (due to Grant’s customized vBulletin setup especially) being so unstable it was deemed unreliable. I don’t hate this, knowing much of it can be reconfigured to look close enough to an older version of M4C to the extent that it’s easier to navigate. Right now, it’s what we got. Were I to ever consider switching the forum software in the future, it would be to the same Crowdstack Pro software that Lightfighter is currently using, albeit after a cost/benefit analysis.
As of right now, I have no plans to look into Tapatalk integration; I honestly didn’t know anyone still used it, I never did, and between being able to switch between mobile and desktop mode in my phone’s browser, I really don’t see the need.
That being said, if you have any questions or suggestions regarding the Discourse software, please bring it to our attention. We have good people helping us work out all the kinks we found when we first got a look under the hood to figure out what the hell was going on.
It’s my understanding that M4C was started with a focus on being a place where people serious about training could convene, and later doubled as a technical data resource, especially once William Larson (IraqGunz) planted roots here. Personally, I remember it being the largest significant alternative to arfcom back in the day.
I don’t want any of that to change; you may cross pollinate over to Lightfighter if you wish, with the understanding that there is a stricter standard of discourse observed there, with respect to the fact that there are so many professionals on that side of the house, so if you do step over there, make sure you come correct; in short, by comparison M4C is certainly the more casual between the two, but I expect the same standard of accuracy to be applied to any information that life and death decisions will be hinged on, even if the space is more laid back.
We’ve updated the logo to reflect this new era M4C has entered into; not too different from what was, but a little more up to date.
One other thing that will change that I don’t expect everyone to love, but in all fairness must be implemented; a paid Premium status level of membership will be created here, and the entire Marketplace section of M4C will be a part of that premium membership. This is going to be done for the following reasons:
1.) Lightfighter’s marketplace forums are bundled with its premium membership benefits, and there are people that have been paying the $5/month for that privilege for years; it would be unfair to make them pay for that there, and let it go for free over here, while both forums are part of the same network.
2.) This will prevent scammers from accessing and plaguing the listings with bullshit as more prevalent social media platforms like Meta and Reddit have started to crack down and outlaw any gun related commerce among their members, chasing said scammers into other areas where such Buy/Sell/Trade transactions are welcome.
Know especially that, once this premium membership is implemented, the fees collected from it will not be treated as profit that hits my pocket. They will be dedicated to overhead and hosting fees, first and foremost. Know also, that premium membership gives you skin in the game, since you’re contributing to keeping the lights on. M4C is now a “for us, by us” operation, independent of the whims of any particular industry entity… In light of that, to you I pose a question:
What bonuses (besides the Marketplace) do you want your premium membership to include? Dedicated forum sections? Discount codes? What about group buys? Something else exclusive? I’m open to suggestions; What (within reason) would give you incentive to pay for a premium membership?
The last thing I want to address is the staff. I’d like to thank all of you who’ve stuck around. I have no intention of cleaning you out and replacing you with new people or personal friends of mine. However, I would be surprised if every single listed member of the staff/mod/admin group(s) was still actively participating, so I can imagine those remaining might feel like they need some help.
I’d like for all presently participating staff members to reach out to me via PM. Tell me how long you’ve been on the staff, what your areas of specialty with regard to forum sections or forum software familiarity are, and who you would nominate among the M4C populace for a staff position to help you pick up the slack. I’m here to help you guys, so don’t be bashful.
If you have any questions or concerns otherwise, please feel free to bring them to my attention. Welcome to the family.
Stay Dangerous
Stay in this L.A.N.E.
Wish you luck. This place will never be the same sorry to say. As far as charging a fee not sure it’s good but I understand why you want to do it. Most won’t do that. I know I won’t. Sorry. 
