Okay, let's get to it…
Red said:
Look guys, you are missing the point. What my website is trying to do is "capture the buzz" -- what's important and what is not!
I'm afraid that it is you who have not only missed the point but the whole concept of what "special interest" Internet Forums are all about, #1, and, #2, the very essense of "buzz."
It's very, very difficult, if not impossible, to deliberately create "buzz." "Buzz" by it's very nature is organic. One may go out into the Summer evening and catch lightning bugs in a fruit jar, but how does one catch lightning in a bottle? Simple, one doesn't. So as CeePee said quite directly, and politely, to you,
your approach is flawed.
(The reason I qualified that foregoing statement with "very, very difficult" instead of straight out impossible, is that I understand that there are some professional firms which get the big bucks for trying to "create buzz," but even then it's more art/necromancy than science.)
As for the essence of an Internet Forum, something we learned long ago from our formative on-line days on the original Prodigy service… many of us here are, as Tim Burke says, "Prodigy Survivors…" a Forum or Bulletin Board is it's Members. And the success or failure of that is based solely on the quality of the Members and what they bring to the Forum.
¹ Again, this is an organic thing with the added fillip of serendipity and harmonics. So, as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry noted in
Le Petit Prince, "what is essential is invisible to the naked eye." (If that's too recondite a reference for you, as Louis Armstrong said when asked about jazz, "If you don't know what it is, better not mess with it.")
If you aren't willing to jump in and say what you think is good or not good on a forum, then you must want some outside investigator to make decisions for you.
Ye Gawds and hanging chads, man, if that's not a freaking Liberal Democratic Social Engineer talking, I don't know what is! I can't believe that you would come on any firearms-related Internet Forum and say something as presumptuous and stoopid as that! Nobody here, or I'd wager the price of a new Kimber, on any other Firearms Forum (or even those devoted to Motorcycles, Automobiiles or Real Estate for that matter!) want anything of the sort.
But then I see from your posts here and that thread on
TFL to which Schmit linked, you're an impatient man as well. You show up, register for free… in the days of Prodigy, you had to be a subscribing Member to participate… and virtually demand a response to what is basically an off-topic conceit of your own devise. (And when it
is on-topic, as with the Verona Shotguns thread, because I'm TDY five states away and without an Internet connection and don't get straight back to you where there's a subject header that is not within my particular field of interest, you start getting huffy and pouty and begin tapping your feet!)
As
TFL's
croyance has told you, people come to the Forums to post about things they are interested in, and to participate… WTF are you to demand that they play your little game.
That's too bad, but OK if that's what you feel.
Yup, that's how I feel… now stop pouting and play that particular game somewhere else.
Much of what makes a forum is what the head guys and the moderators say and how they lead.
We must agree to disagree.
Dean, are you a little paranoid or do you just want to stir up a debate? Be glad to take you on...
- Although a little paranoia is healthy, in this case I am far less paranoid than I am a rationalist… when I see something I don't understand, I start asking questions in an attempt to achieve an understanding. Your approach here has raised questions in my mind, is all.
[/*:m:22ttaq6y]
- No, you probably don't.[/*:m:22ttaq6y]
getting amazing replies from other forums-- please...step back and think about how you are coming across.
By the way,is there anyone else but Dean and a few controlling seniors out there who cares?
- Then you should be most pleased with your productive efforts, and too busy handling all those "amazing replies" to care about the non-productive ones.
[/*:m:22ttaq6y]
- If anyone needs to step back and re-consider how they "are coming across," Red, it's you. From your brief time here, you have demonstrated that your are impatient, demanding… bullying, even…, presumptuous and insulting… not to mention clueless about the nature of Internet Forums.
[/*:m:22ttaq6y]
- As for the "controlling seniors" remark, you need to apologize to Charlie for that one right now or I suspect that your tenure here will be ended with prejudice.[/*:m:22ttaq6y]
TGZ's Forum is open for posting about what
The Gun Zone is about, not to promote some ill-conceived off-topic exercise, or enterprise, of yours.
· • · • · • · • · • · • ·
¹.- In his single-minded attention to the way he's fashioned his "buzz" project, it probably hasn't occurred to Red to do any of his own work and look at exactly what the firearms-enthusiasts Members here bring to
TGZ/
AmBack Forums… as they did to Prodigy.com SSBB/Prodigy.net SSF before. Under CeePee's avuncular guidance and my own hectoring, it would probably be best described as Critical Thinking. I don't remember the last time we had a Member anywhere post something like:
I just bought a new Falk-Mandelman Fornaughtner 2000 in .50 Farnam… what do you guys think of it.
It pleases me mightily that we are free of that sort of thing.