Decline of GT; due to societal changes or site policy changes?

[Gun Shark]

1 minute ago, NDcent said:

It's all about the Benjamin's.

 

 

I wouldn't mind one of those cows.

[TX OMFS]

It's them damn yung'ns.

Don't forget the 1911 when you go to Luby's, grandpa.

[emoji1]

[Binge&Purge]

12 hours ago, Dric902 said:

GT has a political forum

every other gun forum I belong to doesn’t. When the new owners threw open the doors to and attracted liberal poitical trolls, it became a political forum with a gun section.

GT has had Political Issues forum for as long as I can remember.  I don't know what has changed, but perhaps it is that social media has gotten more popular, and SJW are infiltrating gun boards.  Liberals have always been around.  I remember a republican getting banned in GTPI because he broke the rules, so the rules weren't partial to party affiliation.

[Valmet]

I like GT compared to many others I frequent because it covers a wide-swath of things and was very active. So far, I like what I’m seeing on here as well. 

I’ve frequented the FALfiles since 2000 and that is another favorite although it doesn’t have nearly the consistent-posting members. 

[Silentpoet]

I'd say it is a little of both.  I was just reading a thread on one of my favorite authors and how he hasn't come out with a novel in his most popular series for 4 years.  The guy has had some major upheaval in his personal life and people are bitching about this and that aspects.  I am thankful for what he has written and doing my best to be patient.  It isn't the end of the world that I don't get to read something new from him, but some people almost take it as a personal affront.  So I would say society and the instant gratification that we can get in so many areas of life leads to some of these problems.

[G26S239]

14 hours ago, Dric902 said:

GT has a political forum

every other gun forum I belong to doesn’t. When the new owners threw open the doors to and attracted liberal poitical trolls, it became a political forum with a gun section.

This ^^^ makes sense to me. When I first just read GT and later when I joined and posted the political threads were in PI, religious threads were in RI and GNG/Okie's was general subjects. Now RI is closed, and Okie Corral has political threads stuffed in it by liberals who don't want to go to PI and seem to be coddled by mods who won't move the threads. I will at least give V Jay Jay and a couple other DU trolls credit for putting threads in PI and posting there rather than always wanting to shoehorn them in OC.  

 

 

[Haldor]

10 hours ago, gwalchmai said:

I never had any problems with RussP, or with any of the mods over there. Some of the members, OTOH, need to go back to DU.

I don't think RussP is a dick, but I also didn't get treated very well the two interactions I had with him.

[Collim1]

7 hours ago, cacop said:

I have been a member over there as long as I have been a member at GT. I didn't post nearly as much there because they didn't have an LE subforum.

As far as how they handle things they are a smaller forum so it is less chaotic. Last I heard the owner is still the original owner and does it for fun. He also tends to roast people when they are asses on the board. He will leave the thread up and open as people flame the offending party. Not like GT has tended to handle things out of public sight.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
 

Interesting.

I have lurked over there a few times when I needed some info, but I never joined or posted.  

Those guys knew their stuff. 

[gwalchmai]

11 hours ago, itisbruno said:

You cannot tell me where I need to go back too.

You weren't one of the members to whom I was referring, BRNO.

[Rotn1]

13 hours ago, aksnowman said:

i have not been on that forum for long at all compared too some of you all but the longer i was there i realized some of the long term members could be straight up dicks and get away with murder. granted i posted some stuff not allowed and i tried to reason with russ p and he would have none of it. i wont bash the guy but i dont like him. at least i could have back and forth with eric when i messed up. i really like the vibe of this place.  

Dude, 

not sure about your post, but your Avatar is DaBomb!

 

[gwalchmai]

By far the "forum" I have the most flaming conversations on is Quora. It has the largest population of know-nothing know-it-all gungrabbers on the internet.

[Rotn1]

Like many, I sensed that GT had "changed" and I didn't understand why.

I will add two things:

It's supposed to be a community of folks bound by some golden thread. Let's just say, the Second Amendment, Love of the US and what it stands for; and maybe Glock's. That's what it stood for. And there was a proud Grand Pobah caring for it and fretting over it 24/7

i ask you, what does it stand for today. A financial roll-up to create media scale and allow monitization and a further sale to an entity that does not share the culture or beliefs of its members. Their only focus now is traffic. It doesn't stand for anything else. 

This explains the constant barrage of DU like trolls with nothing being done about them except being reprimanded for calling them out. 

Some of you know I am an ex-Canadian . I still have dual citizenship and a fondness for certain aspects of what was home for my first 33 years. I can tell you that a Canadian firm cannot understand or run a BBS that has its basis in the 2A, or the concept of American Exceptionalism. Means nothing to them and never will. That is why I am gone.

 

Edited July 1, 2018 by Rotn1
Syntax

[willie-pete]

I am a man of my convictions;

 

 

the rest of you guys are just hard-headed.

 

[steve4102]

21 hours ago, F14A said:

Why yes he surely is..couldn't agree more.

Vote Republican is even a bigger dick.

[Gun Shark]

50 minutes ago, willie-pete said:

I am a man of my convictions;

 

 

the rest of you guys are just hard-headed.

 

I use a helmet.  

[Boogieman]

7 hours ago, Haldor said:

I don't think RussP is a dick, but I also didn't get treated very well the two interactions I had with him.

That's pretty much the definition of a dick.

[Lassen]

I attribute it to the rise of the word "absolutely" instead of just "yes".  People became absolutists, and now everyone is so polarized that it has to be my way or the highway.  Seriously - when was the last time you heard of a liberal second amendment supporter?  Used to be pretty commonplace - now it's sadly almost non-existant.  

Society in general is falling into it's 77 year cycle... and it has me worried.  You're either with me... or you're the enemy.  77 years ago it was WW2...  77 years before that, the US Civil war.  Before that, the French Revolution.   

See why I'm worried?  It's flipping pre-destined to explode, and people feed into it, whether parroting the talking heads or drinking the rhetoric kool-aid of whichever pole they migrated toward.  

How do we break that which apparently has become pre-ordained?  It's not just the old GT board, but it shows the same split that everything else has.  I just hope this doesn't eventually fall into the same trap!

Edited July 1, 2018 by Lassen

[janice6]

23 hours ago, PNWguy said:

In the threads both on GT and here started by Eric in which he explains his recent monumental decision, folks are lamenting how GT has degraded substantially over the past few years.  A couple of folks have opined that it is simply a reflection of the overall degradation of civility in society in general.  Most say the downturn was a result of the new ownership and their values.

To be clear, I realize Eric's decision was not based on incivility or behavior in the forums, but rather a fundamental difference in the values and belief system of the new owners and their shortcomings in taking proper care of his "baby".

This thread is about those who noted their displeasure at the change in tone and behavior in the forums.

My initial thought was that it is clearly a reflection of the degradation of civility in society.  People are losing their freakin' minds.  It seems every day the news is full of people doing outrageous things in drive-thrus, in traffic, at WalMart, etc.  

But, I'm on a bunch of gun and vehicle forums and people on those are still very civil, respectful, friendly, and helpful.  Cast Boolits is made up of 90% conservative old farts and they don't tolerate snarkiness.  They may not know the meaning of the word, but they know it when they see it and run off anti-social types.

Another forum for my Yukon is made up of a very diverse group with lots of urban youths and city people.  Still, very helpful, friendly, and no personal attacks.  

So what are your thoughts on the decline in civility?  Have you seen it on other forums?  In the real world?  Since I think we can agree that it was apparent on GT, was that due to a change in admin or a reflection of society in general?

 

If not an outright attack on gun owners, then I believe it was in the Canadian interest of demonstrating equality by encouraging pro and anti gun owners on the site.

 

 

23 hours ago, PNWguy said:

 

My feelings about equality are mirrored in these:

“SJWs... picture themselves as persecuted, oppressed crusaders for peace and equality....These are people who, on a regular basis, call for violence and genocide against “oppressors”, whether it’s white people, heterosexual people, thin people, or just anyone who even slightly disagrees with them.” ― Joshua Goldberg

“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.” ― Milton Friedman.

 

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” Aristotle

 

“The cry of equality pulls everyone down.” Iris Murdoch

 

 

[Patrice]

good post

Edited July 5, 2018 by Patrice

[Retmil]

I really disliked all the BS questions that were asked...If someone shows up at my door wanting to ask a few questions about my personal habits or preferences, I send em on their way. GT is like a Barbara Walters interview. This is a gun forum. May The Bore Site maintain its focus and be a success for Eric.

[Gun Shark]

2 minutes ago, Retmil said:

I really disliked all the BS questions that were asked...If someone shows up at my door wanting to ask a few questions about my personal habits or preferences, I send em on their way. GT is like a Barbara Walters interview. This is a gun forum. May The Bore Site maintain its focus and be a success for Eric.

Do you use Crest or Colgate?

[ASH]

2 hours ago, Boogieman said:

That's pretty much the definition of a dick.

pretty  much ,  

[Jack Ryan]

On 6/30/2018 at 3:47 PM, blueiron said:

Aside from Eric selling GT, how many members truly knew the evolutionary changes in ownership and their policies? I suspect few beyond the insiders. 

The lack of civility is a symptom of the increasing evolutionary speed of modern society. Technology such as 24 hour news fails to allow for people to hear shocking news, assimilate it, and determine how it affects them. It also increases the growing perception of insecurity in the West - even as crime is declining, I.S. has been militarily defeated and A.Q. has been weakened, North Korea is being more compliant, and other factors have changed. Governments, through politicians, have learned to take accidents, natural phenomena/disasters, and other non-human incidents, only to 'anthropomorphize' them into human influenced situations that call out for the intervention of politicians to "save constituents". Examples? Global climate change, hurricanes in Puerto Rico and the northeastern US, asteroids crashing into the planet, volcanoes erupting in Mexico and Hawaii, etc. Add this factor with the meddling that politicians and government elites do with human related issues -  wars of hegemonic power, international power relations between states, promoting of special interest fractionalization in society, etc. and we have a mess. Societies and their populations are being manipulated and in response to this discovery, they are reverting back to nationalism, religion, and systems that made 'sense' to them from previous generations. People tend to be inherently opposed to change, unless it is explained. When change is increasingly relentless, people do not react well emotionally.

GT became a huge forum. It encompassed a vast swath of American society, including both the positive and the negative peoples within it. While Eric initiated safeguards and set up sub-forums for these conflicting opinions to play out safely, too many decided to take their personal brand and impose it in and on other sub-forums not designed for these exchanges. Once, GT was mostly self-policing. As it grew, it got more anarchistic and mods had to be appointed to deal with the increasing conflict. Eric could either do as he did with the negative freedom model or go the SiG Forum method.

I hope TBS grows well, but I far prefer quality over quantity in membership and this site reaches what GT did prior to its' sale. 



 

Never had a clue. Never cared.

[gwalchmai]

10 hours ago, steve4102 said:

Vote Republican is even a bigger dick.

VR's a good guy. And quit talking about his dick.

[Oldandtreacherous]

Let's see.., Canada..., 2A....

Nope.