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Are Forums Dead?


CliveG

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I have recently joined this auspisious forum but have been a member of many others including the Stalking Directory, Four4Islands, UKPSA and CSR Shooter for many years, is it just me or are forums dead? None of these forums seem to have much 'New' content, is this just because new shooters are too lazy or do we all just send our time posting on Social media? 

The problem with Social media is we have to be very careful what we say and post in case the 'Woke' Police take a dislike to our comments and pictures, the beauty of private forums is they are hopefully populated by like minded shooters. 

What does everyone think - do we need a re-launch?

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Welcome to the site 

 

Interesting question - the short answer is this forum and stalking directory for example are very much alive and well in the UK

They also attract many international members 

I find these arenas totally different in terms of atmosphere and personal type to social media which to be brutally honest appears to attract the type who may cry openly having had a paper cut 

 

This site is a wealth of information and knowledge and there are many highly experienced people from many facets of shooting who will contribute and help

 

The other “go to” forum for me would be Snipers Hide whoxh has been running for nearly thirty years 

 

Some negativity does get banded about with regards the hide , but if you steer clear of the Bear pit and political forums there are people with encyclopaedic knowledge of their chosen subject

 

Tge search facility alone is worth being a member, because most things have been done and recorded there

 

😀

 

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2 hours ago, CliveG said:

I have recently joined this auspisious forum but have been a member of many others including the Stalking Directory, Four4Islands, UKPSA and CSR Shooter for many years, is it just me or are forums dead? None of these forums seem to have much 'New' content, is this just because new shooters are too lazy or do we all just send our time posting on Social media? 

The problem with Social media is we have to be very careful what we say and post in case the 'Woke' Police take a dislike to our comments and pictures, the beauty of private forums is they are hopefully populated by like minded shooters. 

What does everyone think - do we need a re-launch?

what kind of content do you want to see?  The most abundant posts are For Sale/Wanted, occasionally we get a good thread going but like most things, it comes and goes.  I've certainly learned useful things on here from a wide range of contributors.  I'm thankful that overly political comments are few and far between and generally good natured.

With regard to "private" I'd just be cautious as obviously anyone who stumbles on to our forum can read posts so 'inappropriate' content is to be avoided IMHO - and I don't mean gender pronouns 😁 😉

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44 minutes ago, Popsbengo said:

what kind of content do you want to see?  The most abundant posts are For Sale/Wanted, occasionally we get a good thread going but like most things, it comes and goes.  I've certainly learned useful things on here from a wide range of contributors.  I'm thankful that overly political comments are few and far between and generally good natured.

With regard to "private" I'd just be cautious as obviously anyone who stumbles on to our forum can read posts so 'inappropriate' content is to be avoided IMHO - and I don't mean gender pronouns 😁 😉

I'm not talking about inappropriate comments but I'm afraid there is a portion of the media and big tech who want all guns banned. What I was really saying is that the new content on Forums has reduced dramatically over the last 5 years and I wonder why? Have we talked about everything already or do we just get all our information from You Tube and the like now? I know I watch a lot of You Tube and have been quite absent on forums - maybe they are now just a place to buy and sell kit we arn't allowed to advertise on Social Media?

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17 minutes ago, CliveG said:

I'm not talking about inappropriate comments but I'm afraid there is a portion of the media and big tech who want all guns banned. What I was really saying is that the new content on Forums has reduced dramatically over the last 5 years and I wonder why? Have we talked about everything already or do we just get all our information from You Tube and the like now? I know I watch a lot of You Tube and have been quite absent on forums - maybe they are now just a place to buy and sell kit we arn't allowed to advertise on Social Media?

Stick around and see what's what

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From a personal perspective, I don't 'do' social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc), just don't see the point, don't need lots of imaginary friends, or seek the approval of others with 'likes'.

However, discussing shooting related matters in my opinion is the purpose of forums (and long may they continue). 

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The key difference between Forums and "Social Media" is that Forums last forever(I hope), whereas FB etc., is ephemeral. It is nearly impossible to search social media for past wisdom, whereas, a Google search will always return links to Forums regarding your search arguments. How many times have you searched for an answer on "how to fix this" on a car or "accuracy issues" to see that the answers are frequently forum based, or You tube, which is searchable?

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From my perspective forums tend to be the same people talking about the same things. To have meaningful input (discussion) you need to have experience but the U.K. shooting community seems to be cut off at the knees by legislation that doesn’t encourage new shooters, juniors and families to enter the sport so you never gains new or different perspectives but rather the same demographic in the same echo chamber.

There are now AI models ( Bing, Chat gpt and as of Monday Bard) that I think will impact forums as they develop, where information is instant, is interactive and refined. It’s much more than a traditional database like google which I can see rapidly becoming obsolete (hence Bard).

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Still think this forum’s layout is so much better than the others , but would like the selling /sales to be separated from the useful informative posts. Often get a bit exited to see a large number of new posts only to be disappointed when they are all adverts . Just my opinion though. 
let’s keep sharing our reloading experiences it’s all to help us in the long run and help us not to waste valuable time and efforts on loads that don’t work . 
 

 

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