Category: forums

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Gun Forum Weirdness

I usually haunt firearms forums. Back in March/April, I joined a forum I hadn’t seen before – Springfield Armory Forums.

Between March and now I’d posted only once, in which a moderator welcomed me (I didn’t comment back). That was my only post. I usually just read the comments.

Early October, I tried to visit and couldn’t – the website wasn’t allowing me to log in. I reached out to the admins and they informed me that I’d been banned. There was no real indication that I was banned when attempting to log into the site, other than the fact that I couldn’t log in. It was really weird.

When the admins replied back, they asked me to provide some information for a ban appeal. I told them that I wasn’t going to appeal anything, as I didn’t initially know I was banned and had no idea why. I informed them that I didn’t like that at all. They removed the ban and told me to not post anything but text for a few weeks so that the system could “learn”. It appears they may be using some type of machine learning. Maybe the ML logic screwed up?

I haven’t been to the site since then, until today – I asked that they delete my account. I don’t trust anything about that site or their admins at this point.

As well, I only just now remembered that I’ve been using a VPN when browsing the internet. I’m thinking that may be why they banned me. There are many folks that think VPN usage is suspect activity. I don’t understand this line of thinking – a VPN is a network tool. It’s only malicious when you abuse it by using it to dodge a ban or hide your identity when doing something bad. I’ve not been doing anything malicious or been dodging bans.

When I first started using the VPN, Reddit also locked my account. When I asked them why, they didn’t provide an answer but I suspect they saw the different IPs my systems were using to connect to Reddit and thought it was suspicious. Also, many sites outright block IPs that VPN pools use, even if a person is not violating terms of service. Reputation-based monitoring by itself is bad, IMO, because an IP that was banned/blocked 3 years ago is more than likely OK to use in present times.

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firearms forums James Yeager online firearms personality TheYankeeMarshall TP-9 TYM

So, You Don’t Like A Particular Firearms Online Reviewer?

Every once in awhile when conversing a particular gun or accessory that might be highlighted in a YouTube review or article, I get the following or sometime similar:

“James Yeager SUCKS!  Please quit sharing his content!”

Please realize that it’s easier for you to filter (mentally or physically) the things you don’t like about the firearms industry than for you to personally inform me of your distaste…I’m not going to cater my thoughts, forum banter, or blog content to every individual that’s displeased with some online firearms entity.  Why should I care what you think about him/her?  I’m only trying to share information about a particular product and many times (especially if a product isn’t popular or if it’s new), there will only be one online reviewer posting about it.  When I share the data with others and they don’t particularly like the reviewer, either move along or vent elsewhere…hammering me about your loyalties (or lack of) isn’t going to get me to remove or alter my content.

I posted in a forum that a revised DA/SA TP-9 was just released to the public and one person asked for an information source.  There is only one source of information thus far, review-wise, and that’s James Yeager.  The video isn’t really a review…it’s more of a notice that a review is coming and that they’ve a gun on-hand to review.  Wouldn’t you know…several guys got bent about the fact that it happened to be Yeager that provided video coverage of the gun.  They shared their displeasure by attempting to share out that I didn’t know what I was doing and that by linking his videos, I was hurting the firearms community.

My response was that no matter who it might be, people always complain.  I’m not going to try to make everyone happy by trying to appease them when they make such trivial complaints.  If you don’t like reviewer X, that’s YOUR problem, not mine.  Forums have ignore features.  If you don’t like what you see and I’m not violating a forum’s terms of usage, then you should use the ignore feature…if you don’t and you become irrate, I’ll use it on you.

I never think like I know more than people who make their living selling guns or firearms training, the only exception would probably be TheYankeeMarshall…that guy is a total tool, as he give bad reviews on guns he’s never touched/shot, which makes him less than credible on the whole, IMO.  And while I can’t stand TYM, I never try to force my opinion of him down someone else’s throat.  You might think James Yeager has no firearms knowledge, and to be honest, I don’t really like the guy personally, but I do agree with a lot of the knowledge he shares about certain firearms or his logic on self defense.  That’s me taking what I want from him while not caring for his personality traits.

As an individual, I’d prefer choosing on my own what knowledge is good for me and what knowledge I consider to be junk.  I don’t need anyone trying to decide for me…I’m no sheep.  If I need help deciphering or deciding on a particular issue, THEN I’ll ask for forum input.  Unsolicited “advice” that turns into rants?  You can keep it to yourself.  If you don’t like a particular person, what’s it worth to me?  Nothing…such things do not add value to discussions.  I take what I can from most online firearms personalities, even if I don’t like their demeanor.  Another thing:  if someone is judging these reviewers, what’s the criteria in deciding who sucks and who doesn’t?  Who says I have to agree?  Does it matter if I agree when I’m trying to get a point across that doesn’t relate to that particular person?  Most of those things are highly subjective…each person will look at things differently but I refuse to play the groupie and hunt down other opposing groups.  I’m an outlier…I group to no one.

When I state these thoughts, it’s certainly not to be dickish.  If you share your opinions, be prepared for me to share mine, and if it doesn’t agree with yours, don’t get bent.  We’re all sharing a passion for firearms…it’s stupid to let such trivial things get between us, especially when continuing to struggle in ensuring our 2A rights aren’t eroding.