In honor of the Traffic Stop Meltdown thread which has brought so much schadenfreude to our happy band, it occurs to me that I haven't witnessed an epic meltdown, wild fight, creative (or brutal) use of teh BANNHAMMER! or otherwise seen a thread go hairing off the rails in quite a long time.

There have been no accusations hurled at High Profile Members, no gay cake, no abused burritos, no Cliffy, and no one has asked how to prevent penetration of the massive .338 Lapua Magnum while guarding the mall. No one has stopped a robbery in progress, cleared their house, shot their sink, and no one lives by the gun. There is no Fried Rice on the menu.

At least we still have the cat pictures thread.

Have we gone soft? Have I been napping and missed something epic?

If nothing else, post your favorite qualifying memory.

Question:
Why is this?

Choices:
We've all learned to follow the rules
Excellent moderation has thinned the heard or otherwise excluded miscreants
We are all too old to fight at this point
There's nothing left worth fighting about
9mm is the answer and has settled all disputes
Other

 

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ArtieS,

The all knowing and seeing Eagle has thinned the herd

Excellent post Artie!
You've dredged up so many great memories from way back.

I think my favorite was gay cake, with Cliffy coming in a close second. So many epic off the rail threads and characters.

9mm is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

But the real answer is Para runs a tight ship.

I have made a couple of errors here and was either corrected or reminded quickly. I appreciated that and have learned to appreciate this forum tremendously.

No batteries being sold

I'm still trying to fit into my unitard.

We all bought Glock 19's...

We hit peak ridiculous a while ago and now everyone’s just lurking with popcorn, waiting for the next .338 Lapua-in-the-food-court level nonsense to roll in. Either that or we all secretly miss the chaos but are too civilized now to reignite the glorious dumpster fires

Nah, it is none of the above. Fortunately, the law of averages limits the ability to find someone both dumb enough and egotistical enough to both piss off the powers that be and then self-degrade themselves with an epic flame-out!

However, be of good cheer. The year is young and even the law of averages eventually catches up with time.


(I kinda miss Cliffy on account of he made me feel somewhat sober and educated - and that's a tough assignment.)

quote:

Originally posted by Southern Rebel:

(I kinda miss Cliffy on account of he made me feel somewhat sober and educated - and that's a tough assignment.)

Haha.. sober and educated are grossly overestimated.
Moderation has established expectations about behavior here.. members value the place.

If people will simply remember, we are guests here, act like it.

Para has done an amazing job of keeping this place like a home.

There are a few factors at play here. But I think the balance of it falls on changing social media usage and an aging forum population.

15-20 years ago when the types of incidents mentioned in the OP were more commonplace, forums were still one of (if not the) most popular forms of social media. It was how people engaged with other likeminded people on a topic. Chat rooms had already gone by the wayside, and other forms of social media were just finding their footing or hadn't even been invented yet. So if someone wanted to talk about guns or whatever in that time frame, a discussion forum was likely how they would do it. Thus, people flocked to forums like this one, bringing the bad along with the good. This larger pool of participants meant an increased number of shitposters, trolls, immature meltdowns, etc.

Nowadays, that has changed. Traditional forums are on the decline. And - like it or not - they're not that attractive to the younger crowd. The ones who are less mature and more likely to cause problems. This means the folks still participating in forums today are much more likely to be older and more mature users, who are comfortable with forums because it's what they have used for decades. I would venture to guesstimate that the number of 20-something or even 30-something members of this forum is likely rather small, with most active members being 40+, and the majority probably being 50-60+. Thus most of the active members are older, wiser, more mature, more used to forums, and less likely to go full retard because it's just not worth it (though it still happens occasionally).

Meanwhile the younger, more immature types of shitposters flock to places like Reddit, Discord servers, or the comments section of Instagram/Youtube/Tiktok/etc. instead, and they're having their tantrums/meltdowns/arguments/shenanigans there these days. These newer types of social media are not only what they like and are familiar with, it's a lower bar to entry/participation with way less moderation, compared to joining and navigating an "old fashioned" discussion forum like this.


So, in short... It's because we're old, and the kids these days are going elsewhere to cause problems.

Some old memories from your post. Para just dropped the ban hammer on a person trying to sell something so it goes on.

While excellent moderation is the most critical reason, I’ve wondered if we have as many newer (young) members. I also don’t think SIG is the popular “it” platform it was 10-15 years ago. There are too many quality striker fired competitors, their AR is nothing special, the mishandling of the 556, and the constant changing of the MCX has probably reduced interest as well. For example, I haven’t bought a SIG since Mississippi Gal sold me a 522. Since then, I’ve bought multiple HKs and Walthers.

I am an incurable smartass. I try to be on my best behavior when on SF. It helps that just about all the members think alike!

Para's 2015 thread titled, "Donald Trump is a first-rate ass clown, but..." thinned the herd tremendously. Nearly every person on my ignore list either got banned or took their ball and went home. Subsequent annual Trump threads took out a few more.

More of us are older and still prefer the forum format and know how to act. Most of the problem people are on FB, instagram, tiktok.

Now I want fried rice. Thanks a lot!

Para watches out for us all. . Love this place. Thanks, Para!

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
Para's 2015 thread titled, "Donald Trump is a first-rate ass clown, but..." thinned the herd tremendously. Nearly every person on my ignore list either got banned or took their ball and went home. Subsequent annual Trump threads took out a few more.

I remember a couple of those members. One was a John Kasich supporter.