Sharing Ideas

[Robbo]

A guy called 'Ravenation' in the ‘chat room’ thread in this forum bought up the suggestion that sharing ideas is a good thing.

Sharing ideas is a good thing in principle but I have to say, I have seen many instances in paintball, far too many in fact, where people love to hear themselves talk, or in these cases, see themselves write.

PGi set this site up as a paintball resource, it’s here just like our magazine is here, to help you lot understand this sport of ours and also provide a two way information highway.
We, well I certainly do, see it as a responsibility of mine to try and make sure people are not misdirected or misinformed.

I am passionate about making sure people are not fed crap information, it is sooo wasteful and so misleading when I sometimes see bull**** masqueraded as fact.

That’s why our contributors to the magazine are some of the most knowledgeable, experienced and intelligent people in the sport. We rely on these people to give us direction and explanations and they are qualified to do just that.
We like to think we can help people at all stages in our sport, it is our responsibility to you lot.

This site has plenty of people who think they know what they are talking about and come on here spouting as if what they are preaching is an irrefutable truth.
Their credentials, or rather lack of credentials of some of these people who set themselves up as part time gurus is truly amazing.
They become instant experts in a flash of their own arrogance.

The problem is, a lot of the younger and less experienced guys who visit our site have no way of knowing what's appropriate and what's not and herein lies one of the problems of sharing ideas, it is the propagation of bull****.

Obviously the more experienced guys in this forum will immediately recognise it as such but a lot slips through the net and into the minds of our young ballers.
Personally, if I see a bull**** post, I will put people right, and for the most part the guy who posted bollocks generally holds his hands up and we move on.
But, a few people, and you guys may have seen them just recently default to a position whereby they claim the unyielding right to have an opinion and seek refuge in this.

Basically, they will talk bollocks, I will put them right and then the **** starts with the inevitable adopted position, ‘Oh but surely I am entitled to an opinion’.

Of course the right to hold an opinion is right in principle, the whole point is, Hitler had a frikkin opinion of the Jews, it was the propagation of that opinion that was so heinous and so having an opinion does not in any way justify one’s stance if that stance is so blatantly wrong.

I am not putting these people right for any other reason than to make sure other people understand the true nature of paintball and if people think I am picking on them, then think again, I have crossed swords many times with some friends of mine on here, Nick Brockdorff, Duffituster, Baca Loco and many more.

I ain’t the most sensitive or delicate of people when it comes to putting things right but I do detest the idea of people arguing points that are untenable because they are either too stupid to realize they are wrong or they just think they need to keep arguing for personal reasons, I have little patience for these type idiots.
The point of this post is for you guys (the vast majority thank heaven) to realize the people who host this site, the mods and especially me because I am on it probably more than the other mods, are all here to help and to advise and to teach.

We have also got some great members such as Rocky Knuth, Lane Wright, Owen Ronanyne, Manike, and even Broccoli Dwarf, and soooooo many more who can help us all with their experience and teachings.
When we sometimes see acrimonious threads that descend into bloodbaths, let’s not lose sight of what the vast majority of this site is about and what ALL of the mods are trying to achieve.


Peace to all...well, mainly all !

 

[Gair333]

why dont you experienced ones go to the newbie forums once in a while to help them (and us). TBH i havnt seen many pro's visiting that forum atall to help. So maybe if you guys did your part it may end the bull****

and Robbo that first part is true about people liking to watch themselves type would you like some cheese with your whine

 

[OddJob]

It is the same as any sport, there will always be people who have their expression which differs greatly from what is accepted to be 'truth' or the 'norm'.

A lot of it stems from the basic nature of human race where people used to fight to lead groups using their physical powers. In our Western society this isn't deemed acceptable and so people try to elevate themselves with claiming to know more or know something others do not.

But there will always be people spouting ****e as they believe it to be truth until they experience and thusly turn it in to knowledge that they were wrong. That's if pride doesn't get in the way, and I'm not going to get started on that.

But this forum has been a phenomenal tool for my learning about the sport and it is always up to the user as to what to believe. If you read The Sun or Daily Mail you'll be used to that.

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Gair333
why dont you experienced ones go to the newbie forums once in a while to help them (and us). TBH i havnt seen many pro's visiting that forum atall to help. So maybe if you guys did your part it may end the bull****

and Robbo that first part is true about people liking to watch themselves type would you like some cheese with your whine

Speak Your Brains, Major League and maybe Announcements is where you will find most pros because for them, that is where most interest lies.

If there is anything anybody wants answered, then all they gotta do is pop a thread up in SYB and just ask, or PM a pro and either ask him directly or direct him to a thread you think he might wanna look at.

The vast majority of pros I know would always help out.
And suggesting if us pros did 'our bit' and implying we are falling short, I think I do enough and if we ended up trawling through all the forums and all the posts to keep up with what you think we should be doing, we would never get away from the site.

I think it's more practical we ask newbies or anybody really to ask the pros in SYB or MLT direct questions.

As for the other stuff you hint at, I have earned my stripes and I NEVER write posts to admire them afterwards like some !
I write them for reasons, that for the most part, should be blatantly obvious.

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by OddJob
....But there will always be people spouting ****e as they believe it to be truth until they experience and thusly turn it in to knowledge that they were wrong. That's if pride doesn't get in the way, and I'm not going to get started on that.

...the very instances that I refer to, and it's not always pride Oddjob, it is also motivated by personal animosity, jealousy or downright bigtory, all of these I have seen surface as reasons why some people post.

 

[Kaish]

Here's an idea - remove post counts. I think you'll find that a great many bull**** threads/replies are created with a view to increasing the person's post count because, for some reason, people see it as a status symbol.

Post counts also gives a false indication of knowledge to a new member of the forum. If they get a reply from someone with 5000 posts they are naturally going to assume the person has more knowledge than them and take their posts as gospel. Here's an example thread my friend posted a few days ago: http://www.p8ntballer-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56793

He's seasoned enough to realise that the first couple of ideas are complete idiocy and could easily get him killed, but would a newbie be experienced enough?

Edit: the example thread isn't so exemplary anymore because people have edited their posts to make themselves look less silly.

 

[Skeet]

Originally posted by Kaish
Here's an idea - remove post counts. I think you'll find that a great many bull**** threads/replies are created with a view to increasing the person's post count because, for some reason, people see it as a status symbol.

Post counts also gives a false indication of knowledge to a new member of the forum. If they get a reply from someone with 5000 posts they are naturally going to assume the person has more knowledge than them and take their posts as gospel. Here's an example thread my friend posted a few days ago: http://www.p8ntballer-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56793

He's seasoned enough to realise that the first couple of ideas are complete idiocy and could easily get him killed, but would a newbie be experienced enough?

Edit: the example thread isn't so exemplary anymore because people
have edited their posts to make themselves look less silly.

I do hope you arent referring to me in that particular thread are you?
Seeing as you said:

If they get a reply from someone with 5000 posts

And:

He's seasoned enough to realise that the first couple of ideas are complete idiocy

As my first post fits both those catagories, I thought I would ask.

Was I wrong and an "Idiot" to suggest he DOESN'T, just fit a regular plug to his equipment?

Was I wrong, to suggest he get a suitable adapter?

That is of course, if you were reffering to my post...

Sorry to jack your thread Robbo...but I cant ignore this one!

 

[Robbo]

No probs Skeet but I don't think post count chasers are the real problem when it comes to misinformed bullsh!t.
Some of the biggest post count people are some of the most informed and vice versa.

I think these are two different animals, people who believe they are validated by a bigger post count status and those who think they are validated by people seeing their 'opinion'.

I'm not saying there isn't any crossover in that there will be people common to both groups but for the most I think we can distinguish between them.

 

[Kitch]

One of the greatest aspects of an online forum is also one of it's worst, the anonimity that the forum gives in it's very nature.

On the one hand can be great as an 'industry insider' (I use the term loosely) can spill some great, if sometimes not strictly kosha information that will inflame the boards for a few days and give us a great read, which perhaps they couldn't have let slip because of who they worked/played for.

And at the other end of the spectrum we have the guys, who let fly with their sub gcse level grasp of electronics, and try to get you to solder a 3 bar electric fire into your pack to keep your paint warm on the field.

Human nature dictates that we form opinions very quickly in the outside world based upon from what the person looks like, what the dress like, even how the speak and who there friends are, try as we might to not pre judge people we still do, not matter how slightly.

With the forums the only things we have to go on in order to form an opinion is the persons post count, their sig and if you can be bothered thier previous posts. If you see some advice from a person with a 5,000,000 post count you tend to think that they have been around for a while and have a modicum of sense about them. However if you do a search on thier posts and they all start with the phrase 'pics please' and the have a 1,000 posts in the last day, then I think rightly or wrongly thier opinion is devauled.

I tend to treat the forum as my ask the audience life line, a good percentage of people on here have a good working knowledge of paintball and associated equipment, and a vast majority will jump on a post that has incorrect or downright dangerous advice on it (please see above).

As we've talked about it before Robbo sometimes I look on here and other forums and it restores my faith in human nature, other times I want to reach for a high powered sniper rifle and find a bell tower. But it's like with everything else in life, it just takes a bit of time and most semi intelligent people will sone be able to sift the wheat from the chaff.

 

[Dskize]

I think it comes down to keeping your mouth shut when you have no idea what your talking about - it will get pointed out to you very quickly if your wrong or as in the case pointed out (which hasnt been edited at all ) when you are being a complete fookin idiot - stevenrules- I tend to go more by the date joined and an informed opinion of the poster after reading what people have said - surely its comon sense again - if your going to take advice from someone who cant even construct a sentence then thats your bloody look out.