Thoughts and stuff

[Zonie]

Always on the lookout for things that interest me I went web surfing last week.
In my journey I found another web site dealing with Muzzle Loaders.

This site has some very knowledgable people (a few with names even I can remember) and so I looked around a bit.
Although I was impressed with the knowledge available I couldn't help but notice that many of the responces to posts and indeed some of the posts themselves brought strong criticisms and or threats from the moderators/owner of the site.

It seemed that ANY departure no matter how brief from the Post was not tolerated.
Any criticism of or even the questioning of Federal policies or the NMLRA was not to be made.
Questioning the policies or products of the companies who make muzzle loading arms or equipment was frowned on.
Humor (or attempts at humor) seemed to also be frowned upon.

Although I am sure Claude (who owns this Forum) owns the rights to everything we say or post here he doesn't seem to make a big deal about it.
This other site however had several Lawyer written paragraphs which went on and on about the owners "ownership" and his ability to do with the data whatever he chooses. It seemed to stress the fact that you the author have no rights.

Now as I said, I am sure Claude has these powers as well but it just didn't seem friendly to make such a big deal out of it as this other Forum owner did. All in all, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Although we sometimes drift from the specifics of the posts here, I feel as long as it is not carried to extremes it gives the Forum a more layed back friendly atmosphere where you can say what you think, rather than the stuffy classroom where only intellectual discussions are tolerated.

The more I see the more I realize that we here at Muzzleloading Forum are fortunate to have it. We have it pretty darn good here.

Way to go Claude!

 

[musketman]

Is it safe to assume that we are members of the best muzzleloader forum on the world wide web?

I think so... :applause: :applause: :applause:

 

[roundball]

I'll also agree this seems to be a good board with only a rare caustic comment, and they are handled properly if and when they surface.

Using message boards on the Internet is a real study in human nature and an excercise in communicating...really drives the point home about needing to remember that there's no body language or facial queues to go along with statements and when viewed in the harsh cold light of a message, they can sometimes come across pretty sharp edged. I know my own style is normally pretty assertive and I have to police myself constantly on this so I don't unintentionally come across wrong.

But for the life of me I don't understand the blatant "attack" mentality of one person towards another...one of the great aspects of these boards is that if you come to realize you have a strong disagreement with someone else's view...you just ignore it and go on.

Message boards are for posting/sharing information, not to establish a debating society...my take is "use what you can and leave the rest"...good job to Claude and moderators.

 

[Robert58]

I have been into Muzzleloading for about six month now. When I became interested, I went to all of the forums I could find, and studied all of the information on them. This forum is buy far the best on the internet. It is practically the only forum I go to anymore. The active members on this forum get along much better than the other forum I have seen and hardly get into any heated discussions. I just wish there were more active members from Texas.

Lets keep this forum the best,

Robert