Mission Statement

[tippmannsniper-]

Why? Let's face it. Some people are stupid. It's a fact. Why should we coddle the morons? There are a couple of posters who come to mind. They have completely meaningless and trite threads, polls we've seen scores of times, and they ask the same questions over and over again. I've asked it before, and I'll ask it again...why should we have to deal with it? Why should we have to deal with stupidity, bad grammar, and poor spelling?

We shouldn't.

we have to deal with the people who are like that or no progress will be made and are actions and attempts will useless and a waste of time. We do need to step up and lay down the rules,Ao has been too "soft" with these people. The rules need to be revised and maybe a few added and put to use and folowed

[SAW]

Yeah! Let's have the mods crack down on the rule breakers. That can't fail.

Oh, wait....

[tippmannsniper-]

^^ thats not what i meant


in a post bfore this someone said that people would let others know whats wrong in their thread not mods.thats what we need. by saying "their being to soft" i meant were really letting alot things slide these days,careless things,but they really do add up

[SAW]

That's just it: there will never be peace. There will never be a way to please everyone.

Mods act too "soft": we tell them to step it up.
Mods crack down: members call "tyranny".

I'm at a loss.

[Target Practice]

That's just it: there will never be peace. There will never be a way to please everyone.

Mods act too "soft": we tell them to step it up.
Mods crack down: members call "tyranny".

I'm at a loss.

When the mods are bastards, and are unfair, and abuse their powers...THAT'S tyranny.

[arsonpaintball06]

i dont think the problem is the mods. I mean im not as old as many of the people on these forums, by age nor by time i've been around. But i have seen that many of the people that get banned do so out of their own arrogance....and trying to push mods buttons. Im sure the mods have made a mistake from time to time...who doesnt, but does that mean that numerous members should start bashing everyone and doing stupid things that will get you banned? i dont think so. It is the certain members, not the mods that made these forums more strict and less fun, and im all for trying to bring that back. But i think the mods had to get more strict due to a few members, because i know that if they cracked down hard on certain members and not others, then ppl would flame about "playing favorites'" or "not being fair". I think that CM is absolutely right, and wish i could help out more in his efforts (if you want me to help you kno where to reach me CM) You can call me a stupid kid that doesnt know what he's talking about, but i think we need to wake up and realize alot of this was brought on by ourselves

-arson

[Target Practice]

Yes, SOME of this was brought on by ourselves. It takes two to tango, and the mods did there part in creating this little dance party.

[tippmannsniper-]

^^ thats definitly true, so basicly we cant fix the problem idiots will be idiots we just need to get rid of them thats where mods come in

and cm pm if you need anything

[Target Practice]

^^ thats definitly true, so basicly we cant fix the problem idiots will be idiots we just need to get rid of them thats where mods come in

But the mods don't take care of them, that's the problem. They "take care of" the members that point out the idiots. They call us reactionary and childish, but when they don't do they're jobs, they get pissed off at us when we do them.

[tippmannsniper-]

well then we need to talk to founder of the forum or the "cheif" about asigning some new mods who WILL get the job done and do it well

[Target Practice]

well then we need to talk to founder of the forum or the "cheif" about asigning some new mods who WILL get the job done and do it well

Hahahaha, fat chance. Tell him that I want a gold-plated unicorn while you're at it.

You know, when one of your head mods calls a customer and a member (with a member number under 30) a "female dog", and a mod and a dealer here PMs me and THREATENS me, and yet ANOTHER mod harassed my girlfriend and I for six months via AO Chat and AIM, that's bad enough. But when the "chief" stands behind these guys? Pfft. Wonderful.

[Automaggot68]

Hahahaha, fat chance. Tell him that I want a gold-plated unicorn while you're at it.

When I grow up I want to be just like you.

[Target Practice]

When I grow up I want to be just like you.

If I had a dime for every time I heard that...I'd treasure every one.

[FooTemps]

Hmmm... I've been on AO for so damn long and I have seen the transformation that it has gone through.

Here's a quick overview of big moments in my AO history... the order isn't perfect

The beginning: I lurk AO for a month learning about the technical and performance aspects of mags.
The first step: I join AO. My first post was in the classifieds trying to buy Miscue's hypermag. In the first week I hit 500 posts. I am labeled a postwhore.
Intelliframe: The intelliframe box contest begins, people go crazy over it.
Superbolt: More crazy stuff with AGD products. The whole issue of the bolt sleeves breaking becomes big and someone gets hit with a sleeve. The whole superbolt project is scrapped for LX.
X-mag previews released: People go crazy yet again. The first xmag presented is the viagra blue xmag. It is soon followed by the SFL emag. People praise AGD and cry out the future of AGD is bright.
Dream mag contest started: People submit various designs as part of a publicity contest for AO
The internet party era: The WLIPP, thermonuclear thread, and other such parties are concieved. Tom uses them as a tool to boost AGD's and AO's publicity. It starts the influx of all the PBN-esque kiddies. The influx is because of Tom's promise of suprise prizes during the parties and he had random giveways around these event times. He also had his special attic deals that would never be posted anywhere else.
2000: MajorDamage and I both hit 2000 posts within my first 6 months on AO. We both get temp banned our post counts reset.
Clean up: I clean up my act a little.
Technical Roundtable: Idealistic forum where elite members of AO discuss technological aspects and theory surrounding paintball.
Shartley: The shartley acronym issue arises somewhere along the line. BlackCell causes conflict and I jump onto their side. Shartley gets Heather "grip gurl" to suspend her operation temporarily vis shifty methods. Shartley issues eventually resolves though there is still conflict around him due to his sharp, longwinded posts trying to upstage nearly everyone.
New postwhore age: all the new postwhore kiddies jump onto AO. The quality of AO falls further. There is now more clutter than ever.
Dealers: The dealers forum is started.
LPB: yeah... you know

That was a quick overview that isn't very complete. Ever since Tom tried his publicity stunts AO has started going down the crapper. The only reason AO was so great back in the day was because of the lower member count and closer community. The only solution I see the problem is to educate the member base easier. I see so many successful large forums that don't have the PBN problem. They usually aren't JUST a forum though... they're also article laden websites.

I feel that AO is in need of an expansion. I don't mean a server upgrade (though that may be useful). I mean that AO should transform into a website like www.overclockers.com or www.hardocp.com or www.boogiezone.com. If you check out those websites, they have regularly updated features and the home page actually means something. On AO, there is essentially no use for the homepage anymore. All it has is links to the forum and chat. There's no updates, no recent articles, no events. I think that AO ought to get regular articles pretaining to automags or to paintball in general. This will answer a lot of questions before people even consider joining the forums. Once that base of knowlege is established, the general user base of AO will have a higher level of understanding, thus less questions and explaination needed.

we need an AO 2.0

[Muzikman]

I am just curious to know, where are these mystical "other" forums that are supposed to be so great? Or as it was put "better than AO is right now". I am not certain that I have seen these other places, nor that they exist.

I have yet to see a forum that is "family" the way this one is. All the others are too large and too generic to ever feel the way this place has. With the changes and uncertainty in the future of paintball, I doubt that it ever will get the same feel again. But even at its worst(which some say has been lately), this forum still is WAY better than any other.

As far as trading goes.....the market will only bear what it will. You can't force people to wait and try to sell something for what its really worth when they want the money they can scavenge out of it NOW. The used paintball market has been really crappy in resale for quite some time. Its a really smart individual who doesn't get caught up in the "flavor of the month club" and waits for the new to wear off. You can pick up superb markers for near nothing, just cause they aren't the cool thing to own at that moment.
The best thing is that there is still a strong core of responsible traders here on the forums. There is also a good system in place for dealing with(identifying) scammers too. This is a great place to buy/sell/trade.

mcarterbrown.com and the POG forum are both great forums. But at the same time, they are geared towards certain people. POG for the plamer Owners and mcarterbrown for the old school types.