State of Firearms Forums

[Aggies Coach]

Gun forums are likely going to die out, because "the kids" don't use them. I'm probably one of the youngest people here and I'm nearing 40.

Who you calling old ???……LMAO IMG_0727.jpg I will be 54 in a month and I still feel great.

[wanneroo]

The problem with Facebook or even X is you can't really have any sort of cohesive discussion or conversation.

Forums to me is still where it's at.

Certainly I would agree now that's it's 2024 perhaps folks can put forth ideas on how to take it to the next level.

[free]

I used to be a supporter, but I never saw a return (other than access to the supporter forum, which was always dead), so I stopped.

How many hours a month do you spend on here? That's your return.

Or, be like the democrats and just leech because you can (;

[esh21167]

PAFOA's platform is ancient, it is not helping attract/retain people. Most subforums get basically zero posts. The platform that all the others are on (not sure what it's called - but SigTalk, 1911 Addicts, etc. use it).

Agree that the moderation here is appropriate. And the classifieds are great of course with ability to find locals.

Truth. Bad gateways on about 30% of my browsing. Site freezing whenever I post, telling me I have to wait 25 seconds, then nothing. Refresh page: Bad gateway half the time. Log out. Log in. Go to thread. Sometimes a double post showing, sometimes nothing.

If PAFOA became a "FaceBook group" and eliminated this forum, I wonder how many current users would switch over.

I wouldn't.

Fuck FaceBook. I will not join it. Ever.

On a related note - I just sent PAFOA another $50 this week. Maybe if everyone on here did, Dan could buy some advertising on FaceBook (:

Agreed. No FB. And I don't know if advertising on FB would be very productive. I'd like that money to go to a site update.

I would support a concerted effort to update the site software here. Put out an appeal. I think may would contribute. I know there is some behind the scenes work, but financially, I don't think it's a big price. I offered to contribute to an update on a motorcycle forum I frequent, and the owner told me funds were not needed because it was only like a couple hundred bucks.

That site has less traffic than here.

[esh21167]

PAFOA's platform is ancient, it is not helping attract/retain people. Most subforums get basically zero posts. The platform that all the others are on (not sure what it's called - but SigTalk, 1911 Addicts, etc. use it).

Agree that the moderation here is appropriate. And the classifieds are great of course with ability to find locals.

Truth. Bad gateways on about 30% of my browsing. Site freezing whenever I post, telling me I have to wait 25 seconds, then nothing. Refresh page: Bad gateway half the time. Log out. Log in. Go to thread. Sometimes a double post showing, sometimes nothing.

If PAFOA became a "FaceBook group" and eliminated this forum, I wonder how many current users would switch over.

I wouldn't.

Fuck FaceBook. I will not join it. Ever.

On a related note - I just sent PAFOA another $50 this week. Maybe if everyone on here did, Dan could buy some advertising on FaceBook (:

Agreed. No FB. And I don't know if advertising on FB would be very productive. I'd like that money to go to a site update.

I would support a concerted effort to update the site software here. Put out an appeal. I think may would contribute. I know there is some behind the scenes work, but financially, I don't think it's a big price. I offered to contribute to an update on a motorcycle forum I frequent, and the owner told me funds were not needed because it was only like a couple hundred bucks.

That site has less traffic than here.

[Ronin]

How many hours a month do you spend on here? That's your return.

Or, be like the democrats and just leech because you can (;

I doubt your contributions keep the lights on, and you don't get a report of what's done with your payment, so you don't know. If it was a financial hardship, Dan could charge admission instead of collecting ad revenue.

[free]

I doubt your contributions keep the lights on

I don't think anyone claimed that.

and you don't get a report of what's done with your payment, so you don't know.

I don't really care what he does with it. I'm paying for services rendered as far as I am concerned.

Dan could charge admission instead of collecting ad revenue.

Yeah. Like you guys wouldn't bitch to high heaven about THAT! (:

[free]

Truth. Bad gateways on about 30% of my browsing. Site freezing whenever I post, telling me I have to wait 25 seconds, then nothing. Refresh page: Bad gateway half the time. Log out. Log in. Go to thread. Sometimes a double post showing, sometimes nothing.



Agreed. No FB. And I don't know if advertising on FB would be very productive. I'd like that money to go to a site update.

I would support a concerted effort to update the site software here. Put out an appeal. I think may would contribute. I know there is some behind the scenes work, but financially, I don't think it's a big price. I offered to contribute to an update on a motorcycle forum I frequent, and the owner told me funds were not needed because it was only like a couple hundred bucks.

That site has less traffic than here.

I don't think it's the software that's expensive, it's the hardware and possibly the network connection.

IIRC, he doesn't host it in the cloud - he runs it on his own hardware. I think, fundamentally, that's the issue.

[OwnTheRide]

Truth. Bad gateways on about 30% of my browsing. Site freezing whenever I post, telling me I have to wait 25 seconds, then nothing. Refresh page: Bad gateway half the time. Log out. Log in. Go to thread. Sometimes a double post showing, sometimes nothing.

I don't see... any of that, at all. PAFOA performs quite wonderfully, in my experience.

Some of what you're describing (bad gateway, log out/in) sounds like caching issues. Clearing your cookies and data for PAFOA might fix that.

For informational purposes, I use firefox and the noscript addon, though everything on PAFOA is set to "trusted," so presumably I'm not filtering much out with it.

[Ronin]

Yeah. Like you guys wouldn't bitch to high heaven about THAT! (:

I wouldn't bitch at all. I simply wouldn't pay and go someplace else, instead. Like I said, I was a paying member. I saw no value, so I stopped paying. All I lost was access to the supporter forum and a little tag under my name.