Time for M4C Mission Statement Update??

**ucrt** · 01-15-11, 02:03

I hope I’m not being presumptuous or out of my lane starting this Thread. I also put it in this GD to limit input. If I am out of my lane, I apologize.

Lately, the Forum has been getting a lot of “jaga” (just as good as…) threads and posts, gun reviews from someone shooting 400 rounds through a gun, repetitive topics and questions (some just minutes apart), arguments, attitudes, little respect to SME's and Moderators, etc. Questions concerning everything from Barska scopes to Accu-Wedges to how “we’re all jerks for pushing top-tier weapons”.

I think a step in the right direction would be to reword the “Mission Statement”. Not to be insultive, but it is vague and is not “strong” enough to direct people to and tell them, “Does your Post or Thread meet the criterion of the Mission Statement?”

Current Mission Statement reads: “The purpose of M4Carbine.net is to provide a forum to share professional and technical information to the shooting community. The forum is open to military, law enforcement, and recreational shooters.”

With the current MS as a guide, hardly any of the kaa-kaa that has been posted the past month is out of line. With the MS being vague people tend to fill in the gaps with their own interpretation.
Here’s how the “lower-tier” gun crowd's interpretation of the Statement: “The purpose of M4Carbine.net is to provide a forum to the shooting community, discuss “guns” and to provide an outlet for gun people relate their experiences and opinions for the purpose of personal satisfaction. The forum is open to anyone.”

With a strong and definitive MS, authors can be held accountable against the conditions clarified in the MS.

Seems we would all benefit if there was some type of criteria in the Mission Statement that could set the bar at a higher professional level. If someone continually, steps outside the MS, then the Moderators handle them appropriately.

As it stands right now, it could easily be construed that the Moderators are bullies or moody or just don’t like some people; when in actuality, they are personally having to set their own “unpublished” standard and holding people to it.

I do not see how the Mods handle the constant barrage of lazy questions, arrogance, poor grammar, rudeness, etc. I would hate to see Mods quitting because of the frustration.

Below, I tried to incorporate some changes into the original Mission Statement. I don’t think that this "attempt" of the MS is good enough to publish and I only came up with it to provoke thought on the matter.

My stab at improving the vagueness:
“The purpose of M4Carbine.net is to provide an accurate forum and database to share professional and technical information with the serious shooting community about weapons, accessories, techniques, etc. intended for critical life or death situations to educate mainly, professionals in the military and law enforcement, but also the private sector for self-defense, home defense, and lastly, the recreational shooter, yet never compromising the intent to provide accurate information for the professionals.

Participation in the M4Carbine.net forum is a privilege, is open to military, law enforcement, and recreational shooters, and requires due diligence while participating.”

I don’t consider myself a “wordsmith” (as I’m sure you can see), so,
Do you think a revised Mission Statement could help put a more definitive direction to M4Carbine.net?
And what would you incorporate into a revised Mission Statement to help clarify the intent of M4C?

Remember to not be so exclusive with your MS that you leave out military, LE, competitions, HD/SD, target shooting, practicing, gear, training, etc.

Thanks

.

**ChicagoTex** · 01-15-11, 08:27

Unfortunately, Mission Statements are like liability waivers: while everyone SHOULD read them, most idiots don't.

Changing the mission statement to be more hostile to idiots won't stop idiots from posting.

**C4IGrant** · 01-15-11, 08:58

No one reads the tacked threads on the forum.

C4

**SWATcop556** · 01-15-11, 10:54

While the effort is very much appreciated, they are correct. Most new members do not read ANY of the tacked threads. They join and immediately start posting. While it would make our jobs easier in theory I just don't see it curbing the majority of the BS content posted. The best weapon we have against this is the report post feature.

I would die a happy man if I never see/read another "this vs that" thread again. With a little due diligence and searching 99.9% of the information requested has been asked and answered. I personally would like to see a ban on BS "vs" threads before a revised mission statement.

Again the thought and effort behind the post is appreciated. Our membership is the best weapon we have against mouth breathers.

**rob_s** · 01-15-11, 11:14

Mision statements, like laws and rules, serve two purposes.

The first is so that the people that don't need this stuff codified and written down have some reassurance that they are in the right place and doing the right thing. The people that tend to read such things are most often those that don't actually need to be told such things. It could be termed a "feel good" application.

The second, and more important, is to have a codified reason to bitch-slap people that need it. People want a "second chance" and they want to be given a warning. Writing down rules and laws effectively gives that warning. "But I didn't know it was against the rules" is always the excuse of the second-chancer. Having codified rules & laws eliminates that excuse with the response of "the rules are right here for you to read, and you chose to either not bother reading them or to willfully ignore them. this IS your second chance, either way."

Having a more explicit mission statement serves as a catch-all for various types of bad behavior. Our IDPA club forum had become a trash pile of bullshit, and we couldn't enact rules fast enough to deal with the steady stream of nonsense. So we enacted a mission statement that the forum exists to promote the club, it's events, brotherhood among the members, and the shooting sports as a whole. Yeah, interpretation is subjective, but threads on political topics, that often are the ones that turn to shit, clearly aren't within our mission statement and now get axed without comment, question, or explanation. When the poster whines, they are directed to the mission statement. Done deal.

**ChicagoTex** · 01-15-11, 11:48

The second, and more important, is to have a codified reason to bitch-slap people that need it. People want a "second chance" and they want to be given a warning. Writing down rules and laws effectively gives that warning. "But I didn't know it was against the rules" is always the excuse of the second-chancer. Having codified rules & laws eliminates that excuse with the response of "the rules are right here for you to read, and you chose to either not bother reading them or to willfully ignore them. this IS your second chance, either way."

Having a more explicit mission statement serves as a catch-all for various types of bad behavior. Our IDPA club forum had become a trash pile of bullshit, and we couldn't enact rules fast enough to deal with the steady stream of nonsense. So we enacted a mission statement that the forum exists to promote the club, it's events, brotherhood among the members, and the shooting sports as a whole. Yeah, interpretation is subjective, but threads on political topics, that often are the ones that turn to shit, clearly aren't within our mission statement and now get axed without comment, question, or explanation. When the poster whines, they are directed to the mission statement. Done deal.

That's certainly a fair point I hadn't really thought through.

**ucrt** · 01-15-11, 14:49

Originally Posted by rob_s

Mission statements, like laws and rules, serve two purposes.

The first is so that the people that don't need this stuff codified and written down have some reassurance that they are in the right place and doing the right thing. The people that tend to read such things are most often those that don't actually need to be told such things. It could be termed a "feel good" application.

The second, and more important, is to have a codified reason to bitch-slap people that need it. People want a "second chance" and they want to be given a warning. Writing down rules and laws effectively gives that warning. "But I didn't know it was against the rules" is always the excuse of the second-chancer. Having codified rules & laws eliminates that excuse with the response of "the rules are right here for you to read, and you chose to either not bother reading them or to willfully ignore them. this IS your second chance, either way."

Having a more explicit mission statement serves as a catch-all for various types of bad behavior. Our IDPA club forum had become a trash pile of bullshit, and we couldn't enact rules fast enough to deal with the steady stream of nonsense. So we enacted a mission statement that the forum exists to promote the club, it's events, brotherhood among the members, and the shooting sports as a whole. Yeah, interpretation is subjective, but threads on political topics, that often are the ones that turn to shit, clearly aren't within our mission statement and now get axed without comment, question, or explanation. When the poster whines, they are directed to the mission statement. Done deal.

====================================

Rob,
Your second point was my intention for starting this Thread and why I think the MS should be revised.
The excuse that "people don't read the MS anyway" does not hold water because even if a guy with a crappy post did read the MS...his post could probably still fit under the MS's loose guidelines. So, there is no way to claim he didn’t read it, Heck! He might know it by heart...it just was not restrictive to his post.

I don’t know how modifiable (?) the different fields and screens are but I think it would be very handy for the Mods to have a "Warnings: " counter field under the "Posts: " counter field. The Mods would have access to and control the "Warnings: " counter field. They could raise the "Warnings: " count when an infraction occurs. When that person's "Warnings: " counter reaches 3(?), they can get put on JSantoro's "Tree of Woe" or suffer some other consequence. This way a person’s warnings stay with him, no matter where they venture on the Forum, plus it would serve as an indicator of his history.

To alleviate the problem of “no one reads the MS” problem, here is another thought. As I am typing this post and looking at the "Reply to Thread" screen, there is plenty of room to modify this screen to have the Mission Statement posted on this screen with this question, "Does the Post you are submitting comply with the Mission Statement?” This way there can be absolutely no excuse for anyone creating threads and posting outside of the MS and later claiming they didn't know.

I don't know if any of the screen mods I suggested are feasible but as a start, I think we need to change the MS but we do not want the Mission Statement to filter out any and all posts because it wouldn’t be fun and interesting to read and keep up with the Forum. There just needs to be an exact "standard" to assist as a filtering mechanism to try to keep out all of the “justification” posts, “what I think” posts, “jaga” posts, “hostile” posts, etc. to continue to improve the quality on the information on M4C.

.

**C4IGrant** · 01-15-11, 14:57

Originally Posted by ucrt

====================================

Rob,
Your second point was my intention for starting this Thread and why I think the MS should be revised.
The excuse that "people don't read the MS anyway" does not hold water because even if a guy with a crappy post did read the MS...his post could probably still fit under the MS's loose guidelines. So, there is no way to claim he didn’t read it, Heck! He might know it by heart...it just was not restrictive to his post.

I don’t know how modifiable (?) the different fields and screens are but I think it would be very handy for the Mods to have a "Warnings: " counter field under the "Posts: " counter field. The Mods would have access to and control the "Warnings: " counter field. They could raise the "Warnings: " count when an infraction occurs. When that person's "Warnings: " counter reaches 3(?), they can get put on JSantoro's "Tree of Woe" or suffer some other consequence. This way a person’s warnings stay with him, no matter where they venture on the Forum, plus it would serve as an indicator of his history.

To alleviate the problem of “no one reads the MS” problem, here is another thought. As I am typing this post and looking at the "Reply to Thread" screen, there is plenty of room to modify this screen to have the Mission Statement posted on this screen with this question, "Does the Post you are submitting comply with the Mission Statement?” This way there can be absolutely no excuse for anyone creating threads and posting outside of the MS and later claiming they didn't know.

I don't know if any of the screen mods I suggested are feasible but as a start, I think we need to change the MS but we do not want the Mission Statement to filter out any and all posts because it wouldn’t be fun and interesting to read and keep up with the Forum. There just needs to be an exact "standard" to assist as a filtering mechanism to try to keep out all of the “justification” posts, “what I think” posts, “jaga” posts, “hostile” posts, etc. to continue to improve the quality on the information on M4C.

.

I don't think the mods and staff ever need a "MS" to lock an account. There also doesn't have to be a real reason for doing it either. Your a troll and while you did not really break any rules, we are just going to ban you for being stupid.

So I guess the new MS should read:

Don't be stupid and you won't get banned.

C4