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Community Meeting?


Red 2

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It feels like I'm that guy this time around. Cool.

 

By this time last year we had already had our meeting... Yet this year is silence. Let's kill it.

 

What topics must be brought up?

 

Where do we wanna chill?

 

When?

 

C'mon folks, let's do this.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well as expected not much energy from anyone on this.  So here is my .02.     While its great to get together hang out and do this in person..  Does not seem to be much interest in doing that.   Never really been a fan myself anyway.   But we do have this very forum so why not have it here.     

 

Things I think need to be looked into.

 

1.  Classifieds.   We need to drop the Fee.    Yes I know it helps to maintain this site.. But with traffic at an all-time low on forums in general.  I think an open section of B/S.T could really drive the traffic to us.    Facebook is great and all but Nuking pages every day.  Which is why this page is so important.  

 

2.   Maybe an official game this year..   with proceeds going to support that page.   a 50 player game at 10.00 a person would match the income from dropping a price to sell here.

 

3.   A few very active admins to police said classified.   

 

Other things I would love to see.   

 

A few Airsoft Indiana get-togethers.  Camp out,, Cookout,  The old day's stuff with some pew pew thrown in.   Think Community functions.    Their are new players jumping into games everyday.. What I see here is mosty the same group of friends we have all been since this started...  Let's invite the new people in and make them part of it.  

 

Support and grow the fields we have.   Bridge gaps...  blah blah blah same stuff I have been going on about for 10 years now.    

 

How about a Indiana airsoft youtube channel..     great way to showcase who we are.   

 

Promote the game.. the Forum,   Who we are.     Something all of us should be doing.      

 

Personally im going to work on pushing more people from out facebook group.  Here.   It grows daily but can also be shut down in an instant.   As Facebook continues to be more and more anti 2nd amendment and push people away is our chance to push them back to our forum.     

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Possibly we'll make a Chill & Grill game where we can also discuss the forum and the community. I always like meeting in person because you can always blab about whatever on the forums cause you're behind your monitor, but in person you can really see who cares about the community and also who is willing to help make changes. People always seem to be "invited" to these meetings but many decide not to show up and it really shows how involved they want to actually be. 2(?) years ago I made a note about the Spartans on the notes for the meeting and some random Spartan commented on the post trying to be all tough but I didn't see a single Spartan at that meeting, shows how much he really cared. Anyways

Maybe we'll hose a Chill and Grill game and talk abut the community there as well. You can always lure airsofters to a meeting with a game and food.

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Don't recall a community meeting ever in Feb?? April and October, yea but never Feb? :lol:

 

 

 

 

Things I think need to be looked into.

 

1.  Classifieds.   We need to drop the Fee.    Yes I know it helps to maintain this site.. But with traffic at an all-time low on forums in general.  I think an open section of B/S.T could really drive the traffic to us.    Facebook is great and all but Nuking pages every day.  Which is why this page is so important.  

 

2.   Maybe an official game this year..   with proceeds going to support that page.   a 50 player game at 10.00 a person would match the income from dropping a price to sell here.

 

3.   A few very active admins to police said classified. 

 

Fee is a one time thing and never expires... I couldn't tell you the last time that any money has come in to pay for the site... Doesn't bother me much as it's relatively in-expensive to maintain but 5 bucks for lifetime selling rights is minimal IMO...

 

Official game would be awesome as always!

 

All moderators can police the whole site. So if we just need to run through that list, let me know.

 

 

**** My To-do list ****

 

One of the things I need to work on is getting us moved over to the new forum software as well as moved to HTTPS. Been experimenting with both but the software upgrade is a serious change from what I've gathered so far :(

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Biggest hit forums have taken is Facebook. Easier to post photo's, I touch to get on it plus it's free. Most people are lazy are do not want to log on. Even my own team does it. 

 

Rob is right, the cost for posting up stuff for sale is very minimal. The funny thing is when you go to a game and see the money players spend on gear but can't flip a $5 to a forum. 

 

I personally enjoy forums over FB. I do not have to look at all the crap in my news feed, I just click on a topic I'd like to read or respond to. Plus, here WE have control of it not some liberal ass telling us we can and can't do this or that.  

 

Now, on to a meeting: 

What I saw last year is a lot of chillin and not a lot of gunho. 

How many actually planned and took the time to come? 

An AI game was discussed but never happened. This seems to be an ongoing talking point with no action. (I believe it comes up every year) 

It seems to me that the old guard is tired, busy with life etc and cannot step up to take the bull by the horns, but no one else wants to step up and invest their time, money and energy into putting on a quality game.

 

Also, the divide in Indiana is huge....trying to cross post on someone else's page or whatever is a pain. Why? Well, you can't do this or that because of this....someone might get mad. We seem to have a lot of EO's and field owners but the bickering is still as ridiculous as always. I even see it on FB pages. I do try and be on as many as possible pages looking for games to attend over the year. I read more and comment less and less. (seems to keep me out of trouble) 

 

One of my suggestions that probably will never happen is a Central Forum for the whole of Indiana. Not a command,ruling or anything like that. Just a place for ALL to come to for games. (Yes, I've seen the mistakes I've made over the years and needed to change my thinking) 

I believe this forum has value and could be that. All field owners and EO's would be welcomed. I do believe there is a mindset that needs to be changed here in order to improve for the betterment of airsoft in Indiana. 

Just the ramblings of a senile ol'fat guy. 

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100% agree with RG on all points made..   Minus I still think dropping the BST money would help to be able to drive traffic here.. Yes I know 5.00 is nothing.   But its also the hassle of doing it.  And well the mindset of many of not worth it.  What this site needs is people.   On average the Facebook page grows by members at a rate of 3 times the amount of single posts we get here.     For many reasons yes.  And yes I was and still, am all for facebook..   But as a recruiting tool for the forum.  Its kind of a double-edged sword.   One side you have to have content and activity there to draw members here.   But you also lose that one the forums.     Case in point.   This is a pretty important topic for airsoft in Indiana.   This thread is a month old.   and has 3 people discussing it.      

 

But im just an old guy rambling on.  So how do we drive the masses here?    I was hoping an active bst page would do it.   

 

On a side note..   I would like to see a donation game happen to go to Rob for his work here.   At least to cover the hosting costs.  

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I do believe we also have a Discord. Which is a free application. If people reeeaaallllyyy want to hear each others voices, let's plan a day where admins and event hosts can jump in to hear what all of us little nerds have to say. 

 

I'll go back to staring at my beach now. Yeet. 

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I agree dropping the fee is best. Many people (myself included) resort to other means to sell things. Why pay to sell something when there are so many other free options? I understand it's purpose but it's doing more harm than good IMO.

 

A community game would be nice to see but I'm not holding my breath. I wish there was more interest and activity on here but the sad reality is that FB has taken over. Unless they actually do shut down the airsoft groups I don't think this forum will ever see as much traffic as it used to.

 

I also like the idea of a YT channel, maybe live stream some games there too.

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I also like the idea of a YT channel, maybe live stream some games there too.

 

It may sound stupid, but how about a monthly AI podcast talking about upcoming and past games? And some nonsense of course. lol

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It may sound stupid, but how about a monthly AI podcast talking about upcoming and past games? And some nonsense of course. lol

.

 

Of course.

 

Well, if I can get enough collaborators, I got a sweet idea for an event. One lone wolf can only do so much.

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I said it when it started and came about. Facebook will be the down fall of civilization. For the simple fact that if unchecked it wil run rampant with propaganda that isnt rooted in fact. Look at what it has done to us politically. No surprise to me that it has destroyed the forums that we all use to have to visit and register on in order to get info about games, b/s/t, and getting to know each other in the community.

This is paramount at what ever meeting takes place, that it is discussed how to minimize the FB involvement in our hobby, and how all FB pages need to be redirected to local forums for the betterment of the hobby.

I know the younger guys may not understand this mentality, but it use to be that you had your forums, and then if you played in different regions you would register on that regions forum boards, make an introduction, AND HAD TO BEHAVE LIKE A CIVILIZED PERSON out of respect for the other forum members and fear that you may be barred from that regions games.

Let’s also get this straight, this is no longer a 1 person idea. At this community meeting you / we, need to invite IAC, Spartans, Blackwatch, 3rd group, all teams for that matter as well as field owners, and for god sakes please just reach across the line and at least invite Ohio, or someone from there.

I have learned from my years (not always the wisest) that we have divided this hobby to easily, but we did nothing to repair it. It has to be done. There is no airsoft indiana without ALL of indiana playing airsoft together.

If your moderators police here, but do very little to promote. Time for new mods then. These things need to be done, but it wil take everyone’s involvement to do it.

There will always be people who dont see eye to eye, but we need to learn how to move past this and start playing again. If that takes apologies being made and fences being mended, then air the laundry at the meeting and lets move to clearing this up.

That’s my .02 from my ivory tower.

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Echo makes some great points.. I agree on all but one..   Sadly FB is here and until they completely shut down every airsoft page..  If we don't use it.. someone will just start a page and there goes all of the traffic here.  The biggest problem we face is that we don't want or feel the need to change..   I'm gonna harp on B/S/T for a moment as I brought it up.    Who is gonna pay 5.00 to sell on a site with very little traffic when there is Hopup apps.   still a few fb groups and everything else..   My idea was to use the market to generate traffic here.    Give people a reason to log in.    What did I get.. Well, its only 5.00...  well this is how we do it.   Just more of the same of why things are dwindling to nothing.   No forward movement will result in failure.   If every idea is instantly shot down... we fail..   And yes everyone here knows we are all bad about that very thing.. myself included.       We have 2 FB airsoft pages with around 1600 member per the 2.    Why 2....   Just as I stated we didn't do it..  Didn't want it.. someone else stepped up and made there own.  And now.... we are divided more because of it.    We had a local airsoft vender wanting to jump in with us...   Nope....    now he is pulling 30 to 50 players every weekend.     And still tells them about our forum.  Basicly Echo said it well..   We need to rethink how we do stuff.    And im sure someone will bring up.. But Crimson you have only been to once community meeting..  and that is correct.   Nothing has come of any of them..   Lets change that.   Lets all get on the same page and do something for the game we all play.   

 

>End Crimson Rant<      

 

I can say all this because well 90% of you here i know on a personal level      

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Oof.

 

I can’t really disagree with anything that anyone has said thus far. They are all good points and you all have good reason to support your points. I love the discussion happening.

 

I have been trying. Trying for so long now to mend fences and bury hatchets. Trying to reach out. Trying to bring new people here. Trying to get people to post their events here. Or post anything at all. I try to do this in person at events. I try to do this online. I don’t just talk about it I do it. I take action. But I can only do so much.

 

Fact; Indiana Airsoft forums have a bad reputation. It’s from years of stupid drama and infighting and websites that no longer exist. It’s also from the past and completely unfair as we have all come a very long way since then. We also have the unfortunate burden of being judged as a group because of a handful of players who may be signed up on here. But the rep stands. Some think AI is trying to “control” all of airsoft in Indiana or that it’s our way or the highway. When that is in fact not the case. We just want to bring everyone together under one banner to have a good time and pool our vast resources to help do just that. Yes we have rules, mostly all related to typical website stuff and just generally being decent people. Some people are holding grudges and have problems with our website staff not knowing that is has been a revolving door of players over the last several years. It isn’t fair but it’s life. And in time it can be fixed with effort.

 

It’s as simple as someone posting something and several people giving them shit about it because they disagree or because it’s dumb. Then the OP gets upset and says “all of Airsoft Indiana is a bunch of assholes, especially the mods who locked my thread. I’m going to start my own FB page and talk shit about them and tell everyone how great my new group is.” And if you don’t believe me just take a look at IAC. How many of you are members of that group? I once was solely for trolling and advertising Airsoft Indiana until my posts were deleted many many times. Removed myself because I refuse to support something that is obviously trying to divide while pretending to help. EGO IS A HELL OF A DRUG. Removed myself from from various groups like that. And that isn’t the only one, just one of the best examples.

 

And it’s not going to stop. There will always be upset people who take their ball and go home when someone has to tap them on the pee pee and say no no. But to help and offset all of those other groups we have to remain united. We have to wave the Airsoft Indiana flag just as much if not more than our own Airsoft teams flags. We have to stop thinking as an individual player and think about the long term of this community. Players, teams, and even fields will come and go but this community doesn’t have too. It could always be the central place players come when looking for events or information as long as we can do what needs done. FB won’t always be so tolerant of Airsoft and it’s various groups and pages, we are seeing that now. This why this space is so important.

 

I love talking about this. I could talk about this until I’m white in the face (Joker pun). But with all of this good conversation needs to come with action. Set the example. Post about Airsoft Indiana on FB, use the tags. Use your following or your pages following to draw attention to the good we are trying to do here. Start interesting discussions here. Post events here. Post pictures and videos here. Write helpful reviews about guns and gear. Try not to be so harsh towards new members and their posts. Remove yourself from other groups who only look to further the divide.

 

I am tired. I am so tired of feeling like the only one who cares. I know I’m not, but it seems that way sometimes. I have things to deal with (especially now). I can’t give 100% of my attention to Airsoft currently. So pick up my slack. Step up and take action. If you notice I’ve not been waving that Airsoft Indiana flag as hard as I normally do then take it and wave it yourself. We have to do this together.

 

I love you guys/gals. Seriously.

 

~Joker

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Hi,  I am not trying to hi-jack this thread, so I will try to keep it short.  I've had little to no success in response on the facebook pages and forums.  Just trying to get involved in airsoft, complete noob and looking for an individual or group to join up with and get started.  Have no idea on equipment, seems like so many choices.  Was a paintballer years ago.  I'm posting here as this is the most recent I've seen for activity.  If anyone is interested I'd like to meet up and learn, etc.  I will give my email if someone want to provide any info in more detail  Thanks  Eric   email is Lagun77th@yahoo.com  

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My perspective:

 

-Drop the seller fee. I wholeheartedly agree that a one-time donation of $5 is relatively nothing, but when you consider the fact that 90% of the airsoft population is too lazy to log onto a second website, that directly applies to their willingness to spend $5 on the website they are too lazy to log onto.

 

-Aside from the first meeting after the most recent population split, members of both sides and EOs/land owners have always been invited to meetings. The reason they are not present is due to scheduling conflicts, lack of response, or outright turning down the invitation.

 

-3G and many of the players we associate with has made many efforts to toss the past to the side and bridge the gap with IAC, and it has worked to some extent. There's only so much we can do without the other side making the same efforts though.

 

-Last year's meeting got derailed. To be brutally honest, it was a lot of boasting about the great things BlackWatch does and how we are wasting time beating the same dead horse year after year, when in fact the meeting was actually mainly targeted towards putting faces to names and brainstorming ways to increase community involvement and better support the splurge of new fields. Refer to my new post.

 

-I think there is a major disconnect between the old school guys and the newer crowd. As mentioned above, many of us are actively trying to reconnect the community and erase the stigmas of A-I/IAC, but in my opinion the different generations aren't seeing each other do this. Maybe it's due to the way we use social media (FB, Discord, etc) or the types of games we prefer to attend. Regardless, there is action being done, but many people aren't seeing it.

 

-In my honest opinion, I believe that hosting a Chill & Grill/tech day as opposed to a community meeting will prove far more effective. Gun repairs are a constant in every airsoft community, and hosting an event where people can learn, in person, how to fix and/or upgrade their guns either for free or for a small fee would gather the attention of many players. I can't recall a time where i helped a new guy fix his gun in the staging area and people didn't watch so they could learn as well. A tech day would be a good way to advertise the forum because you can acknowledge that we have subsections devoted to teching for different types of guns, among all the other subsections.

 

 

 

p.s. Sorry for any ruffled feathers, but brutal honesty is one thing that i think this community has been lacking.

Edited by Nox
Clarified a statement
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My perspective:

 

-Drop the seller fee. I wholeheartedly agree that a one-time donation of $5 is relatively nothing, but when you consider the fact that 90% of the airsoft population is too lazy to log onto a second website, that directly applies to their willingness to spend $5 on the website they are too lazy to log onto.

 

-Aside from the first meeting after the most recent population split, members of both sides and EOs/land owners have always been invited to meetings. The reason they are not present is due to scheduling conflicts, lack of response, or outright turning down the invitation.

 

-3G and many of the players we associate with has made many efforts to toss the past to the side and bridge the gap with IAC, and it has worked to some extent. There's only so much we can do without the other side making the same efforts though.

 

-Last year's meeting got derailed. To be brutally honest, it was a lot of boasting about the great things BlackWatch does and how we are wasting time beating the same dead horse year after year, when in fact the meeting was actually mainly targeted towards putting faces to names and brainstorming ways to increase community involvement and better support the splurge of new fields.

 

-I think there is a major disconnect between the old school guys and the newer crowd. As mentioned above, many of us are actively trying to reconnect the community and erase the stigmas of A-I/IAC, but in my opinion the different generations aren't seeing each other do this. Maybe it's due to the way we use social media (FB, Discord, etc) or the types of games we prefer to attend. Regardless, there is action being done, but many people aren't seeing it.

 

-In my honest opinion, I believe that hosting a Chill & Grill/tech day as opposed to a community meeting will prove far more effective. Gun repairs are a constant in every airsoft community, and hosting an event where people can learn, in person, how to fix and/or upgrade their guns either for free or for a small fee would gather the attention of many players. I can't recall a time where i helped a new guy fix his gun in the staging area and people didn't watch so they could learn as well. A tech day would be a good way to advertise the forum because you can acknowledge that we have subsections devoted to teching for different types of guns, among all the other subsections.

 

 

 

p.s. Sorry for any ruffled feathers, but brutal honesty is one thing that i think this community has been lacking.

 

 

 

Some very good points I really like the last one as it something I have been working on.   At the very moment I am tearing down 40 odd gearboxes to add mosfets to the for Rhino at Spec Ops.        I have actaully talked to him about holding some tech/teaching/Sniper kind of days where I would volenteer to come in and give some lessons on what I know and help players out.    One more way to build all the comunitys.   

Edited by hrturner
Fixed your post Crimson, You're post was absorbed into the quote.
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-Last year's meeting got derailed. To be brutally honest, it was a lot of boasting about the great things BlackWatch does and how we are wasting time beating the same dead horse year after year, when in fact the meeting was actually mainly targeted towards putting faces to names and brainstorming ways to increase community involvement and better support the splurge of new fields. Refer to my new post.

 

I would like to clarify my statement in that, while mistakes were made at the last meeting, it was a result of mishaps on both sides of the scenario. I would also like to admit fault for not acknowledging the issue when it happened.

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Note to self: Probably won't be "that guy" "next time".

You stepped up and did something.. That a good thing.   More of that from more people and maybe we can get somewhere.  

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So, when are we thinking? Feb has come and gone now, and assuming that we all need 4 weeks advanced notice, this would put us into April for a meeting. Lets tack down a date. Easter isn't until the 21st, so, what say the second weekend of April? That would be the 13-14.

 

I am regularly down in the southern Indiana area for work on a damn near bi-weekly basis right now. I shouldn't have any trouble working it into my schedule regardless os where hosting will occur. The idea of a cookout is good. Or better yet, why not put on a giant Tech day? It would get new players out, give face time between players and techs, promote AI inner relationships amongst everyone, and we could host the official meeting over lunch. Just a thought. Where in the greater central IN could host this?

 

 

*EDIT* My proof reading skills suck. Grammar ans spelling fixed...I think

Edited by Hanback
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The second week of April (13-14) is very busy and as such I would npt be able to attend. Mir Tactical is hosting an opener at The Airsoft Factory in Kankakee, IL that weekend and will likely pull potential attendees of said meeting....

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you still failed!! LOL 

 

Its ironic really. I can speak math/physics which is made up of umpteen different languages, alphabets, etc but when it comes to English, just take me outback and put me down like a horse with a broken leg.

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So, has anyone put any more thought into removing the fee to sell stuff? I think it would be a big step in driving more traffic here...

 

Screenshot-20190307-170317.png

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