What is the pistol-forum ethos?

[mizer67]

I quit PF, along with shooting, around 2017 also. I was never a frequent poster, but was an avid reader.

I rejoined in mid-2022. While much has changed, much has stayed the same.

Looking around at other forums I used to frequent, they're either largely inactive or not worth spending time on. On PF, you can still find well reasoned arguments and debates born from direct, extensive, experience. When I was looking at re-baselining to where pistolcraft has evolved in the last five years, this was still the first place with content I digested as well.

[SoCalDep]

I’m a relatively new member, having joined in 2016, so with that said I can’t speak to the “old days of PF”, but I’ll throw out some of my perspective to explain my current thoughts about this forum.

I joined my first forum back in 1999 and that forum grew so big that the ratio of quality posts has dropped to the point I rarely visit except for technical sub-forums.

Other forums I’ve been (and still am) a member of have become stagnant because the firearms are no longer as popular and most experts have moved on to other things.

I joined a particular forum that vetted its membership and had a very large military and law enforcement member base back in 2011 or 2012. I was very impressed with the information I was able to glean and the discussions we had. I was able to have many conversations within forum threads and through PMs with Pat Rogers and I’m very disappointed I wasn’t able to train with him before he passed. Many of our discussions brought up ideas that directly influenced how we developed our department’s current low light training program. I think a lot of those military members maybe got out of the service, the GWOT started to ramp down, and the forum started to stagnate... I should check it out again but around that time I found PF.

That was 2016 and I discovered PF due to taking an Ernest Langdon class and reading about the FAST Coin. I quickly discovered the large amount of subject matter expertise within the forum was like no where else I knew in the forum world.

No one and nothing is perfect, but what I like about PF is that to me we are held accountable. Unlike other forums where people can post dogmatic and/or wrongheaded ideas that go largely unchallenged, in PF if you speak outside your lane you are likely to get challenged. I know I have been, and it’s made me a better person in this area. I also see people debating ideas and hashing out disagreements, sometimes vehemently, but rarely with personal attacks and usually with at least some level of open-mindedness.

Perfect example: There was recently a thread involving a video posted by a well-known gun personality. I challenged some of the content of the video, and when I re-read it later it came out in a way that, were I him, would have been insulting given his history and expertise. Instead of engaging in an ego-driven debate, he posted a very professional reply that continued the conversation and ultimately resulted, and will continue to result in good information being shared rather than turning into a useless argument. To me It’s the quality of members that makes PF great. It may not be what it was several years ago, but it is really the only forum that I spend a lot of time on now.

I could list the number of people I know here who are experts in various areas of firearms and firearms training who contribute regularly, but it would just be a long list... I think most of us know who they are and are grateful for them. I don’t know anywhere else I could get honest feedback from such a large population of industry names (and they aren’t even doing it for the ‘gram) anywhere, and it’s at the cost of hitting some keys for a while.

So if I had to make a catch phrase it would be (with credit to and in tribute of Pat Rogers):

Pistol Forum... Where learning occurs.

[JWH]

I found this place in ‘11 or’12 from one of Tam’s posts on arfcom. I lurked for years only signing up to see DB’s smith pics.

I would describe the ethos here as “for every what, there’s a why”. I think that it part of what sets it apart.

[Caballoflaco]

There was a biscuit kerfuffle, but even though some members are anti-biscuit we still seem to get along for the most part.

[MistWolf]

What would the active members of the forum say is the ethos of p-f, here in 2022 A.D.? (Defining “ethos” here via the Oxford dictionary as “The characteristic spirit, prevalent tone of sentiment, of a people or community; the ‘genius’ of an institution or system.”)

Two words-
-Puns
-Haikus

Bonus points if you give us a pun in the form of a Haiku.

Then, there are the threads started by LittleLebowski that never end. They just just go on and on my friend...

[JSGlock34]

The Forum Rules are not the same thing as an Ethos but we have those. Probably as close as anything to a foundational document here. It includes a Mission Statement and rules of conduct that I think still capture much of what Todd set off to do here - particularly the admonitions to remain on topic. I've been here since day one, having followed Todd from M4C and the now defunct FirearmsTrainingandTactics.com, and while I post less often I have remained here because of the frequently mentioned signal to noise ratio.

I. Mission statement:

The mission of pistol-forum.com is to serve as a professional resource for the exchange of information and ideas on the use of the pistol (and other firearms) in self defense, in an armed profession, and in competition. Through the respectful exchange of concepts and information we hope to be a resource that everyone from the accomplished professional to the relative novice can use to refine their ideas and practices to produce the best possible results for their situation.

II. General rules of conduct:

To further the goals of the site as specified in the mission statement, we have developed a code of conduct that we expect members of pistol-forum.com to abide by at all times. Failure to abide by the rules of the site can result in suspension or even termination of your posting privileges.

Under absolutely no circumstances should you ever:

Post derogatory comments of a racial, religious, or sexual nature.
Post comments in support of criminal violence or other illegal activities, including illegal modifications of firearms.
Post comments that threaten harm to law enforcement officers, members of the military, government officials, other members, or the public at large.
Post someone else’s personal information without permission, or attempt to interfere with someone’s personal/professional life based on web forum discussion.
Clutter a thread with extraneous nonsense unrelated to the topic.

When involved in discussions we expect you to:

Remain polite and professional in your conversation with others. Demeaning, insulting, and berating other members will not be tolerated. You are free to disagree, but do so respectfully and with humility.
Heed direction from pistol-forum.com staff. The volunteer members of staff have been entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the forum’s value to the membership. Your cooperation with them in the effort to make this an outstanding resource is greatly appreciated.
Show patience with new members who may be unfamiliar with the culture or features of the site. Offering good-natured guidance to new members is encouraged and appreciated.
Use the report function to alert members of staff to behavior that is not consistent with the conduct we expect of our membership. If someone is out of line, report them. Do not sink to their level.
Try to use proper English to aid in the comprehensibility of the forum
Abstain from any inter-forum warfare. Do not say mean things about other forums or people from other forums. We are here to discuss ideas, not personalities.
Try to keep threads on topic.
Abstain from posting, or linking to, Not-Safe-For-Work content (pictures, websites, etc.). This would include use in avatars, signatures, etc.
No whining, please.
Disclose any commercial interest you have in a product or vendor. This can be done in your signature.
Abstain from complaining about a problem with a product you aren't willing to contact the manufacturer about.
Understand that due to the current political climate, pistol-forum.com staff can and will at any time, move political discussions to our Politics Discussion which is limited to Site Supporters only.

III. A note about "astroturfing"

We require disclosure of industry ties/links on this forum as a way of helping our membership determine the validity of advice and opinions that are shared on the forum. If we find that someone who is giving rave reviews of a product or service has an interest in that product/service that they have not disclosed, we will immediately ban them. If we find that someone has signed up for the forum solely to push their product/service in discussions, we will immediately ban them. If we find that someone has created multiple accounts, one to advertise a product/service and the other shell accounts to generate rave reviews for the product while appearing to be customers, we will immediately ban them. To be perfectly clear: We despise astroturfing and will mercilessly crush it on this forum.

IV. Profanity

In order to keep PFC a professional and orderly forum, please limit obscene and vulgar language as much as possible. If a staff member feels the content of your post is unnecessarily vulgar, it may be edited without notice.

V. Inter-forum warfare

Pistol-forum will not tolerate Inter-forum warfare. Inter-forum warfare is grounds for an immediate ban.

Inter-forum warfare includes a member soliciting other members to post comments on another forum or a member soliciting forum members at another forum to join pistol-forum for the sole purpose of joining an argument or ridiculing other contributors.

VI. User Content License

You grant pistol-forum.com and its users a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide limited license to use, store, display, reproduce, modify, perform, and translate your Content solely for the purposes of operating, developing, providing, and using pistol-forum.com. This includes without limitation distributing part or all of pistol-forum.com in any media formats through any media channels, except Content not shared publicly ("private") will not be distributed outside pistol-forum.com.

[Kanye Wyoming]

Not to change the subject ...

... but one of the more endearing things about P-F is the almost inevitable thread drift, which as often as not goes in equally or more interesting or entertaining directions than the original topic.

[medmo]

Just posted by @JSGlock34

This:

The mission of pistol-forum.com is to serve as a professional resource for the exchange of information and ideas on the use of the pistol (and other firearms) in self defense, in an armed profession, and in competition. Through the respectful exchange of concepts and information we hope to be a resource that everyone from the accomplished professional to the relative novice can use to refine their ideas and practices to produce the best possible results for their situation.

That is why I am here. Because of my engagement with this forum I have been able to increase skills, part ways with piles of cash, and generally have an enjoyable time.

Occasionally someone gets shit on but the shitty mods eventually step in and get things righted.

[Bio]

I joined up in 2020, and and relatively new to the life of firearms use and ownership. I'm a reader, though. I read a ton of gun forums for a several years trying to get an understanding. When I stumbled across PF, my reading other gun forums dropped to zero, aside from weird niche stuff I had a passing interest in. Opinions on PF were clearly being driven by experience, experimentation, and data in ways that were almost wholly absent in other forums. In addition, there was skepticism of new, unproven things (techniques, hardware, philosophy), that resided alongside an openness to try and test new things against old things to see how they stacked up. These factors balanced themselves very well, at least compared to the rest of the internet.

The general approach people seem to takechere is ask questions about stuff you don't know, expound on things you do know, and know the difference between the two. I think this forum does really well at that. Trying to follow that pattern, I pretty much only read most technical parts of the forum because there's so little I know that most of my questions have already been asked. I am active on the general threads more, however, because people that self-select for a forum wmthat has that ethos are people that I like discussing almost anything with, and I can actually contribute a bit to the general topics.

[fatdog]

everywhere on the internet you have to sift to find the truly valuable information, here you don't have to crank it quite as hard or fast (for those who remember what a flour sifter was), that saves a lot of time and mental energy

if the mods weren't shit this could be a truly great place...