I think myself some of the sub community situation is because of the lack of organization on Facebook as a platform. If you keep everything in one group it gets so cluttered it's hard to find events and other things your looking for. So guys make another group so they can find the stuff they want. Then it just breaks down further and further until it's all fragmented. That's one of the reasons I think forums make the most sense. Want a section for a specific team. Can do. Want a section to prep a team for an upcoming game it's easy to do that too.

I think it's just allot more flexible. But on getting the older guys back in(I tried to twist hado's arm when I talked to him about the move to the new site). Allot of us are just busy with everything going on. And I think some of us can't commit to big milsim types of events and more likely can do pickup or single day scenario events. Myself this year has been insanely busy and as a result I've only hosted two games up here. Thankfully other guys have stepped in and hosted regularly. But it's the biggest problem for me is time.

But like you I hope that we'll see some more guys find at least some time to be involved in the community again as well as the hobby. I'd love to meet up again with all those guys it would be a blast;)

Take care

Luke

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Happy to do it, I've got a couple still on hand from the last batch I made. Planning on making more but until these sell no hurry on my end;) But whenever you order I'll get one in route for ya. I dig the way mine are looking after some use/abuse;)

Luke

I think rather than just moving everything if they come here and see what I mention in the first post that's the best. Since some guys were venting there in the other thread, as well as putting out their opinion. So if they feel like cross posting it, more than welcome but if they want to type something new or more info they are also more than welcome;)

Luke

I'm back or have been back the last couple years. Luke213, luke2133 at one point because of a screw up from proboards back in the day. Played with Hado, ACO etc way back then. And more recently went to Irene last year and met up with some guys to put faces with names for the first time in a long time. These days I organize local games in the UP and help organize players up here, and hope to eventually have time to go downstate again.

I doubt bar my recent adventures many guys remember me, Knief, Zorak(if you come back) and a few others have known me over the years though. And I've been a global mod since around 2004ish maybe earlier. And an admin since I swapped the site over to the new server and started handling all the back end stuff there.

Luke

So guys there was an ongoing discussion on the Facebook group surrounding ways to improve MIA. Unfortunately it was brought to light because of a particularly irritating example of poor airsoft behavior at a recent event. I'll quote my post there to explain some of my feelings.

So I'm going to throw out my 2 cents, most of you don't know me or well. Some of you do and even a few may remember me from way back in the early days on MIA. Some of you first got to meet me face to face last year when I was downstate since I'm in the UP I'm always a bit off the normal, though in the past as Mike mentioned young and disposable income I fairly often jumped in my car drove 500 miles and played the weekend games, then drove home to work. I played with Hado and the guys from ACO and allot of those old timers that are even more old timers than those of us now considered the old timers;)

What I personally see different or the largest difference, is that Facebook as a whole is casual communication. Most of the traffic has moved here from the forums, it started before the transition to the new site though. The site didn't help in the sense that it was different, but the reason was because we couldn't sell guns anymore on proboards and we didn't own the history of MIA all the posts etc. It's stuck on proboards. As it stands the community owns the content on MIA, it could easily be moved to a different platform or host without much issues which we could never do back in the day. But guys started going to facebook when you could sell guns here, which dropped MIA's numbers allot, as it tapered off, we made the move, then facebook banned gun sales, and some traffic came back.

None the less the casual nature and lack of formatting and archival of information I see as the biggest issue. On the forums you can see to a degree what someone contributed based on their post count, their rank and how long they have been a member. There isn't anything like that here to take it's place. Also older information is still available and able to be easily searched and found. Which cuts down on the constant repeat posts(it still occurs but less).

I'm also not saying facebook is bad, it isn't, but I think it's a big part of the problem with MIA as a community. It's driving a casual conversation about airsoft which isn't bad, but when the habbits from facebook end up at events it really shouldn't be a surprise. MIA in the past because of the platform and rules tended to shake those people out. Was it perfect? No not even close, there was drama and BS etc. But the mods/admins did their best to keep it going forward in the right direction. The same thing occurs here but because of the platform it's a hell of allot harder to track users and admin this. Just a minor example warning levels. Here it's a ban or nothing, no tracking etc. On the forum you can put notes on a person, so the other mods know the history and if they have been a repeat problem ban them the next time they do something purely stupid.

It's not a perfect solution, but I do feel the forums give the community more structure and continuity as well as control over the quality of the users/players than we'll ever see on facebook.

As far as the types of games, we've got 2,000 players on here even if a quarter were active then we could have full rosters at any type of event the hosts would like to host across lower Michigan every single weekend. But we've gotta get the new players involved in the community, and make it accessible but also a serious enough environment that they will take it serious. And no I don't mean serious in a bad way, but take safety seriously and respect other players etc. Maybe I'm just old, but that's the only real way I see the community going forward long term, I could certainly be wrong but it's also the reason I spearheaded getting the new forum setup, adding up everyone's old post counts etc and moving them and generally spending the time and money getting it all setup and running. I'd like to see the community thrive, and ideally at some point I'd like to be able to attend some of the larger games like I used to downstate again. Though my life will have to be a bit less busy before that is an option anytime soon.

Either way my 2 cents, short version use the forum, it doesn't take that many guys to drive the traffic and information back that direction. If you feel that's the problem then you can do something about it just simply by posting there and replying to questions etc.

For those that suggested moving the discussion here, let's do it. On top of that if it's news to you reading this, I'd love to hear your opinion as well on what we can do as a community to make it stronger and better as a whole.

Luke

EDIT: Note I'm a very small part of the overall conversation on facebook, so please don't think I'm trying to "control" it by any means. I just wanted to quote my own post there, so that guys have an idea of some of the things being discussed, and get their own ideas out there.

Also the broad strokes are the community as a whole is more fragmented and poor behavior and organization is causing some issues within the community. My theory as mentioned above is that forums are a better organization system for many reasons for our type of community. Also Facebook while it does some things very well, I think is contributing to the current issues. Myself I see facebook a bit more like a "chat" than a forum replacement, but I think everyone is open to suggestions here for ways to move forward and help the community.

Well guys I noticed Tapatalk was giving some issues it appeared to be the most current version however it turned out their update was broken. So I manually installed the new version and Tapatalk should be back to running properly again. If anyone has issues feel free to shoot me a note.

Take care

Luke

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

That's a good question and one I'd ask a lawyer to be sure or get as sure of an answer as possible. I'm not aware of any cases etc that are on the books about this particular question, and I'm not a lawyer so that's not a huge surprise. That said I'm fairly well informed on firearms facts and info since it's in my wheelhouse of my business.

None the less my opinion which of course is worth what you paid for it;) A felon dealing with anything related to firearms needs to be extra cautious since a minor issue can turn into a huge issue. Since airsoft is considered a firearm under certain conditions I'd be extremely cautious. For instance if used in a crime then an airsoft gun is treated as a real firearm legally. That doesn't mean that within legal circumstances it would be treated as such, but it's something to be aware of.

Generally speaking my rule of thumb with airsoft is treating them in use and transport as a real firearm except when using them on the field. As such my own opinion is as much as I hate to say it, I'd look at paintball or some other hobby that is further from firearms if I were in your shoes. It isn't worth the risk in my opinion to get charged with something because of a hobby that could effect the rest of your life. But again I'm not an attorney and this isn't legal advice, so just my 2 cents;)

Luke

So the only thing to mention which you touched on and I've seen the effects but I don't entirely understand the mechanism well I've got the theory but there are some unknowns.

So the theory is that when applying hopup you're holding the BB in place and either building more pressure behind the BB prior to release, or hitting a point where the pressure builds enough to release. I suspect it's the first but the reason I mention the second is this. If you're running say an irregular pitch spring it releases at a different rate, and then say a full cylinder. If the BB is still in the barrel at a different point in the piston stroke then it typically would have been then you can see different FPS results. IE there are points along that travel where the piston is pushing more air than other points, and as a result you can get a more efficient push basically. So how long and how the BB is held does effect FPS to some degree, and it can be somewhat hard to predict.

Typically with a normal bucking, you need to apply allot of force down on the nub and thus the BB to get enough backspin out of the contact patch. On an rhop it needs allot less force, which makes them a bit more finicky to set and more sensitive. That's also some of the reason behind the Mnub that is recommended, to take a bit of the sensitivity out. But that lower pressure just seems to be more efficient at backspin over a larger area which seems to generally raise FPS slightly because of less resistance.

Another oddity of rhops to note, is that they do seem more prone to ammo pickyness, in the sense that if you've got some BB's that aren't super consistent size wise, they will be more of an issue in an rhop overhopping. Because that slightly larger BB is basically making more contact with the patch, which does allot more than a typical bucking. So good ammo is really even more important in an rhop than a typical mound style bucking.

Also for another note of oddity with hopups that ties into my mention of FPS. Bolt action rifles have an oddity that typically more hopup to a certain point will actually increase FPS rather than decrease it. The theory I've seen mentioned is the way the BB is held causes it. To be completely honest I never worried about it, but it's something to be aware of. Especially important is if you're going to chrono for events it wouldn't be a bad idea for sniper rifles to chrono with the hopup set to the proper setting they will use. Turning it off for chrono may yield a lower FPS than what it will shoot with it on etc. So just another thing to be aware of.

Luke