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Message for All Mossberg Members

Ernst

Ernst

.30-06
"Philanthropist"
I want to take this opportunity to say my peace and encourage members to take a different direction regarding this forum. Our forum has suffered from both ownership neglect and the lack of member participation for many months. Many of our founding members no longer participate and the number of topics and daily participating members have decreased to only a handful. IMO it's time for a change in direction!

So who is Ernst who is writing this critical assessment of the forum. I'm likely the oldest participating forum member and I have served this Republic for 33 plus years as both an active military member and a contractor support military operations. As most of you know I'm a Vietnam era Veteran and passionate in the support and remembrance of our military veterans, their needs, and the observation of our important holidays. I take pride in our Republic despite disagreement in it's current direction and leadership. While many have been members much longer, I take also pride that my positive member reaction is among the top five.

We "had" for many years a robust discussion forum which addressed not only Mossberg related topics but shared expertise across most firearms and tactical related topics. Unfortunately, this robustness has dwindled to a couple of daily topics like Good Morning and Pictures that Make You LOL. We no longer even have the Topic of the Month which always generated great interest. Focused technical discussion topics are rare these days. And some of you will likely say many other forums have also dwindled. While that may be true, there are several forums that have over one hundred inputs per day and continue to grow.

While we need renewed leadership and support from the forum owner, it is still lacking! Several of the members, including myself, have raised issues with the owner without his response. So the forum's future is in our hands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope any of you reading this post will chime in with your thoughts whether you support this renewed effort or not. While I realize a turnaround will not happen over night I hope that many of you who continue to be "readers" will once again become renewed "posters" and "participants".

With that I've shared my views. The future is ours!

Regards,
Ernst
 
Right now it’s basically down to you, me, meastreak, husker88, bobster & rodburner.

I think everyone else here has dropped out.

Here’s the thing that I do not understand. Every week we get 50 spammers trying to register, and not one legitimate new member so far.

The two who looked legitimate, and whom I allowed to join, turned out to be spammers as well.

It’s like this forum has been made invisible to real people.

I’m going to ask someone who doesn’t belong here or know anything about guns basically, to try and find this forum and register here, and see what happens to him.

I could log out and try this myself, but you see, Google does not treat me as a regular person.
 
BTW, I have been here 9 years now. I’ve had virtually zero contact from the owner, Dan.

People were getting upset, being expelled, and dropping out, even back then. Mostly it was about censorship.

Now I am assuming Dan is still the owner of record. The operation of this place may be a political burden in his business, and he may have “done things” as a result, (apart from just being 100% absent.)

Maybe he wants the forum to die, or maybe the guy himself is dying of cancer in some hospital. I don’t have a clue.

Meanwhile I am mostly just treading water here, since I don’t post about my shooting activities anymore (for political reasons,) yet I have a few friends left in this place that keep me coming here.

But I think we are under a cloak, somehow.
 
I've had a website for my business for over 20yrs now so I "kind of" know how this works. :) But I'm not a webmaster, and have not updated my brain so I "kind of" DON'T know how this works regarding modern tech, SW and and searches. ;)

Internet searches are based on "key" words. In MO's case, you can search "mossberg" and "forum" and MO shows up at the top of the search page. This is a "good" thing and shows that MO is the lead player in the Mossberg Forum game. FYI, I am using FireFox browser and DuckDuckGo search engine. I did NOT log out of MO so that could affect how searches are determined...

But EVERYTHING is for sale. And searching "mossberg" and "shotgun" I went through at least 10 pages before I gave up. This ranking can be bettered by contacting gugle (for example) and contracting to pay "x" amount for a search word or term. Every time someone searches that term, you pay a fee but you also end up high on the list of searches. And we're talking fractions of a penny, but it can add up, especially with all the spiders that are out there continuously hitting up websites "searching" terms and key words. Someone could come along and offer to pay MORE than you are paying then THEY will be at the top of the list. And so on...

I looked at MO's page source and didn't see a list of key words and perhaps I don't know where to find them but they will usually show up early on the source page. If such key words were present, MO would probably show up better in the lists even without paying. Paying companies show up first, then spidered, non-paying pages after. The longer a website is on the web, the higher it will be on the search list because of spidering.
 
Be that as it may, the only people trying to register are spammers.

Not one real person has attempted to register here since everyone bailed.

Not that it means a dime to me. I don’t own this, and I don’t need to. I do have lots of photos hosted here, for free, so that does mean something to me.

But the same pix I post here get posted to the OT sections of Rat Rod Bikes, Shop Floor Talk, The Samba, & usually P15-D25 (an old Mopar forum). Sometimes on Hooligan Cruisers, Tacoma World, Fishlore, Gnarwheels, and Monsterfish.

So several different forums where I am known as CaddmannQ or Ulu .

I spread it all out so if something goes sour (just think of Photobucket) I have free backups online, aside from my regular cloudspace, and my desktop.

So I am covered for at least that.

Now, I expect the hosting fees were pre-paid here, and when that contract ends the forum will end.

Or maybe there is an auto-payment mechanism that will keep it alive until Honovich’s bank account goes flat.

Again I don’t have a clue.

But when all the other admins bailed, I figured the writing was on the wall. We’re sitting on Atlantis here, and it could vanish below the waves in one night.
 
Ernst said:
I want to take this opportunity to say my peace and encourage members to take a different direction regarding this forum. . . .
Click to expand...

Being under the cloud of absentee ownership, I don’t see how this will change. Too many people found investing their time here was not pleasing.

Nothing will be done to redecorate the place, as we don’t have a web guy on staff. We don’t really have a staff.

I’m an old CAD guy, and it’s another world to me. I’m not qualified to do HTML or JAVA or any such thing, & it’s really a job for someone younger.

EDIT:….
I did some more reading in the secret moderator rooms. I now know some more history of how this place fell apart and why it is what it is.

I still don’t understand what is stopping real people from registering.

As I understand it, from reading between the lines, we have this new software only because the previous one could not easily control spammers. It was implemented but never tuned up. It still looks like the day it was installed.

Also, I discovered that while the forum shows me as administrator, I do not have access to the real tools. I operate these on Hooligans and Gnarwheels, so it’s clear what isn’t enabled.

Evidently Dan must approve something and he isn’t available.

This is 99% of why our old staff all bailed and handed me this bag.
 
Last edited:
I am surprised that the site is still up at all. Surely there is a cost for the absentee site owner. Hosting fees, whatever. I wonder why he's keeping it alive. Most people bail when no money is coming in. the mystery continues.
 
Husker88 said:
I am surprised that the site is still up at all. Surely there is a cost for the absentee site owner. Hosting fees, whatever. I wonder why he's keeping it alive. Most people bail when no money is coming in. the mystery continues.
Click to expand...

CaddmannQ said:
.... I expect the hosting fees were pre-paid here, and when that contract ends the forum will end.

Or maybe there is an auto-payment mechanism that will keep it alive until Honovich’s bank account goes flat.
...
Click to expand...
 
FYI, I'm getting ready to pay my web host where I keep my website. I use Linux servers which are less expensive than Microsuck servers. The total is around $170 for the year...
 
It appears that Dan, the owner, and Double Tap, the administrator haven't logged on since last April. And I'm sure most of you have noticed the greeting you see each time you log on -- "Mossberg Owners is in the process of upgrading the software. Please bear with us while we transition to the new look and new upgraded software."

This has been displayed since the software was "upgraded" a couple of years ago or more and as others indicated above the new software was never fully intergrated into the forum so we have lived with several work arounds.

Years ago several of us even contributed monies to keep the forum up and running but like you I have no idea when the $$$$$ will run out and the lights will go out.

However, the big concern I have is all the data and detailed expertise that has been accumulated over the years. We had many and still have a few of the most knowledgeable Mossberg experts that exist. Plus direct contacts at Mossberg. Decades of expertise on both Mossberg platforms and many other brands. Plus reloading and sliencer development expertise. If the forum lights go out all this data will likely be lost forever.

I do find it interesting that many seem to be loggin on and reading this thread but the majority are not participating on a daily basis.

We need your participation, input and help!

Regards,
Ernst
 
Well it’s probably still going because you contributed money to pay the web hosting fees. I haven’t sent them any money for many years. Not since this internal war began.
 
ALSO:

Many thanks and much appreciation to Ernst (and you other few but concerned fellows) who have made genuine efforts to keep things alive here at MBO.

Since the 90’s I’ve watched my favorite places wither, fold up, and die.

I remember when Yahoo changed their format. Everyone hated the new (more powerful but much less user friendly) forum. Their fortunes fell, and though they were bailed out by AT&T, it didn’t work. It took Yahoo almost 20 years to finally die.

SysOpt, TechIMO, MotorcycleUSA, Silverfish, Delphi, KawaNOW, Hooligans, and others, all had their time, and are now lost to time (or nearly so). So I am a bit sad, but I am not really surprised.

What will surprise me is if Mossberg Owners somehow does survive and grow.
 
What I wonder is where the drop-outs went. I found another shotgun forum; Shotgun World I think it is, but I found it really difficult to use at times and sometimes I could not log in at all. Very little Mossberg related stuff in their forums. Another one: Shotgunforums, looked very similar to the other in terms of format and content. Maybe these two are were people gravitated. [?]
 
Kevin, while not Mossberg or shotgun specific, I can tell you several of us, including some of the old heads who are no longer here on our Mossberg forum are over on The AK Files forum which requires an initial free registration and daily signin (all free). They do have a shotgun section which sometimes focuses on Mossberg brand but main focus is on AKs.

That forum is really robust and a few minutes ago had around 300 members signed in and generally has lots of posts daily. So some forums are alive and well.

Regards,
Ernst
 
I've been here just over a year. I found the site because I was looking to date my 535 and Google got me here. I may the last one that joined that isn't a spammer. I like to drop in once or twice a week to see what's new. Not much as mentioned earlier. I enjoy the Good Morning posts and the pics that make you LOL. I would post more but I don't usually have much Mossberg related material to talk about.
 
I been here since the early days when some member's MVP Scout bolts (including mine) fell apart. Mossberg fixed it quick, quick and I still use it. Great rifle. Haven't visited for awhile. Found out about all the good upgrades for the 930 on this forum, and built basically a 940 Competition gun.
Also found upgrades for my 500 pump. too bad the forum didn't take off.
 
You can’t legally buy an AK here anymore.

Not being an AK owner, I never made it around to the AK forums. I may have actually been invited. I don’t recall.

Right now I attend two car forums, two fish forums, a truck forum, welding & machine forum, and a bicycle forum.

Also a couple motorcycle etc archives that don’t get any action.

I fix computers and ruin cars. I raise fish. I don’t hunt anymore. I’m not ex-military, militia, or LEO, and I live in California; so I never really fit in well at MO. How did I end up here, not talking about arms anymore, & being the admin?

Well, there’s the free photo hosting… :D

And I learned a lot here in 9 years.
I certainly don’t regret it. Yet my hopes for renewal here are thin, and I am not the guy to lead this charge or run a shooting forum.

But I remain un-perturbed. America is turning around. It is what matters.
 
I don’t go to the range anymore. I have to shoot on private land, and the deal is no publication.

This started when agents in civvies started showing up “to shoot”.

Well, we soon knew what they wanted.

People know better than to ask about certain things in a public situation. Period

If they appear to be perfectly intelligent people and yet they are doing that, well you understand the feeling.

I don’t expect things like this to improve in California.
 
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