Newbies who are WRONG.....
 

Warning: Rant ahead

I can deal with vandals or spammers or foul mouthed idiots. They're easy. We ban them. But well meaning, industrious and generally nice members .... who are idiots .... are becoming a problem. They mean well, but their information is wrong and so many of us veteran users and mods spend a lot of our time FIXING or RESTORING lines on pages that they change.

No one wants to be rude or mean to a new member, and we've all made mistakes ourselves in the past, but the sheer number of new guys making tons (and i mean TONS) of updates and changes is exhausting.

One member swept in here about a few months ago, made about 50 or so changes (nearly all of which were wrong) and then got bored and stopped visiting. But now someone has to go to all the pages and change BACK what he did. Arghhhhh. I figure I will kill an entire day trying to fix what he screwed up (and no, I can't undo the work because there have been interim edits made by other members since then that are correct and would take longer to re-create in their entirety).

This is the curse of becoming popular (IMFDB that is) . I've also been reading OTHER websites that mention IMFDB. They all mention the 'wiki' aspect of it and that they invite ANYONE to come on over and "start editing" to 'make us better" .... I hear over and over again from posters on other websites how they're gonna check out IMFDB and 'correct all of OUR errors' when THEY'RE the ones who don't know what they're talking about.

One problem is that GUN STORE or GUN DEALERS or even the manufacturers don't know what they're talking about when it comes to what was used in the MOVIES. Which is why I trust info from armorers far more than any random guy "in the firearms world". Those guys don't even realize that you have to blank adapt auto loading weapons. But we collide over and over and over again with guys who have weapons knowledge, but not MOVIE weapons knowledge.

Don't even get me started on 12 year olds whose only firearms experience is video games. :mad:

Anyway, we must be vigilant against erroneous information. And there will always be members who make honest mistakes. And we must constantly try to correct them.

I understand you totally. When I found this site I was one of those people who the majority of their firearm knowledge comes from literally shooting anything that is put in front of them. Still I also do alot of firearms research for the various fiction that I write for fun. Since starting to work on this site i have learned alot and have learned things about firearms that is simply not common knowlege.

As far as newbies go I have bitched about new people pulling things out of their arse and posting on pages that didn't need correcting. let alone the 50+ modifications done to the Armsel Striker page that turned it from something that i could be proud to say that I helped maintain to total garbage with next to no information and bad information at that.

Yeah, some people are getting that impression> example:

http://www.hkpro.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84669

Oh, god, no... Last thing we need is this place flooded with HK fanboys. :(

I do know what you mean...I've had several of my pages messed with by anonymous users who didn't know what they were talking about. What's funny is how some of them can't even read. I remember one user who changed "Heat" to say that the M16A1 was an M16A2, and he said, "That's an M16A2...check the front grip!" And this is in spite of the fact that the page specifically SAID that it was an A1 with A2 hand guards. Some people's reading comprehension just sucks... :mad:

They're not all bad, even though Larry Correia was right about many of them (and certainly, about H&K as a company).

There are some mistakes, i´m a newbie but i can fix them, but (for all the new members) don´t delete anything.

For example, in the BF Vietnam page:

I should have delete those lines, but i left that and put this note:

Another example (In Hellsing page):
plus my note:

There should be a banner in the page, intended for visitors to NOT delete anything (unless some visitor is a troll).

No, the legitimate fans of HK are fine. It's just the fanboys who preach and praise everything HK whether good or bad as the greatest thing on this earth no matter what are the ones I can't stand.

That is why I like to screen-cap movies with older firearms such as The Ghost and the Darkness and Crossfire Trail. I find that most fan boys aren't interested in older firearms so they stay away.

But we all make mistakes. MPM2008 corrected an error I made on The Stand when I screen-capped it. I identified a Mossberg 590 Mariner as a Winchester Model 1300 Marine. Whoops. But he stepped in and fixed it. Quietly and without being an ass about it. Gracias.

If I see something that isn't correct I always try to include some info explaining why I changed something. I'm big into firearms and I also own many many books about firearms. That helps when I make a correction.

But i have come across some "corrections" that are just amazingly moronic.

I corrected your error WITHOUT rubbing your face in it? Whoops, missed that one LOL ;) I must admit that everyone gets a little 'punchy' when we've corrected a lot of errors. At least you've seen some of the "Corrections" that 'drive by" members do that are either sloppy or misinformed.

I recently got irritated when some new unknown member changed a bunch of pages by renaming the gun, but the manufacturer didn't make that name change until a certain year, so he is wrong by renaming all the entries for that weapon before the year of the name change. Arghhhh. I can see where he 'got his information' (he looked it up on the mfg website, which of course only lists CURRENT models, not older ones).

Anyway, anyone can make ANY change to any page, but that person MUST be right. People only get mad when the change is wrong. Seriously. Anyone can correct any info I put out as long as it's correct. I've been corrected in the past and we all build on our body of knowledge by absorbing new and correct data.

I totally agree with you MPM. I know that you have corrected me from time to time and frankly I'd love to put my Remington M-700P next to one of your M-700PSS models so that we can visually show the differance as I know that there are some 700P entries that look funny to me.

Also the noobs need to learn how to spell
 

I've seen people adding details or 'commentary' on photos or movie pages, but the spelling is atrocious. Nothing knocks down the professionalism of a page than wretched spelling like it is done by a 7 yr old.

That is the truth. Spend just a little time on the Internet trying to read people's commentaries and you'll begin to despair for the Human race. the worst offenders are the idiots who post on U tube. WTF???? I can only read/dechipher about half of what is posted on that site.

Is that why there's a separate page for the Barrett REC7 under the old name, M468?

Just stop reading any kind of comments on any website. Those are the cesspools of the Internet.

Except for imfdb of course. ;)

I have a joke for everyone. There is a guy claiming that the Handheld Minigun in Terminator 2 only fired at 240 RPM. I find this really funny as I know of a couple of Senior citizens who can hand crank a gattling gun much faster than that. Now I would send a message up the grapevine to people who have personal experiance with said minigun but I don't want to have to shell out the cash for a couple of custom keyboards. The really funny thing is that the guy is claiming to be the head of an armory.

Maybe he missed a 0 and meant to say 2400 RPM and even than, that's 600 RPM short of the 3000 RPM the minigun can spit out

Nope, that's what he insisted that the weapon was geared for because he watched the barrels rotate in slow motion. he's also been dinged for useing pirated images on the Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen page. Currently on that one he says that..."Note that the flexible chute attaches to the right side of the magazine "upside" down, as opposed to "right side up" on the left side and looped around to the gun like in Predator." in a duplicate of a picture we already had. Now I haven't talked with Steve yet but I'm thinking about putting my limited writing skills to use and writing up an informative magazine type article about handheld miniguns. I have a line of information to Kevin Dockerty the technical advisor of "Predator". We have both Steve Karnes and Al Vrkljan as people who have built three weapons between them. Between those sources I'm sure that I can dig up more factual information on such weapons in the first five minutes as the clown who calls himself GAU17 has his entire time posting here.

Be more than happy to help out on hand held miniguns. I have built three different hand held mount for the miniguns and there are at least another half a dozen more out there. Steve Karnes

Found another idiotic edit to one of my paragraphs!
 

CRAP! I just ran into another Bullshit change made by some NOOB. He made two changes and then disappeared. Not only did he drastically edit my paragraphs for the HK94, he 'claimed' that it was the Gun Control Act of 1968 banned Machine guns! What a load of crap! This guy should KNOW WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT before he edits.

FYI: It was the Hughes Amendment to the McClure-Volkmer Act (HR 4332) of 1986 that banned the manufacture of machine guns that would be privately transferable (Dealer post ban samples, military and law enforcement would be exempt with certain restrictions).

So anyone with any sort of knowledge reading that tripe would think we're idiots here. :mad:

I thought there was a ban on full auto weapons that was passed in the 1920s or 30s.

National Firearms Act 1934
That was so they would have to be registered and pay a $200 tax stamp.

Gun Control Act of 1968
Was to prevent criminals from buying guns through legal means. It list all the stuff you say no to on the form 4473. "Are you a fugitive from justice?" blah blah

Firearm Owners Protection Act 1986
Was to prevent any new Class III weapons built or registered after May 19, 1986 from being transferred to civilians. Which is why it cost 20k for a transferable (pre 86) Class III M16, and 1k for a semi AR15 despite the cost to build is the same.

That's my shortened versions of them.

So most full auto weapons we see in the hands of civilian are more likely pre-86?

Yeah pretty much. If you go on Gun Broker in their Class III section you'll usually see them listed as post 86 (Class III dealers only) and pre 86 transferable to civilians on a form 4. Maybe form 3 too, but I haven't looked at enough. I think are different types of Class III dealers, but most are only allowed one model of whatever Class III (1 AK, 1 M16, 1 MP5 etc). There may be some civilians who have Class III licenses just to have post 86 stuff since they are cheaper. Movie weapons houses must a different type of license still they'll have more than 1 post 86 weapon.

I don't own any Class III weapons. I've only researched it a little. But if I was to get one it would be a Ruger AC-556. There is usually 2 transferable ones on Gun Broker at any given time. They only cost 5k to 6k compared to 15k to 20k for M16's.

Didn't the GCA specify import restrictions on weapons not recognized as having sporting/hunting purposes (which would include machine guns)? I've always been under the impression that this is why most of the transferable machine guns of foreign manufacture (AKs, H&Ks, Uzis, etc.) are semi-auto civilian models that have been converted with domestically-produced auto sears by American Class III manufacturers? So in other words, the GCA would not allow a civilian (before the FOPA) to import a factory H&K MP5 and register it with the ATF...the only thing they could do was buy an HK94 and send it along to Vollmer or some other company to have it converted to MP5 specs. Maybe that's what this guy meant.

Yes, because the FOPA specifically said any machine guns not registered before May 1986 are not legal for civilians to own.

Well as much as i hate misleading information, and "newbies" ignorant enough to post misleading information, i dont quite see your quarrel. Should every nerd who’s experiences with weapons doesn’t stretch beyond the basics of some half life gameplay refrain from creating pages? Id say that most people interested in weapons are enthused by computer games. In particular when it comes to the younger generation. And if you are to ban all these I think that IMFDB would end up being a rather empty page. We cant all be gun veterans.

Now ive never fired an m4 and I don’t own any Glock and frankly my only actually interest in weapons is inspired by computer games. But I don’t need any personal experiences if I can refer to relevant sources with the fact I need. I thinking about rewriting the page about Counter Strike Source. :)
Mostly by adding rather then changing. I think we could do with some more screen caps and criticism when it comes unrealistic details. Like the AUG firing the AK ammo or the 50 cal Deagle not being able to kill an enemy in two shots.

Your statement implies that you support erroneous information to be included on pages. I am sure that is not what you meant, but that would be the end result of your argument.
No you can't all be gun veterans, but it doesn't take experience to know NOT to put in BS. Google is a wonderful thing. There are things I was not sure of, so I did what we are all supposed to do. RESEARCH it before you post it.

And I don't believe we will become empty if we banned (which we don't do) newbie members from putting in crap info. There are plenty of members out there who would be happy to step up to the standards as set forth by the most senior and active membership & moderators. But having to constantly correct wrong entries become very tiresome.

"Your statement implies that you support erroneous information to be included on pages. I am sure that is not what you meant, but that would be the end result of your argument."

Oh not at all. I do apologize if my message was unclear but we need to distinguish the difference between what users can do and what users should do. I am of course not suggesting that an experience with computer games would justify anyone to post unfounded information. But I do rather think that you should define good authors out of their ambition rather than their experiences with weapons (which I understand cant be matched with an erudite gun-Nestor like yourself) but might nonetheless be relevant. When reading your post one could get the impression that you are generalizing a category of users which, of course, is wrong.

And there are times where an author has to draw a few conclusions himself without proper facts to back it up. And when It comes to these conclusions “noobs” might wanna think twice before writing anything down. A suitable elucidation might come from a more experienced writer this noob is to contact. That’s just one of many solutions.
So instead of writing of all CoD-playing newbies as disparaging spreaders of “erroneous” information we could try posting another help-thread with guidelines to motivate new users. Yet another suggestion :)

Well, that sounded like one of Obama's speech writers! ;) LOL But you completely missed the point. Did I attack COD players exclusively? No. :) I said Newbies should NOT fly in, make a bunch of erroneous changes, and then fly out again. It is more outrageous when they're unknowns who waltz in, do a bunch of stuff, and then disappear. There is no one to speak to, to say "hey your changes are wrong, please revert them". No one to educate. they are gone with the wind. We're stuck UNDOING wrong information. And yes, it gets tiresome when we have to do it over and over again.

"LOL But you completely missed the point. Did I attack COD players exclusively? No."

I dont think you personally mentioned COD players but you did however, and many others in this thread, mention gamers as proper examples. There is the issue. Thats what i found inapt, not your irritation with fixing tons of impulsive mistakes.

But regarding that particular issue; wouldnt it be rather easy to simple lock the articles for changes? You can easily do this with the main wikipedia, just like you can restore the article using the history.

hey guys, i am a newbie but its not my first time on a forum, so i will make mistakes but youll have to live with them. but PLEASE CORRECT ME. i do not want to piss of the great members of a great website. thank you

Zulu,
Don't worry about pissing us off from what you have said here is seems that you want to be a group player and work with us and not just throw around garbage info. Welcome to the forum and I'm allways happy to have people help with digging up factual information and doing screencaps.

You are right on the money, MPM. Most of the people who come onto our site "mean well", but they are relatively cocky. They "think" they know everything about guns (or at least, a great deal), but I can see why it gets to be a pain when you have to CONSTANTLY revert their edits.

That being said, I think that that's just how newbies are. They're going to be cocky starting out. Then once someone (or a few people) let them know that they are wrong (not gloating, but explaining), then they will get the hang of it. They'll start understanding more about 1) guns in general and 2) the principles of our site. Although I didn't start editing things left and right when I first came to the site, I thought I knew a lot about guns, but I learned much more after spending several months here. So I think if we just give the newbies time, they'll come around, and they'll become valuable members of our site.

Well, there are the newbies who make honest mistakes who will turn out to be stellar and professional members. And there are the dumbasses ;) I was mostly referring to the dumbasses. LOL. The guys who are just reckless and annoying. But you are right. It is sometimes hard to tell unless we give them time.......

BTW: I am gratified at how the newer members actually READ the rules. We've been operating without formal written rules for so long, that I now feel guilty for slamming guys for not 'psychically knowing' what the rest of us knew through experience. Doh!

Okay, I am a new member! I just registered at imfdb, because I love guns! I'm fairly good with guns and imformation about them and I'd like to learn more! So, I would like to add guns to pages that I see are used in TV shows. but one small problem.... I have not the slightest clue how to get a screen shot! lol I'm sorry if this is a stupid question. :) If I have something wrong pls tell me. I just made an edit on the TV show Numb3rs. I added the H&K USP, but without a picture. Thanks!

Btw My real name is Ben Tucker!

Thanks again!

And I don't want to tick anyone off!! And I forgot to say that I don't know everything about guns, But I like and know some stuff about guns. And can I m203 really blow up a tank? Or would it have to be a well placed shot?

Thanks again!

It doesn't matter how well-placed a shot it is, no 40mm grenade can penetrate armor as thick as a tank. It's a Hollywood myth.

I agree with all of you.

Something must be done. And as a former mall ninja and hk fanboy I apologize for all the grief and annoyances we have caused you. Thank for taking it in stride. If you need my help just let me know. Also anybody notice something weird with the main page. The left hand menu is all the way at the bottom.

Looks okay to me.

Yes.... "Family Guy"? I don't know why that is up there? But it's weird.