WTF Reddit.

[Nofxkid2005]

When the site went down, I was extremely disheartened. MCB had been my paintball home since 2008. Coming back felt a bit depressing, so I stepped away. I somehow found myself in r/paintball. It seemed alright, but not to the expert level I'd known here. I started noticing things in posts.. Like an almost cult-ish following of the PE Emek.. Post after post of people asking about markers, and the top comment usually being someone mentioning the Emek. Its like a vegan in their first months of being one.. They gotta tell everyone.

So, that brings me to the point of this post. A similar post came up, a new player looking for their first marker. After two posts suggesting the Emek, I countered and brought up how intimidating the bolt of it is. I suggested that something a little simpler could be better for someone new... And got down voted into oblivion.. Others made counter points to my points, and I replied.. No one had any rebuttals for me.

It just turned me off from wanting to continue in the Cult of Emek..

[GreenMan]

i think you're describing the issue with reddit (and the general consolidation of the internet): its a website designed to host an infinite number of topics.

the communities are of varying quality, and they are sometimes abandoned.

i do browse it from time to time since i really don't have much social media, its interesting to see the mash up of web topics of the day. i wouldn't use it for advice on anything.

[JonM]

I'll admit that I'm sold on the Emek and I find myself using it more than any other mech I own. That said, Reddit communities function too much like a hive mind for my tastes. Dissenters from the general consensus are typically met with a flurry of downvotes and negative comments.

[MrKittyCatMeowFace]

Never break the status quo of any subreddit on reddit. I left a few months ago and am better off for it. The whole "redditors never use the search bar" really bothered me. Same questions everyday, multiple times a day.

[Falcon16]

I agree that reddit is a hive mind like mentality. Say anything counter to what the hive believes, even if the hive is wrong and you get down voted. I find certain subs are worse than others. r/paintball is just awful, I also tend to stay away from the legal advice subreddits as well. Being a legal professional by trade it is maddening to see the hive giving blatantly incorrect advice and then myself and colleagues that are lawyers step in and post links to the relevant law and case law that's on point and would actually help the OP and we get downvoted and/or banned. I actually got temp banned from legaladvicecanada and a few others because the mods are complete idiots with a strip of power.

[bellicose]

The legal advice ones have actual cops as mods. Anything remotely biased against police is deleted.

[Trbo323]

That's always been my problem with it as well. I know it's a good shooter and all but eventually you will need to do maintenance/repair. A new player is more likely to break it further rather than fix it

I still maintain, start with an azodin, after that basically do anything you want

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

[DocsMachine]

Reddit is basically social-media forum. You can "up vote" or "down vote" something you like or dislike, rather than actually having to discuss said thing. It's not a discussion board, it's a popularity meter- and "popularity" is defined by whoever feels themselves 'in charge' at the moment.

Doc.

[Falcon16]

Well said Doc, completely on point. I think if Reddit got rid of the voting on comments it may make things better. It would also be better if the top posts in a subreddit were simply the ones with the most activity.

[DavidBoren]

Reddit is for entertainment purposes only... don't go there for information on anything.

Every once in a great while I find myself in there reading about Pathfinder character builds, but even then I assume that everyone is lying. Lol. I am mainly just looking for feats, traits, or general concepts to use... so I can ignore like 95% of anything opinion based.

I have stumbled upon Reddit threads when looking for paintball stuff and immediately backpedal on out of there. I have found that I am infinitely better off avoiding it altogether. It's just like PBN, but somehow worse.

[Siress]

I dunno, man. There was a thread there yesterday where someone found an old shoebox shocker. Someone recommended fixing it up and using it. Someone else recommended spending the money on an emek instead if it was going to be their only gun. I actually agree with that sentiment, but it was downvoted into oblivion. Maybe knee-jerk nostalgia has a higher priority than the "cult of emek", or maybe - just maybe - the points don't matter.

And why do y'all think someone is more likely to break a gamma core than, say, a spyder? I've seen plenty of people buckle springs or just lose parts thanks to spring forces while trying to get the bolt out. The gamma core seems complicated in principle, but it's really just a couple of parts threaded together and a whole bunch of o-rings. Seems really straight forward to me.

[Paintslinger16]

But wait, I am vegetarian 🌱

[Axel]

Call me a Luddite but Reddit and social media in general are mental cancer. The only use they serve is to draw the riffraff away from here.

[DavidBoren]

I agree.

And it's the same reason why adults love Fortnite... no more kids on Call of Duty. Lol.

[netsurferdude2]

I'm gonna go start an MCB subreddit.

[nerdcore]

I'm on r/paintball frequently, I know what you mean. I like the Emek (enough to own 2), and it's price is hard to argue against. Rather than hop on the train, though, I try to sway new players to rent for a while instead. Or I just ignore the thread completely.

[MrKittyCatMeowFace]

Its better than Facebook or twitter, that's really the best thing i can say about reddit.

[Magmoormaster]

I don't see the Emek as being any more complicated or intimidating to work on than the 98, which has been the gold standard for new players for 2 decades. The Emek is a genuinely great (albeit somewhat boring) gun. I don't think it's cultish for most of the paintball community to recognize that and recommend it because of it.

I hate reddit in general, mostly due to format. I just don't see the problem. But maybe I'm just drinking the eclipse kool-aid.

[440SUPERCOMMANDO]

it's not the end of the world if its the kind that takes snap ring pliers, but that particular size spiro-loc can burn in hell!

[Magmoormaster]

Speaking of atrocious comment layouts, I really don't like the comment feature of this new site. It's so much messier than just quoting people IMO.

I definitely am looking at from both an experienced player perspective and a professional tech perspective. But I genuinely think 19 o-rings is less intimidating than a gun that launches springs and pins out into the ether once you pull apart the clamshells. O-rings are easy to replace, and the gun already comes with like 5 rebuilds. And if you have to swap out parts to make it easier to work on (98 spiral lock), then it kinda proves itself to be the inferior design.

[Axel]

Yeah but how often do you need to service a 98? Every 10 years, 15? I regularly tore mine down and gave it a thorough cleaning because I was a fanatic, but the 98's strength is that it can eat dirt for breakfast and shoot it back at dinner time, so if like most field rentals you -maybe- wipe it down and swab the breech after a day at the field, it will keep on rocking longer than most players. Like 90+% of newbies will burn out before that valve ever needs opened, and the rest end up as addicts like us who since bought 40 guns and only bother with the 98 for nostalgia

I do hate that **** spiral clip though

[Lazarus78]

jebus. i lurk reddit, and yall make it sound like a hell-scape. the difference is that r/paintball is inundated with new players, and mcb is inundated with people who have 20/30/40 years under their belt. it's not bad, it's just different. both sites have a place at the table.

[Siress]

different = bad, until proven innocent. (/s)

[lew]

Call me a Luddite but Reddit and social media in general are mental cancer. The only use they serve is to draw the riffraff away from here.

Preach it, brother.

[CrowsFeast]

I use reddit a lot, but I'm almost never in r/paintball. It doesn't often have stuff that interests me (and ya, the repetition is real).

There are some areas that can be very helpful with recommendations and advice, even if you do have to take it with a grain of salt. I actually joined reddit for the mead making sub.