Just out of Sheer Curiousity: Disappearance of Forum Content Question

F

freethink

freethink
Logged back in here after a long absence, and found that there is a new system for posting anything political relating to firearms on this site. So, free speech has been further minimized on this site ~ I get it, the forum owner doesn't want to deal with pesky political issues cluttering up the field of USACarry, so FirearmPolitics.com has been developed as a sandbox of sorts.

However, all the forum content I posted that was in 2nd Amendment issues, has disappeared, so I can't migrate it to the new FirearmPolitics.com site.

Examples of my prior content which I had on this site (which now can't be seen on the site):

http://www.usacarry.com/forums/fire...rnia-why-millions-will-sue-leave-state-2.html
Notice that it now just redirects to FirearmPolitics.com

(Internet Archive version) https://web.archive.org/web/2013120...fornia-why-millions-will-sue-leave-state.html

http://www.usacarry.com/forums/fire...da-registration-kill-your-right-make-gun.html

(Internet Archive version): The above page was not indexed or preserved at https://archive.org/web/ before it was deleted by forum administrators.

I'd really like to just migrate my content over to FirearmPolitics.com, but for obvious reasons, I can't. It looks like the forum administrators just deleted any reference to anything and everything we wrote under the Firearm Politics and 2nd Amendment Issues and also under the Firearms Discussion by State involving any reference to political matters... all gone. For some people this was years of carefully curated discussion, tracking patterns of legislation, victories, losses, etc. And so far as I can see there was no effort by the forum administrators to enable users here to transition our data to some other platform, either migrate it to FirearmPolitics.com or just export it to our own device.

Anyone else observing this and wondering what the heck is going on?
 
I Link Removed at the new site yesterday:

BluesStringer said:
Anyway, Luke, any chance of getting access to the content of the old forums that got closed? While I understand you don't want old arguments resurrected, there are tons of useful links and informative postings in there as well. I'm sure many contributors have spent many hours researching and digging out links just like I have. Be a shame to lose access to it forevermore just because of some ill-mannered participants. Even if you just gave us a week (or more) to go through and save some of our own posts/research/links etc. before deleting them all, if it's not already too late that is, would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking probably one third to half of my posts on this site were lost. I thought it enough to simply bookmark the ones that I might need to refer back to for links etc., and bookmarked many posts from other members too, either for links or particularly insightful commentary. As of this writing, bookmarking was not enough. I still hope Luke will repopulate what's been taken down, even if only temporarily, so that some very good information and commentary by the majority of participants can be salvaged.

Blues
 
Email/write/call the NSA. They will more than likely be able to provide you with copies of your posts....

If you aren't on a government watch list - you should be ashamed of yourself.
 
I don't see much of a point in transitioning to this new FirearmsPolitics.com that the forum administrator has created if this is the way he treats users. I've created a very minimal profile there with my same username as here, but I won't be posting anything there unless lukem restores the content that was unexpectedly destroyed here (or allows us a process to migrate it to the new forum, FirearmsPolitics.com, or allows us a process to export all of our post as data off site to our own devices). None of this has occurred. So as of right now I have to say, I have a vote of zero confidence in FirearmsPolitics.com and the process by which lukem has wiped out references to where we defend the 2nd Amendment via our 1st Amendment on this forum.

The only thing I can thank lukem for, apparently, is for killing off freedom of expression on this forum and our attempts to self organize to defend our rights through this forum in posts like this, which no longer exist on this forum because he has deleted them all:

https://web.archive.org/web/2013091...ity-demand-certain-anti-gun-bills-vetoed.html

(Note that the above post was archived at https://archive.org/web/ ~ it doesn't exist any longer at USACarry, you are seeing an archived version of it that is stored through the Internet Archive project's Wayback Machine.)

However, I've noticed that the censorship has been selective. For example, there is political talk all over this forum which has not been deleted, even though all my posts in the 2nd Amendment section and the gun discussion by state section got deleted.

Examples of ongoing political discussions right now in this forum (what about 2A does not involve at least some political discussion)?
The following are examples of what have not yet been censored or shut down (one of them is mine - the one which involves the careful notes about anti-2A bills we were able to get defeated in California vs. what got passed in 2014). And there are plenty of other examples currently on the forum.

http://www.usacarry.com/forums/gene...g-senate-confirms-murthy-surgeon-general.html

http://www.usacarry.com/forums/cali...-california-recommended-actions-take-now.html

So I just can't see any justification for lukem's takedown of the content, certainly not without having given users an opportunity to migrate content off of this forum to somewhere else, and he should have notified everyone by e-mail of how to do so, and that didn't happen.

Sad.
 
mappow said:
Is this the NSA/Fed Gov't at work? Maybe since inception of USACARRY.COM?
Click to expand...

As I said on another thread that I started, this forum seems to be falling apart. I have enjoyed reading and discussing many things here. But if this continues then perhaps it is time to move on to a forum that is kept up.

Conceal Carry, 2A and gun rights in general is and will ALWAYS be a political topic! We have to fight Washington, each states idiotic gubments and our local yokels! So if we can not post what the gubment is doing to our 2A rights on this forum then I don't understand what Luke is doing. We MUST be able to get the word out about what our elected morons are doing.

If we can not do that then all is lost!
 
I also agree to that IF individuals, on this site, suppress free speech being this is a open forum. Then those that are suppressing are as guilty as the friggin Lib's their supposed to be against. Again men controlling men. As old as the birth of Man.
 
Nobody is suppressing anything. They are separating the topics of discussion into two separate forums instead of two separate subforums. Want to talk guns? Stay here. Want to talk politics? Go to firearmspolitics. Don't like the way Luke runs this forum - start your own. Donated to this forum and now you feel like you have been wronged? Ask for a refund. Although there probably was no agreement that you would be provided with any guarantee of performance or product when you donated.
 
I don`t come here much anymore sense all of the changes have been made, and a lot of the content has been lost or deleted. I guess the forum members don`t mean much to those in charge here anymore.

I guess its time to move on if that's the way its going to be here from now on.
 
Navy, I have sent Luke many messages and have not gotten so much as a go to H!! I have tried many times to get him to help me renew my Site Supporter Membership. I have been trying since January. So far zip!

I was in the service business for many years. I learned a LONG time ago and said many times, "It takes YEARS to make a customer and one bad service call to lose him!"

Luke can run his site however he wants! It is his site! But he must remember that while it is his site it is the people on it who make it work! The Broadway Director and Producers may own the play but it is the people who attend who makes the play a success! Granted there are to many who ONLY want to cause trouble and can wreck it for those who like and enjoy this forum.

I am not ready to quit this forum but I must say that I am not ready to renew my membership. I am not demanding but at the same time I will not be taken for granted! I would have NEVER treated any customer in any way that some treated me! You will have to trust me that there were many who were TOTAL jerks and wanted EVERYTHING free, labor, parts and all! There were many times I had to stop my truck and calm down before I went to the next customer!

Not trying to fight here Navy!
 
NavyLCDR said:
Nobody is suppressing anything. They are separating the topics of discussion into two separate forums instead of two separate subforums. Want to talk guns? Stay here. Want to talk politics? Go to firearmspolitics. Don't like the way Luke runs this forum - start your own. Donated to this forum and now you feel like you have been wronged? Ask for a refund. Although there probably was no agreement that you would be provided with any guarantee of performance or product when you donated.
Click to expand...


Actually, lukem (et. al.) has been suppressing things, as I've pointed out rather reasonably I might add in my earlier comment in which I presented evidence of ample political talk which is ongoing throughout the forum here while there are other areas where the political talk is simply suppressed.

Here, too, this is not only having to do with politics but with simply anything at all that has to do with 2A. Recalling my thread in which I announced the launch of something like a 3D printer that was actually designed not to print, but rather to finish "80 percenter" kits... (not my product, but I threw out a link to it on here for discussion). If you ask me, that had nothing to do with political (e.g. legislative action) stuff, and everything to do with gun related stuff that anyone would be interested in. But guess what. That forum thread has been disappeared.

Check it out:

http://www.usacarry.com/forums/fire...-walls-fall-down-everywhere-ghost-gunner.html

Go ahead, click on it. (Nothing there anymore, it now just is a redirect to FirearmPolitics.com) That link once led to a post about how a new product known as the "Ghost Gunner" (sort of like a 3-D printer, but more like a router in a printer box) could be revolutionary. (Or not.) It was a good 2A discussion, with very thoughtful contributions from various members of this community. It got deleted by lukem, et. al. You could try googling the link and you might find a bit of detail about it, or not.

It's possible that lukem got some heat from the Department of State, which in the past has demanded that websites be taken down for posting materials that the State Department is uncomfortable with. But since I never posted any blueprints to weapons plans here, my guess is that it was never a State Department issue, and that people like myself (who spend time defending rights in really difficult places like California, and are in favor of "maker culture," like being able to continue to make our own stuff with 80 percenters without serialization) make lukem uncomfortable, and thus, our content has gotten whacked from his forum.

Now lukem (and some others) [are] presumably owners of this forum. Thus it is a private forum and they can do with it what they please. Well and fine. That does not erase the fact that they screwed it up and abused the users who have long traversed this forum. Lukem should have given those here fair notice, including e-mail notice and a means to export our data away from here before he shut it all down.
 
Freethink,

The owner of this forum has no obligation to keep what is posted on this site available for any length of time. By your own admission your former inputs were posted here and remained available for some length of time. Your “freedom of speech” was not restricted. Maybe you consider the requirement to establish an account as a form of repression. It appears that former political posts were moved to the other forum and are still viewable to members of that forum. I could be wrong on this point, but if your former post had simply been deleted, there would not be any link to the new forum when you clicked on the hypertext. Also googling “Explainer: What Happened in California, and why millions will sue or leave the State” gives the same link. It looks like you will have to go through the “oppressive burden” of establishing an account there, if you want to see your former post. As is pointed out on numerous web forums: the First Amendment limits governments’ authority to censor, not a private entity’s. You have the right to express yourself, no one is required by law to publish or broadcast it.
 
Quiet Observer said:
Freethink,

The owner of this forum has no obligation to keep what is posted on this site available for any length of time. By your own admission your former inputs were posted here and remained available for some length of time. Your “freedom of speech” was not restricted. Maybe you consider the requirement to establish an account as a form of repression. It appears that former political posts were moved to the other forum and are still viewable to members of that forum. I could be wrong on this point, but if your former post had simply been deleted, there would not be any link to the new forum when you clicked on the hypertext. Also googling “Explainer: What Happened in California, and why millions will sue or leave the State” gives the same link. It looks like you will have to go through the “oppressive burden” of establishing an account there, if you want to see your former post. As is pointed out on numerous web forums: the First Amendment limits governments’ authority to censor, not a private entity’s. You have the right to express yourself, no one is required by law to publish or broadcast it.
Click to expand...

As I pointed out in my last remark, this is a private forum, he / they (forum owners) can do what they darn well please as it is their forum. But a couple of points.... The political posts have not been moved. They are gone. (I pondered that possibility you suggested of what would happen if I registered for FirearmPolitics.com so I registered for it a couple days ago I believe, and no, the disappeared content does not now reappear or become somehow transferred from one database to another where it would now become visible) As to your reference to the fact that clicking on the hyperlink of the disappeared content now takes you to FirearmPolitics.com, that is a redirect. Anything that has been deleted (e.g., anything which fell under Firearm Politics and 2nd Amendment Issues category in this forum) was categorically brought under a redirect so that anyone clicking on it would be sent to FirearmPolitics.com. If the content which previously existed in the disappeared posts exists anymore, it cannot be accessed via the original hyperlinks that were created that enabled any user to access forum content; such content, if it still exists, would be in a database or database backup somewhere. But since lukem doesn't answer questions (or bother to post to this thread) on the issue, my guess is we will never know - it's just gone.

You don't treat people like that. As I repeatedly point out, he should have offered a way for users to migrate their data to another forum (FirearmPolitics.com, or another one, or to their personal device) before this happened. Simple as that. This is not rocket science.

And there's no reason to justify or defend lukem's behavior in this matter. It's bad business and it's a poor way to treat anyone who is trying really hard to defend the 2A.
 
NavyLCDR said:
Email/write/call the NSA. They will more than likely be able to provide you with copies of your posts....

If you aren't on a government watch list - you should be ashamed of yourself.
Click to expand...
Been on one from the day after I was born. That means for over 60 years now. I wonder how thick the files are now? And which agency has the biggest one?
 
I love the self importance of those who are so upset about their posts on an internet forum being deleted due to a move to a new website.... oh, what are we ever going to do without those timeless and priceless words of wisdom that we will never see again...

Now if you feel that you were somehow paying for storage of your profound wisdom in the "cloud", then ask for your money back.
 
freethink said:
That forum thread has been disappeared.

Check it out:

http://www.usacarry.com/forums/fire...-walls-fall-down-everywhere-ghost-gunner.html

Go ahead, click on it. (Nothing there anymore, it now just is a redirect to FirearmPolitics.com) That link once led to a post about how a new product known as the "Ghost Gunner".[\QUOTE]

I just clicked the link and I was taken to the complete thread and it's all there. What gives?
Is it because I use an iPhone 6 with OS 8.3?
Click to expand...
 
DavidWhite said:
freethink said:
That forum thread has been disappeared.

Check it out:

http://www.usacarry.com/forums/fire...-walls-fall-down-everywhere-ghost-gunner.html

Go ahead, click on it. (Nothing there anymore, it now just is a redirect to FirearmPolitics.com) That link once led to a post about how a new product known as the "Ghost Gunner".[\QUOTE]

I just clicked the link and I was taken to the complete thread and it's all there. What gives?
Is it because I use an iPhone 6 with OS 8.3?
Click to expand...

It may be a work in progress. Might take time to move things over. Hopefully that is the case.
Click to expand...
 
I am not "suppressing" anything. I will do my best to see if I can port the old politics threads to the new site. They are still in the database so we may be able to.

I created a new site to try and get this forum back on the topic of firearms which is why it was originally created. Most of the political threads got way out of hand with people flaming with each other and name calling which turned people away from the forums as a whole.
 
I've opened a ticket up with the company that makes the forum software to see if there are any tools that I can use to port those threads from the Political forums on USA Carry over to the new site.

Again, nothing has been deleted so all threads and posts are still in this database. I'm hoping there is an easy way to do this. If not I will get my developer involved to see if we can do it ourselves.

I will keep everyone updated on the status of this as I receive more info.
 
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