Hello (again)

[landowner]

I've been a member of this forum, under this username, for a over a decade, albeit dormant, lurking as a "guest" user. I still somehow felt that I was a part of this community, until yesterday when I tried to post something.

I've been shooting for three decades.

I want to be a more active participant in the online community. This is not least because our sport faces serious challenges and restrictions worldwide, a trend that will continue.

I wrote my first post from this account in 10 years last night, sharing my thoughts on a UK branded shotgun that connected me with my first experience of shooting, for reasons that I explain in the YouTube video I posted.

My post was never approved, and within a few minutes it was deleted without explanation. I tried posting another video, this time with about 20 minutes of highlights from my thermal scope. Again, it was unceremoniously deleted.

I wrote a DM to the moderator who'd looked at my profile when my contributions were deleted, who informed me that there is an unwritten rule: only members who have recently replied and posted elsewhere in the forum are permitted to share a video in the video section of the forum. He also seemed to be under the impression that I was "selling things" and here to "promote my YouTube channel". I am pleased to confirm that I have nothing to sell, and in my entire life I've only publicly shared two of the many shooting videos that I have made. This is despite shooting almost every week for 30 years, holding hunting licences in various countries, and owning almost every calibre of gun that are in mainstream use today. When did the world become this cynical?

The video section of this forum has inspired me and resonated more than anything else I have seen online in recent years. There are some excellent people, putting real thought and effort into filming and editing the unique videos on this website. I know that, when you see somebody walking through a gate from a fixed camera angle, the bloke has taken time to set that up and edited it in to make the video more interesting. I appreciate such attention to detail.

The time has come to add my voice and support to this community, and to be a more active part of the wider online face of the sport, particularly in the UK, and I will be here. Unless my attempt to post is deleted again, in which case only a moderator will ever read it and only he or she will know that I tried and will at that point just give up. 

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Well you have answered your own questions.

As a NON Moderator, but very keen to see PW continue without any problems, I will set out my feelings;

By your own admission you've hardly posted over the years and moaning about "unwritten rules" doesn't really solve anything.

The world and particularly PW Moderators have become cynical because so many times things have gone wrong.

So who can blame them for being proactive in stopping things that look fishy.

Get some posts in and then introduce an occasional video and all should be as you might have hoped.

[sam triple]

Welcome back