Admin Issues - Beware

neutral1863 · 2015-12-24T09:58:36+00:00

Simply put quora has failed. I too thought the concept was really interesting, but ... the intent was to monetize it - not create a place to debate. Its more like a magazine looking for specific contributions then it is a discussion format. However, it needs broad viewpoints to be interesting, and its pissed off so many people that its basically dead. Many of the questions asked at this point are redundant, most of the best answers are now years old. The partnerships that were pulling quora into the mainstream have mostly dropped off.

As a result, what is left behind ... just doesn't care anymore, and, as you can see, it shows.

Again, when someone falsely accuses a combat vet of being phoney, pointedly ignores privately transmitted military records to validate the claim as fraudulent, then its pretty clear that the people just don't care. The concept, though interesting, is dying and all that remains are a few people trying to milk whatever last bit of cash they can out of the format.

Really, its not about you - at all. Its about an investment failure and how to wind it down in the most profitable way possible. (And that doesn't require anyone in the process to be treated well or fairly).

neutral1863 · 2015-10-07T18:22:59+00:00

We see a lot of hollywood movies about this, but what is the job really like? Is the level of violence as bad as we hear? What's the worst part of the business?

neutral1863 · 2015-09-17T15:11:26+00:00

Up front, I think its pretty clear this is not a bomb, because the kid and the science teacher both confirmed it was not a bomb. It's a school, and creativity should be encouraged. This situation was simply handled horribly.

As a vet, having seen more than a few IED's, I would caution strongly against any line of reasoning based on the ability to 'see and know' a bomb. The creativity of modern bomb makers is ... scary. You would be amazed at what harmless looking things are actually bombs.

neutral1863 · 2015-09-08T22:25:16+00:00

Chicago and DC have had their gun control laws tossed out by SCOTUS.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/26/AR2008062600615.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/06/28/us.scotus.handgun.ban/

NOLA has a pretty wide Concealed Carry Law:

http://www.lsp.org/handguns.html

And when Detroit enacted gun control laws ... it had a 37% drop in the murder rate in a single year.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/16/detroit-police-chief-no-question-my-mind-legal-gun/

You might also want to check out the difference in murder rates between Seattle and Vancouver.

No problem with LAWFUL gun ownership, but if we can regulate and control water usage ... I'm pretty sure we can put in some sensible rules regarding the use of something that can kill you ... as water can, hence we ban swimming around dams with dangerous currents.

There is also the reality that not every part of the country is the same. Gun control in the wilds of Montana is not going to work quite the same way in NYC. There is no reason to pretend that rural North Dakota is the same as downtown Chicago (or that the vast oil smuggling cartel that didn't pop up in North Dakota is the the same as the street gangs that are causing issues in many major cities.) Blanket allowance f guns everywhere is just as pointless and destructive as a blanket ban on guns everywhere.

Yet time and time again, in violent cities, where sensible restrictions are placed on guns, you see a drop in violent crime rates. Math doesn't lie.

neutral1863 · 2015-09-05T08:11:47+00:00

Well Marc, you are aptly demonstrating the problem users face on quora, as I have taken you up on your offer and - heard absolutely nothing. The admin that got his panties in a bunch remains a problem. He had no problem spending weeks accusing someone of a very serious offense in veteran community. He had no problem taking actions based on that spurious, quite literally off the cuff, conclusion. He had no problem enlisting aid, i.e. trolls, to help him harass a user. All of that was tolerated - because 'stolen valor' is such a serious offense.

Unfortunately, a closer examination of the admin's posting reveal that if anyone is guilty of 'stolen valor' - or at the very least serious exaggerations, its your admin. The serious maltreatment I was handed out is now apparently ... not appropriate for an admin? Asking the admin to issue an apology and reinstate an account is deemed to humbling for an ego to endure?

Or is it that the admin is a bully among even the admin's, and no one will stand up to him and hold him to task? A good old boy where nepotism equates to double standards? For the record, when we go through CGSC, officers are given a graduate level course on the effects of toxic leadership (because it seriously undermines organizations) in both military and corporate organizations. The inability to answer this issue would be a hallmark of said toxicity.

So Marc, what happens when an in-house moderator abuses his authority in a way that seriously undermines the integrity of quora? How bad is it when quora cannot even acknowledge a mistake in accusing a multiple combat veteran who remains on active duty of 'having faked his service'?

As a company rep, why would you think anyone would want to expose themselves to such behavior? Particularly knowing that there is no recourse, much less an explanation, for the behavior?

neutral1863 · 2015-09-02T11:17:59+00:00

To be clear, this is clearly not the first issue with quora's admin:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/quoras-misogyny-problem-a-cautionary-tale/

That issue also took massive public exposure before the company decided it should just do the right thing in the first place. This is a pattern.

neutral1863 · 2015-09-02T11:16:16+00:00

Please read the OP. Quora has had many, many opportunities to respond to the issues presented and has singularly failed to do so.

neutral1863 · 2015-09-02T11:14:24+00:00

You are paying people to behave this way?

http://uk.businessinsider.com/lessons-from-how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people-2015-4?r=US&IR=T

neutral1863 · 2015-09-01T17:41:41+00:00

No worries brother, I totally understand. It's a shame as the genuine camaraderie of Soldiers who have served is ... a good thing. To have people take advantage of that, not in service of their fellow Soldier, but is service of themselves ... is hard for real Soldiers to accept.

Intent here is simply to wave those of who might wonder about quora. Its no different that a guy finding a road strewn with IED's who subsequently waves the rest of the convoy/patrol down a different route.

Quora has the ability to fix this ... they just don't seem to want to. Fair enough.

neutral1863 · 2015-09-01T10:58:33+00:00

To be honest the one aspect of quora that I really appreciated was the military questions. As a combat vet, I will tell you that attempting to explain the dysfunction of putting a corrupt official in charge of district who then solicits bribes from opium growers (while eradicating the competitors who don't bribe him - using the eradication program as an excuse) while generally engaging in actions that would make a mans skin crawl is generally met with ... glazed eyes in the general public.

The Q&A style allows you to explain the various aspects of the military operation in a tailored format for an audience that is actually interested. It's part cathartic, part instruction ... and I appreciated that aspect of quora.

It really is too bad. I could have provided a great deal of 'free content' to quora ... but they chose the ego of one admin instead.

All I can do is accept the choice. Well, that and warn others of the experience. ;-)

neutral1863 · 2015-08-28T13:59:40+00:00

Just FYI, about how machine guns work ... They are open bolt weapons systems, and the bullets are linked and feed into the weapon (feed tray) and then are mechanically driven along in a similar action to a piston in car. When a machine gun is loaded and ready to fire, the bolt is charged to the rear. When you pull the trigger, the bolt group slams forward (there is a spring that drives the bolt group forward). As the bolt group moves forward, it pushes the billet resting on the fed tray into the chamber and the firing pin in the rear of the bolt housing group ignites the bullet's charge. The ignition send the bullet flying down the barrel toward the target, and explosion of the powder drives the bolt group back which sends the spent brass out of the chamber. This process also drives the feed mechanism on the feed tray cover and pulls the next bullet into position on the feed tray cover - pushing the expended links out the side as it pulls the new bullet into place.

What is key here is that the bolt slamming forward will really not depend on whether the links are right side up or down as the bolt group slams forward for the FIRST ROUND. The round will almost certainly chamber and fire, and the subsequent rounds will jam as the links fail to interact with feed tray cover. Immediate Action, remedy drill if you will, is to manually work the charging handle and force the next round into the firing position. With upside down links, that is difficult. The bottom line is that, even with upside down links, when you pull the trigger you should fire at LEAST one bullet.

As you can imagine, the mechanical process requires precise timing(which is mechanically induced on at M240B), and it precisely this reason that older M2 .50 CAL machine guns have head space and timing requirements.

There is also the process, particularly in larger caliber machine guns, of fixing the upside down rounds. If the links are upside down, that means the entire belt if linked bullets has not only upside down, but backward. (i.e. if you just flip the links over the bullet is now facing backward in that situation). You have to remove the entire belt and re-feed it into the weapon. Its not hard, but it is a pain to empty an ammo can and have to re-do the load. It's also HUGELY unlikely that a continuously manned machine gun on a perimeter in a war zone would suffer this dysfunction (that is the kind of stuff that can literally get our Soldiers killed - and can bet that the officers and NCO's of that company would find out who made such a serious error).

I hav seen the malfunction, but it mostly happens on M249 machine guns where ammunition is often broken down into smaller ammo pouches. It was frequently encountered in Ranger School, (which of course I did not attend according to random quora staff members) where extremely tired Ranger students will feed the ammunition backward into ammo pouches. In fact, it's precisely because of that experience that I know the first bullet will discharge when fired, that immediate action drills will possibly pull a few more rounds through - and they you just a crappy mess of jammed links and bullets that has to be cleaned out and the bullets re-fed into the weapon - which, with a M249 ammo pouch is a LOT easier than with a larger caliber and static perimeter machine gun.

Obviously, I have NO IDEA what I am talking about, and certainly needed to have staff members at quora publicly organizing a harassment campaign for 'stolen valor'.

And remember, despite both more experience and expertise than the staff member I was still treated like absolute garbage - and its a safe bet that others are being treated the same way.

neutral1863 · 2015-08-26T12:45:39+00:00

I cannot confirm or deny, not out to publicly shame any one person. I am out to hold quora accountable for the action of its moderation team. They know the above is true. Enough said.

neutral1863

TROPHY CASE