Oh no they gained awareness, I will have to run this up the chain immediately.
To honestly answer your questions
No one made any member join this forum. (At least I hope not).
No one is making or begging you to stay. You are free to come and go as you please.
I have begged people to watch what you say on this forum because it is open and others outside the forum can see it.
@KLGunner @OkiePewPew and my self do not work for Springfield. In fact SA wanted people that purposely did not work for SA that were the main mods. There would be an element of separation and a differing view point than that directly from SA. MikeH does work for SA and he is our “handler” (sounds cooler than it really is). Mike is also the SA media relations Manager. SA is not his first rodeo he‘s done some cool stuff in the firearms industry media relations dept.
Does SA monitor this forum? Sure they do, they would be stupid not to. This forum has their name on it and one reason we keep it pg13. They give us guidance but keep it relatively hands off for the most part. Think about it they let you yahoos talk about lesser guns like glocks and sigs. What other manufacture owned forum would do that?
Does SA get ideas from the forum? Probably not hate to break it to you. I have had a close relationship with SA for over 20 yrs. I have plenty of close personal friends that have come and gone through SA. Any idea you can think of they have already thought about it. Like Apple they have ideas/prototypes/engenerring going on years and years in advance. As I have been told, basically any idea you can think of has been put on a list, discussed And may or may not be in the pipeline.
Financially interested, SA is a family owned company if your last name is not Reese then you don’t own SA. Sure SA uses this forum to push new product/articles etc it’s the Armory life duhhh. But notice that they do not have a bunch of advertising. I would say I am financially interested, I’m the XDMAN I basically have made a living off mooching off SA. If no SA or XD’s there goes my business.
political campaigns/interest/agendas monitor for which way the wind is blowing? Are you freaking kidding me…….how many times do we have to tell/beg/cancel posts/lock posts and tell all of you yahoos to stay away from politics. Let me guess the new conspiracy is that by making it super hard to talk politics….. we actually are getting all of your political views. We are sneaky.
And sellers of numerous products to identify potential customers/marketing? We do not allow advertising and just like a recent new member once we found out he was in the industry we made him add that fact to his signature. that way you can take what he or she says with a grain of salt. Thats why I list it on my bio as well. As far as farming for customers if someone was outright advertising…..we would hope we would get an alert from the forum members Like we have in the past.
Leo tracking and info? Again how many times have we (mods) told you watch what you say. this is an open forum that basically anyone can join. Always post as if it would get back to your mamma. Have some freaking opsec.
Any other questions?