TargetTalk

Sorry to have to do this, but these past few threads are not acceptable.

thank you Pilkungs.

Bless you my son....:-)

Glad you did it.
I quit reading his posts long ago. No loss.

Yeah, he was super annoying...

And I thought I could pick his brain for the "Secrets of Shooting Success" here for free.

This horse is dead. Perhaps we should stop kicking it... as much fun as it might be. For my part it seems a shame it could not have come out differently, with Russ learning after all these years the nature of mutually beneficial forum discussions. Perhaps he will take the time to reflect and consider improving his interpersonal skills if he wishes to participate in this or other forums.

I disagree. Someone criticizes harshly a US Olympian's performance during Air Match and we mob and shame him into removing all of his posts. A funny if less than social character annoys us and gets banned. Are we getting overly sensitive? Do we value our right to be comfortable over someone else's right to think differently? What happened to a concept of simply not engaging in a conversation that you don't like?

shaky hands wrote:I disagree. Someone criticizes harshly a US Olympian's performance during Air Match and we mob and shame him into removing all of his posts. A funny if less than social character annoys us and gets banned. Are we getting overly sensitive? Do we value our right to be comfortable over someone else's right to think differently? What happened to a concept of simply not engaging in a conversation that you don't like?

I to do not like that things got to this point... but he made is own bed.
I personally have no problem with someone having a different opinion, but when that person hijacks every topic and doesn't let people have a normal discussion, that's where I draw the line.
After all, free information exchange is what internet forums are all about, right?

I posted this about a month or so ago.

At that time I actually had a good one hour or more telephone conversation with Ruslan.

Ruslan is really trying to help in his own way.
To us it seems that he is trying to promote himself.

There is no doubt a language and interpretation barrier as I found out in our discussion.

Who truley instigates these pissing contests threads between Ruslan and whom ever.
I say it went both ways.

Bottom line is that Ruslan Dyatlov is good people whether you can get it through your head or not.

Has anyone else here that emphatically puts Ruslan down ever contacted him and talked one on one to try and get to know him ?

Just saying...

Clarence

Providing opposite views is fine, even critical ones is fine. But giving every newbie a verbal clubbing because they are not as dedicated to achieving world class status is both unfair and is Russ's case narcissistic. It's fine to encourage thoughtful discussion , but I don't believe that was the intent. I know a lot of new shooters who were disenfranchised as a result of many of the insults. That is not what (we) Target Talk should be about. I'm on a number of forums which work to encourage new members through honest and courteous discussion. After all we have enough opposition to our sport as it is, no need to rot from the inside out.

I've been willing to give Russ the benefit of the doubt.... until now. His responses to recent threads have truly been over the top. I really don't care anymore that he can't speak English all that well. He just never seems to learn.

As a new person to the sport of 10M AP (and this site) I concur with Greg's comments above.

There is no way I would pay money to Russ for a class or coaching based upon the content of his posts since I have been around. If he would have perhaps paid for an ad and posted some positive and constructive comments I would have had a very different view.

I get that English may not be Russ' first language but he should have figured out, based on people's reaction to him, that something needed to change in his approach.

Scott

But was he first given a fair warning and a request to change his ways? I hope he did not get a treatment that would remind him of his former Fatherland's ways of dealing with dissidents.

Has anyone else here that emphatically puts Ruslan down ever contacted him and talked one on one to try and get to know him ?


Seriously? Yes, I think quite a few people tried to talk with him and get to know him on this very forum! I think it's fair to say that a number of people who (quite fairly) didn't like Russ genuinly tried to help him. He has/had no interest but self promotion by means of insulting and belittling everyone who spoke before or after him.
It would be nice if when this thread has run its course, we could continue on without speaking his name in following threads.

shaky hands wrote:But was he first given a fair warning and a request to change his ways? I hope he did not get a treatment that would remind him of his former Fatherland's ways of dealing with dissidents.

Yes, more than once.

C. Perkins wrote:Has anyone else here that emphatically puts Ruslan down ever contacted him and talked one on one to try and get to know him?

The reason I've never put him down is that I have contacted him to try and get to know him. We've exchanged information and goals in writing, at length. I've talked to him on the phone, also at some length. I think he's a good guy with problematic English and a rather unusual upbringing (in several senses) that has given him a too-narrow perspective on the shooting sports, something that often comes across as (and, in reality, is) simply insulting.

Things have, admittedly, gotten worse recently. He's been trolled by people on the forum, something obviously not his fault, but he went ahead and rose to the bait and bit hard, something he should by now know better than to do. He's also started more discord than his average all on his own recently.

Thus, I'm of two minds about the ban and could argue it either way. I won't bother, of course, since deference to the judgment of the forum owners and mods is the only available course of action. They are, after all, the ones who get to decide.

If the forum software could provide it, I'd rather see an option for the users to put a person on "ignore", so his posts would not show up.

Then those who choose to receive the posts could still do so.

Lots of Russ' problems seem to stem from the language barrier, but he also responds poorly to the two or three other members who continually bait him.

If the forum software could provide it, I'd rather see an option for the users to put a person on "ignore", so his posts would not show up.

I second that.

On the other hand, don't overestimate the language thing. There are lots of people here who don't have english as their first language, and AFAIK not many of them got banned. What I find totally unacceptable is that Russ is telling people to go for the Olympics or stop shooting, and that is just plain evil, a bad thing for our hobby. I'm not the most patient guy around, but we should be happy about everybody who takes up shooting and sticks to it, no matter how much time and money he (or she) is prepared to invest, and insulting newbies about their lack of Olympic ambition is not the way to go. One may get misunderstood once or twice, but when you get bashed twice, you usually notice that something didn't go well and learn. He's obviously not prepared to learn and adapt, which makes me wonder how good a coach he is.

If you forget the language problem that Russ liked to hide behind. The guy probably ment well, but was blinkered into believing that the only way to shoot successfully, was the "Russ way".
As a coach, he must have realised that there is no "one plan fits all" as each individual requires suitable specific goals, training plans and most importantly full encouragement and support and not everyone wants to take their shotting to International level. Wec all might have dreams and aspirations and then reality kicks in.
Knowing a little of his background, perhaps the only way he can work and think is based on his previous military and shooting experiences and is the only way that he knows how to succeed.
With a different approach and attitude he could possibly impart a vast amount of knowledge to the sport.
Not everyone is in the position to be able to afford his fees to find out.
Whilst the idea of an "ignore" feature might be useful, if it ended up with most persons on the forum selecting the "ignore", then he would only be writing to himself and therefore that would be the same end effect as banning him.