Why does this site exist?
Surplused was constructed by C&Rsenal’s Othais as an attempt at accomplishing several historical gun community goals at once:
- Serving as a community hub.
By aggregating as many creators, researchers, and authors as possible in one point, Surplused intends to be a central guide for anyone interested in firearms history. While we have added user-submitted articles, the core intention is NOT to replace any existing services. Rather, videos are embedded from their originating host and authors are invited to link to their articles on their own sites. This way, Surplused only magnifies one’s reach and does not detract from possible revenue like advertising or on-site shops. This is also the reason “Surplused” was setup instead of branding it under the C&Rsenal umbrella. Surplused is meant to be a community-driven site. - Providing some protection against censorship.
Videos or whole channels removed from YouTube are quickly lost to the general public. Also some users have noticed YouTube suppressing gun content or removing subscriptions. Surplused can list videos from YT or any other hosting site and is therefor not exclusively YT dependent. This platform can also be used for hand loading tutorials, which are also experiencing push back from other forms of social media. It does, however, mean Surplused must build an audience all of its own for this to work. - Providing non-video content more exposure.
Text articles, books, researchers, and museums struggle to get attention in a social media environment. Instagram, Twitter, and others are short-form only. YouTube is video only. By intermingling video and text content, we hope that Surplused can provide an audience to those who are not interested or capable of producing full video series. We also believe access to these resources is a benefit to the user as well! - Better preserve user articles
Many of you have sought out articles hosted on various forums only to find the image links dead or blurred by some Photobucket layover. Surplused is designed to allow users to upload their images and text to the same site and will preserve that data together. Freely accessible and never being obscured. - Further assisting researchers.
This goal will, hopefully, follow behind the others. From the start we have implemented a method for conducting surveys on the site. We’re hoping to have both the audience and interest to allow researchers to gather mass data on specific firearms more easily. You can see an example of this in our Marlin shotgun survey.
How can I use this site?
At the most basic, you can favorite this site and revisit it regularly. Come back by and see what is newly released: videos, articles, announcements, and more. Simply exploring the site every few days is the #1 most important thing you could do right now. Without an audience this project will fail.
The very next level is to engage with the content. Leave comments for authors, share the posts you like with others!
If you are a collector or researcher set up an account! That allows you to submit your own articles directly to the site. This allows you to keep your work archived safely online where it can be shared at any time for years to come.
If you are a Creator: someone who has their own video channel, article site, museum, or other public-facing service with its own social media, you will probably want an Author account. This allows you a creator bio and more tools for writing. We also invite Authors to share projects and updates on the site. Examples could include a museum fundraiser, event days, or calls for research help. Simply contact Othais to see if an Author account is right for you!