Why is there so little recent and new topics on ATS anymore?

Daylight is good at arriving at the right time it's not always gonna be this grey.

All things must pass away.

originally posted by: RiotComing
I joined in 2005 and participated mainly in the ufo forum. It was a reasonably fast-moving forum back then, and there were many colourful posters with a passion for the subject actively discussing ufo/conspiracy subjects around the clock 24/7.

Then I noticed all my favourite posters were getting banned. And yet, they were the ones being bullied by what I would describe as 'gangs' of skeptics running riot. Then I found myself on the receiving end of this bullying, and simply stopped posting.

Since then, I have seen this forum change into the complete opposite of what it once was. News threads have become very slow-moving. People generally only talk about political stuff or things you would encounter on mainstream media. Very few posters now think 'out of the box', and the few old posters still around from 10 years ago always had conservative views on things. For a website that used to 'deny ignorance', there is almost a culture of ignorance pervading throughout. For instance, there's been a Fukushima thread about the fire back in May where pretty much every response in unison has been "What fire? There's been no fire. I've never heard anything about a fire" , whereas on GLP there was extensive minute-by-minute coverage complete with time-lapse footage from TEPCO's own webcams! Not only that, but comprehensive graphing of Rad readings over North America in the days following the incident. Not that I'm praising/promoting GLP in any way (they have currently banned me and I have not even posted anything! I just go there to read) - but in the old days of ATS, someone would've done the same thing and we would've had committed members providing substantial research into something going on that's been kept away from the public eye. And now, well maybe they've been ran off into the sunset and it's a darn shame.

Come here now, and every post takes up the depth of the monitor screen, yet it will typically have one line for a post, and usually a knee-jerk reaction to the topic at hand with nothing you can take away and learn from, no knowledge to impart.. just a smart comment loaded with sarcasm - no different to what you would read on the Facebook news feed. I thought ATS had a policy of strictly no one-liners? What happened to that?

It just seems everything's gone downhill in every way here. I know someone would say "well, contribute something yourself!" - that's all fine and good, but let's say I write a reply in that Fukushima thread and come up with all the webcam footage and supporting data, the hounds will be unleashed and not only make you feel unwelcome for your contribution, they will start calling you a nutter or something. It's just not the same place anymore, and hasn't been for some years now.

Great post, I feel pretty much the same.
There are now sites out there doing the stuff ATS used to do, and they're doing it better and you can actually have proper discussions about....GASP.... conspiracies and alternative topics.
It's a shame that this happened.... ATS used to have many great threads to read and many great posters, it has very few of either now.

Sadly MSM stories, celebrity stuff & social networking is more important than serious discussion... also the level of hate, racism, homophobia and other prejudice and bigotry has reached epic proportions and we have had some spikes in the time I've been here.
It's a foul place to be sometimes and the little gangs that run around trying to run people out of threads and star each other's vile opinions are just awful.

ATS has gone the way of The Discovery Channel & The History Channel.... there's very little left of either of those either.
This is sadly the way of the world now.

Mobile layout has somewhat been fixed now. All the text fits within the browser now. Thank you.

originally posted by: fatpastyhead
Mobile layout has somewhat been fixed now. All the text fits within the browser now. Thank you.

This brings me to another point - should phones be the ideal medium for viewing/researching conspiracy-related material? Surely all those hours squinting at a small phone screen would bring only headaches for the viewer? How can you look at fine detail of a UFO picture for instance? Or do people simply not care anymore?

originally posted by: RiotComing

originally posted by: fatpastyhead
Mobile layout has somewhat been fixed now. All the text fits within the browser now. Thank you.

This brings me to another point - should phones be the ideal medium for viewing/researching conspiracy-related material? Surely all those hours squinting at a small phone screen would bring only headaches for the viewer? How can you look at fine detail of a UFO picture for instance? Or do people simply not care anymore?

No, these tablets either

Well I will state my opinion ATS is 1000 times better than Facebook. For one thing, Facebook crashes on my iPad every minute to every few minutes nonstop. I have the original iPad which is not that old and the operating system is fixed, yet Facebook never seems to fix the issues. I rarely log onto the site and probably would not if I did not have a relative down the street with no pc. ATS never crashes on my iPad. Sometimes I have to hit refresh to see a thread but not lately. I enjoy reading some of the stories here. Facebook is like going to church after you are told you need to do it.

I agree ATS is not the same as it used to be. I tend to stay away from controversy myself because I wonder what would I have to gain from it?

Thanks once again for all the replies, quite revealing.

I must have struck a chord here at ATS. I see that I'm not the only one that feels this way.

May the lords of ATS show compassion and forgiveness on my sinful soul as I have been to GLP and read many posts. I have weakened and fear I will go back again.

The foul language and personal attacks I saw was very off-putting though.

I have to start looking for something better than that one, but when it is banned on here, the devil on my shoulder makes me want to check it out.

I haven't created many threads on ATS but half the time when I do, it gets moved from the section I chose to post it in to some dumpwater section with little to no activity. I chose the most active section that was closest to the appropriate place for the topic at hand. I didn't want to post it in a dumpwater section where it would sink like a stone without a single reply. "General Conspiracies" ought to be good enough for a thread related to any conspiracy, right?

I don't know if this is a result of some kind of bias (mods purposely moving things where they know they'll get no attention) or if they're trying to revive a dumpwater section that's been long dead. If so, I would suggest just getting rid of it. If you have 20 sections that are dead or dying, maybe you have too many subforums.

I have no idea how often this happens to very active members but if it does, maybe they don't like it either.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

i think it was found that ATS is operated by TPTB via proxy.

mightve been a joke post i saw, but someone did that host tracker thingy-majig and found that ATS was registered by a government entity, since then i have kept my interaction with this site very limited, just in case.

a reply to: 8fl0z

Interesting, I'd like the see the post that made that claim.

Do you have a link or should I use the buggy search engine?

The topics have been hopping again lately. It must be an up cycle for ATS.

I'm about ready to retract my original statement, but I'm going to wait and see if the new no tolerance to trolls policy has a chilling effect.

I have strayed away recently to a couple of "up to the minute" alt news sights that are constantly updated, but they are hard to sift through. Lazy I guess.

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
I haven't created many threads on ATS but half the time when I do, it gets moved from the section I chose to post it in to some dumpwater section with little to no activity. I chose the most active section that was closest to the appropriate place for the topic at hand. I didn't want to post it in a dumpwater section where it would sink like a stone without a single reply. "General Conspiracies" ought to be good enough for a thread related to any conspiracy, right?

I don't know if this is a result of some kind of bias (mods purposely moving things where they know they'll get no attention) or if they're trying to revive a dumpwater section that's been long dead. If so, I would suggest just getting rid of it. If you have 20 sections that are dead or dying, maybe you have too many subforums.

I have no idea how often this happens to very active members but if it does, maybe they don't like it either.

Yeah, me too

originally posted by: dreamingawake
The way that thread makers are being treated(somewhat unfairly at times) when they share from paranormal to highly skeptical topics is probably part of why this happening. It's almost as if there's a push for more mainstream topics particularly dealing with the Left/Right paradigm. With that you will have little recent topics because of those not wanting to deal with ridicule or be ignored. There's been a shift coupled with people being less open after Snowden's revealing of privacy concerns, at least in these circles anyway. Mainstream wise they seemed to have moved onto image sharing sites instead of info timelines.

They debunked the paranormal to death, shame actually

Why is there so little recent and new topics on ATS anymore?


Everyone became a mod, now no one post anymore?

lol

Thanks for the posts Stormdancer77.

I've been pretty glued to ATS lately, I've been seeing a fair amount of new threads and up to the minute news stories.

But with the ATS hammer over our heads, getting ready to come down on us, I expect to see less new threads, or perhaps the complete opposite, let's wait and see.

ETA: I thought that during those slow periods I will try to update my neglected threads. That might help stimulate the boards.