All Members: Updates and Changes to the ATS Terms and Conditions

originally posted by: jimmyx
I know I'm just a normal member, but could you give an example? a "forum gang" is something I am ignorant, or simply naïve about.

If a member posts something valid and groundbreaking MANY times in the past a "GANG" an ORGANISED gang of like minded posters would intentionally BURY the valid critical posts under 3-4 PAGES of posts about peripheral thread related data that walked the lines of the rules and allowed a sunversive method os suppression to be actioned, the critical data is buried under VOLUMES of posts so the readership potentiality is very low when anyone else reads the complete thread.

If something politiclly volatile but accurate valid and relevant is posted on a popular thread this "organised gang' will come in and bury the data with an unreal volume of static,simple thread traffic that derails the critical data intentionally.

There is a long and obvious trail of these actions within the ATS archives,the actions are very easy to spot and to define,AS ARE the posters or members who participate,even if it is peripheral but repeated you are busted,and if you try opening multiple multiple accounts THAT will be noted, sometimes sleeper accounts are used for important things they need to interfere in and these accounts are not used often but are used strategiclly,the good people running ATS are now REVERSE EXTRAPOLATING who is creating suppressionist impacts on ATS,great job on their part,and i do believe they have a CONCRETE reason for doing this supported by thousands of posts which support their administerial perspective and decisions.

I found it interesting to watch the evolution of this soft-serve tactical suppression issue here on ATS and am impressed the issue has been dealt with to some degrees.Excellent work by Admin.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I am thick at times. I am not understanding this new part of the T&C.

Examples would indeed be nice.

originally posted by: TKDRL
It seems to me that someone that takes an "unpopular viewpoint" and sticks to it now runs the risk of being banned? Tell me I am wrong and ATS did not just jump the shark with though crime bannings......

It needs to be rather extreme.

For example, we recently noticed one member who registered the same day as a very significant event, and racked up over 100 posts in just 2 days, only in topics on that event, mostly with a point-of-view that supported proven propaganda, and stating "facts" with no corroborating sources. Their participation caused significant frustration within the topic, and made productive discussion very difficult. Once we examined the member account more closely, their registration information revealed a close association with a media source.

This is the type of activity these two additions are addressing. We never look at any member private messages without first receiving a complaint that alleges serious T&C violations. The type of infractions outlined in these two updates would not create cause to review private messages.

a reply to: one4all

Oh dang! That's happened to me before. Except it wasn't a gang, just one very determined member

a reply to: SkepticOverlord
Thanks, that makes it a lot more clear in my mind.

originally posted by: HandyDandy

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
You will not attempt to control or otherwise shutdown valid conversation on a topic through the use of prolific posting of an unpopular viewpoint or other single-purpose standpoint.

So now if I have an "unpopular viewpoint" I'll get banned?

Nice way to censor what we have to say.

That I don't get. There will always be someone with an unpopular viewpoint but, it doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to discuss their views. I don't understand.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

And then the lights came on !

Well done !

So last week on a potentially hot topic, I chose to state that I had no opinion because it is such a potentially explosive one, I also noted that the person I replied to had just joined and said welcome and I had my post removed as I was so far off the topic of the post? I don't reply to every introduction and was chastised by the person I replied to for saying welcome. Never again will I do that even though I thought it was a courteous thing to do and have seen others do the same. In the post I stated my position on the subject which was akin to "no comment" which means I have an opinion but was not willing to publicly post it and I thought I was entitled to that, guess not...Is this one of the things being referred to here?

Unpopular viewpoint...I do hope for some clarification. Are we not talking about just normal disagreements and topics?

Or just spam pigs and trolls?

a reply to: Night Star

See this post above.

Interesting .. had been wonder what steps would be taken to counter the problem ..

noted .. well done.

originally posted by: drneville
"Social Media Professionals"

So if you want to help a fellow member and give advice on let's say a gun or knife brand, this will be considered product placement from now on ?????

What exactly is a "social media professional" ? Some kind of blogger or something?

a reply to: DigitalJesusWuang

Yes. Typically someone being paid to promote a particular viewpoint, topic, brand, or viral content on social media sites, blog comments, news comments, and discussion boards.

It's an increasingly popular source of freelance income.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Help me out here, folks, I can't for the life of me understand what this means (and hence what I should (not) do:

"[...] shutdown valid conversation on a topic through the use of prolific posting of an unpopular viewpoint or other single-purpose standpoint [...]"..

Is this some kind of legalese that Americans all dig - for I sure enough do not! What, in which context, is considered "prolific posting of an unpopular viewpoint"? I don't get the terms "prolific" and "unpopular" in this context. "prolific" in my book means something like "fertile, fruit-bearing". So, our postings should be sterile and bear no fruits? But why post anything then? Also, I can't image "unpopular" meaning anything else than "stuff the plebs does not like" -> well, if the plebs is going to dictate what is allowed in here AND it should be sterile .. we might as well all join Facebook and loose ourselves in popular commonplaces. Surely that can't be what you mean to say, right?

And what is a "single-purpose standpoint"? Are we encouraged now to formulate our stanpoints is such ways that we are unclear, uncertain, unspecific - do we need to provide multi-purpose standpoints?

- help1

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Ok but that is one individual, I am still not getting what would make a forum gang?

Forum Gangs You will not engage in an organized collaboration with other members to disrupt thread topics or interrupt the flow of normal collaborative discussion. Doing so will result in removal of your Post(s) and immediate termination of your account.

This is about organized collaboration with other members and your example didn't address that. Seems that was the example for the Topic Control and that is great and now I fully understand that.

a reply to: InhaleExhale

There must be some evidence of collaboration for a ban right?

Nope, as I have said numerous times, our chalk, their board, they hold the erasers.
They also hold the ban hammer.
Luckily ATS is not the only board.

originally posted by: ForteanOrg
"prolific" in my book means something like "fertile, fruit-bearing".

Prolific, in this case, would mean an unusually high volume of posts.

originally posted by: DigitalJesusWuang

originally posted by: drneville
"Social Media Professionals"

So if you want to help a fellow member and give advice on let's say a gun or knife brand, this will be considered product placement from now on ?????

What exactly is a "social media professional" ? Some kind of blogger or something?

Yeah... to me the wording didn't seem to be about endorsing something on ATS so much as using ATS to endorse something on a different website. But now... I'm pretty confused.

Mr. Overlord, please explain this one for us?


ps edit - Nevermind, he cleared it up a couple of posts up.

a reply to: ForteanOrg

See SkepticOverlord's above post. There was a poster that in two days had 100 posts on one topic, that made discussion difficult for other members. That is what is being talked about in that sentence. You can have an unpopular viewpoint all you want, you just can't slam a topic and make it difficult for anyone else to talk about it.

a reply to: Sremmos80

A forum gang is when several members get together, and decide to basically lock a topic down, and make it impossible for other members to discuss anything. Not four or five members having a similar interest in one topic, and posting, but we are talking about members sending messages to each other, and organizing how to discuss the topic so that others eventually get frustrated and leave the topic.