The star&flag of ATS, mainly stars

originally posted by: mymymy
a reply to: Agree2Disagree

I've always said most people don't star the post, they star the poster. There seems to be a lot of fanboys on this site, they see a poster with thousands of posts and stars and immediately star the post. There was even a member a while ago who stated that he usually ignores any poster that only has a few posts and just looks for the members who spend more time on here. How inane is that?

I try to be as open minded as I can, I have starred people that I can honestly say I don't like, because even people you usually disagree with can make a point

Well stated, I starred that.

originally posted by: intrepid

originally posted by: VoidHawk
As Kanga said, you cannot possibly know!

I star for several reasons for eg: They made a good point. They put effort into their post.

Spend some time in the political forums and it becomes obvious. The most inane post is met with stars from those on their "side of the aisle". It's not content that is being starred, it's members.

Yeah I'd have to agree there, but thats why I mostly stay out of them, but generally I dont think any of us can say why people are staring posts.
I do agree that SOME do have their favorites, take dear old phage for example, he can delete an entire post, and even though that post is empty it will continue to gather stars.

Really I suppose, now I've been forced to think about it, op does have a point, but I hope he realises we're not all fanboys, I will star something I disagree with if I think they made fair comment.

a reply to: VoidHawk

That's for those of us that don't see the board as a battleground.

originally posted by: Agree2Disagree
a reply to: Ghost147
No one goes into a situation or argument trying to be wrong.

That's not totally true, actually.

I'm an Atheist, and I love discussing scientific and religious topics here on ATS. However, if there really is empirical evidence out there, or that God(s) were to really show that she/he/they/it really do/does exist, I would really and honestly love to be proven wrong. I'm sure many, if not all Atheists would even feel fairly similar. Who wouldn't want to know definitively that you had a chance to go to an eternally happy, safe, stressless place after you die?

For me, our current knowledge and evidence shows that that place does not likely exist. On the upside, that just makes everything in this life even more precious, since this is our only chance at seeing and experiencing things. But if that place were to exist, a whole knew outlook on things would be able to be seen.

I could say the same thing about scientific matters as well. It's not necessarily a bad thing to learn that a theory or natural phenomena functions differently than you previously thought. It just means that you've now gained more accurate knowledge about a particular subject. Again, not really a bad thing to be proven wrong in.

originally posted by: Kangaruex4Ewe
How can you tell who is starring what? How do you know that the people who are starring are mainly agreeing with the posts they star?

You took the words out of me gub, in any case I know the premise not to be always true, far from it, as lately as the last couple of days in a thread full of indefinables, where there were/are at least as many standpoint ideas, all different, as there were posters..and they are are all plausible, all of them were starred.
To add, I should have said that most everybody didn't agree with the blatancy of the thread title, (which necessitated a linked title) only that there were differing ideas as to the overall content being true or not.

Why give stars? Well, I would applaud but we're not in the same room.

Stars are like an applause, sometimes its a smattering, rarely an ovation.

And sometimes you're speaking to an empty room.

If I don't agree with someone I don't find their comment 'star worthy', however, I have at times starred some of the people that I normally don't agree with when they post something sane.

Also, there are no benefits to getting stars other than having your ego stroked so don't sweat it too much. I promise you it is not the most important thing in life to rant about.

originally posted by: mymymy


I've always said most people don't star the post, they star the poster. There seems to be a lot of fanboys on this site, they see a poster with thousands of posts and stars and immediately star the post. There was even a member a while ago who stated that he usually ignores any poster that only has a few posts and just looks for the members who spend more time on here. How inane is that?

Exactly ... Some people are new so don't have the same posting history

as others who have been here for over 10 years!

I try to be as open minded as I can, I have starred people that I can honestly say I don't like, because even people you usually disagree with can make a point

Me too So I gave you a STAR simply for that sentence!!

i like flags more than stars because only the OP of a thread can get a flag.
if i see a user with lots of flags i might want to check out their threads they've made and then maybe star or flag them.

originally posted by: Metallicus
If I don't agree with someone I don't find their comment 'star worthy', however, I have at times starred some of the people that I normally don't agree with when they post something sane.

Also, there are no benefits to getting stars other than having your ego stroked so don't sweat it too much. I promise you it is not the most important thing in life to rant about.

Even for me, Metallicus?

I found this OP to be humorous, with the amount of smarmy narcissism displayed.

Still didn't star it though. Or flag it.

originally posted by: Ghost147

originally posted by: Metallicus
If I don't agree with someone I don't find their comment 'star worthy', however, I have at times starred some of the people that I normally don't agree with when they post something sane.

Also, there are no benefits to getting stars other than having your ego stroked so don't sweat it too much. I promise you it is not the most important thing in life to rant about.

Even for me, Metallicus?

For anyone. There is always common ground.

I am an anti-establishment / anti-government guy. Everyone has a little civil disobedience in them somewhere, right?

I star people that have good counter points to discussions as well as starring things I agree with.

There is a circle jerk of star and flags depending if threads lean right or left on the political spectrum, we cant do anything about really, oh and dont worry if people have more stars, i sure dont.

originally posted by: Metallicus
If I don't agree with someone I don't find their comment 'star worthy', however, I have at times starred some of the people that I normally don't agree with when they post something sane.

Also, there are no benefits to getting stars other than having your ego stroked so don't sweat it too much. I promise you it is not the most important thing in life to rant about.

There's nothing wrong with having an ego, ego to me is about self-esteem, and self-esteem is important in every which way in succeeding in any goal you may have in the right way. That there is a star system here means I can show appreciation when I see fit, no more no less, and entirely up to me.
Sure the system can be abused, sometimes from the strangest quarters, but you get to know about that, don't ya?

originally posted by: Agree2Disagree

Also, I know every user here is a human,

That is a rather bold assumption and it perhaps expresses a tad of prejudice towards our Alien and supernatural friends.

Seriously I think the level of common sense is much higher on ATS than you so humbly suggest. I for one will flag and star any one who in an intelligent manner proves his case whether I agree or not. Education and life long learning excludes partisanship.

a reply to: Agree2Disagree

Would you feel differently if you had more flags and stars?

a reply to: Agree2Disagree

How the hell do you know why some anonymous member stars a post? I often star posts that go against my core beliefs if they challenge my mind to see things from the other side.

You're just making assumptions and your OP is BS.

I can honestly say I have starred posts with points which counter / disagree with my own views. I am of the firm belief that I am not always right, and sometimes I may not have seen / understood an opposing side of an argument. I also come from a very scientific educational background where absolute objectivity is critical to coming to the correct solution. Consequently, I have a couple observations on the OP's theme...

I do agree, there are clearly some fan-boys here who star both members and content they agree with. In fact, I can even take it a step further. I will often see posts get starred just because they disagree with an opposing opinion when the trend of the thread leans in this direction, regardless of how ludicrous the post is. In other words, posts which make absolutely no sense, or are flat wrong, will get stars seemingly just because they disagree with an opposing opinion. Classic symptoms of blind obedience, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend mentality, regardless of merit. This behavior is usually quite evident on highly politically / religously charged threads.

Then there are the haters. They members who have an agenda against a certain people, race, country, political viewpoint (or whatever). They troll around from thread to thread looking for threads which they can use to bash someone / something to further their crusade. After a while someone observant can recognize the trend with certain members (usually high post count, low content, high star count and very low flag count (relative to post count)).

On the other hand, I have also seen examples of thoughtful, albeit spirited, "debate" on a certain topic wherein participants in a discussion will openly acknowledge an opposing point and come right out and say they starred it on merit even though their own view differs. I have done this as well.

I always look at it like this; there is what he said, there is what she said...and then there is the truth.

One other thing which is probably worthy of mention is about actual star and flag counts attributed to certain posters. I've read several places here on ATS that a number of longtime members were inadvertently granted mammoth sums of stars and flags as a result of board software change / upgrade. So, when you see someone with 60 / 70 "million" stars or flags it probably only means they were one of the ones who went through this transition more than anything else. They probably had quite a few stars and flags beforehand, and are indeed senior members, but no one could get that many stars or flags in an entire lifetime of posting...even if this is all they did all day long 24x7x365.

In fact, to get 70m stars would require one to get a star every hour (24 hours per day)...for 1,141 YEARS! (or a star every single minute...for 19 years straight).

LOL!!!