THe topic compermised by personal attacks here on ATSor is terrorism to blame.

I was participating in a thread that suffered an attack I cant only equate to an extension of biggatry and terrorism here on ATS. We set here and say we are analyzing Terrorism and intelligently frighting it with awareness and lack of ignorance when in truth some of the activities I have seen in the last two days are a form of condoned terrorism, thru descent and seperation we have let terrorism win the day, The muslim extreamist must be setting back reading what we are doing some of us, and they are laughing, and what's to say one of them just did it to see if they could get us broken apart and at each others throats.


One of the goals of terrorism is to creat hypocracies, descent and demoralization, there by confusing the situation and causing internal conflict and fear of weakness, or better yet it has the goal of having us despite noble intentions guestioning wether or not our goals are just, why dop some of you let them breed this hatred within these hallowed walls of free speech we think is our right and we enjoy so much.


Terrorism is winning the war on ATS and we are letting it happen come on guys if threads are forced to be shut dont think about this did your beliefs go so far that you comprimised the integrity of your view or did some terrorist at his home computer lead you to your down fall, I say the latter more than the former. Terrorists goals are to weaken us through division and there by making us unable to attack to an obvious frontal assault the we our selfs let happen even though we see it coming.


I think threads being closed due to petty indifferences gone haywire is giving in to them dont give them the saticfaction guys all ATS members are more intelligent and better of moral turpitude than that.

[edit on 19/1/2005 by drbryankkruta]

I sympathized with you,

I have been on threads that after following for a while they have been closed due to personal attacks.

The word trolling will be a good way to see it.

I feel that some may find hard to control the way they feel and they also cannot stay away from becoming too involved as to used personal attacks.

Being of different views is part of our individualism. We should use caution of how to behaved and respect each other.

I am not guilt free I have used insults myself, but apologizing is a way to show maturity.

I feel that the threads should not be punished but the people that are involved in the insults.

I have made many friends in these Boards and I have to admit that many of them have been members that I have been involved in one way or another on heated debates.

I hope that this awareness is brought to attention.

I know we all have been guilty one time or another.

I think that this is a pretty broad brush to be painting here. Threads closed because of trolling? Did the troll start the thread? That would be an indication as where it would go. The staff lately have been giving added emphasis to people "jacking" threads. Why? Because this takes threads off topic and creates the problems that you have concern with here. Most of the time a thread gets closed is because there is an active thread already on the board with the same topic. We recently had a thread about duplicate threads in Board Biz, we're getting to "damned if you do, damned if you don't" territory. We're only human people, despite what the UFO folks say.

intrepid, can you please launch a terrorist attack on this thread: www.abovetopsecret.com...?

I have also noticed many stopped threads... after research i found that most were due to a duplicate thread... it is important to control the amount of redundancy...

as to the differences of opinion leading to heated moments...
a few words of wisdom from others smarter than myself (none famous, but witty):

you learn more by listening than talking...

our diversity makes us strong, and invunerable to direct attack (we cant all be painted with the same brush, or taken out with the same weapon)

respect our differences as we cherish our similarities...

it is the differences that make us special. and uniformity is such a drag...

the last time everyone in a country thought the same and acted the same, we had facism, genocide, and a very nasty world war...

Sometimes you have to accept your not going to reach some people...

Sometimes you just have to walk way...

Other times, you have to put the boot in yourself (I won't tolerate Nazi's)...

But, you can't be too thin skinned on ATS...

I believe the thread in question here was locked because of constant attacks towards members and not staying on the topic. It is one thing to attack another with sound information and facts to create an open debate without demoralizing anyone, then theres attacking the person. Whether you agree or not with what the person is saying is not the problem, but how it is handled. It against ATS T&C to personally attack another member. Warnings were given in the thread and nobody abided.



[edit on 19-1-2005 by TrickmastertricK]

I haven't been around for long but I have to say that I am immediately disappointed by the number of people who seem to do nothing more than charge into threads aggressively, insult the other posters and try to swing the threads over to insult trading matches or hijack them to their agendas. They are frequently successful. I've already pulled out or backed away from several promising threads for this reason. I absolutely don't want to be trading insults.

I label such people "agent provacateurs".

I can name some names but I don't want to get into that. But certainly, I do not understand why some people are tolerated and it doesn't even look like they are warned. They contribute nothing and destroy much.

I am in favour of the moderators clamping down. I will not complain.

There is a fine but very important line between attacking a person's idea or statement and attacking the person. I think too many people forget where the line is.

A personal attack is also often the last resort of the defeated debater, so if someone resorts to this, then you can at least be comfortable in the fact that you probably won the debate.

Ambient sound says what i believe,

A personal attack is also often the last resort of the defeated debater, so if someone resorts to this, then you can at least be comfortable in the fact that you probably won the debate.

This is why i actually dont mind personal attacks,,, they are easy to shoot down and reveal the posters WEAK position for ALL to see. It is a tell tale sign that they cant back up what their spewing.

Yeah they can derail a thread, but only if you let them...just let what stinks sit there and fester...move on because others will see the stink for what it is.

Sorry been away , but thx to all for answering. While I tend to agree that personal attacks seen to be the last vestage of a defeated scoundrel, I must say that I can also see my point , what good is it for us to attack each other? This was all centered arround terrorism and religion, and I tell you I see only victory for those who would instigate terrorism and anti-religious intenthave won the day when they have got us warring amongst ourselves, I say dont give the little terds the satisfaction, You know as well as I doo a terrorist "trolling" or lurking is just going to get a kick out of this fighting because in this the original topic is lost we must be rid of the descent and violence they bring a stir.

I wouldn't even put it past those knuckleheads to be feeding these fights on occasion , so why surrender , Deny Ignorance, and the Ignorant speaking, for descent and anamosity is all they breed in their empty worm ridden hearts they want us to get away from the topics and quarrel so we loose sight of our posture and they win some ground.

I think this is something that should be left to moderator discretion.

There are two types of things that can happen.

1) In the midst of a debate one member becomes too argumentative and shifts focus from the topic at hand to insulting people he is debating with. In this case a thread-closing probably wouldn't be best, but rather a warning to the member in question would accomplish the goal.

2) In the midst of a debate members on all sides are guilty of the above and the result is that the thread is no longer even remotely about the intended topic but rather an insult-fest in which nothing gets accomplished but anger and hatred. In this case the moderators might (IMHO should) close the thread because its purpose has been lost.

Closing a thread (especially a well intended one) is never pleasant. I just think that in a specific case where the topic has been thrown to the side of the road and people are just insulting each other there's no other choice. In a way I think that a fresh start on the topic would be a better idea.

Originally posted by Djarums
I think this is something that should be left to moderator discretion.

There are two types of things that can happen.

1) In the midst of a debate one member becomes too argumentative and shifts focus from the topic at hand to insulting people he is debating with. In this case a thread-closing probably wouldn't be best, but rather a warning to the member in question would accomplish the goal.

This does happen in the thrad lines you can read along and the mods pop in and tell every one to get on topic and then if after 3 or 4 posts it continues the thread is locked , now I agree the fighting must stop , but did everyone forget mudpit and debate forums I think if the majority of those whom are on the thread are argueing and efforts to stop the argueing have failed then move the thread there and that way 2 things can happen as some do not have full access to side forums some of the combatants cant continue the fight and must leave it alone, and those that remain must be warned to watch their manorism and if that fails then lock it for 48 to 72 hours to be restored to open use when a cool off time has been observed.

2) In the midst of a debate members on all sides are guilty of the above and the result is that the thread is no longer even remotely about the intended topic but rather an insult-fest in which nothing gets accomplished but anger and hatred. In this case the moderators might (IMHO should) close the thread because its purpose has been lost.

once the thread has been isolated to side forums with restricted access and warnings are not headed I think a 48 to 72 hour locking should be done for cool off time.

Closing a thread (especially a well intended one) is never pleasant. I just think that in a specific case where the topic has been thrown to the side of the road and people are just insulting each other there's no other choice. In a way I think that a fresh start on the topic would be a better idea.

if the parties involved cant cool down after 48 -72 hours then it should be closed permanently and the author should be notified they may restart the topic no less than two weeks after thread shut down, this is in the case of a worthy topic that was lost in the arguement unjustly.

I think that though it woul dbe noble to have all those failsafes in place, it could very well make the load of being a Mod or Admin a bit too heavy.....requirig several more people...*sigh* I'd like to see it tried though....

Originally posted by jlc163
I think that though it woul dbe noble to have all those failsafes in place, it could very well make the load of being a Mod or Admin a bit too heavy.....requirig several more people...*sigh* I'd like to see it tried though....

To durive near perfection sometimes one must sacrifice , so if we need a couple of more hounds in the watch dog society here on ats then so be it , it is far more greater a thing done out of love then a thing done out of necessity, its a far better land faught for than a land settled on by squatters. Noble deeds without reward are not uncommon to the ATS staff they catch flack from all sides and I thank them for it, I do however see room to grow and change in this new direction, I would see that the increased load will only be temporary for those of us here who have seen change and grown to accept them as a better way of doing things, We should expect and comply with no less.