Local ATS - Relevant to Your Neck of the Woods

Need:
Having a way for members to target their threads to a regional audience, so that more relevant information about the subject can be discussed. Local issue and events get lost in the vast global and political threads here on ATS

Value:
Generate more activity on all forums, add more members and more thread participation, create a stronger sense of community among members.

Long Explanation:
Sometimes there are events and conspiracies that happen at a local level that one might not feel worthy of post here, as local interests tend to get lost in the mix of political and other global topics that pop up by the minute.

I think that if we had a way to address our threads to a region that they might get more attention, garnering more input from members who are familiar with the area who could provide deeper insight. Particular with local disasters and incidents such as the Orville Dam spillway failure that happens this past winter.

How it would work:

When creating a thread their would be an option to select a region to publish post.

The default would be global post and all post would remain on the global feed.

However by selecting a region from a drop down menu the post will be seen by those who subscribe to that region.

It would work much like how we favorite a forum and in My ATS we only see those post for those forums we select.

In my plan there would be a Favorite Regions section, where threads that were posted with the regional option would show up but only for the regions you subscribe to.

You could still post to all the same forums, except now you could direct your post to those who subscribe to a particular region.

You could subscribe to multiple regions of interest and in your MyATS see thread that members posted in those regions.

Regions could begin very broad like US west, US South, UK North Middle East. Or depending on how long you want the drops own menus you could have states and countries.

I assume ATS headquarters has the regional info that could help create the applicable regions.

In conclusion I see a local or regional option as a way to get better information, better participation from members for events and issues that may not weigh heavy on a global scale but are important non the less and need to be discussed.

There would be very little interruption for members wanting to post the standard global thread.

The utilization of drop down menu with various regions would be added to the thread creation screen.

A new section in MyATS would need to be created where members could view their thread posted to the they regions they subscribe to.

Thank you for an awesome conspiracy site and thank you for listening.

I think it would be valuable if ATS had some kind of drop down next to thread titles for "Op-Ed" or something, as well as a tag displaying the name of the source. Tags after titles isn't anything new. A lot of people don't realize what they "think" is news is actually the opinion of the author.

Both the op and the poster below, good idea. I don't know how they'd implement it though but it might slice through all of the reactionary mumbo jumbo..

There's also still kind of a problem with politics we'd have to keep one side or the other from highjacking it all..

a reply to: Observationalist

The way ideas are expressed on this board I worry about that idea.

That and this is a conspiracy website, so I doubt many would offer their location.

Never mind

..

a reply to: CriticalStinker

Good point.

I would think that those who genuinely care about the subject of the thread would be more inclined to contribute quality content. Trolls would be vetted out much easier with more genuine members invested in the discussion.

In my experiance many members reveal their location during the course of a thread. Many times because the subject of a thread relates directly to them and they feel compelled to share. Ultimately it would be a feature for members comfortable with that level of anonymity.

Functionaly, location would still be anonymous because no one could see what regions you subscribe to. If you wanted to you could assign your thread to multiple regions if you had to.

a reply to: Observationalist

Bud, I hope you weren't getting at me for deleting my comments. I'm not a problem fixer, and hesitate to give time to something I see as not my problem. I really really hope that was not a subtle dig. Maybe the critical stinker dude was right, too much b.s.. I'm also not a "member" being that I'm an independent human being and refuse to be branded by a website and website nonsense even I like ur idea..

a reply to: mericks74

Not at all, I'm all about putting ideas out there and refining them. I'm
Just one man, I might be missing something that makes this a bad idea.

I'm not married to it, I figured I throw it out there. Feel free to chop it up, I apreciate constructive criticism. Perhaps this post will spur some other better idea that accomplishes what I have in mind.

a reply to: Observationalist


Ah ok, we're good..

originally posted by: mericks74
a reply to: Observationalist

Bud, I hope you weren't getting at me for deleting my comments. I'm not a problem fixer, and hesitate to give time to something I see as not my problem. I really really hope that was not a subtle dig. Maybe the critical stinker dude was right, too much b.s.. I'm also not a "member" being that I'm an independent human being and refuse to be branded by a website and website nonsense even I like ur idea..

You are a member as that is what you signed up for. T'was your own doing so deal with it, it's no biggie.

a reply to: skalla

Don't bother me. Thanks..

a reply to: Observationalist

I think that if we had a way to address our threads to a region that they might get more attention, garnering more input from members who are familiar with the area who could provide deeper insight.

That already goes on.

Though I really have no idea if people are truthful or not when they say, I live right near there!

Good attention getter.

I doubt the site owners want peoples location to be highlighted either.

a reply to: Observationalist

I think that even local things could be interesting to others. So you end up having people not see content do to where they live. What you could do is everyone could have a catagory that would show local threads. Just add a catagory that would scan for it much like my ats.

'A' for effort but let me play devil's advocate. Suppose the Betty and Barney Hill case was only submitted as a local/regional bit? Or Roswell? Or JFK?

The thought may be for the author to request a move to Full Viewership. Or if a thread doesn't do well, to the Siberia section. In any case members will want to see what is going on in different areas and would need means to subscribe or unsubscribe to different areas.

Then to frustrate moderation, why can't locals type in their native languages? Trust me when I say that we have had many discussions over regional dialects of English as to whether a phrase was bad or good or just oddly worded.

It is a rabbit hole. Way back when you had to pay for monthly access to RATS with points (and avatar background colors for that matter), there was a degree of haves and have nots between older and newer members. And even that wasn't pretty all the time.

a reply to: Ahabstar

thought may be for the author to request a move to Full Viewership. Or if a thread doesn't do well, to the Siberia section. In any case members will want to see what is going on in different areas and would need means to subscribe or unsubscribe to different areas.

All post would be able to be viewed globally like normal. But by selecting a region upon creating a thread that thread would now also show up in the members Regional Favorite section in thier My ATS.

When one favorites a forum they are simply showing an interest in that forum and can easily find topics relevant to thier interest. It would function the same way when one favorties a region in my plan. Now members in My ATS could also see a list of topics relevant to my location Interests.

Nothing would change for members who don't want to use the feature. No sign up or submitting location information.

I suppose there could be the same thing for selecting prefered languages too.

Thanks for the feedback.

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: Observationalist

I think that even local things could be interesting to others. So you end up having people not see content do to where they live. What you could do is everyone could have a catagory that would show local threads. Just add a catagory that would scan for it much like my ats.

Yes, That is basically the idea. Use My ATS to filter topics relevant to your region.

This is a good idea, seen Globally, but if we choose to filter that out we can see our local events. So it isn't excluding anything, more giving us a way of refining what we see. I know we have a lot of fires and had a flood a few days ago where I live and weeding thru the political BS to find news has been frustrating at times. Especially since I hate to watch news on TV and they usually only show 20 second bites which tell us nothing anyway. So we end up having to physically go to the command centers and ask the police or fire guys which can be hazardous.

Although one thing I'd love even more than this is a new or changed tab on new/recent topics. Right now there's Conspiracy, off topic, flags, replies and new. The conspiracy button is anything but, it's overwhelmed by political bs. The Flags or replies button could be Politics allowing the Conspiracy button to actually, ya know, be conspiracies. Since that was why I came to ATS when it was still on ezboard and today it's even more important to me to see that aspect of "Above Top Secret" lol. And while the Political forums talk about "conspiracies" it's actually all partisan mud slinging and people fighting each other when it should be US fighting THEM as that's where the true conspiracies lie.

While I appreciate ATS's political portion for news bites and Breaking news, I can barely read it for all the sniping and general nastiness anymore. Since we cannot X out forums(can we bring this back please?) anymore to see in New and Recent we're forced to wade thru all that crap. And my ATS only shows 5 newest threads which isn't enough. And the 10million and one Trump did this posts scroll the good stuff off even those lists, since they only reload a certain amount.

If there was a politics button added we could actually see focused political forum posts and wade through them faster. Instead of the current tabs, maybe do them to the top group of forums, like News would show Breaking news and current Events group, then a Politics button, Conspiracies Button, Science and Mysterious Subjects could be a button, and off topic and "white" and religious forums together. Something like that.

Lil

a reply to: Observationalist

Ok, I see your point but that last thing I want is thinking 'this will be good for our communication' when in fact it's just another way to track us, to pigeonhole us, to control and really don't we have enough of that going on already?

Not that I think we have any anonymity at all - but the feeling of having some would be nice.

Anyway - there are enough forums here when someone can do a 'shout out' to 'people from the __________ are in the USA.'

Like 'Let's get together here all you from the North West' - or whatever.

peace