The Celebrities of ATS

OK on the serious side just in case the OverLords upstairs read this, I reallllly wish ALL political jargon would go into its own subcategory, like ATS verses BTS or RATS.

I know we have the political bs forums and such but it is a real drag and deterrent to see 80% of the main page filled with hate and CT distraction in the form of political rhetoric.

PLEASE give us back our forum~~~ Make ATS Great Again!!!

I used to be a lurker, had visited ATS since it began because I loved the 'out there stuff' it covered. I have to admit I mostly ended up joining when I did to try and help the discussions on the old 'out there' that seem to be dying off slowly.
I mean if I want politics and 'everything 'Murica' I have a billion other mainstream sites I can get that on. Not so much for UFO's, Aliens and the paranormal.
I mean heck I am sitting here with a picture of some American round table of poltician types as the background right at this moment.
(Many of us not being American, it kind of grates seeing a lot of content we cannot relate to or irrelevant for us. World does exist outside of the U.S borders.)

What Trump or Clinton are doing etc. Isn't really 'Top Secret' let alone above it, especially when it is quite public things being discussed.
Top Secret for me is the stuff the powers that be don't want the every day schlubs like us seeing. redacted documents, that kind of thing.

If I cared for what was happening on a public CNN or Fox broadcast I'd be watching CNN or Fox.

But yes, it seems like anything it has become mainstream and like sites like facebook and youtube soem seem more interested in posting as much as they can for some pixels on the screen.

It's not about the quality of the posts content, or sharing new and interesting things, it's click baiting, seeing how many likes, subscribes, stars and flags as you can. Again..... pixels. Crazy, not like stars and flags are bit coins you where if you earn 10,000 like or stars you can by a Porsche.

But to some people that is what it has become, a popularity contest. Attention seeking. Pushing agendas. Not having free and open discussion, no looking at both sides of the coin, no flexibility and compromise. But making people agree with you. My way or no way.
One benefit of the stars and flags I guess is the more you have the more you seem to be able to get away with, especially in relation to insulting people who challenge your viewpoint.

Again, pixels on a screen.

But then again this topic has been brought up many times over the years since American politics started infiltrating the site more and more and sadly it is not going to stop and I am afraid just going to get worse.

Best we can do is get active and try to get the 'original style' ATS content back on the front page. Quite a challenge as more and more only interested in politics and nothing else join the site with each day. Sadly the U.S population gives them an advantage of numbers.

Oh well only takes a second to get off the front page and into the forums of interest so no biggie really I guess. But it is kind of sad that ATS seems to have lost the focus on what it was once all about and has become so mainstream instead of challenging the mainstream as it once did.
That a lot of it's content is now attention seeking rabble rousing, "my teams better than your team" "I'm better than you"
That it is less "are aliens among us?" and more "transgenders should be able to pee in the little girls room".

Would honestly love to see how many would stick around or post as frequently as they do about absolute bull# if the S&F system was completely eradicated.
Go a feeling we'd see Trump and Clinton posts, or 'Murican politics and issues in general go down here, and facebooks posts would go up lol.
People might actually join discussion instead of just clicking on a little star.

Hmmm.... maybe we should get off the "YOU CAN ONLY LIKE EVERYTHING" bandwagon that has taken over the world in recent years and start adding a down vote option.

Be interesting to see the "ATS celebrities" upvote vs downvote. As for me the problem is if people only get likes and rewards it just encourages them to do more of the same. Maybe if they realized their content was more disliked than like they might rethink what they post and how they behave.

Heck even facebook has added an 'angry face' option.

I dunno, be nice to see this go back to what it once was. Leave all the mainstream stuff back in the places that already cover such things.
Sadly these days though, making the dollars and being popular matters more than quality of the content.
And more and more fringe sites seem to be going the same way. (Live Leak for example recently removed down voting. And oddly enough has had an increase in 'youtube worthy' content being featured....)

Man I miss when the Internet required PC skills and being a full blown nerd to be part of it lol.

As for the technical side of the things. I like to support websites. Being a website and graphic designer myself. I know how important revenue is.
But in saying that I know how important it is to relevant advertising content and for users to have a smooth experience.

I use an adblocker because I get tired of seeing Jesse Ventura videos and Backgrounds featuring the American government. Ads that are not relevant to me, and more often than not crash my browsers and give me performance issues.
If that changed I would gladly turn it off when visiting ATS or any other site that has similar issues because my PC's performance and me having a pleasant experience takes priority I am afraid.

Not much fun visiting a site when performs poorly or has technical issues due to the content it features.
The kind of problems that go away when said content is blocked.

Hell every page I get a pop up warning in my browser. If I click allow and all it does is change the freaking background of the site.
Don't get me wrong I love ATS, and most of its community. But some things could really be changed for the better around here.

Anyway that's my two cents.

I think all sites need to evolve in order to stay relevant in todays digital world.

ATS started off life as a niche site, which it fulfilled very well but, as with any niche market, the audience was self limiting in numbers.
I can understand why ATS opened the doors to a wider range of subject matter but in doing so, I feel that some of the original essence of Above Top Secret became diluted, with far less emphasis on all things dark and conspiracy related etc etc.

ATS is still a great site but I cannot help but question its very heart, its core values and ultimately its subject matter.

As another poster quite rightly said in this thread - if I want mainstream, I can go to any number of other sites.

Remember those heydays of ATS, when the site was brimming with highly informed, intelligent members, passionate about the sites then unique subject matter. Where it was actually difficult to keep up with the number of posts and posters.

The management used to run devilish egg hunt style competitions, where frenzied members would search hundreds of posts in order to identify clues and answers over a number of weeks.

When threads were filled with intelligent and lively debate. ATS held the crown of conspiracy related matter and was the must go place for this arena.

But that was then and I probably sound like one of those old timers talking about the good old days lol and if I'm perfectly honest, they weren't all good, especially when minds clashed, egos were bruised and passion sometimes over spilled into anger and resentment, resulting in insults and bans galore.

On the other hand, I don't think ATS will or can ever go back to being a niche forum.

Just imagine if management suddenly decided to remove all forum categories not directly related to conspiracy related material. Post creations would drop to miniscule levels and ATS would probably become a ghost town having already lost a large proportion of its conspiracy related membership. I don't even know if the site could recover from such an action.

I would certainly rather have ATS as it is today, than no ATS at all, that's for sure.

I just ponder sometimes on where exactly ATS is heading and what the long term outcome will be.

Ramblings over