Transparency On The Future of ATS

a reply to: Ahabstar

I was going to do the same thing but I think some people have their minds made up on the matter. I distinctly remember having real, civil, and yes sometimes spirited political discussions with quite a few members opposed to me in quite a few threads over the years. Even had my mind changed on a few issues right here on these boards. Ante and krazyshot are just a few that come to mind. I could look for those threads but I don't think it would change anything here.

a reply to: FauxMulder

I hear it all the time and then I say well what are the big conspiracies and I get: JFK Assassination, UFO Cover Up, 9/11 was an inside job, Pearl Harbor, the Gold Standard, the Federal Reserve...all that non-political stuff.

But no one wants to call the attempted impeachment of a president on the flimsiest of charges that ended up with the Speaker tearing up a SOTU speech like a damn child throwing a temper tantrum a conspiracy because that would be admitting there was some sort of planning involved instead of a random cluster#.

But yeah...politics.

originally posted by: Ahabstar
a reply to: FauxMulder

I hear it all the time and then I say well what are the big conspiracies and I get: JFK Assassination, UFO Cover Up, 9/11 was an inside job, Pearl Harbor, the Gold Standard, the Federal Reserve...all that non-political stuff.

But no one wants to call the attempted impeachment of a president on the flimsiest of charges that ended up with the Speaker tearing up a SOTU speech like a damn child throwing a temper tantrum a conspiracy because that would be admitting there was some sort of planning involved instead of a random cluster#.

But yeah...politics.

The impeachment thing certainly warrants inspection, and there are a couple of good threads covering it. There is always going to be the odd decent discussion. Unfortunately they tend to be buried among the mass of poo-throwing threads that get all the stars and flags just because they say something nasty about which ever flavour politics they dislike.

originally posted by: PaddyInf
There is always going to be the odd decent discussion. Unfortunately they tend to be buried among the mass of poo-throwing threads that get all the stars and flags just because they say something nasty about which ever flavour politics they dislike.

That's what I call the "Facebook syndrome".

People got used to Facebook and its "likes", so now they expect only "likes" and support from other people, as Facebook doesn't have a "dislike" feature and it's easy to ignore people that do not agree with us. Now most people expect only support for their posts and react angrily when they see a negative comment because they only expect to be "liked".
The worst cases really think that all they say is right, and we can already see people reacting like that in real life too.

a reply to: Ahabstar

Link me some quality ones now?

You aren't going to sell me on the dumpster fire I'm afraid.

As soon as I read political comments along the lines of 'ts a shame we cant put them in a sack and drown em like kittens..." I tune out - and thats in your 'not a deplorable measuring contest' thread.

Also, if I wanted to read how to make Almond milk I'd consult a recipe, not a "political" thread.

Your opinion of 'quality' is skewed.

a reply to: neformore

Quality
Skewed
Opinion

Can you honestly complain if you added to the “abyss” or is it okay because you are not American and therefore exempt?

Which would be ethnocentrism and is the basis of the whole left-right dance because “my team is the good guys and your team is the bad guys”

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: galaga

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

So, by all appearances, you can't discuss an issue without swearing?? Really? That sounds like a you problem to me, not an ATS problem.

SO has explained the whys of it all.

Not swearing is, shall we say, way, way down the list of reasons.

I swear like a drunken sailor on a six day pass, yet can have perfectly civil conversations in real life, and on line, without doing so.

Banning is never petty, irregardless of what you may think. Do you honestly think that ATS likes to ban people who contribute to the site??

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.

I think back in the day, when mods didn't agree with your opinion, they would ban you. Ask anyone that has been here for over a decade. It drove alot of people away.

a reply to: galaga

I have been a mod for a decade now. One secret I can assure you is absolutely true is that people ban themselves by failing to abide to the Terms and Conditions that we all agreed to follow. The staff do indeed try to work with members but there comes a point of diminishing returns for time involved.

Threats over having an Off Topic post removed hit that point very quickly. And yes, that most minor offense of an OT (we don’t even count them unless there is a long list of them that were trolling but we went light) tends to bring out the worst in some people. The big ones have always been Political Trolling, Manners and X-post (which is a serious T&C violation such as bigotry, hoaxing, general trolling, links to gore, etc. And the Mudpit was created to give people a place to blow off stream against politicians and politics without getting P-Trolls...not to rip each other.

a reply to: galaga

Codswallop!! How durst thee, scurvy knave!?!!

Firstly, thou woulds't entreat the owners to grant the sullying of the pristine discourse of ATS by acquiescing in the spewing forth of scurrilous epithets...

...And still yet, anon, must thou cast egregious aspersions upon the noble souls who give so freely of their time to so moderately preserve the equanimity of these venerable boards?!?

Fie, foul fiend!! Miscreant cur!!!

Is't thou art a dunce?! A dotard?!

Get thee a dictionary...aye, and a thesaurus too!!!

a reply to: Ahabstar

Actually, I think the contents of those three threads also proves the point.

And damn, you realised I'm not American. Well done you. Gold star. Now tell me something relevant to the conversation.

originally posted by: galaga

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: galaga

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

So, by all appearances, you can't discuss an issue without swearing?? Really? That sounds like a you problem to me, not an ATS problem.

SO has explained the whys of it all.

Not swearing is, shall we say, way, way down the list of reasons.

I swear like a drunken sailor on a six day pass, yet can have perfectly civil conversations in real life, and on line, without doing so.

Banning is never petty, irregardless of what you may think. Do you honestly think that ATS likes to ban people who contribute to the site??

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.

I think back in the day, when mods didn't agree with your opinion, they would ban you. Ask anyone that has been here for over a decade. It drove alot of people away.

Note to all, member's sign up date is 2015 and member is complaining about Mod enforcement of the TAC policy a decade ago. Obvious ax to grind is obvious.

a reply to: galaga

Yeah... I've been here longer (lurker, member, mod, supermod, member of TAN, LLC) than anyone other than Simon, WOS may he rest in peace and a tiny handful of others, and what you are saying is absolutely 100% false. Bans are done by consensus and there are staff action logs for everything from warns and applauses to bans. It is not possible for someone to be banned by a single staffer for differing opinions.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say you have been poorly informed as opposed to calling you a liar.

a reply to: Ahabstar

a reply to: Djarums

I confirm the information on the posts above.

And, being a fan of statistics, I even have some (private) stats about it.

a reply to: neformore

1. The site is actively being defunded by Google.
2. Over 2/3 of the daily hits come from both members and non-members using ad blockers.

The rubicon of sustainable financing has been passed. Those are the relevant factors.

If it was proven that Google was using ad revenues to silence websites over political viewpoints and positions, the lawsuits would finance ATS well into what whatever replaces the internet and probably whatever replaces that as well.

Politics may be why you became disenchanted and stepped away from everything. We never discussed it and I respected your decision and privacy enough to not ask about it as it seemed to be a sore subject. I know I personally have grown weary of the lowered levels of Civility and Decorum...especially from longtime members that absolutely know better. Then again I remember conversations back from when you sported a Captain Britain from Excalibur avatar...and that was a long time ago.

originally posted by: Ahabstar
I know I personally have grown weary of the lowered levels of Civility and Decorum...

We're still in the Eternal September. That long slow meandering into collective Idiocracy: The decline of manners and the rise of stupid.

No place is safe from the unintended consequences of the Internet.

originally posted by: Ahabstar

If it was proven that Google was using ad revenues to silence websites over political viewpoints and positions, the lawsuits would finance ATS well into what whatever replaces the internet and probably whatever replaces that as well.

Now there's a conspiracy that could be proven one way or the other. If it could be proven that Alphabet was taking down alternative sites in favor of their chosen sites, and the sites that don't rock their agenda, then we might be on to something.

Funny thing this internet is, it's like an ocean of knowledge, and not a field of flowers. If one path is blocked you can just sail around it to the same destination you started for.

If alphabet is doing this then shouldn't we be exposing that?

Heres an idea.

Unban everybody. What have you got to lose?

Youve whittled your userbase down to nothing. The only ones left are the sarcastic ridiculors & finger pointers.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I avoided both the Compuserve and AOL scenes (although I found the free floppies handy). I did however have an Apple eWorld account that granted me a few perks like advanced tech support numbers and some free replacement dongles when I explained an experiment I wanted to try with an old Newton Message Pad 2000. It did work, I had a webpage hosted on a Newton with a simple guestbook for signing.

Things we did in 1995.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

And trying all the gimmicks. Like Reddit Gold, and all the myriad other awards one can purchase to bestow on the inane.

There are several ways to open your wallet on Reddit. Most of the users I like mock those attempts.

a reply to: Guyfriday

Occam's razor and hindsight is like johnny on the spot, only after the mean time.

If you don't mind, I'd like to circulate the screengrab I took of your posting on my twitter feed. Is it OK?