Over the past several years, political bickering has been an inevitable and inescapable attribute of many ATS discussions involving current events.
Given the highly charged and stoked anti-liberal versus anti-conservative rhetoric saturating news, media, and even entertainment, it's no surprise
that we struggle with an invasion of political sniping during speculation of modern-day conspiracies.
One question in our recent poll sheds some interesting light on this subject, the question is: "
Do you agree with this statement: A conspiracy
exists in which the U.S. two-party political system has been systematically manipulated to create an environment of automated attacks of "the other
side" over mundane issues as a means to deflect serious discussion away from important topics?"
With over 1,300 responses so far, 65% indicated they agree with that statement... I expected a statistical toss-up.
Given this new information, combined with Majic's efforts to bring improved decorum and intelligence to our Political forum, I've made a singular
unilateral decision that may either prove popular, or send me running form an angry mob!
select Politics @ ATS forums are now included in the ATS
"New Posts" page.
It's clear that the condition of the liberal-versus-conservative environment is a high candidate for serious conspiracy speculation... and we can't
consider valid conspiracy theories by ignoring the nature of "debate".
Also, the increasingly incendiary situation in the Middle-East is covered in greater depth on PTS. It makes sense to bring those active threads into
the realm of ATS "New Posts" for our members who are active in those topics.
That being said, we're not without compassion for those who wish to avoid even the titles of political threads. A new feature has appeared in the
Member Center,
ATS Customizations. With the new controls, members can
specify what they would like displayed on the ATS New Posts page...
- You can limit threads to ATS-only
- You can display both ATS and PTS threads (default)
- You can even specify a limit to only your myATS subscribed forums
We live in troubling times. And in many cases, the knowledge available on ATS only results in an increase in our collective anxiety. No discussion
board can influence any degree of change in global events, however, through our collaborative exchange of information, ideas, and theories we all
learn a bit more. With that new learning, we can make informed decisions.