The UFO/Aliens board is full of outlandish claims and people dismissing those claims out of hand as being so preposterous that they don't deserve the time of day, they do a discredit to the whole thing.

I say the opposite is true! No genuine case would ever come forward in this environment. Most of us would agree that we don't know for sure much of anything, there is so much delusion, disinformation and hoaxing going on, no-one will ever make sense of anything and disclosure isn't happening. We should get as much info as we can and categorise it, we should get as much out in the open as possible and make it easy to do so. Stop threads degenerating into petty bickering.

My idea is that we seperate threads into sections after a period of time, perhaps a poll can be taken. The sections that threads should be classified could be something like this: (on the basis that we aint 'proving' anything anytime soon)

1. Possible - Contains credibility
2. Possible - Interesting
3. Undecided - Worth a Look
4. Disinformation
5. Hoax - Probably
6. Hoax - And a Bad One
7. Padded Room

In short, no-one with anything genuine will ever come forward. I can see that this is a community of intelligent beings and we should be perfectly capable of holding a discussion with any claim, story, photo, video etc, I just think the approach could be different.

As we wish to deny ignorance, I think it is ignorant to dismiss anything out of hand. Let people come on and share their experiences. We'll give them a fair hearing with inquisitive freindliness and pertinent, interesting questions. They will stand or fall, but we'll do it properly.

After a period of time, we get to vote which category the thread belongs. The thread may continue and take a downturn or upturn and a re-vote can be called to move the thread to another category if necessary. Everything else stays on the main board until first voted or it is of a subject that doesn't require the vote (such as news or items of general interest).

Bad hoaxes, delusionals, egotists etc etc will simply not hold up amongst such esteemed company and this in itself will discourage the chaff and enourage the genuine. We just have to be confident in the ATS community to democratically vote the thread into the correct category. We'll learn a lot by this alone about the community and their thought processes.

Tell me that doesn't sound like fun! And out of all the mud, there will be a few nuggets. The category system will help impressionable people from being influenced and will direct them to the information in a more constructive manner.

I think it would be fun, the voting will be cool, it will give a greater chance of something of value coming along and it will give plenty of active discussion and things to pull to pieces, to laugh at or to wonder, while we wait for the nuggets.

Of course, it only works if ATS introduce the categories for 'filing' and a vote or poll system but I think it would be good.

I think it's a very good idea, but (don't you hate that word!!) but I don't think it would work out as planned. There will be people who think that anything to do with aliens is trash and completely unbelievable. If those people happen to outnumber those who think a certain thread is believable, then the topic of the thread is doomed to be called a hoax even if it is not. It is a good idea though. If there were some way to guard against that, I think it would work.

Problem is categorising with folders/forums is no different to categorising by opinion posts. Even if somebody had video of a very real physical experience,and put the video here, how would you know? some would say trick photography photoshop/videodigital manipulation of the highest order, impressive hoax etc.
no evidence bar physical tangible artifacts or living moving beings would satisfy anyone, ever, and theres no way to show such a thing tobe real an of extra terrestrial origin if you had it to begin with.
If you went forward with such a claim and evidence, it would be appropriated by the scientific community and then by goverment (no conspiracy needed, national treasure etc) anyway, and no documents showing findings could be proven authentic anyway.
This is a place for folk to fantasize, no more, nobody with real evidence wouldtell anyone ever much less on a site like this, there wuld be no point.
Enjoy the kooky storys of Reptilian rape and citys in the sky etc and be satisfied.
barring such anunlikely event should ever happen to you, you are left with kooky storys/faith/beleif alone.
Escapism is great!

Originally posted by Torn
Even if somebody had video of a very real physical experience,and put the video here, how would you know? some would say trick photography photoshop/videodigital manipulation of the highest order, impressive hoax etc.
no evidence bar physical tangible artifacts or living moving beings would satisfy anyone, ever, and theres no way to show such a thing tobe real an of extra terrestrial origin if you had it to begin with.

Right Therefore there needs to some system where there is some logic attributed to the thread. Otherwise, how do any new people to the subject know what the hell is what?

If you went forward with such a claim and evidence, it would be appropriated by the scientific community and then by goverment (no conspiracy needed, national treasure etc) anyway, and no documents showing findings could be proven authentic anyway.

Right again. The same point though as before. Very few people KNOW for sure very little. That's the problem!

This is a place for folk to fantasize...

Enjoy the kooky storys of Reptilian rape and citys in the sky etc and be satisfied.
barring such anunlikely event should ever happen to you, you are left with kooky storys/faith/beleif alone.
Escapism is great!

I think you are missing the point somewhat. This is always going to happen. Rather than be frustrated at it, it gets your vote that it is what it is. If you think a story or claim or whatever is pie in the sky, you get the opportunity to say so without derailing the thread. The more like minded people that share your sentiments will vote is similarly and the thread will languish (or thrive) where it belongs. I believe it would cut out some of the unnecesary arguments, would increase the amount of thoughtful debate and will fool no-one in the long run.

Originally posted by Jenna
I think it's a very good idea, but (don't you hate that word!!) but I don't think it would work out as planned. There will be people who think that anything to do with aliens is trash and completely unbelievable. If those people happen to outnumber those who think a certain thread is believable, then the topic of the thread is doomed to be called a hoax even if it is not. It is a good idea though. If there were some way to guard against that, I think it would work.

Yes, this may be a problem but the proposal I put forward may not be the be all and end all and the system itself may need to evolve. To combat such things as you mention you could introduce any number of rules to make the system work. Some examples may be...

1. Only people who have posted in the thread may vote.
2. Only 1 vote per person.
3. Thread only becomes eligible for a vote after a certain number of pages or posts or something else.
4. Threads can be revoted every 5 pages.
5. Some threads aren't open for voting at all. (to be previously decided or moderated)
6. OP is not allowed to vote in their own thread.
and so on.

Prote, i can clearly understand your point but "ignorance" in this specific realm is a very relative term. What i see as BS can feel like the absolute truth too you and we could end up beeing wrong both of us. As far as voting goes, the world is full of examples were voting is a very faulty way of forwarding one thing opposed another thing, it´s a dangerous place to go.

I also fully understand the wish to get some kind of sectioning because there´s stuff going on in all dimensions at the same time in here, it can get messy and sometimes i get the feeling that topics are too widespread, discussions quickly loose substance, strafe off topic and people get rude which eventually might shut down a thread which could proof to hold valuable discussion.

I would kinda believe it would be better to separate it more like, general alien discussion, abductions/encounters, UFO observations, the alien/government connection and probably a section just called "debunked" or something like that.

I´m curious...a question for you "old timers" on this board, what was it like here two years ago?

Originally posted by tomra
I would kinda believe it would be better to separate it more like, general alien discussion, abductions/encounters, UFO observations, the alien/government connection and probably a section just called "debunked" or something like that.

That's more along the lines of what I was looking for....suggestions. I'm not suggesting that the voting system is the way to go, I prefer it because it has some interest and fun element to it.

I´m curious...a question for you "old timers" on this board, what was it like here two years ago?

I second this question. I would also like to hear more about the voting system that was in place but abused. How was it abused? and was this the only reason it was removed from ATS?

The problem is this:

We have three basic kinds of people in the world:

1. People that can think for themselves and envision things.
2. People that cannot think for themselves and need to be told what is going on.
3. People that can think for themselves but are system players.

But when you have a system that desires to hide the truth from the people then you have group #1 fighting group #3 while group #2 looks on in disbelief.

Until the system decides to tell the truth and bring on group #2 with group #1 in retribution against group #3 then nothing is going to happen.

The change can come from within if enough insiders come out and spill the beans because the system knows that hiding the truth all these years will bring great public wrath upon their heads.

I'm betting that the system may allow this to happen eg. let insiders come forward in order to look the other way and drag out disclosure like the cowards they are.

But otherwise I like your classification system and it does have merit but only in the continuing struggle between groups #1 and #3.

I don't think it's a good idea, because almost everyone thought that my thread about my fathers experience was bull#, but it wasn't.
We don't want real stories to be categorized as bull# just because people have a hard time believing in it.
But for the obvious ones I agree.

[edit on 2006/8/1 by TrappedSoul]

Originally posted by TrappedSoul
I don't think it's a good idea, because almost everyone thought that my thread about my fathers experience was bull#, but it wasn't.
We don't want real stories to be categorized as bull# just because people have a hard time believing in it.

[edit on 2006/8/1 by TrappedSoul]

That is exactly the kind of thing i fear would happen with any kind of "rating" system. IMHO if finding the truth is a part of the objective then we cannot afford to scare ANYONE away no matter how wild their claims are...and i don´t think we have to. Surely there must be a way to organize things in such fashion that you can be more selective about what suites your interest.

Prote, i agree, the voting business would be interesting at least for the sake of seeing which way the wind blows but can´t that be solved through some kind of a poll sytem?

I'm giving this old thread a bump because I think it's relevant to what the board seems to be discussing at the moment and their are a lot of threads about.

I think the classification should be a bit different. Regarding the subject matter not the poster.

UFOs (video, photo, accounts)

ET's (same as above)

Less typical ET variants (the damn reptilians etc etc... the stuff i detest)

People who think they are ETs (chuck AA and a few others in there to play in their own sandbox).


There is some very interesting information of this forum, and a lot of intelligent people. However, until we weed out the ones taking advantage of us, or making claims so outrageous that it destroys any credibility this forum ever had, we will get no where.

Well, the idea was intended as a general one to go through what system of classification might work. Of course I posted this before the board business and questions threads.