Members: Proposed ATSNN.com Changes

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
Is this all about traffic and dollars anymore, SO? I honestly want to know. Someone has to ask the tough questions around here, and as usual I don't mind. If you can can give us some good reasons why this move is geared towards quality, and not quantity, I am all ears.

Just to pipe in here, do the administrators really need to substantiate their intentions? If this move is geared towards traffic &/or revenue, is it really such a bad thing? Any dollar made is a dollar that can be put back into the community. So wouldn't we all benefit from extra features that would become accessible over time?

As for the quality versus quantity, I don't think we need to give up any quality to maintain quantity. Whether restrictions are being alleviated or not, the level of discussion that exists on ATS will remain constant.

I agree with TA.

Originally posted by TrueAmerican

2) With this system, the high quality, well sourced articles we used to see on ATSNN will be no longer.

I have authored a couple news items on ATSNN and after getting the hang of it, and realizing what was expected in ATSNN, it made me like this forum the most on ATS.

When I go to ATSNN, which is probably where I go the most, I know I am going to see current news authored by somebody who read the article, has an opinion about it, and thought it was important enough to post on ATSNN because they took the time to submit it following stringent rules for submitting an article to ATSNN.

Without the guidelines that are there now, I think you will end up having people posting anything in the news that attracts their attention instead of news that they even have an opinion about or think is really important.

7) If you can can give us some good reasons why this move is geared towards quality, and not quantity, I am all ears.

I don't see how this will help the quality of ATSNN.

Edit: I just went to ATSNN. I liked it better the old way.

Now whoever starts a news item in ATSNN just has to see the news article first and doesn't even have to read the article to understand it. Now it seems like a "who can find an article first" forum instead of a place where you actually have to read the news article you posted, understand it, and think it is worthy enough for the ATSNN forum.

[edit on 18/2/07 by Keyhole]

Originally posted by TrueAmerican

2) With this system, the high quality, well sourced articles we used to see on ATSNN will be no longer.

How so?

All that is removed is the posters initial commentary, and in exchange, we are getting rid of the processof having the article be pending for approval, and then becoming a submission, and then sitting and waiting for enough votes to make it a full article. Now its quickly put up and ready for discussion instantly.

I think it serves the real purpose of ATSNN, to have an ATS geared focus on the news. To highlight news stories that are relevant to ATS.

4) I don't understand why you just don't kill ATSNN alltogether, seeing as the rest of the ATS, AP, and BTS boards cover just about anything anyone could want to submit.

You could then consider this to be something of a compromise between keeping it as it is, and ditching it all together. And if it doesn't really work out like its supposed to, it can be changed again, or eliminated completely.

I think that this revamping will make ATSNN, even if it doesnt' exist in name anymore, much more exciting, useful, and relevant.

[edit on 18-2-2007 by Nygdan]

All of these critiques are based on the assumption that the staff is suddenly going to fall asleep and fail to moderate the content itself. Do we actually believe that the level of content we see on ATS is suddenly going to plummet?

I think we have very little to worry about.

Originally posted by chissler
Do we actually believe that the level of content we see on ATS is suddenly going to plummet?

I think we have very little to worry about.

Have you recently visited the aliens section? Or read the thread about Leslie Powers discovering Osama on Myspace which lead to his capture through the FBI?

How about the "I have prayed to the reptilians thread"?

This will certainly lower the standard of news being presented, people will start posting from the Pravda or the india daily or some other balony news site, just wait and see.

I see both sides to this story.

I do feel that the story will not be read and fully understood by those who post it. It will be as someone described earlier "a see who finds the article first forum" though Nygdan pointed out a useful benefit of it being that the articles will no longer be sitting around pending and in submission. As I have wanted to comment on some before they were out of pending and was not able to.

I tried earlier to make a news article and it just didn't feel personal to me anymore. So I just decided against making it. I'm sure I will get used to the new format but it will take awhile.

When I first joined ATS back in '04, ATSNN is what kept me coming back. In this wonderful community, I found a niche where I felt I could contribute. Back in those days ATSNN looked like a "news page", we had a reporting staff, editors and a "bullpen", a place to toss around ideas and possible articles to try and present the best to our community. I am sure it took a whole lot of time for the editors, and SO, to produce this and their time was better focused on other areas, eventually the "news page" disappeared and ATSNN was absorbed back into the more manageable format as the rest of the forums are.

I understand all of this, but if you look back to those "news page" days, you will find that the page views were consistently in the 1000+
range and you would have some with over 10000 views in spite of the smaller post count. Many people were getting there news from ATS, maybe people liked the fact that we were reporting events worldwide using worldwide sources and not spoonfeeding them as the mainstream, I don't know, it could have been SO's fabulous page layout, we'll never know.

I especially enjoyed the coverage of hurricanes and other weather related events as they unfolded in near realtime with Nerdling and the team along with eyewitness reports from members that was never heard on regular news sources.

ATSNN also had some very fine OP/ED's from many members, but I digress.

I guess to me it's like ATSNN has terminal cancer and while we like what it once was, it might be more compassionate to let it die with dignity than wither away before our eyes......

Just a former reporter's opinion.....

I would just repeat my earlier assertion that Other Current Events should be retired, since the successor to ATSNN really be no different than it is.

As far as quality, I think it's been steadily declining since the first move to get rid of the editor system. This new change won't really change much since as far as I could tell the change from (pending) status to (submission) status was a rubber stamp, and without an option to vote no, almost all submissions were eventually voted up.

Skeptic alluded that the current ATSNN programming is standing in the way of the new flag architecture, so if making this change will better the site as a whole, I'm all for it.

Originally posted by Fett Pinkus

How about the "I have prayed to the reptilians thread"?

This will certainly lower the standard of news being presented, people will start posting from the Pravda or the india daily or some other balony news site, just wait and see.

Exactly what I fear! It won't be worthy news, it'll be news spam.

The number of submissions will rise drastically. A lot of work awaiting the moderators, moving and trashing submissions. Because I do take for granted that a quality criteria still will exist! ...but maybe I'm wrong.

Don't hope the only criteria will be it is "news".

One thing for sure, I'll miss the old ATSNN.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
I would just repeat my earlier assertion that Other Current Events should be retired, since the successor to ATSNN really be no different than it is.

agreed.

Other Current Events should be removed now. I felt it should of gone a while back 'cause that OCE did hold ATSNN back.

Snips and links will be interesting for those who do it for about five minutes. What makes this different from any of the RSS content feeds that are so easily available? News is news, but context and point of view are the two ingredients that can make it interesting. Is it so wrong t oask people to engage their brains before bringing a news item to anyone's attention?

I've got my own concerns about ATSNN, but the bottom line is that something is better than nothing. I understand that it doesn't get much traffic. I'm sure that one reason for the lack of traffic is the requirement to write with some degree of cogency. We are not all of us skilled writers, nor are we all schooled in the canons of journalism. You've gotten what you asked for with ATSNN as it is now.

If you ask for less, you'll get it. it may be easier to maintain, but it'll still be less than what you've got now. If it's not worth the cost of keeping it online, kill it. I think we can all respect a business decision. Rather than dumb down the news feed, why not ask for something different?

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
1) You might consider not augmenting the submitting member's post count on the initial submission. I really don't understand the reason to axe the member commentary on submissions? Is this because newer members frequently do this, and just post an article with no commentary?

I think I explained it here, but maybe it needs more detail for some. As many know, I'm deeply involved in the Internet industry as well as ATS. There's increasing activity from news sources to clamp down on "inappropriate usage" of their material. There's no solid information to indicate that, as things shake out, these news operations will be satisfied with anything more than simple headline linkage. In some regards, even our minimal approach (an organized system of news submission and commentary) creates a self-contain post that is easily classified as a derivative work and potential target of legal action. So we've adopted what appears to be a compromise common-ground that news sources will accept... the Digg approach.

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
2) With this system, the high quality, well sourced articles we used to see on ATSNN will be no longer. Who's going to bother anymore posting related links, and related ATS links? And members can forget about receiving any applause for the submissions as well, with no commentary allowed.

Staff can and will applaud submissions of quality stories. In fact, no such method of reward exists for DIGG, people participate because of an interest in share and analyzing news.

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
3) A 48-hour time limit on submissions may not be a wise idea, seeing as many great articles get discovered by ATS members well after that time period at more obscure websites days or weeks,

The name of the forum is evolving to the "Breaking News" forum. If there is older news, then the current events or other topically-correct forum would be a better idea (it seems to work that way now anyway).

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
4) I don't understand why you just don't kill ATSNN alltogether, seeing as the rest of the ATS, AP, and BTS boards cover just about anything anyone could want to submit.

We are killing the domain, and redirecting to the forum list (for now).

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
6) Maybe it's just me, but it seems that traffic on ATSNN decreased as quality decreased.

Actually, it has a lot to do with new policies in Google. About 80% of the ATSNN.com traffic came from Google searches. Since then, they've modified their algorithms and spidering systems to place duplicate content (such as than on ATSNN.com) in a "supplemental" category that is rarely included in search returns. With everything else going on within the ATS universe, it's best we focus our energies on the core site, and building new and better core features.

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
Is this all about traffic and dollars anymore, SO? I honestly want to know. Someone has to ask the tough questions around here, and as usual I don't mind. If you can can give us some good reasons why this move is geared towards quality, and not quantity, I am all ears.

Good Reasons: See above.

For almost ten years, ATS has been a hobby for Simon. For nearly five years it's been that way for me... and about four years for Springer. Thanks to everyone involved, ATS has the potential to evolve from hobby to business and we are indeed internally speculating on how that might happen. If that ever happens, I can assure you that a focus on the members and quality will always be the primary concern... it's what got us here in the first place.

And if we were "all about traffic and dollars", we'd be working hard to make as many domains/sites stay active to increase ad impressions... this change actually decreases those impressions.

Originally posted by Implosion
I decided to give it a try, posted this.
Obviously a UK story, looks very bleak to me.

We'll be refining the presentation with a new "home" for the news forum, and improved thread layout for Forum One. Stay tuned.

Originally posted by Keyhole
Without the guidelines that are there now, I think you will end up having people posting anything in the news that attracts their attention instead of news that they even have an opinion about or think is really important.

I don't disagree with concerns over quality... but I feel it can be covered in the submitter's follow-up post and the posts of others who respond to the news thread.

But let's be realistic, we've been using the copyrighted information of big companies to create derivative works in a special forum dedicated to news. As the Internet evolves and major newspapers begin to indicate their futures are online, not in print, our method was short-lived at best. The more we take proactive steps to redefine the approach, the better our result will be.



So, to summarize quickly...
1) This is in response to rumblings of protecting intellectual property
2) Quality commentary is still anticipated in your follow-up post
3) The presentation layout will improve
4) A new "Forum One" index page will replace ATSNN.com
5) You still have all the tools you need to make is good as you want it to be.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Other Current Events should be retired, since the successor to ATSNN really be no different than it is.

I'm sorry, but I really liked ATSNN the way it was. I have submitted a bunch of articles/ATSNN news worthy events there in the past.

I haven't lately, because there hasn't been anything in the news that moved me enough (or maybe somebody had already started a thread about it) that I thought was worthy enough for ATSNN.

I have had "Submissions" to ATSNN that were deemed unworthy, (and they probably were), and it was sent to the "Current Events" forum.

So now the quality of ATSNN threads only have to be "good" enough for the "Current Event" category.

Just because ATSNN is a little slow, I really don't think it should be changed.

Edit: I posted this, was probably typing this, while S.O. posted his response above my post. I now understand why you are changing ATSNN now.

"You gotta to do what you gotta to do".

And we all know that every thing you do is for the better of ATS.

Sorry I was so critical of the ATSNN change.

I know it probably isn't easy for you (S.O.) to keep up with all the "legalities" of the internet, so, after reading your above post, I wish I could wipe my criticism out because I didn't understand why these changes had to be made.



[edit on 18/2/07 by Keyhole]

So what's the best bbcode tag to use in regards to posting a news article in the rest of the forum(s)?

Shall it be [ex], [news] or [exnews]?

Bush resigns, Cheney crowned King of America CCCP News

Cheney was crowned king in highly provocative move that has stunned the world. A hidden clause in US Constitution was overlooked for 230 years and now taken advantage of by the Dick.

Bush resigns, Cheney crowned King of America CCCP News

Cheney was crowned king in highly provocative move that has stunned the world. A hidden clause in US Constitution was overlooked for 230 years and now taken advantage of by the Dick.

Originally posted by Fett Pinkus
Have you recently visited the aliens section?

No. I have no personal interest in it, other than reading "headliners" such as O'Hare.

Originally posted by Fett Pinkus
Or read the thread about Leslie Powers discovering Osama on Myspace which lead to his capture through the FBI?

Has anyone proved Leslie to be a hoaxer? Last time I checked, No. And I posted on that thread quite frequently for some time. However, I do believe the thread is in the Skunk Works Forum. So what is the problem?

"Free & Open Wild Conspiracy Theory Discussion On Any Topic Or Event"

That is the description of the forum. So what is the problem with that thread? Seems your problem exists with the forum, not the thread.

Originally posted by Fett Pinkus
How about the "I have prayed to the reptilians thread"?

Never heard of it.

Originally posted by Fett Pinkus
This will certainly lower the standard of news being presented, people will start posting from the Pravda or the india daily or some other balony news site, just wait and see.

Facts, Opinions, two different things. This is your opinion on the subject. Considering the transition has barely taken effect, I hardly see how we can pass our opinions off for facts.

What you seem to be doing is taking two or three "far fetched" threads and painting all of the content on ATS with it. A few members come along and discuss an issue that seems to be quite absurd, this in turn is an indication that all of ATS, and it's content are turning into some form of drivel?

Hardly.

May I ask why you feel that this move, or three "extreme" threads, are any true indication of the content on ATS? Do you really believe that it gives a fair indication to the level of content on these boards?

I liked ATSNN, and am slightly disappointed to see it phased out. But that slight disappointment quickly changes to optimism with the new approach that is being implemented.

I did my own test of the new submission standards, and thought about it for quite a while. First I waited a few hours to see what responses to the news item would be, then added my own thoughts. Personally I really like the ability to post my thoughts separate from the OP. It is much more easy to express a personal opinion away from the news article, without concerns of complaints of bias etc.

I posted my follow up comments on a news report I submitted here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I don't think I would have ever added that much opinion to a news submission in the past where it was in the OP. The new process could be much more liberating, and perhaps improve the followup discussions.

In ATSNN, and now the new Breaking News forum, I believe the "good stuff" always occurs in the followup discussion anyway.

Well I just submitted my first news post so I hope I did everything right.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
So, to summarize quickly...
1) This is in response to rumblings of protecting intellectual property

Had that been stated initially I don't think I would have had any trouble adapting to any method you want to use. I realize you guys don't have to state anything as to why you are going to change something, because that is certainly your perogative. But it took over two years before I finally understood why I was axed as a staff reporter, when Springer posted that it was really because of legal issues with ATSNN and copyright law that the ATSNN staff reporting system had to go. But yet when the news was handed out, there really was no explanation to that effect for the change. And frankly it felt pretty damn cold after the long hours, weeks and months I spent scouring the news for controversial stories that fit the content of this site.

I hate to see ATSNN go, but now I at least understand the reasons why. That part is helpful. Good luck with the new system.

Originally posted by chissler
All of these critiques are based on the assumption that the staff is suddenly going to fall asleep and fail to moderate the content itself. Do we actually believe that the level of content we see on ATS is suddenly going to plummet?

I think we have very little to worry about.

Right, that isn't gonna happen.
And remember, stories older than 48 hours will be moved.


I really like this approach SO
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
But it took over two years before I finally understood why I was axed as a staff reporter, when Springer posted that it was really because of legal issues with ATSNN and copyright law that the ATSNN staff reporting system had to go.

I recall initiating a thread in the ATSNN staff forum on the very issue of IP concerns and the ATSNN reporter system.

In any event... online sources of news coverage are getting more aggressive in protecting their material... and ATS has always strived to be respectful of the intellectual property of others. I think we have good balance.