Above Top Secret is dying!!

Above Top Secret is dying!

Yes it's true, you might as well collect the nails for the coffin, ATS is dying of an insipid cancer that is spreading out of control. Despite the best efforts of our brilliant digital physician/moderators, the cancer has spread from the Religion & Spiritualism forum and is now destroying vital tissue in nearly every forum.

Some brief examples of this horrid cancer can be seen in these threads pulled from the list of "Today's Posts"

- - xmb.abovetopsecret.com...
- - xmb.abovetopsecret.com...
- - xmb.abovetopsecret.com...
- - xmb.abovetopsecret.com...
- - xmb.abovetopsecret.com...
- - xmb.abovetopsecret.com...
- - xmb.abovetopsecret.com...
- - xmb.abovetopsecret.com...
- - xmb.abovetopsecret.com...
- - xmb.abovetopsecret.com...

As you can see; this dark, evil cancer has taken the form of either pointless meandering original posts, or similar mindless follow up posts.

People, our beloved community is under attack of the most horrible kind, bland content. It has taken the form of vapid posts of all varieties in all topical sections! The innocuousness of this horrid disease has a strangle hold on us and has caused even our most esteemed members to respond to these bland topics for lack of anything else to do!

Kind denizens of ATS I implore you; Elevate, Concentrate, and Differentiate!

Elevate the quality of your posts! Give us quality not quantity! We yearn for new ideas with the merit of deep contemplation.

Concentrate on the quality of your prose! Help us understand your post by focusing on sentence structure, spelling, and concise writing.

Differentiate between what is really a conspiracy concern and what is not. Do your research (Google Google Google) and look for alternate sources.

There! Now I send you to attack this horrid cancer and drive it back to the dark corners of Rumor Mill News, Area 51 Zone, and Black Vault. If we all work together, we can bring health and vitality back to Above Top Secret. Soon, with your help, we will regain all the glimmer, and more, of ATS's past glory.

Together... we can do it! If not for ATS, then for Estragon!





[Edited on 19-11-2002 by William]

If you research this further you will discover that most (if not all) of the "blind content" posts are done by under aged visitors.


But speaking of quality issues, i do agree that we getting less and less of serious and interesting discussions comparing to the old happy day style ikon board.
What can i say everything is changing for the worst, it�s a rule of life.


[Edited on 19-11-2002 by Tyler]

Things do seem to be differant.I stopped posting at Blackvault because this site is so much better.The people here have much broader views on topics.I hope it stays that way.

Tyler is right about all the kids though.Sometimes it is hard to talk or deal with someone that still lives with mom and dad and has never lived.

I agree with Tyler and Nyeff.But there are some adults who post naively and some younger posters post well.All that would happen is younger posters would not divulge their age.

I don't think its an age issue... if we were getting good quality topics initially then people would carry on the discussions and and maybe the younger ones would learn from the wisdom (heh heh) of the oldies.

The problems is the board is starving for good topics.... this could be seasonal, this is definitly a low point in the board ... I am sick of that mm thread dominating the baord. ... but then its also my fault .. and everyone else who posts here, that we havn't posted something better...


so lets just make quality INITIAL posts,

We've always had children running around bumping into the furniture and tripping on the carpet. This site attracts all kinds of people with a wide variety of ages and interests (even skeptics!). We've seen young posters with excellent ideas rise to the surface, and likewise, we've seen aged psychos spout meaningless drivel.

The tone of the site is different. Too many posters are reverting too quickly to angry attitude-riddled posts that do more to attack a person or their ideas, than contribute to the furtherance of the discussion. While this has always been an aspect of the anonymity factor that makes flames easy to post online, our flame-to-content ration has markedly risen in the past few months (Tyler! I'm looking at you!).

We just recently seemed to have recovered from a few juvenile posters playing a game of seeing who can post-the-most. What was the purpose beyond twisted self-aggrandizing narcissism? There are far better forums for these types to spend their time if all they want to do is post as many egotistical flames as possible.





[Edited on 19-11-2002 by William]

There is no age differnce. It is simply the person who posts. Yeah some time younger memebers have good ideas.

I think the interest of the people is dying.
I frequent a computer security board that have got a LOTS of members in the past, was always dealing advanced technical issues, etc etc... Now most of the question became REALY lame and less and less people are posting/awnsering.
This coincidenced with the arrival of lots of new members...Maybe the net is being flooded too much with fresh and dumb young computer illiterate.

Notice that most of these posts are by blue girl.

Is that possible with XMB to add rating / voting mechanism, to have at least easy feedback without me-too posts? Ideally votes coming from more rated in the past members will have more points per vote.

?

Simple & obvious........

There are a bunch of admin/mods on this board. Why not huddle up and decide that each of them drive forum posts, setting out topics that will draw out quality exchanges? It's a group with privileges above the rank&file poster that can set tone, not just lament it's off course status.
Also, besides that group, there are several who are provocative & passionate about certain categories....enlist them to start more threads.

Originally posted by Bout Time

Also, besides that group, there are several who are provocative & passionate about certain categories....enlist them to start more threads.

1) Could you give some names ?

2) What do you mean by " porvocative & passionate " ? I bet that you mean that they aren't politically correct.

I mentioned this before, how about someone assign(for lack of a better term), those that wish to participate a topic to research and post about. Give a period of time to post and if interested you can do more than one, kind of like a school newspaper. Basically you would research, present your topic and findings and allow discussion and entertain questions. Just an idea.
-Troy

I think the seasonal comment is quite true.The lull before the storm.The next 6 months will give everyone some interesting things to discuss especially in War on Terrorism,and Political scandle.
We've had three topics on the future Roswell Excavations.There should be more to talk about that soon.

Maybe it's partially because almost every other post is sarcastic and not serious. Yes, it's true most of the sarcastic posts are made in reply to stupid topics, but if we ignore the stupid topics, they might just go away. And it's also probably lack of topics, interesting topics anyway.. hopefully it is just seasonal.

I like troy's idea. But if someone can think of interesting topics to "assign" others, why not just post about that interesting topic yourself?

I think we should try to cut back on the sarcasm and what not. And what's with these "awards"? Sure it's supposed to get people to post more interesting topics, but at the same time, might it also scare people from posting their ideas for fear of ridicule? I'm talking about the "moron award" in the science and technology forum by the way.


Good luck moderators.

PS. I'm sick of hearing about this "Brian" character in the religion forum, enough already, I haven't even looked at that damn forum in at least 2 weeks, and I'm scared to see what topics are there now. Hopefully that guy's name's dissappeared from the top of the list of topics by now..

maybe a weeding out of ppl should be in order deletion of names and suspensions of the site, for now. We get alot of the really pointless posters who sign up to post on one subject a couple times then post senselss dribble. I know ive done that before gotten off track but id have had to smack myself and get back on track. IF we can just get soem of the devoteed well rounded poster here for maybe a month or 2 then all kinds of thought provoking topics will amerge.

QUOTE.

There! Now I send you to attack this horrid cancer and drive it back to the dark corners of Rumor Mill News, Area 51 Zone, and Black Vault.


William.

I am dissapointed in your opinion on the Blackvault.

You may be surprised at how many of your members are also members of the blackvault. (Including myself.)

When this board was down, many of the ATS members visited the blackvault, to use it as a port in the storm.


They were welcomed warmly by the BV members, who understood the position they had found themselves in when the board was attacked and had gone down.

The blackvault administrator john greenewald posted on the board expressing his shock, and giving his condolences at hearing of simons death.

(Which we now know, was a piece of fiction.)

I have never seen a post on the blackvault ridiculing ATS.

Even in ATS's darkest hours, the blackvault members stood behind your board 100-percent, and wished it nothing but a speedy recovery.

Apparently, you missed the tongue-in-cheek. No harm intended, and please accept my apology.

No Worries.

Thanks William.

really? topsecret dying?
well, some people may post on naff, unrelated subjects- like me- vampires,magick lol. but what do you expect when you put on forums like 'chit chat' and 'religion and spiritulism' ? not very conspiracy like is it.
and, if you really have a problem with young uns, why didnt you put a 'not for under 18s' or simply tell the opposing posters to naff off?