The World We Live In

Originally posted by FreeThinkerIdealist
Hope maybe someone smiled. There is no animosity here, hope there isn't for anyone else

Not at all.

As SkepticOverlord so eloquently said, it sucks. We know it. Believe me we do.

We want our fellow members to understand if they can, to know why it has to be this way and that we're doing our best.

And we know there are plenty of members who disagree with this decision, as is their right.

Also, it's okay to vent in this thread. That's why it's here, after all.

But the bottom line is that this is indeed ATS policy, the staff will enforce it and in the world we live in, that's just the way it is.

I'm truly sorry.

Originally posted by xpert11
In terms of the ATS election does that mean that because I posted elements of my Marijuana plank before the "enforcement" of the T&C I can still discuss the my policy which is legalizing Marijuana ?
Note I have already sent a U2U to a Mod about this matter and I never got a reply.

Right I am bumping my own question because I have yet to receive an answer in any form.
: not a one line post . :

Caffeine is mind altering, alcohol is mind altering, I see "I got drunk, I'm going to drink, etc" on these boards all the time. Alcohol is a drug, to deny it is to proclaim pure ignorance. Its a drug that kills more Americans annually than guns do.

We have had extensive threads on the effects of chemicals put into our food which cause attention deficit disorder as well as many "I take that drug for my ADD" etc, without any mod action.

Threads in the news about anti-depressants increasing depression and suicide, etc.
Plenty of posts with "I took drug x for my depression"
That falls right into the mind altering niche.

I'm pretty sure mercury/thermasol causing autism would fall into "mind altering" unless autism has nothing to do with the mind eh?

Wasn't there just a very long thread about a guy with a video with another guy raping a four year old. That went on for how many pages. Isn't that specfically forbidden in the T&C?

Ignorance Denied or Hypocrisy Enshrined?

The Eye Of The Due Beholder

Originally posted by Legalizer
Ignorance Denied or Hypocrisy Enshrined?

You decide.

Personaly. If something here of mine gets edited by a mod I take it with a grain of salt. There are many forums on the net and many moderators that will censor and edit with alot less provaction than the mods show here.... However I rarely see a site with more mods than this one and while I understand the high volume of posters requires a high amount of mods it can lead to some preferential edits. And again I care with a grain of salt. My speech although free is being displayed on someone elses property. so if my speech is removed from there property then I accept it as I don't own it.

Just for the record I am anti-prohibition.

That said, it is a dangerous path to bow down for PC and legalities of every country, an issue I far from finished contemplating on. If the thinking would be taken to its furthest intend, we couldn't have reported on Burma like we've done the past month. If we had any members there, they're definately shut out now, and won't have s a change to access ATS before another regime is up.

I am in agreement here.

"Illegal activities" - according to whose laws?

As khunmoon points out, demonstrations for democracy are "illegal activities" in some places. Uncovering government conspiracies is legally shaky under many countries' national security laws.

As a poster from the Netherlands pointed out, marijuana use is not illegal there - the same is likely to be true of Canada soon.

On the other hand, for instance, homosexual behavior is illegal in much of the Middle East. Should discussions that touch on gay rights be closed down because in some poster's countries it is "illegal activity?"

I don't mean to sound dismissive, I understand SO's rationale as spelled out in the opening post.
But I have to disagree.

How about looking at the problem from the following perspective... what you post is public.

Being in the public arena means that it is viewable by whomever wishes to mine a website for information, wouldn't you agree?

Now suppose you were to type a threat against a public figure... Ron Paul, for instance. Do you not suppose that might be taken seriously with the resultant authorities eventualy knocking at your door? The identity you've chosen is hardly anonymous and can be traced to the location of the computer you used. Even using a proxy is not enough if the need to intervene on a threat is high enough. There is no anonymnity, really.

Since most of the members who frequent ATS are from countries where certain substances are illegal, would it not be prudent to avoid providing information of illegal activity? Are you willing to have a post stay forever in the public realm, for all to view for years to come, that you are actively doing something illegal?

[scenario]

An American/Canadian member states in a post that s/he purchased a quantity of a particular banned substance.

Another member, a policeman, takes note because he knows which province/state the other member is in.

A phone call, an IP check, a visit from the local constabulary and the subsequent arrest. No more trips abroad, no more good jobs... oops, they've got a criminal record.


[/scenario]

Think it can't happen?

Maybe not today, maybe not next year... but the post is still there in the public record and the War on Drugs carries on.

My 2 cents says 'If you wanna stick your neck out, do it somewhere else, because ATS doesn't allow it and I'm glad they've taken that approach."

Not worth the trouble, imo.

spelling edit



[edit on 12/12/07 by masqua]

"Sites dedicated to such topics" lack members on all sides of the issue.

The state of conciousness of the masses is the basis of the underlying conspiracy we all seek to understand.

To talk about inner city crime without an understanding and discussion of methamphetamine usage is to endorse ignorance.

To talk about the mexican boarder security with the US without discussion of compressed blocks of mexican flowers and columbian powder is an endorsement of ignorance.

To talk about the war in Afghanistan without discussion of my neighbor's heroin habit... head deep in sand... ignorance.

The subjective set and setting of the people is founded in what they consume.

You are what your food eats

The truth may be in here...

but apparently we're not allowed to talk about it.

it has been said that so long as you do not use your words to encourage another to break the LAW, you have not done so yourself.

pharisaical edicts enacted...

The judge’s authority depends upon the assumption that he speaks with the mouth of others. Judge Learned Hand

I'm biting my lip,

Sri Oracle

all i can say is we all( knew the rules/should have read the rules) when we signed up.

thx for the refresher(and i see that the MODS do spiels on the rules every once and a while)

as was said before(you can be traced, so before you spout off about what is legal where and your right to talk about it, think about the others who don't want to hear about someones delusions of clarity through mind altering practices(as there seems to be a few practitioners who decided to argue these points of rule in this thread while on a trip lol )

doesn't matter how many different ways you ask the same question ( and there have been some almost convincing arguments posed with the same question lol ALMOST but no pass go,NO means NO, it's in the rules,the mods are holding up the red card for ONE topic out of how many.

as was said,you can always go to other sites that are more than receptive to your views. i still don't say f%c@ in front of my mother and i'm 41(it can be a regular part of my vocabulary at times but i know when i shouldn't say it)

let it go and act as enlightened as some claim the practice makes you lol

Originally posted by GreenFloyd
With all due respect, I do not believe the 3 Amigos are being completely candid with us about why they are censoring member’s relevant topics and intelligent discourse on such an important subject matter.

We have been completely candid. The policy began several years ago as part of a number of steps to ensure the AboveTopSecret.com domain is minimally censored. If you install and run typical home and office site filtering software (I have), you'll discover that currently there are several outright content alerts and a handful of outright blocks when browsing this site. The problem would be much more pronounced if we were to allow profanities or topics promoting illicit drug use.

Additionally, as we've stated several dozen (if not hundred times), some of the topics we choose to avoid tend to attract a membership that is counter productive to the forward-looking ideals of our overall goal. For example, even the most academic and intelligent thread related to the legalization of certain drugs will attract a disruptive "stoner" element into the discussion... it's unavoidable... it's happened in the past. The same holds true for the discussion of computer hacking.

I also agree that the "war on drugs" is an expansive conspiracy in the most pure definition of the word. Unfortunately, it's impossible to examine that particular conspiracy in an appropriate amount of detail without discussing the legalization option.

In the four years since adopting these policies, as well as strict rules of general decorum, this site has been among the fastest growing "boards" on Big-Boards.com... and for extended periods, the fastest growing. And we're now the most popular and highest-trafficked site in the general conspiracy genre. The policies have worked, and worked well. We get nearly 1 million visits a month from search engine searches... that's unprecedented.

At this point I suggest that ATS management take the pulse of the membership

Among the policies put in place several years ago is an evolution toward a completely agnostic editorial strategy that relies on the "wisdom of our crowd" to create and promote topics of importance to them. The site home and forum summary pages are the culmination of these strategies as the flags assigned by members promote important or interesting subjects to higher priority. Such a system would be worthless if no one visits the site.

And thanks to the interesting topics our members create, and the policies in place, we receive 10 times more general visitors than members... unprecedented for a "discussion board." This means that a vast and growing audience is attracted to what our members create... exposing their thoughts, theories, and priorities to millions of people. We promised to create an infrastructure that would do just that, attract millions. Taking a step backwards in relation to any of these successful policies would jeopardize the popularity of this site and potentially break our promise.

Our traffic is twice what it was this time last year, five times what it was two years ago, eight times what it was three years ago, and nearly fifteen times what it was four years ago. The policies work.

If it were about money, I wouldn't be doing this. There are far easier ways to make much more money online. This is hard work. But it's meaningful work, and that's important to me and my other two Amigos.

Originally posted by GreenFloyd
I know your first concern has to be ATS, and I know most members share that concern.

As it will always be. I've explained our position. There's no need to go further.

Such a system would produce skewed data results because you are denying certain content any meaningful chance to be viewed and flagged by members.

You're referencing a topical skew, it doesn't apply. And we'd have much worse than a "skew" if fewer people came here and created less content, less feedback, and created less data... we'd have irrelevance.

1) Valid news content posted at “Alt Breaking News” stays there for at least 24 hours from its post date/time stamp.

I don't understand this one. All news threads that are not trashed remain in the forum.

All members notified when their subscribed or favorite thread is moved, with a seamless link to new page.

If a thread is moved, the URL remains the same... so your subscription link still works.

[edit on 14-12-2007 by SkepticOverlord]