Breaking News Forums Should Be Dumped Or Moderated Better

The "Breaking News Forums" are out of control, and many members don't know how to use them properly. We end up with multiple threads on the same subject, threads posted in the wrong place, and duplicate threads in other forums.

Having three of them, Alternative, General, and Political:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.belowtopsecret.com...
www.abovepolitics.com...
this has only served to confuse the matter further........

So many threads get started in Alternative that don't belong there, and the same goes for General.



Pepper spraying a girl is not Alternative unless it was aliens doing the deed.
That next topic on Israel should be in Politics.
Almost everything posted there is in no way Alternative and should be moved.


Politics does the best:



But I fail to see how a prostitute taking a baby to work and doing drugs is political unless the john was a member of the Senate, or held some other office.

There's no reason the bumblebee story couldn't have been posted in "Fragile Earth", and we have forums on the boards for every one of the topics posted here.

I'd like to see it reduced to one "Breaking News Forum", and then the Mods file them to the proper forums after a few days. Either that, or get rid of them altogether.

So what do you think ?

I'll duck and cover to wait for the fall-out.

Hi anx,

First off, well said. As a member, I do agree that there are certain things that can be done to help improve these current forums. At times, things may appear to be unorganized and even "jumbled". But we are a volunteer staff, who all have families to tend to. So if we fall behind at times, we'll be sure to pick up the slack as soon as we can. Which is never too long.

However, what we're here to discuss is not an isolated incident. Since ATSNN has been dropped, and the three Breaking News Forums have been initiated, there has been much confusion on behalf of the members.

I think this is the perfect time to tackle this confusion, and try to educate the members on exactly what each forum entails.

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
Pepper spraying a girl is not Alternative unless it was aliens doing the deed.

Not exactly correct. The "Alternative" Breaking News Forum is not isolated to Aliens, UFO's, or the Paranormal. The way I see it, if you can find an existing forum on the Above Top Secret domain to appropriately slot the subject in, and it is a breaking news event in the last 48 hours, it falls into the realm of Breaking Alternative News.

This goes much further then Aliens & UFO's.

The same can be said for the others. "General" News is any Breaking News Thread that can be slotted into a BTS forum. And "Political" is obviously anything Political.

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
Almost everything posted there is in no way Alternative and should be moved.

"Almost Everything?"

I would have to disagree there. There are times when threads can, and should be moved. There are times when threads can, and should be closed. But "almost everything" would be an overstatement.

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
There's no reason the bumblebee story couldn't have been posted in "Fragile Earth", and we have forums on the boards for every one of the topics posted here.

But if the event had occurred within the last 48 hours, it belongs in a Breaking News Forum. Members who are looking to stay up to date on issues that had just recently transpired, they can find a nifty list compiled on each of these domains. While we can look at each one and say, "It could of fit here, there, or where ever", we also need to understand the concept behind the purpose of a Breaking News Forum.

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
I'd like to see it reduced to one "Breaking News Forum", and then the Mods file them to the proper forums after a few days. Either that, or get rid of them altogether.

A strong suggestion, but I think the members are fully capable of doing this themselves, if educated on each forum properly. If a member slips up, we are here to rectify it. But diminishing their responsibility, and spoon feeding them on where each thread should go, I don't think thats justified. ATS is the best because our members are the best.

I do think that we can all take a more pro-active approach to this issue though. We, as staff, will pull up our socks on this and organize the forums more efficiently. But you, as members, can also take an extra moment to think about where you author the forum.

Collectively, we can have these forums running tip top.

No Nukes Is Good Nukes

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
I'll duck and cover to wait for the fall-out.

Perhaps we should designate this a "nuclear-free zone".

There's nothing wrong with calling attention to problems and suggesting solutions.

After all, that's what BB&Q is all about!

Perhaps moderators, supermoderators and administrators should define the "breaking alternative" and "general" news better, so the members would know which one and where to post it. Leave the sticky threads on top of page of these definitions so they would understand?

Who knows, my thread has been moved from the breaking news to the other current events, but oh well, I felt my thread was enough appropriate to fit in the breaking news forum, though.

[edit on 8-10-2007 by TheoOne]

Not sure but I know i posted the woman who "strangled" herself in the breaking news and it was removed twice and FredT couldn't and wouldn't tell me why.Then two days later someone started the thread and its up to around 250 posts i think.

I don't understand how anything here works.Untill I find a site that has as many like minded poeple I have to deal with it.

My point is,you have a valid point...Will they listen?Negative.

Originally posted by Project_Silo
My point is,you have a valid point...Will they listen?Negative.

You can bet on it.

AD brought up a valid point and I'm listening intently.

I understand what you're saying chissler...

Not exactly correct. The "Alternative" Breaking News Forum is not isolated to Aliens, UFO's, or the Paranormal. The way I see it, if you can find an existing forum on the Above Top Secret domain to appropriately slot the subject in, and it is a breaking news event in the last 48 hours, it falls into the realm of Breaking Alternative News.

Perhaps a name change would clear it up for a lot of people.
ATS Breaking News and BTS Breaking News, and politics seems just fine due to it's clarity.


Edit: bbcode

[edit on 8/10/2007 by anxietydisorder]

Yes, that would be decent. I think name change would help a lot.

Excellent point AD, I just made a big blunder today myself w/ the breaking alternative news. It was too late and I really did not know how to fix my mistake. It was promptly handled by a mod, so all was cool.

I try not to use that forum too much yet because I am not so experienced in how to put out a decent thread. I really appreciate those that use it properly though as I am sure you would agree. So What are some of your ideas as to how it could be corrected short of the mods just catching the mistakes?

Just remember, this IS a big place, and as such its confusing to new members. (Like MOI) give us some time to learn the ins and outs of this board...

I've been waiting for this topic to come up, in fact brewing on it myself for a while.

A defilement has happened to what was once ATSN -it had standards- now BAN is getting drawn down by a flooding of any news, the sources provided taken into consideration, sometimes closer to skunkwork than Breaking Alternative News.

We need clear instructions as to what goes into alternative.

According to Chissler anything that would fit into any ATS forum, breaking within the last 48 hours (you need to look better out for that, dear mods), but I don't see all forums here as alternative or conspirative. Most posts in the news forum are just old plain boring police violence and shooting, killings and plain old disasters. Nothing belittling in those topics, anything can have a twists.

As the spin goes for many of the BAN posts now, it is sometimes down to one-liners ala "Whau... didn't know that" or just "What do you think". Such posts should IMO be trashed immediately.

Then there is the guidelines for thread titles. I think to remember when the change of the BN forums came about, that the titling was compulsary to be the same as the title of the news art linked. It generally is so close to 100%. Creative titling is though becoming more and more common, as posts of claiming mistitling are.

To quote a few: "Police kills women in airport.." There was only one and the title was changed to "Woman dies after airport arrest". Of the more creative ones, there's the weather baloon that turned into a "Satellite plunges down...". Bet next time it'll be an UFO.

The most creative one I've seen so far, would have been topflagged if it had been in the skunk works. Now it is still in BAN forum and the title is "New Species Discovered - Agent Orange To Blame?". The link provided tells about the Tai Lu area of northern Vietnam, were an abundance of new species have been discovered in the last 20 years. Only problem with the postetrs speculation is there was no war or use of AO in that area.

As a member I would more than like help the mods keeping track of such irregularities, and I do, but when you have alerted staff more than once and no action is taken, you become a little lax on the problem.

It's a shame cause it influences the overall image of ATS.

Therefor let's get some uniform rules on titling and double posting. The posting rules seem clear enough, they're just constantly violated - up to 10% of what's posted in BAN is doublepostings, The submission timeline is more difficult to check.

Most of all I would like to see the submission quality heightened. Not sure what measures to apply to achive that.

reply to post by anxietydisorder


Too bad (or too good, depending on your pov) you are not the "decider" here.

I like the open BAN submission format, and I rely on the mods, and my patience, for the stories to be sorted out properly. Inevitably they are, at least to my satisfaction. Props to the staff for their dedication and discernment.

One of the many great things about the ATS Network, imo, is the "power to the members" approach. The diversity and global appeal of the site only enhances its member driven attributes. If there is an initial chaotic overload for some of the more anxious (I don't want to say anal retentive and nitpicking) tenured members, I think that is a small price to pay for the plethora of topics brought to the fore. Not to mention the learning process displayed for new members, the "learn by doing" approach. I encourage that, and it stimulates member participation.

In short, I think you ought to pipe down and deal with it, but you probably already deduced that.

[quote
After all, that's what BB&Q is all about!

What Bar-B-Que? How do I get invited?

Is there beer???????

I'll bring beer!!!

Seriously, If any of the breaking news I have posted was out of line, I am sorry. I (wrongly) assumed that alternative breaking news was breaking news that was not about aliens, UFO's or conspiracies. Since this site is more about things like that, I assumed (wrongly) that alternative was really normal things that would just create debate or a sounding board. I am going to refrain from submitting any breaking news until I see a a new directive from our leader!!!!

Unless of course its something I find here on wall street that the rest of the world is not privy to, then i will leak it to ya. No insider trading stuff though.....not willing to lose my job.

-traderonwallst

chissler did clarify it somewhat:

Not exactly correct. The "Alternative" Breaking News Forum is not isolated to Aliens, UFO's, or the Paranormal. The way I see it, if you can find an existing forum on the Above Top Secret domain to appropriately slot the subject in, and it is a breaking news event in the last 48 hours, it falls into the realm of Breaking Alternative News.

This goes much further then Aliens & UFO's.

The same can be said for the others. "General" News is any Breaking News Thread that can be slotted into a BTS forum. And "Political" is obviously anything Political.

If it fits in ATS its Alternative, if it fits in BTS its General, etc....

Another issue of the same genre is people posting "articles" from news-blogs and other rant sites such as prisonplanet and alternet. If I recall correctly none of this crap made it into ATSNN as it would be promptly delegated to the appropriate non-news forums.

It just seems unprofessional to be reading news report after news report as one would read in a paper, and then you're tripped up by some OP/ED rant masquerading as news.

Maybe there could be a Breaking Opinions section.

Originally posted by apc
Another issue of the same genre is people posting "articles" from news-blogs and other rant sites such as prisonplanet and alternet.

I must take issue with this. To me, these sources fit the bill perfectly as breaking ALTERNATIVE news. That is, they are non-mainstream sources. You can argue til the cows come home if they are merely rants or expressing agendas you don't agree with, but this to me is exactly what the section should be designed for. Some would argue that these alternative sources give us more 'truth' than the mainstream anyway, for reasons I need not mention here on a conspiracy site.

If anything, if there is anything wrong with this breaking news section, there is too much "general news", sources from Reuters, Fox, CNN, Timesonline etc - i.e the mainstream. Alternative means alternative. This means, no stories on the gunman on the loose - unless the source gives us a conspiracy angle to make us think a bit harder about what's behind the news. This is what we're here for after all.

If we're just going to post news from here there and everywhere, then why not just call it "Breaking News". I'd be happy with that. Lump in Prisonplanet with Fox and let the membership decide for themselves if they are being fed propaganda or not.

I was under the false impression that;

Breaking Alternative
~meant the topic or story was not from the MainStreamMedia (MSM),
or regular newswire services...reuters/cnn/fox/msnbc/abc/cbs/nbc...~

some Alt. news might be from IndyMedia, or places like ICH informationclearinghouse and other on-line, soap-box sites.
also including google, yahoo and other online sources



Breaking General
~all the known & recognized news sources, i.e. MSM !! ~



Breaking Political
~stories, anecdotes, news, from any Alternative or MSM news source...centering on the 'political' leadership



but i 'm pretty sure "that's (not) the way it is" in my Cronkite voice imitation

reply to post by RiotComing


I just expect "news" to be a presentation of fact and not the author's opinion. If it's nothing but someone's opinion about some event, it is not news. BAN would therefore be for news articles about some new particle discovered at CERN, or a massive UFO sighting, non-political reports about new weapons technologies, etc. Blogs and tabloids (PP, alternet, and to some extent infowars being prime examples) belong in Current Events or some other forum.

That's not to say these types of sites do not publish actual news. But when the reporting is nothing but someone ranting their opinion about a subject, it is an OP/ED piece and should be discriminated as such.

Please define facts as they relate to the definitive truth and merely shared opinion. Many of the "facts" presented by the MSM are nothing more than the agreed upon opinion of the P'sTB intended as propaganda to mislead the general public. Those are not true facts.

I agree with RiotComing that there may often be more definitive truth to stories from "questionable" and "alternative" news sites than from the MSM these days.

It is up to each of us as individuals to develop our own inner compass, tuned to the magnetism of the definitive truth. Some would call it a bs detector....

Fact: Bill punched Bob.

Opinion: Scumbag Bill punched super-awesome Bob, etc.

Example of opinionated rant: the recent thread about a girl maced for resisting arrest. Source: PrisonPlanet.

Had the source been CNN (for example), it may have been biased, but it would not have been a froth of opinions about the event as was the PP "article."

The "facts" I'm not concerned about as it is all hearsay anyway. What I take issue with is the presentation.