ATS Where are you?

reply to post by Alexander the o.k.

Originally posted by Alexander the o.k.
Zorgon?
Mikesingh?
Spikedmike?

I'm sure if either of them start demanding that their buddies thread be moved, the same thing would happen again. I enjoy JL's post as well, and I wish ATS would swallow it up and apologized for disbelieving in JL's quoting abilities.

However, there are certain rules. If the Amigos won't even allow the History Channel to determine editorial content, why would they let John Lear?

Originally posted by Alexander the o.k.
Not that it wasn't in evidence before, what with entire threads moved after gaining popularity, to obscure and/or questionable areas. Miss manners invoked and entire posts / threads deleted. All at the whim of a few (power hungry) mods with the blessing of bill and mark no doubt.
Control, control, control.[snip]

I find the censorship of members offensive.

I have no problem with people stating their opinion, when it is tasteful, within reason, and lacking in personal attacks to other people.

You are borderline, imo, with the above quote. I am not power hungry. I am not, however, going to be reticent in removing words from the board that have intentionally been placed as an attack on another member. Period.

We all get in heated arguements. We have all said things we have regretted. The consequences of abusive words said directly to a person we love/care for cannot be taken back when said. But, when typed, they can be deleted so that other people do not have to be exposed to the unfortunate deviation from tact.

That is my view. That is why I am here. I was performing that function without the 'bells and whistles' prior to being a Mod; albeit in a less frequent fashion.

Your opinion matters. That is why I have redisplayed your post(with mild edits).

But you are wrong.

[edit on 21-2-2008 by MemoryShock]

Originally posted by Alexander the o.k.
I find the censorship / removal of John Lear offensive.

All of John Lear's threads are still available and the topics still open for discussion.

I find the censorship of members offensive.

Out side of the terms & conditions, there is none.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Hey, this isn't really a reply, but I figure you're being pretty active on this thread, so I'd like to ask you a kind of off topic question that I know a couple of other members would be interested to know.

If you don't mind, of course, are you guys planning or currently in the process of doing something to help get more members to the Above Politics forum? I think that forum has got some mad potential, but it seems so hard to really get a thread going there, and it takes forever to get a response.

Anyway, like I said, a bit off topic, but it's something I'm very curious to know, as I love this forum and am glad to be a member.



[edit on 2/21/2008 by bigbert81]

Originally posted by MemoryShock

Originally posted by Alexander the o.k.
I find the censorship of members offensive.

MemoryShock, your opinion matters. That is why I have redisplayed your post (with mild edits).

Free speech ends the moment we edit, to put it mildly.

Checksum Remaining Character Count of This Post Before Mod Edits: 7608

Originally posted by Chakotay

Originally posted by MemoryShock

Originally posted by Alexander the o.k.
I find the censorship of members offensive.

MemoryShock, your opinion matters. That is why I have redisplayed your post (with mild edits).

Free speech ends the moment we edit, to put it mildly.

Checksum Remaining Character Count of This Post Before Mod Edits: 7608

Oh!
The irony is killing me!

Good catch there Chakotay!
Beautiful!

Free speech ends the moment we edit, to put it mildly.

I did not sign on board here to have my thoughts edited (read censored) repeatedly.
Nor did I sign on in order to have discussions with overly involved mods on the merits of whether my ideas comport with a particular mods' mood at that particular moment.
I strongly suspect that there are hundreds more like me.

Bill, mark, simon and the [edit

] mods need to take a step back, give the 'control freak' urges a rest, and allow free discussion to take place.

Without the "editing" (read censorship).

Otherwise the Brain-Drain I alluded to earlier will begin, if it has not begun already.

I have found that genius thrives in an unfettered enviroment. At the same time, I see that 'enviroment' slipping away under the crushing, and heavy hand of 'mgmt'.
I don't by any means discount the 'rules'.

It is their rabid over-enforcement, and Gestapo like interpretation that I am offended by.

Come back John, (if they let you).....

( I am now going to do something which I have never had to do on ANY other forum. I am going to copy this post into wordpad, save it, and compare it to any" thought policing", censorship, or "editing" by the overzealous mods, which may possibly occur).


edit to check why the light 'field' appears, even tho close quotes were used properly.
Weird. This should appear in dark 'field'.

[edit on 21-2-2008 by Alexander the o.k.]

reply to post by Alexander the o.k.


Would you care to edit your post so that it's not a total quote or do you want me to do it?

reply to post by Alexander the o.k.

Originally posted by Alexander the o.k.
I find the " Thought Police " aspect rampant in mgmt offensive.

[snip]

We all know who you are. You as well, are part of the problem.
As in any large org. there is a tendency toward politics, and entropy.

Which naturally stifles free thought.

Naturally stifles free thought? What do you think the main media is? What do you think religion is? What do you think the adherence to a static set of values and beliefs are?

What about barraging onto a discussion board, propping yourself up on a pedastel behind a veil of anonymity and 'realizing' for everyone who reads this the insidious nature of the presumed naivete you have accused myself and others?

You, I am sure, spend an amount of time living in the real world that makes your experience behind a computer, much less ATS, pale in comparison. With all of the real time interactions you deal with on a daily basis, you can actually point the finger at someone else for the stifling of free thought?

How can you conveniently forget everything else you do and encounter and not even once cite them as potential stiflers of your opinion? I suspect that you don't get to voice your thoughts often enough that you are going to take it out on people who can't possibly affect your daily job/life......

How often do you watch a movie? You know they are formulaic, right? You are theoretically watching the same movie over and over again with the only substantial differences being the updated imagery and word usage. Free thought? You are in a trance state being shown how to act and speak, or what to look up towards. Social mimicry....

There are three real avenues of research in the previous statement and they have a whole heck of a lot more to do with your 'stifling of free thought' then I did and ever will.

Maybe you should take some time out and point a figure at the advertisers...who get paid money to design a piece of media to influence your thoughts and behaviour.

What about the food you eat? The drinks you ingest? Do you like coffee? How about energy drinks? Ever feel the afternoon drags because the mild stimulant(s) you drank had worn off? Guess what...probably not an accident. The caffiene and other stimulants induce a physical mindset by inducing cortisol release, which influences adrenaline production and subsequent circulation. How often does your body spend in a 'fight or flight' mentality? Hate to break it to you, that mentality is there only for the attention to your physical body, to be aggressive in response or escape.....maybe a physiological stifler of free thought?

Let's talk sociological terms....Group Think, which is debatedly induced indirectly by the constant exposure to media specialists, experts and the people they analyze...which happen to be the people that we end up voting for. We don't talk about the issues and what we can do about them on public medias; we talk about the people who are the purported authority figures and let them do it...because we have an implicit trust conditioned through years of seeing it done that way.

Stifle free thought? I just gave you a partial recipe for it. And nowhere did I direct my words at you personally. Your opinion is valid....sure. But that does not make you right. It doesn't make your arguement valid.

Originally posted by Alexander the o.k.
I was once proud to be a member of ats.
Now I am becoming ashamed.

What made you proud before? The thought that you were escaping the real world thought and action police and becoming inundated with people and their non mass media ideas with the implicit promise that the truth and the secret are in here? Why did you stop trying to find that truth to pick up the torch against the obviously evil oppressors who aren't giving you the evidence of the century on a silver platter?

I anticipate your response to be along the lines of perpetuating a 'he said, she said' philosophy that will not be supported by substantial evidence. You will sarcastically remark on the post I presented and return to your bad mouthing of people you don't even know. You may even bring up your experience in this thread...which was rude, offensive and in no way, shape or form contain any constructive solutions or direction; merely an ideological premise based on free thought. Well....set your thoughts free...Adam Sandler has another two hour lesson on the way, I'm sure.

[edit on 21-2-2008 by MemoryShock]

Originally posted by intrepid
reply to post by Alexander the o.k.

 

Would you care to edit your post so that it's not a total quote or do you want me to do it?

Hey, I'm glad someone 'gets' it.

Thanks for the cogent response.
Do we need to add the [i ] [ /i] tags now?

By all means, have at it. ( format, not content )


[edit on 22-2-2008 by Alexander the o.k.]

Originally posted by Dr Love
Please do tell, how would you build your website without "stipulation-free" advertising dollars? I'd really like to hear.

Very simple you do it like my site... you pay the bill yourself and no ads
Now my site has 2 terabytes of space and the same in transfer rate and so far even all the ATS and C2C connections has not caused a problem..

And so far there have only been two short times where there has been an issue once when they moved my site to a faster server... and recently for a problem I am not sure of yet when the whole system was down for everyone...
globat.com... Tell em I set ya

And the horrendous cost for this? 166.00 for two years with FIVE free domains

Another way would be to find a Patron that likes your site enough to want to pay you to keep it up, and make it worth the time and effort that you need to put into it to make it happen... believe me that is a LOT of time and effort...

No I have not found such a Patron... yet

I wonder how many of you out there would spend so much of your time for free...

Now if on the other hand you are set up as a business... then it seems to me that as a business the objective is to make money... and these ads do generate a LOT of money....

EDIT: Removed suggested solicitation to click the ads.

Well that's how it worked on another forum I was involved with anyway...

Some time ago we set up our own forum for Pegasus and the Living Moon... it ran ad free for the first year... which has now expired.... but for a mere 60.00 per YEAR I can keep it ads free...

I just haven't had time to work on that forum as well... but its set up pretty nice... Undo did all the work and currently maintains it..
johnlearsmoon.myfastforum.org...

First step would be for websites to have two versions of their live site at all times. One ad free and one with ads.

Yup free info at one... buy the books and CD's at the other ... looks like I have work to do

Click ads generate a LOT of income... Its no big secret... if you want to get exact figures... simply drop a line to a few of these advertisers and ASK how much they give you if you put their banner on your site...

Now naturally the better draw your site has... the more advertisers are going to be interested... someone asked why was that million viewer number important?

Other ways to generate income.... if you mention a certain book on your site... well add the Amazon.com button so if someone wants to buy that book you get a small cut

Ad a Paypal DONATE button....

Or you can do like several UFO sites have recently done... go to a SUBSCRIPTION ONLY site.... (not a good trend in my opinion :shk: ) But I suppose you lose the skeptics

The biggest problem in all this is that the bigger the site gets... the more you need people to help with the content and the organization...

And its not easy to find free volunteers

As a side note... I find it really funny how many times here at ATS it has been 'hinted' by certain members that I do this for 'profiteering'


[edit on 22-2-2008 by SkepticOverlord]

Originally posted by LoneWeasel
I'm slightly in two minds over the subject of Lear. On the one hand, a quick google of Lear and his Pegasus project site will give you the lowdown on where he stands on the matter.

Well you didn't "google' to well then Pegasus is mine and Matyas project... John is an active part to be sure but there are many contributors... Pegasus began at a suggestion from Matyas when I first started at ATS

Edit to add... Oops I see Matyas already covered that

it's a shame, but the situation is clear and it's hard to see its being remedied.

"Time heals many wounds" by somebody....

The fact is Lear always took a pounding on these boards, generally speaking it was given and taken in good humour, but not always, and either way he dealt with it pretty well.

Funny about that... in general one is expected to 'take the pounding' and have a tough skin and overall be BETTER than the trolls who dish it out... I know I have received warnings for 'engaging the trolls' and have taken the route of the ignore button to resist the temptation to make a snappy comeback...

But we are human and as thus the trolls KNOW that sooner or later you will make that snappy comeback and engage in a war of words... everyone has limits to how thick that skin is... and some days perhaps when you have problems in the real world to deal with at the same time... enough is enough...

There have been days quite frankly when I have asked myself "Why Bother?"... but then I look at my Emails and U2U's and I have the answer from the 'silent ones'

Sure when you are presenting far out ideas you are going to get attacked... but lately as in the case of the Jose Escamilla thread and the Ken Johnston thread I see a plethora of newbies come in to a tread with a clear intent to attack...Personally I would like to see a probation period where newbie posts are screened (Yes I know that is most likely impossible to implement... even though Bad Astronomy screens all their posts )

I will put that on my "Wish List"



[edit on 22-2-2008 by zorgon]

[edit on 22-2-2008 by zorgon]

Originally posted by LoneWeasel
Currently the site in question gives the argument a certain degree of prominence, stating that it has an "important message for ATS members" from John.

That is correct and Skeptic Overlord has given John permission to post the private emails regarding the situation...

Originally posted by ConspiracyNut23
I'm sure if either of them start demanding that their buddies thread be moved, the same thing would happen again.

Huh??? Who demanded that?

But as to threads being moved... I do have one issue....

The first I heard of all this John fiasco was when I came on to ATS at about 8 pm on the day the JL Forum was removed... and without so much as a note from ANY mods I watched as all my threads were moved... and most of them dropped into Skunkworks including the Pegasus documents while I was online...

Now at this point I did not know what had happened to John Jan to March I spend a lot of hours at work... Now surely the mods could see that I was online... would it have been too much trouble to have a little note of explanation? I U2Ued one... and was told to 'ask John' (this was before the 'ATS explanation' thread)

Well several of those threads had nothing to do with John, nor were they participated in by John... (though in one Buddhasystem came in to attack John )

So quite frankly I still do not understand why... especially the documents I was starting to present... which I have thousands of... and in my opinion most are as good and BETTER that some of those FOIA documents from Clifford Stone (which are all readily available on numerous websites and some are not even true FOIA files at all)

Well so be it I have no problem with Skunkworks. At Lockheed Martin its the best of the black ops , and Mulder did okay in that basement as well...

But for some reason here at ATS once its in Skunkworks thread activity seems to stop... Hmmmmm

It just seemed very 'unfriendly' the way it was handled... It seems everyone just assumed I knew what was going on




[edit on 22-2-2008 by zorgon]

Originally posted by zorgon
and in my opinion most are as good and BETTER that some of those FOIA documents from Clifford Stone

We're just beginning to scratch the surface of the archive gathered by Mr. Stone. Soon, we'll be releasing many never-before seen documents.

Also, it should be noted that our approach has a couple important differences not seen elsewhere online:
1) The user-generated aspect of the cataloging, notes, keywords, and descriptions will eventually give us a powerful method of finding and comprehending the content of what are typically hard to read or very complicated documents. We're attempting to do much much more than simply making the documents available.
2) The advertising revenue the FOIA pages generate are diverted to Mr. Stone, as a way of finally providing him some thanks for his labor of love.

But for some reason here at ATS once its in Skunkworks thread activity seems to stop... Hmmmmm

What makes you say that? We have some exceptionally active threads in that forum.

Originally posted by zorgon

But for some reason here at ATS once its in Skunkworks thread activity seems to stop... Hmmmmm
[edit on 22-2-2008 by zorgon]

I think, as has been suggested, there is a misperception about Skunkworks. It is my understanding that it is a forum for hypothesis and conjecture. A place where wild or controversial ideas and theories can be discussed or debated without condemnation or judgement. Many of the other forums require much more substantiation. I like Skunkworks.

IMO there should probably be more threads moved to Skunkworks, especially the "I have the answer to life's questions..." or "This alien friend of mine says..." type of threads.

[edit on 22/2/08 by kosmicjack]

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
2) The advertising revenue the FOIA pages generate are diverted to Mr. Stone, as a way of finally providing him some thanks for his labor of love.

Now THAT is very interesting indeed...

So its possible to determine which threads generate the most income...

Originally posted by zorgon
So its possible to determine which threads generate the most income...

Not completely. But we can lump threads into "channels" which can have specific revenue break-outs in our ad networks' reporting.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
reply to post by Matyas

 

I initially hoped that I could simply recode a more efficient query, but as it turned out, it was/is as efficient as it can be for a nearly 4 million record data set.

SO

What does this mean?

Does it mean the "show posts" query cannot be made more efficient, and will therefore not be re-instituted?

I've tried to give you the benefit of doubt, but I see some very subtle manuevering going on.

I've also noticed a drastic decline in the level of activity, and quality of posting over the last couple weeks. Now, this may be the case only in the forums I frequent, but nevertheless it's made my ATS time much less enjoyable lately.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

An interesting side note... we recently lost a significant advertising initiative with the History Channel due to the content of a thread displayed on our home page they felt was inappropriate. They would have reconsidered if we just removed it from our home page... but I can't and we wouldn't.

I've been seeing history channel ads for the 'ufo hunters' show a lot lately. Did they bend or did you?

edit to add:


[edit on 2/28/08 by AcesInTheHole]

reply to post by AcesInTheHole



That's their(History Channel's) Google ad buy. When they did their deal with Google they specifically selected ATS as one of the "priority" sites for impressions.

That buy was done before the other issues came up.

Springer...

Originally posted by darkbluesky
I've tried to give you the benefit of doubt, but I see some very subtle manuevering going on.

I have no idea what you mean... really. Not trying to be obtuse, but I really don't understand how my information isn't clear.


As for the History Channel ads appearing in the Google ad space... it's more contextual that site-targeting. From what I can see, they didn't pick ATS specifically, but our context (UFO stuff) has triggered the ad.