Reaffirming the "Breaking Alternative News" Forum

Over the past few months, we've seen an increase in the number of threads posted to the Breaking Alternative News forum that don't really fit the criteria set forth on the news submission page. And in some cases, we're seeing what appears to be a shot-gun effect of several submissions that have little to do with "alternative topics."

Let me point out some examples.

These threads are appropriate submissions for the "Breaking Alternative News" forum:
Put young children on DNA list, to target future offenders.
Obama's Pastor Blames America for 9-11
Lord Rothschild Backs John McCain
Debt Serfdom comes to America

These threads ARE NOT appropriate submissions for the "Breaking Alternative News" forum:
Wall Street fears for next Great Depression
J.P. Morgan Chase to buy Bear Stearns for $2 a share
Royal college warns abortions can lead to mental illness
Bush: 'The Market is Correcting itself'


The Intent of the "Breaking Alternative News Forum" is to provide a single-source place to post relevant articles from other sources that are less than 48 hours old. By relevant we mean topics that related to the "conspiracy theory" and "alternative topics" themes of the AboveTopSecret.com forums. Many of the threads we see in the first to pages of the "Breaking Alternative News Forum" should have been started in other forums on ATS or AbovePolitics.


Our Staff Will be Cleaning Up The Forum over the next few days to clear out the previous seven-days of incorrectly submitted threads. All existing threads will be moved to other forums on ATS (none will be deleted). The intent is not to single anyone out or focus/unfocus attention on any particular issue, but to demonstrate how the "Breaking Alternative News Forum" should look without staff intervention.


From This Point Forward, Incorrectly Submitted Threads Will Be Moved to the appropriate forums on AboveTopSecret.com, BelowTopSecret.com, or AbovePolitics.com. In the event the news submission is a duplicate of an existing topic in other forums, we may end up trashing it (unless it adds a new or updated twist to the existing topic).


The Goal Is To Regain Focus On Our Core Reason For Being, the intelligent and productive discussion of a broad range of "alternative topics" that include conspiracies, paranormal, UFO's, political scandal/cover-up, government secrets, and more. By regaining this focus within the "Breaking Alternative News Forum," it will be easier for our thousands of members and millions of readers to know where to look for what's happening RIGHT NOW in the world of "alternative topics."


Thanks, in advance, for your cooperation in helping to regain the appropriate focus in this important forum on ATS.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


I just reread the description of the submission form. A conspiracy can be extrapolated from pretty much every topic.

The Wall Street article involves a money scare, which is a conspiracy. The JP Morgan article involves a similar topic, where the government and Chase meddle with the economy. The abortion topic could be construed as a conspiracy by the fact we don't know if it does cause cancer or not. And pretty much everything Bush says is a conspiracy in itself.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the 'breaking alternative news' forum could have any number of wide-ranging topics posted.

What do you classify as "alternative"? Maybe I'll have a better idea then.




[edit on 3/16/2008 by biggie smalls]

EXMPLE:

If you want to submit an article about the Bear Sterns bail-out/rescue to the "Breaking Alternative News Forum," then your contribution to the submission should clearly tie-in your conspiracy theory to some existing threads on ATS.

While it may certainly be possible that the story has deep conspiracy-related issues, it's up to the submitting author to make the connection, not those replying.

Make sense?

You go there SO....

I think that in a way people are trying to post the relevant things, it's just that it's beocme such a fine line between what is politics and what is a conspiracy...

It's going to take a lot of moderation and a lot of member education which will hopefull happen without any member feeling that they have been targeted as an example....


Peace,

MSP

Edit: yep - i've had a drink - no, I'm not gonna correct my spellings. lol

[edit on 16-3-2008 by more_serotonin_pls]

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Crystal clear. Thanks for the explanation.

I try to find related threads when I submit a news article, but I don't always check. Next time I'll make sure there actually is something already posted if the article itself doesn't appear to be a conspiracy.

This is an excellent change. It's almost pointless using the 'recent posts' button because they're nothing but Breaking Alternative News that really isn't even Alternative or Breaking. Thanks for fixing this. It had been bothering me but I didn't want to be a whiner and complain about it. Yay! I can add Breaking Alternative News to the 'My Ats' list again once this is fixed.

Not to be a cynic but it seems a lot of members try to purposely force topics into that forum that really don't belong just to get 50 points a pop for each reply. Maybe this will deter members from abusing it now that it will be under closer scrutiny.

Thank you SO.

What has started as me thinking I was crazy for thinking that forum was out of control, ended up reaffirming my faith in ATS.

Just remind you about the 500 character limit; it's gettin' pressed constantly, don't do that!


Initializing this campaign for BAN I proudly proclaim any one-liner OPs in the category of "whatta u think.., just thought I would post it," appearing in the forum will be trashed on sight.

[font=Arial Black][color=#CD5555]--khunmoon--
mod&member[/font]

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Our Staff Will be Cleaning Up The Forum over the next few days to clear out the previous seven-days of incorrectly submitted threads. All existing threads will be moved to other forums on ATS (none will be deleted). The intent is not to single anyone out or focus/unfocus attention on any particular issue, but to demonstrate how the "Breaking Alternative News Forum" should look without staff intervention.

To add to what SO has just stated, I'd like to point out that when the threads are in their proper forum, they garner more responses than they do in an incorrect forum. The reasons for this are many, but the core one is because it doesn't apply to the forum topic. People coming to Breaking Alternative News don't want to know about what Bush said, unless it has to do with his becoming Emperor.

The point here is, as SO has so perfectly outlined, not to single anyone out, but to put your posts, the bread and butter of ATS, into a light that will help get it noticed. The one thing we want is for your submissions to reach as many ears as they can, and by putting the information in the correct locations, we can insure that this will happen.

to SO!! Thanks for reminding us of this one!!

TheBorg
Forum Moderator

I never post anything to breaking news anyway, I seem to find out about everything a few lightyears after everyone else does. hahahaha

"Where's The Conspiracy?"

At least, that's the question I always ask myself when reading topics in conspiracy-themed forums.

As other members have pointed out, the answer to that question may vary depending on how you look at it.

If a mod does move a thread of yours, however, please don't take it the wrong way.

No conspiracy there! :shk:

We just want to make sure all topics are in the right forums, and hope you can work with us on that.

Good clarification.

Is it still OK to post mainstream news articles if we can then post a theory about how this links into a conspiracy? Or even if there is an angle going unreported by the mainstream media?

e.g: I have a thread about a troop buildup in Afghanistan which the mainstream claimed was to combat the Taliban. I had a theory that this was a troop movement in anticipation of an attack against Pakistan/ Iran. I elaborated on this theory in my thread.

Would such a post be acceptable on the breaking altern news channel or is it better suited for another channel, or even PTS?

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord


Our Staff Will be Cleaning Up The Forum over the next few days to clear out the previous seven-days of incorrectly submitted threads. All existing threads will be moved to other forums on ATS (none will be deleted). The intent is not to single anyone out or focus/unfocus attention on any particular issue, but to demonstrate how the "Breaking Alternative News Forum" should look without staff intervention.

From This Point Forward, Incorrectly Submitted Threads Will Be Moved to the appropriate forums on AboveTopSecret.com, BelowTopSecret.com, or AbovePolitics.com. In the event the news submission is a duplicate of an existing topic in other forums, we may end up trashing it (unless it adds a new or updated twist to the existing topic).

What would be the reason for a "Breaking alternative News" thread being deleted completely even if it wasn't a duplicate or an inapropriate subject?

For example...

Thank you in advance for any clarification you may offer.

[edit on 17-3-2008 by Nobubu_Togomu_mu]

It seems like there's no consistency in managing the Breaking Alternative News forum. I've submitted topics that were clearly 'alternative' news only to have them moved to the 'general news' forum, then within a few hours there are 4 more submissions of the same story in Breaking Alternative News that are left there. Alternatively, I post an article in 'political news' and it gets two views and an hour later it's in Breaking Alternative News with 400 views and 35 replies. I'm not complaining about my own submissions, I just see the same thing happening to a lot of people here. Didn't we used to have an ATSNN Editor? Was it Nerdling? Anyway, it seems to me like it needs one person to co-ordinate it and keep it consistent.

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
It seems like there's no consistency in managing the Breaking Alternative News forum. I've submitted topics that were clearly 'alternative' news only to have them moved to the 'general news' forum, then within a few hours there are 4 more submissions of the same story in Breaking Alternative News that are left there.

Exactly so. There exists now another thread with the exact same subject as the one I have posted above, yet it has not been deleted. Why delete a thread and then allow a duplicate of it? It wasn't moved to another forum because I watched it disappear from the top of the page with my very own eyes, and, becoming intrigued, I searched every forum on this entire site that it could have been placed in. It was not to be found. Neither did the search feature locate it, but by visiting the authors profile I found that "the page I had requested no longer exists."

Perhaps Skeptic Overlord's "reaffirmation" will prevent this bizarre inconsistency from happening further. Or perhaps the thread in question will magically reappear and I'll be beaten about the head with web links and sharp questions like "What the [Tony Blair] are you talking about?"

I would not put it past the abovetopsecret.com staff to conduct such trickery, and outright tomgoshmanship.

No.





(I jest, surely...

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


and who ever said the ATS admins dont listen



this is great news and it will be nice to see the quality put back into ATSN

According to your criteria then, this thread
www.abovetopsecret.com...
should or should not have been moved from "Breaking Alternative News?"
IMO, I think I tie in the whole pedophile ring/cult conspiracy to the abduction and subsequent rescue of the girl.

Originally posted by TheComte
According to your criteria then, this thread
www.abovetopsecret.com...
should or should not have been moved from "Breaking Alternative News?"

Other than in current events on ATS, I'm not seeing where it would fit into our collection of topics. If you had very good reason to suspect politicians were conspiring to cover-up a pederast ring, that's one thing... otherwise, it's just a (horrible) news item.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
If you had very good reason to suspect politicians were conspiring to cover-up a pederast ring, that's one thing...

Well, I guess I thought I did when I asked why the police were keeping the girl from her parents, and by posting a couple of related child abuse threads. It's ok if the mod or you don't think it is a good reason. I understand it is very subjective. Perhaps I could have elaborated better on the topic.