Anone else feel like this place has turned "clickey"?

reply to post by Badge01


lol

Well, clicking... hmmm... I try not to really follow cliques and stuff. I think I see actually a good deal of exclusiveness with members who have been here longer or have more posts etc.

Join my click, we're called the 1337 pwng c!

reply to post by dgtempe

Originally posted by dgtempe
I'm going to be gone for awhile. Seems that is the thing to do following such a thread.
Everyone i know is gone now anyway, so, see you later!
I do love you whaaa, and others here.
Farewell. I shall return just to see whats going on.

So long pixels.

No no no! Where you going? You better not disappear without a u2u or email. I'll hunt you down and tickle you till you scream!

It's just gotten boring and serious. I made like 30k points the first year. This year I probably made a few hundred.. just to show how little I've been posting.

It just seems like everything has been said and done. There is no reason for my input, its already been said. Nothing new here, just newbies posting old crap. I guess thats the dilemma when you are on a site that is based on theories with little or no proof, there just isn't enough material.

Yeah thats my rant.... carry on.

Originally posted by dgtempe
WORLD ENDS- 1250 views and no responses, on the other hand if someone writes a thread about their bowel movements, it gets 30 pages!

I take personal offense to this and neither my bowel threads nor anyone else's have ever gotten 30 pages of response.

Love your bowels!

Peace

Originally posted by dgtempe
We're losing members because of it. Its a shame. It doesnt matter what the subject matter is, or how dumb it is, as long as its started by a "click" member.

It has been this way even since I became a member. You are just now noticing .

I still love ya DG - I mean Thelma Is there any love here anymore?

This place needs some good old fashioned fun, that's all. I don't really post much these days either

Yep, just need the fun factor restored here...

We have lost some great characters / members recently which I think has also stopped others from posting but im sure things will pick up again. Ive only been here a short time but have worked out we go through phases here at ATS. One minute were up (happy) next were down (sad), so hang in there people, things can only get better.

and no more leaving, from anyone...

regards,

JQ.

I don't have any problem with religious postings, per se, and though I'm no longer a religious person having had plenty of that as a child, when I go to BTS and see a dozen postings on religion it really has a negative effect on my going to that page.

In fact it's not just the religious postings, it's the content. 'Can God make a rock so big he can't move it'. :bash:

So, as I said the membership of ATS, gotta love 'em has just really become a majority of people who are HS dropouts, people who've never read a science book and people who can't spell AT ALL (to the point where you can no longer understand their oops, I mean 'there' posts).

There may be 20 people in the threads in which I post with whom you can carry on a decent conversation at a college level.

In addition all the erudite and entertaining posters are either promoted to Mods so they don't post much anymore, or they've been banned for daring to suggest a [noun deleted] with which ATS has 'issues'.

If that's not the worst part, I hear reports that I can't really go into on the open forum (or U2U).

Having said that, there are redeeming factors and I'm learning to be tolerant and I still appreciate a lot of what ATS has to offer.

In addition I try to post things which will improve the intellectual standards.

But at times you just want to throw up your hands and take a vacation.

Oh well....

I feel your pain B.

The conservative ranks have dwindled down to a precious few.

The iconoclast have all been banned.

The adolescents and ROTC reign supreme.

Val and BH almost never post anymore

I sense a growing malaise.



[edit on 4-5-2008 by whaaa]

reply to post by Badge01


I AM a religious person(don't go to church but talk a lot to the big fella though) and the religious threads in BTS is a total putoff to me too..
Just not the time and place...

Conversations to justify a religion??? Why? What happened to good old faith?
AAAAAAnyway...

When I joined up i NEVER posted in BTS as all my interest and questions were in topics in ATS.
Now a few questions have been answered by the ole clever clogs that make up this site,my curiosity is quite satiated on these well-covered topics..

I still see a huge amount of stuff covered next door but the questions have been fewer on my part as a lot is repeated(not at all a bad thing).

I do see a bit of what DG says though.
Quality threads getting ignored because they are new members or 'unpopular' members.

I also see a lot of 'Buttkiss replies'.. People answering and in total agreement without question because the OP happens to be a MOD.. Maybe they think it earns them 'brownie points' or something..

I think the MODS are clever enough to see this though and would far rather have an intelligent opposed view to dig up info that interests more than the 'YEAsayers'.

Originally posted by whaaa
I feel your pain B.

The conservative ranks have dwindled down to a precious few.

The iconoclast have all been banned.

The adolescents and ROTC reign supreme.

Val and BH almost never post anymore

I sense a growing malaise.
[edit on 4-5-2008 by whaaa]

Extremely well put, and thanks to you for being here - I appreciate your comments.

IMO, a 'healthy' board contains some dissenters, and certainly benefits from having Iconoclasts on board.

To me, though I generally like the Moderation, at times they move into areas that they should not - IMO. It's not up to me to tell the Mods their job, though (things are not always what they appear).

Those generally are things where it appears some 'drama' may ensue, but no obvious T&C have been violated.

In addition it bothers me when someone who has never even had one 'warning', has contributed a lot and has a high points count is suddenly banned and we never hear about it.

Lately, I've U2U-ed a couple friends repeatedly only to finally look and see they have been banned. I initially thought they were mad at me and never conceived they'd be banned, because if they were kind and gentle posters, they were strong contributors and 'old timers' (pre-2007 joiners).

Again, no complaints, just making a few comments.

There is a good amount of truth in what you are saying.

The Board has had many diffrent Changes over the years.

And my spelling hasn't got any better because of it...

On ATS, there is STILL a ton of great threads, and BTS is just more of a place to hang, and blow a little steam off.

There are definatly these 'cliques' that you refered too.

You can have a great thread going, with dozen or so 'good' responses, and then out of nowhere you get 2-3 pages of people talking to each other, and it toatly derailed the thread.

Bad in the day, people would get slapped, have thier post deleated, and told to carry on thier perosnal discustion in a U2U... now there is so many threads, that it is just over-stacked with junk...



Its strange to see some of the people that are banned, i never thought some of them would leave, then all of a sudden, i dont see them post for a while, and then i see an older post of theirs and see they are banned...

Oh, well, this place is still the (blank)...

I can imagine how nice it must have been when ATS was first started. It reminds me of a new church that grows into a huge church that is so big they have to have two morning services to get all the people churched in one day.

At first everybody knows everybody. As the group grows with new members some feel they have been violated by the newbies opinions. After all, the oldies were here first and surely must be the most intelligent of all. Hogwash I say. Each member is as important as the next no matter how long their tenure is.

I don't see much in the way of cliques. Maybe that is because I learned along time ago that it is smart to not take the Internet personal.

I had developed two friendships within the short time I've been here. One was male and the other female. We U2U'ed and seemed to be getting along good. Well, wouldn't you know they were both banned. I miss them both and feel ATS lost valuable members when they were banned.

Years ago when the Internet was new I had an abundance of Internet feelings that were continually being hurt. It was devastating. Thankfully I have no more feelings left.

I'm not here to make friends. There are many members that I do believe are very interesting and it might be nice to get a bit closer to. But my better sense kicks in and does not allow me to let my guard down.

I try to keep in mind that there are times when the student becomes the teacher and the teacher becomes the student. I value every new member that joins our group. To shun the new members is the height of snobbery.

I certainly would miss any member that stopped posting, especially the oldies.

[edit on 5-5-2008 by dizziedame]

reply to post by dizziedame


There are only a select few that feel the way your describing, It certainly isn't the majority of the people that post here.

New members are sometimes looked upon with scrutiny, this is because of the nature of the site and what these members have shown us. This I feel a majority of the time leads to a fruitful and rewarding relationship between the members that are new and those that have been here for a long time.

Some members that join up seem to want to post hoxes and those get found out quickly and are discredited for it. Often though the origional member that posted the hoax is not banned for the infraction but probably in private they are reminded what this site is here for and what we as members expect.

This being a user content run site, (that means you all make this site not just the admins) are responsible for what you post.

What you see is what you get. Some people have cliqued together and joined into groups. These groups go through parts of the site the group has experience in and expertise to share. Most of the time they are not malicious. If you post in a responsible way they will treat you with respect and courtacy. Those that do not often won't be here for long.

This is why this board is run so well. The administration of this board truly cares about the content that goes on this site and the way that members adress each other. This post while I am adressing another poster's remarks. I am debunking the remarks made. However I feel that the poster that I am replying to has the right to remark the way they have and so I will not go after the poster themselves.

Why? Because the poster themselves should not be attacked. The post that they made however is fair game. I do not agree with the post made. However the poster is in fact a valid member and should be regarded as such. And as a valid member should be given the respect we all would wish for.

Yes within this site runs groups belonging to different ideologies. Some of which we have no experiences in. For myself the automotive forum and the wepons forums are largely beyond my understanding so I generally do not post in those forums.

Heck you could say the same for title holders. The ones that have Fighter titles are obviously a clique. Those that hold this title contribute or have contributed to the forums specificaly marked for them. The same goes for writers and scholars. These specific titles in themselves show that this member is a part of a spacific group on this forum site.

That does not exclude people from joining these groups. They just have to contribute to the forum in order to hold the title.

Clique? yes they do exist on this site, However what I have found is that nearly everyone has some sort of input that is valuable to the various discussions and that their opinion counts as much as anyone elses does.

Yes there are cliques on ATS.

One of the biggest cliques is the older member clique, exclusive to pre-07 members with thousands of points, reminiscing about the "good ole' days" and about how ATS has deteriorated and the poor quality new members.
Some of you guys are fantastic and loyal contributors but others just exude an egotistical sense of smug, arrogant superiority which deters so many people from even attempting to get to know you guys.

Yes, ATS has changed, even in the relatively short time I have been here, and yes, the quality of a lot of posts / threads seems to have got worse.
I suspect that this may just be a reflection of the general malaise and apathy that seems to be endemic within society as a whole at present.

I also agree that the banning of several members, (for whatever reasons), who seemed to stimulate quality, reasoned debate and appeared to have the ability to generate a sense of fun and togetherness, has been detrimental to ATS.

It is not my intention to offend anyone at all.
There will always be cliques on a site as diverse as this; it is inevitable anywhere there is human interaction.

reply to post by dgtempe


Nothing like crashing a party late, eh?
DG, It's all good! We all see threads which have a load of replies, and some that have few. Why? Man! I wish I could figure it out. Just know this DG - we luv's ya man!

reply to post by dgtempe



You know I'll always love ya, DG.

Little groups of self congratulating folks have made apperances here ever since I've joined, and you've been here longer than I have...

You need a hug, girl.

So here ya go...

***HUG***

As a LONG time member of ATS/BTS I have to agree. BTS has gotten cliquey, clicky click click cliqueroo!

These things do happen sometimes on the best of sites. and it is always a shame because it discourages other people from joining in when they see no one will reply to them unless they are part of that "everyday poster" group.

Is there anything that we can do to stop it? Not really no. the only people who can do anything to end this are the people that are only replying to their handful of regular buddies and ignoring everyone else.

I stay quiet most of the time anyway. I used to post quite a bit in BTS back in the day.. but it has changed alot and I just dont really feel welcome here anymore. and the topic of this thread.. is why.

I really do hope to see this change in the near future as it used to be quite fun getting to know NEW people as they joined.

oh and BTW I see things mispelled here all the time but its the first I have seen someone jump on it so quickly.. coincidentally it was in the same thread that was bringing an important issue to light which I find quite rude and anti-productive. You knew what DG meant.. and the post was not formatted in such a way that was unclear.

Was that spelling response really so important that it was the first thing addressed?

[edit on 5-5-2008 by NephraTari]

I do feel like this place is kinda cliquey, but in my opinion all places are. I personally haven't made any friends here and many times I feel that when I post to threads I am ignored, but it could just be me and my perspective of things...who knows.

It is so strange DG, some of the really older more reserved members have stepped in and made this thread worth reading. Some that I absolutely adore, have never gotten to know them because they just post so infrequently.

I know that you have been going through so many personal changes, and the forum is just another part of that movement in your life right now honey.

Know this and know it well, you are so well loved and appreciated here.

I always love your threads and posts, just dont always feel like I have something worthy to add to the mix.

see ya later, I am always here just a U2U away.