The ATS Issues Thread

I would like to thank whomever was responsible for their quick actions deleting that hate thread regarding the jewish and muslim peoples a little bit ago. I really hope that person was banned for life. I believe in free speech but that guy took it too far. Spreading hate like that is an abuse of the right to free speech.

THANK YOU WHO EVER YOU ARE!!!

I am curious if it is possible within the current forum format to enable an "Ignore Thread" feature for users. Is it even a feasible idea considering the sites motto and mission statement?

I personally try use some self control and just stop visiting threads that are pure bunk or get my hackles up for one reason or another (unless I am in dire need of some entertainment), but would it be a useful tool for those who lack "self moderation", giving them a tool that at the click of a mouse solves that problem for the more impulsive among us? Might give the Mods a bit of a break as well.

Jes wonderin...LM

reply to post by Lost_Mind


The key is self moderation. There are a couple of people on the boards that so infuriate me with a consistant amount of what I think is ignorance that I have actually hit the ignore button on them.

There are also some parts of the board that I have no business to be in. I don't have the level of intelegence or previous experience enough to warrant me even venturing into these forums. I stay out of them not because they don't have anything to offer but because I don't have anything to offer.

Self Moderation is a key in a board like this. It can be difficult especially when a poster does get your goat but if you practice thinking about what your trying to say and then posting it you can avoid a lot of hair pulling and personal attacks. It's hard to do sometimes when people post something you feel is tripe.

So keep on practicing your self moderation and I think you will be quite happy with yourself and your new found self restraint.

Also whats cool is the my ATS feature. This handy tool lets you customise your favorite forums so that you don't have to see the forums you have no interest in and may cause you feelings of anger or hostility. Thats what I do anyway. I hope that helps.

aI have a question for the senior staff here at ATS. I have asked it once before but dont beleive the question was ansered to any standard.

What happened to Richard Belzer.

He was portrayed to be playing a big part in ATS during and after the "Revolution" event, but has not been spoken of since.

The one response I did get to my Richard Belzers Contribution thread from Springer only said:

Let's just say that we are moving in different directions (Richard and The Above Network, LLC) and leave it at that

I personally have trouble leaving anything at 'that' so I hope bringing it up here will elicit a further more in depth response.

CT

edit to fix links.

[edit on 12/5/2008 by Conspiracy Theorist]

reply to post by Conspiracy Theorist


It really is not much more than that, unfortunately.

We remain in friendly contact, but there has been some minor disagreements on a couple strategic points related to a few collaborative projects that have preventing things from getting off the ground. Which is not to say that something may not happen, just not at the initial pace and veracity we first thought.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

We remain in friendly contact

Good to know.

but there has been some minor disagreements on a couple strategic points related to a few collaborative projects that have preventing things from getting off the ground.

Can you elaborate on the "minor disagreements on a couple strategic points."

Also further elaboration on the collaborative projects and how it relates to the "minor disagreements" would be helpful to me.

Thanks in advance

CT

Why isn't there a "complaints/issues" section where we can complain w/o our thread being deleted by a mod? I started a thread here called "unfriendliest forum on internet" and Dr. Love closed it off and said I had to come here and post under another person's thread. Why can't I start my own thread? They are forcing people to put ALL info. which may shed an unfavorable light on this forum under the same lame thread called "Issues" --- I don't have an issue I have an complaint and desired to make it known with its own thread title. I tried twice in the past couple weeks to get taken off their mail list to no avail, I guess they are too darn busy, but I posted the thread about them being unfriendly and no kidding, this Dr. Love character had me shut down in less than 5 minutes. They ignore your email/requests, but the propaganda managers work faster than a cat can lick its butt.

Ironically enough, for the first time I had a couple of nice people send me a message today. But flaming threads seem to be the norm here. I was nervous about posting in the first place because I had read so many entirely unnecessary hateful comments made to people, like no forum I had ever seen before. I guess that's ok, there's a place now for all the people banned from decent forums. Cool.

I am making a formal request for the third time to be deleted from your maillist. I need a moderator to please tell me what else I have to do. I tried the email route, which has been ignored.

I have a question for S.O. as well.

Not really too bad of one but some closure on this one would help.

Win 250,000 Points: What Are The Top-5 9/11 Conspiracies? Ok who won this? I am just currious.

I thought this was a great idea and I along with others pointed out some great discrepencies in the official storyline. Did someone win that one?

The Overlord is still contemplating.

[edit on 5/12/2008 by whatukno]

Originally posted by Conspiracy Theorist

Also further elaboration on the collaborative projects and how it relates to the "minor disagreements" would be helpful to me.

Thanks in advance

CT

Belzer and his crew want to get the conspiracies out there to the public, much as we do, but the approach we wanted and the approach they wanted were somewhat different. Belzer remains a conspiracy theorist and will continue to speak his mind on the things that people tend to not want to talk about. Our relationship with his team hasn't changed and if and when anything comes along that would work for all of us, we'll be back eating 5 napkin burgers and talking about the different ways to enlighten the public.

An important question was overlooked in the now-closed thread, posted by "roadgravel" here.

No server logs for the web server? Is it in a database instead? How could an IP ban be performed without knowledge from the connection? Something is being recorded even if for trouble shooting, isn't it.

No, no access logs in the database either.

When I say "server logs," I'm referring to the data recorded by the web server software (Apache in this case) for each single access by a user. Typically, the logs record IP address and each asset (graphic, page, file, etc.) accessed by the user, along with other details such as browser, operating system, referring website, etc. In some cases, if a government agency is interested in a particular user, the server logs can reveal a great deal of information... so it's nice that we decided that, "for overall server performance reasons," we don't want to enabling the logging feature of the web server.


We can restrict specific IP's from accessing the board because a user's IP address is associated with their post... but that's the only time an IP is retained.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Thanks for the reply. I was interested if your were referring the log for the web server. I understand how you could record an addr with a post and that make good sense for your needs.

I was curious since there is mention of various know IP ranges linked government networks, etc being seen in reads against various threads. Without logs and the lack of a post to a thread, how would that be known?

Originally posted by roadgravel
Without logs and the lack of a post to a thread, how would that be known?

If you look at the source-code of our HTML, you'll notice a bit of JavaScript for Google Analytics (Urchin) at the bottom of each page. Third-party analytics packages like that (HitBox, Omniture, etc.) can gather aggregate data without the need to retain logs.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Thanks for the follow up, I'll do the research. Appreciated.

Hello Bill,

In the "ATS IS A Conspiracy" thread you said:

Maybe we're revealing our thoughts to deep undercover federal agents and they're using this as a tool to weed out the good ones.

No such thing is happening.

I'm afraid I must strongly disagree with you here; I am far from a network security expert, but I do believe that "they" do in fact have ways to find out who a given ATS member is in real life, and give people "warning taps" and things of that nature

(Intercepting, decrypting, logging and back-tracing incoming packets to ATS perhaps?)

Don't think for a second that it's 100% safe and anonymous to participate on here....

ATS is a conspiracy...

Seriously, this is really getting old. I've been here two years and a little bit...while this sort of thing comes and goes, this is the worst I've ever seen.

These 3 guys, the Amigos, have brought us, for free no less, the best site of its type on the internet...and along with a host of other people, one of whom happens to be family, work really hard to keep it that way. For thanks, some little know nothing comes along talking smack with absolutely no proof, and what few facts they have are totally wrong.

My god people get a flippin' clue. You know sometimes I wish we could swear occaisionally herein.

As I said this is getting old...

Now back to our regularly scheduled thread.

reply to post by seagull


seagull, I was not trying to take ANYTHING away from what the 3 Amigos have accomplished!

Just trying to say - yes "they" CAN figure out who you are.

Just because you're using an anonymous screen-name, doesn't mean you truly are anonymous

reply to post by LOYAL
Wow, that was really thought out. Almost sounded like your trying to apply for a Mod Post. Again, "WOW!!!"

reply to post by MrdDstrbr


I think his frustration comes from the fact that these "ATS is......" threads used to come up about every 3-4 weeks and now they are coming up every other day. Some several times a day. It really takes away attention from relevant content.

reply to post by intrepid


Yes I have noticed that.... and again, not trying to accuse the staff of anything here, we all know you guys are awesome!

Just saying.... we are not as safe and anonymous as we may think

reply to post by 2nts_astk


If you are referring to me, sir, my point is I'm, along with more than a few others, getting a little bit tired of these thread popping up every day. It's ridiculous in the extreme...and most of them are the worst sort of claptrap, I'd use another word, but there's no point in getting a warn or something of that sort.

Does that help your understanding of my point any? Sure do hope so...

ooops, apparently you weren't...apologies all around...



[edit on 5/14/2008 by seagull]

[edit on 5/14/2008 by seagull]