You, ATS and Decision 2008.

As has been stated many times, ATS is provided free to it's member. What do we ask in return? Civility, decorum and just post good, relevant material. Anyone that has taken the time to scan this forum will easily see that this is not what is happening.

It's a board war right on our own board. Is that good for the site? Hardly. Mimicing, hate filled rhetoric being spewed from both sides of the equation. Why? Do you SO need to be right, convince, beat the other side that decorum and relevant material goes out the window? I've seen some completely inane threads. Then threads to mimic those threads.

Listening? Few are doing it. They just take parts of what is said, here and online, to attempt to make their point. No one learns anything, ignorance rules the day. I believe it was a Korean proverb that states, "The fool chatters whilst the wise man listens."

Spurious sites and blogs are used to bludgeon the opposition into submission. ANYTHING, ANYTHING to make the other opponent look bad. ANYTHING to make your candidate look good........... no matter how inane it is. This is good for the board? BTW, Google can be a valued tool, it can also be the bane of civilized discussion for those that don't want to learn anything and just put forth their own agenda.

Why is this happening? What's the motivation? I could see it if there was value to most threads, there isn't. Banal thread after banal thread so that even if one was to post a joke, you couldn't tell if it was one. That's sad.

So my point is, ATS is here for you, where's the pay back to this site that is offered to you for free? Is it too much to ask that topics be relevant and have REAL content? Is it too much to ask that you post in a manner that most would look at and go, "Hmm, might be a point there"? That isn't happening now. Most would look at this tripe and turn their nose up at the stench. Who are you getting your points across to? No one except those that already agree and who support you in this activity.

So, let's raise the bar please. I've been here over 4 years and I know what ATS members can do. RAISE THE BAR!!! Drop the battlelines posting and give something back.

I personally would rather go play in a nice mudhole during a good rain than the political sniping threads.
Everything I learned, I learned in kindergarten.

Intrepid ATS is a resilient site with very good long standing members that support the side.

We will survive just like we survive the last election, is just two more months and trolls will go away.

[edit on 5-9-2008 by marg6043]

As long as I'm backing up a claim (fact) with a source, I don't see myself as perpetrating ignorance. Debate is a highly usable skill that sharpens the mind and thinking, and educates those that choose to go out and research the subjects they post about or participate in. Honestly, I've learned more about Democracy, the election process and some history than I learned in college (poli-sci wasn't my major) because you get to debate and talk about it on the boards and see it happening real time in the daily news. Not only that, but it sharpens your research skills and help you weed out the bogus sources from the more reliable ones.

I'm pretty sure this is how it works.

1. We the members post millions of words of content on keywords like Obama, Palin, McCain, UFOs, Bilderberger, etc.

2. Google's spiders index all this content in their search engines.

3. People Google things like "obama NWO"

4. Viola! Up comes ATS threads in the search engine results.

5. ATS gets tons of traffic.

6. A portion of this traffic clicks on the ads.

7. The owners of ATS get rich by getting paid by the advertisers.

8. We get to entertain each other posting stuff back and forth.

9. The Mods get paid by the owners to keep things from getting out of hand.

10. Everybody's happy!

Intrepid, we know you like Obama but you got to be able to take it as well as dish it.

We don't see Mods like Dbates or Semper whining about this stuff.

It has happened to McCain plenty of times and now look at the Sarah Palin threads? One example is that she is "The Whore of Babylon" - as a thread title. The list goes on and on with rediculous McCain and Palin smears.

It's why we don't discuss politics or religion when going on dates here in America. You may do the same in Canada.

Politiics = highly contraversial

If you can't take the heat - then stay out of the kitchen. The Decision 2008 forum seems to be doing just fine and with more viewers than ever (as you stated yourself about a week ago).

Moderators do not get paid.

I don't know how many times we've had to explain it, but we don't.

That absolves you from posting relevant content? This is about the WHOLE community, not just a few pundits. Yes, pundits.



Hardly. Funny YOU should bring up money though.



Who's having fun? Most aren't



We do? Guess again. And it's already out of hand.



No, they aren't. See above.

Ok.

Sorry about that. I thought maybe that was the difference between a regular mod and a Super Mod.

Bummer.

reply to post by jetxnet

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I am not in the least surprised that the "usual suspects" have shown up to defend their actions. All for you, nothing for the rest of the membership. Sad.

I would suggest your requests would carry more weight, and you would increase your credibility among members, if you would intervene at least every once in a while when people post hateful stuff about Republicans.

I've seen interventions on threads that were really pretty benign, but they were labeled "inflammatory" because they offended the fragile psyche of Obama supporters.

On the other hand, threads like Palin is an open racist and others like it seem to linger and linger like morning breath with no mods in sight.

The threads all weekend long claiming Trig Palin was really the child of 17-year old Bristol Palin had no source other than a COMMENT on a blog for God's sake. And I and a couple others were the only people trying to stop such crap being posted.

Where were the mods then? I bet the threads are still up? Go ahead and check to see how many times mods intervened. Then check how many times I tried to intervene with no backup from any mods.

One issue is that part of what makes ATS different from other sites is the CT aspect as well as the Alternative News aspect. However, some members are just cutting and pasting from various aggregate web-sites, some of ill-repute, and posting to the board without adding either a CT or Alt news spin. So we end up with either scurrilous rumor or a parrot straight from the factional talking points. Another thing I have noticed is that some members refuse to concede when others make good points to the contrary...and sometimes you just have to agree to disagree.

[edit on 5/9/2008 by kosmicjack]

reply to post by jamie83

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NO, you're not going to derail THIS thread. Take that partisan junk elsewhere.

I knew there was a reason I never open any thread that begins with jamie. I just don't like pundets. Open minded forum members I'm all for.

I'm not derailing the thread. I am contributing to the discussion even though it might not be what you want to hear.

The fact is many members here see posts with the "right" political slant being not just allowed to exist, but being encouraged by mods.

Just today a thread began by slamming Palin with a blatant lie about her college education (it said she had a BA degree which is wrong), and instead of the mod stopping it in its track, the mod came in and said the OP was really a Palin supporter just trying to start trouble.

What is that???

The lame thread was bumped and the lame OP was labeled a Palin supporter by a MOD.

This "partisan" policing of ATS is an issue that needs to be addressed among the mods. I would guess if you put this question out there for open discussion on it's own thread you might be surprised to see how many people agree.

I used to think I might have an impact. Maybe influence someone. But since I realized that that's not going to happen here (on ATS) I have relaxed and don't feel threatened or scared that "my guy" is going to lose. I think that's what a lot of motivation is. Fear. Hmm... Big surprise.

Since then, I have been doing what I can to keep things civil and I find I'm a lot more relaxed and happy. So, from my experience, people who start these mimicking and hate filled rhetoric threads are scared. And they want to make the other guy look bad so the other people on the board will be scared into voting for "their guy".

One or the other side is going to lose. And nothing I (or anyone) post here is going to change that.

reply to post by intrepid

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Intrepid, I'm posting this for a slightly different reason. I know "I told you sos" are not very productive but:

Remember this great idea? www.abovetopsecret.com...

And I said it won't work cause we're going in our treehouse and leaving members to the trolls:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
and
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Everyone including my friends were telling me no no you don't get it.

It just kills me, we were all there motivated to deal with this, feeling the way you feel right now. SO was driving, we were there bro!

And now everything is still is what it was. And perhaps it's the only way with elections.
I threw out the idea of maybe, god forbid, restrict new threads by one member to I don't know 10-15 a day. Seemed like a pretty simple and affective temporary way to stop spray and pray threaders, but I was shut down like I was trying to slap ducktape on peoples' mouths.

So what remains is still SO original thread on the Election 2008 board:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
which still states:



Seems pretty clear to me. And everyone is familiar or at least should be with the T&C.

These combined parameters are either enforced or they are not, it's really that simple.
No one likes temp or permanent bannings, and no one wants to suppress speech.
But the hammer has to fall sometimes. These people you're talking about don't care about anything, throwing faeces at everything , and the hammer sits in the drawer lest we use it in error. So why should they leave, they got it made over here, in fact they have become a protected species, they're the one freaking thriving. And they're laughing their butts off at us as we speak.

Man, I was having a good day.

Edit to add: BH, I love you to death but I'm pissed at me because of you most of all.
I should have never dropped it that day. I could see it so clearly.

[edit on 9/5/2008 by schrodingers dog]

reply to post by intrepid

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Funny thing is, non of this "information" is a good way to pick who you are voting for. If you are basing your vote on a persons race, clothes, family, or even religion then you probably shouldn't be voting. Period. Base it on the real issues. Post a thread about the real issues. There are so many undecided people still who are looking for info on the net as we speak, and when someone posts something insane its misinforming millions. Not just ATS members. We know if its true or not, but a first time voter who knows nothing about politics is now basing their vote on a thread entitled Palins a racist or Obama is a Muslim... Its just not right on so many more levels then just ATS.

Thanks for the thread Intrepid. I needed to get that out lol.

I'm sorry. I just didn't want you to push it beyond the limit. You shouldn't have listened to me. Sorry.

reply to post by schrodingers dog

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Perfectly righteous "I told you so..." I was also against the new forum. The cure for ATS is for the T&C to be enforced consistently in order that members take it seriously and not push the limits.

I would also suggest, in addition to the flagging and starring, a mechanism by which members can vote threads up or down. But I think that privilege should come with tenure and/or points as it would indicate your track record and commitment to ATS.