A Conspiracy Against ATS?, page 19

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:17 AM

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reply to post by SkepticOverlord

Given that this is a conspiracy site, and the types of CT minded folks that would attract, I could see how it could get old fast...

I was more questioning the members who were bent on attacking the guys asking questions...

My opinion, for what its worth, is when a group of CTers get together, no one can win...

Members are free to ask questions... and of course you are free not to answer them.. But, CTers will draw their own conclusions as to why these questions weren't answered, and others will draw conclusions as to why they were asked in the first place...

There's no winning either way, but I don't like it when members decide to discredit, poke fun or attack someone who is asking unpopular questions... At least they have the mind to question, which is a rare trait in this day and age.

Without asking unpopular questions, we'd all think that Lee Harvey killed JFK...

jfj123

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:17 AM

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Originally posted by nj2day
reply to post by jfj123

Like it or not enigmania is doing something most people around here don't: Questioning motives.

It would appear from your posts you have an undying belief in the benevolence of the site admin. Which is fine if you do... But you can't reasonably tear another member to shreds because he's willing to question the motives of the admin...

Wait just a minute. I'm doing what you're claiming he's doing "questioning motives". If it's ok for him, it's ok for me right?

Enigmania is doing what he should be... You are trying to "shut him up" by being argumentative and not really contributing in an overly productive manner.

1. I'm expressing my opinion just like you are and I'm not trying to shut him up in any way. Have I suggested to the mods he be banned? or warned? He's free to express anything he likes as long as it doesn't violate the T & C, just as I am.
Using your logic, I could say that you are trying to shut me up by being argumentative and not really contributing in an overly productive manor.

That being said, you obviously haven't read all of my posts or you would have seen the examples I've shown that indicates the possibility that the conspiracy is real. That would be contributing right?

Yes, this is a public forum... but do his opinions or inqueries have to be popular in the forum he's expressing himself?

NOPE. Absolutely not. But are you saying that I shouldn't be able to respond to his opinions?

It would appear you're just trying to discredit him, and "shut him up" in your previous posts...

No actually I'm trying to show him using his own posts that what he's saying is not quite accurate. He's posted on more then one occasion that "THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND", then he's gone on to explain there IS a middle ground. I'm simply trying to point out that the freedom of speech which he feels is being squelched is not a black and white case.

What's behind your motives?

In this particular case, I believe the owners of the site are correct. Nothing more, nothing less. In the past, I have disagreed with how they've handled a few things but, I always try to remember that it's really easy to be an armchair quarterback but when you're on the field, the reality of what goes on, is much different.

As an example in my trade:
I own a construction/remodeling company and have had some customers tell me I charge too much and they could do it themselves much cheaper. I've heard, "well with drywall repairs, you just slap some mud on and sand it so why are you charging so much money".
When you explain the detail that must happen with a drywall repair, they always look at you with a completely dumbfounded look on their face, then ok the quote and never bring it up again

I'm sure in your career, you've run into these armchair quarterbacks yourself right?

Skyfloating

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:18 AM

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If non consent were being suppressed at this site you`d be long gone.

Its one thing to question motives but another thing to exaggerate that to a point where you suspect the people who are on your side to be part of a plot.

As for your definition of censorship: Yes, this site "CENSORS" materials that are harmful to minors. There, you want it to hear it. You got it.

But there seems to be a plot to undermine and denigrate the quality of the site by proposing and promoting harmful material.

[edit on 1-3-2009 by Skyfloating]

ZindoDoone

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:25 AM

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reply to post by Skyfloating

I don't know if you clicked on the link I posted above, but that is exactly what you are trying to explain to them. Its a concerted effort to debase opinions and the use of this and other sites! Your protection of this site and its information is correct in manner and purpose! The information highway is being used by those that wish to sway opinion and not discuss opinion!

Zindo

americandingbat

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:28 AM

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Originally posted by nj2day
reply to post by americandingbat

But isn't it awfully convenient that disagreeing with the OP and making a counterclaim is construed as being precisely the type of derailment that the OP was talking about?

There's no way to disagree with the OP, and set up another argument. Any attempts to do so will just support the OP's claim...

Not saying it was intentional, only Nef knows that... But think about that for a min...

That's just not true – there are plenty of ways to disagree with the OP. Some of them have been demonstrated in this thread. If I were debating nef on the subject, I'd probably start by wondering what sort of proof he had for his argument, and try to find holes in it or flaws in the sources. As it happens, we're not in the Debate Forum and I agree with his argument, so I don't have much interest in doing so. But others in this thread have, and have not been accused of acting in the way the OP lays out.

What took the thread off topic was to shift the focus from whether or not there's been organized activity against ATS to whether or not ATS censors free speech. I don't think that enigmania is doing it as part of some internet gang necessarily, but I do think that this thread demonstrates just how successful such a strategy could be if it were coordinated over an entire board. Use a keyword like "censorship", especially in the climate of ATS over the last 72 hours, and you have a virtually guaranteed thread derailment.

Now imagine you're the webmaster of a rival site, and you blog about the brouhaha you saw at ATS over the weekend. And mention that a Forum Moderator now has a thread going that's getting lots of stars that's trying to say that ATS is the target of a conspiracy. And provide a link. That just might be enough to send a few people in here to make sure that the topic itself never gets addressed again.

Personally, I think the "censorship" argument is just semantics. And I usually think semantics are important, but in the case I really don't. ATS limits the topics we can talk about and has the right to remove anything we say for any reason. I don't think it's censorship because I have plenty of other outlets to say the things ATS doesn't want me to say here. If you want to call it censorship, all I can do is shrug my shoulders. Trying to bait the owner into calling it censorship is just silly and (in my opinion) disruptive.

neformore

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:31 AM

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Originally posted by nj2day
But isn't it awfully convenient that disagreeing with the OP and making a counterclaim is construed as being precisely the type of derailment that the OP was talking about?

Conversely, isn't it awfull convinient that someone showed up in a thread about a potential conspiracy and tried to derail it?

There's no way to disagree with the OP, and set up another argument. Any attempts to do so will just support the OP's claim...

Many people have. Many have said they don't think its an organised thing. Read the disclaimer on my OP again. Its in bold at the bottom. I didn't write it to discuss particular people, or any one particular topic. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions as to how the threads got to this point. Take the time to read it all

Not saying it was intentional, only Nef knows that... But think about that for a min...

I think you've known me long enough to know that I study propaganda in all its forms. Theres one happening on this thread at the moment called broken record

Believe me when I say there are much simpler ways of making a point - had I wanted to - than starting an open discussion about it. I can play chinese whispers as well as anyone.

I started the discussion because of something I see happening on ATS across a broad spectrum of things. As I keep saying, its not about one issue.

What it is about, is artifically created issues, and people getting sucked into artificial drama, and then providing an audience for those with an agenda.

enigmania

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:31 AM

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reply to post by Skyfloating

As for your definition of censorship: Yes, this site CENSORS materials that are harmful to minors. There, you want it to hear it. You got it.

A simple: "This site censors certain subjects", would've sufficed.

The "minor" thing was just for added "shock" value.

It should be: It censors the whole subject of discussion of materials that are potentially harmfull for minors. And for adults.

It's ok to expose your kids to the rest of the subjects here though.

But that's another story.

Well, Skyfloating thanks for kinda admitting.

Is the debate challenge with Intrepid canceled now?

Jeah, let's leave it that then.

Sorry it had to be this way.

Benevolent Heretic

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:33 AM

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I'm not going to read this whole thread, because from the glance I've had, it looks like more of the same and proof of what the OP outlined - and I'm not interested in getting into the defense thing again.

Not yet, anyway. I need a break.

I did want to say to the OP that I'm not so sure this "group" that you referred to is anything more than people who want things their way. I'm not sure there is any organization among the group with a specific purpose in mind. I don't think they're singularly focused on bringing ATS down, they just want ATS to operate the way they want ATS to operate. They want to make the rules. And they see themselves as reasonable people. And if ATS were reasonable, it would operate as they think it should. If it doesn't operate the way they think it should, then it's naturally, unreasonable.

Does that make sense?

I really think that society in general has forgotten how to compromise and respect something that belongs to someone else. They've forgotten how to disagree and commit, a precious and valuable talent.

For years, we (in the Western world) IN GENERAL, have been getting more and more self-centered, selfish and stubborn. We all have our ideas of "How Things Should Be" and we think we're right. We're very invested in being right. Anyone who thinks differently, it follows, is wrong. And above all else, we don't want to be wrong.

So, although I love your post and savored every word like a good meal,

I think the conspiracy is larger than ATS. I think it's at least country-wide or as large as the civilized Western World. We have become a selfish and divisive group of human beings. We have the movies we want, the meals we want, the clothes we want, the cars we want, practically brought to us in our homes and we don't like it when we don't get things exactly our way. We throw fits when we don't have our way. And we strike out at the nearest target in hopes of making them change. In this case, ATS.

The people who are lashing out at ATS, with charges of "Suppression of free speech...., "Cointelpro....", "Sold out....", "In it for the money....", "CIA front...." etc., are just throwing a tantrum, just as sure as I screamed at my mother "I hate you"! when I was four and she wouldn't let me go on a field trip with my sister's class.

Maybe I'm jaded and just have no patience for this mindset, or I could be wrong (see, that wasn't so hard). But that's what I'm seeing here. Tantrums.

enigmania

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:38 AM

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reply to post by neformore

Wow, I was on my way out of here but,

Conversely, isn't it awfull convinient that someone showed up in a thread about a potential conspiracy and tried to derail it?

And so the circle is round.

This is the exact bigotry I based my first observation on, and so it was relevant to the thread all along.

As soon as Nefermore sees persistent opposition he sees the conspiracy, when it's just people that will fight for a certain belief.

Great job Nef.

DangerDeath

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:42 AM

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reply to post by enigmania

The destiny of "made up" topics

Censorship is what it is, whether you call it loud or not.

You may call it "rules", but it is still censorship.

So what?

That is another topic...

orangetom1999

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:46 AM

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reply to post by enigmania

I just want them to admit that they use censorship.
They do, by definition.
There is no debate.
Now man up and admit it so we can stop this.

I have no problems with the mods or SO monitoring this private board. It is their board or forum and they assume responsibility for it ..not you or me.
Correct ..there is no debate on this. Your points about censorship are irrelevant on a private board and would not do well at all in establishing a system in the likes of Yahoo Chat where chaos is the norm. I would leave this site if it became chaos the likes of what reigns as normal on many boards. This is not your board/forum or mine. Hence your points are irrelevant..even your desires on this topic of censorship.

I want you to man up and admit you are no different in your appeal or attempt by what you consider logic and reason..to overtake the owners of this private board. It is private ..not yours or mine..hence the example of the Masters Golf club and tournaments out of Augusta, Ga. and the attempted hijacking under the guise of the higher public conscience when it was no such thing. The appeal to public emotions and default settings to play through is nonsense. It is however..textbook politics today..which is also self promotion.
You are attempting to throw up a placebo and have us debating such when it does not apply on a private board. Hence your point is irrelevant. There is no debate here.

I'm very flattered you people all want a piece of me, but I'm not playing with you guys.

Sorry..but if this is flattering to you once again you need work and this is not playing to me.
Your positions are based on a placebo..a sugar pill that this is not a private forum but can be changed as such by your constant usage of such a sugar pill. To many people today have found career in playing through on default settings and the assumption that they automatically..by default...have the moral high ground and even over private buisness. I dont think so.
This is an important distinction to be made so as not to have runaway emotions take over the day.
Runaway emotions have become the bailywick/fingerprint of the political process and its hijacking appeal by media shills to the baser instincts of an unawares/uneducated public.
And here we see this similar fingerprint at work here on ATS.
Light needs to be put on this to prevent chaos from degenerating this forum to the baser levels of many other boards.

I dont think you got your point across and it also shows poor tact to tell others on these boards that they are insignificant. This too illustrates your intolerance and tendency towards censorship. This is the very thing you decry in others.

Also, I'd like to see how you guys would hold, going against the grain, having to reply to more than 5 people at once.

Self promotion again..you dont have to reply to anyone here. Who are you kidding?? Enigmania this does not support your cause. Not everyone here fell off the tailgate last week.

It's a sad day when the sites owner has to resort to these tactics.

Very sad indeed

It is a sad day when you dont recognize the right of a owner to handle their private board as they see fit and are wont to drag it through page after page of chaos and resort to such tactics in attempting to make a point which is not being made here.

Hello ZondoDoone...

Good to see your post again. Thanks for that site on page 18. I have bookmarked it for later reading after a light skim over on the contents. It looks very informative..thanks again.

Thanks to all for their posts,
Orangetom

enigmania

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:46 AM
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reply to post by DangerDeath

I know, it wasn't a real issue for me, till they started denying it.

Let's just leave it be, I know what I learned from it.

DangerDeath

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:49 AM
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censorship, official prohibition or restriction of any type of expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order. It may be imposed by governmental authority, local or national, by a religious body, or occasionally by a powerful private group. It may be applied to the mails, speech, the press, the theater, dance, art, literature, photography, the cinema, radio, television, or computer networks. Censorship may be either preventive or punitive, according to whether it is exercised before or after the expression has been made public. In use since antiquity, the practice has been particularly thoroughgoing under autocratic and heavily centralized governments, from the Roman Empire to the totalitarian states of the 20th cent.

encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com...

There is someone that CAN DO IT.

The owner of the forum.

Just type YES (____)

Move on to debunking Pyramids...

The Lass

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:51 AM
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reply to post by neformore

As a best guess, how many individuals do you reckon are trying to bring ATS down ? Are they limited to their "own topics" such as Holocaust denial/personal drug testimony or do the same people float from one issue to the next to deliberately stir the pot ? Have there been any attempts made to identify them by IP address, ISP etc or have Staff even been able to pin down their geographical location ?

On considering their posts have they been linking to other forums or websites regularly ? Encouraging our members to migrate ? Is it possible to identify "sleepers" somehow by examining the member database & trying to identify multiple profiles ?

I appreciate you can't maybe answer every question in case you tip these people the wink. But if disruption is so severe and so coordinated maybe ATS should, like any other major online organisation, take up the services of an IT security specialist ?

nj2day

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:52 AM
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Originally posted by americandingbat
That's just not true – there are plenty of ways to disagree with the OP.

This is where I think you're wrong... You can say you don't agree with the OP in principal, but if you were to suggest an alternative theory, you would be considered part of the conspiracy. Thats the catch...

I can say I do or don't believe there's one out there all day long, but if I were to state maybe ATS is the conspiracy, or any alternative theory such as that, it would come back to injecting potentially damaging material into ATS...

What took the thread off topic was to shift the focus from whether or not there's been organized activity against ATS to whether or not ATS censors free speech.

Enigmania is suggesting (in a less than direct way) that instead of a conspiracy against ATS occuring, that perhaps these issues are the fault of ATS itself... thus, and alternative theory...

I don't think that enigmania is doing it as part of some internet gang necessarily, but I do think that this thread demonstrates just how successful such a strategy could be if it were coordinated over an entire board.

Not to point fingers, but we could show just how successful this strategy is by doing a google search and reviewing some of the tactics that have been used by ATS members against other boards in the past...

Use a keyword like "censorship", especially in the climate of ATS over the last 72 hours, and you have a virtually guaranteed thread derailment.

Agreed... however, the blame can't reside on the person who brought it up, as it was briefly hit on in the OP...

Personally, I think the "censorship" argument is just semantics.

Censorship on ATS doesn't particularly matter to me... bringing out a truly unique perspective or theory on a site like ATS is not conducive to furthering the research... all that happens here is Debate... not searching for knowledge. Thus, why I research by watching how the masses react to propaganda and passive controls... If I published my findings on this site, we would just have people arguing and trying to debate, instead of reflecting and attempting to identify the evolution of new techniques...

Like I said... election time was particularly fascinating for me here on ATS.

DangerDeath

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:55 AM
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I have seen derailed topics...

But, there are many ways to derail topic, and sometimes it is for the good

Like the topic I took part in, about Those who are awake...

A misleading title of topic, screaming ambivalence in the OP.

But participants took constructive path, debunking the OP.

What I expected from THIS topic was to see some real examples and practical theory (a link was added to this purpose).
So has the OP pointed out some real conspiracy behind the ATS?

Skyfloating

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:55 AM
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Originally posted by The Lass
Have there been any attempts made to identify them by IP address, ISP etc or have Staff even been able to pin down their geographical location ?

A typical pattern Ive seen with many dozen of people is this:

1. Post something that grossly Violates the T&C I agreed to when signing up.

2. Get banned.

3. Go to another website and create conspiracy-theories about ATS, explaining I got banned because I wanted to "expose the truth".

4. Summon a group of malcontents with similar interests to stage deliberate attacks on the site.

Many would prefer to weave conspiracy-theories than own up to their own mistakes.

[edit on 1-3-2009 by Skyfloating]

neformore

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 10:59 AM
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Originally posted by enigmania
As soon as Nefermore sees persistent opposition he sees the conspiracy, when it's just people that will fight for a certain belief.

Great job Nef.

See, now I know you're just trolling

I was merely arguing the counterpoint of something put to me by n2j - didn't you get upset earlier when someone butted in on your percieved conversation with SO? - seems like a double standard to me.

Besides, I was expressing my opinion. You're all for that aren't you? I'm sure I've seen you say that.

It wouldn't be a conspiracy without agitants, subverters and provocateurs, would it? Surely then, as the person who put the idea forward, I have to consider the options.

Or are you trying to censor my opinion, by making out I shouldn't be expressing it in the first place?

Shame on you for trying to limit the scope of my analysis.

[edit on 1/3/09 by neformore]

neformore

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 11:02 AM
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Originally posted by DangerDeath
What I expected from THIS topic was to see some real examples and practical theory (a link was added to this purpose).
So has the OP pointed out some real conspiracy behind the ATS?

Oh....you must have missed the post I linked to about the visits we recieved during the election period in the US a few pages back.

Click on the "thread" button at the bottom of this post and you'll find all of my posts in here so far. You'll find it in there.

[edit on 1/3/09 by neformore]

DangerDeath

posted on Mar, 1 2009 @ 11:06 AM
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reply to post by neformore

The drug issue has mostly bubbled under the surface for a long time. It was a minor thing for most folks - some threads got started, some got moved to RATS, some folks had their wrists slapped, the odd one or two were banned for posting really stupid things, but generally, it was a benign thing for the most. A sore point for some, yes, but tolerable to members and staff alike. The rationale behind putting stuff in RATS was explained, and most people lived with it.

And here is an example how the OP debunks his own topic...

A "minor thing for most folks...". Is it really?
Or is it a minor thing just because it cannot be discussed, so it doesn't show up?

It is about censorship... This whole topic, not about conspiracy going after ATS, but creating a conspiracy from inside the ATS and projecting it in the form of this very topic...