Your Personal Ramblings and My Valuable Time.

Well SumnerKagan as you might have noticed we have a 'points' system that is utterly useless ( unless one uses it to evaluate how well the poster has commercialized ATS according to whoever came up with the point system in use), a applause system that mostly gains you applause for disagreeing 'politely', saying complimentary things or providing 'proof' for the conspiracies that the surprisingly non-conspiratorial thinking admins already believe in....

If you add in the fact that there is no practical way to ensure that a good thread stays on the front page, after the discussion moves on to a thread with a similar title created by yet another point monger, you end up with the same arguments being endlessly repeated without the benefit of most of deeply buried information already tirelessly collected by those who actually respond to most of the silly thread topics created.

I definetely understand where you are coming from but admittedly i don't venture to whole subjections of ATS where it can be hard to maintain some level of self respect while trying to figure out if the poster just can not speak English or is in fact severely deluded, paranoid ( the liberals/aliens are going to get me ) or otherwise mentally disturbed.

The applause system is clearly horribly broken ( i can never quite figure out why i get them for some posts and not others; seems entirely whimsical based on the surmised aims i stated earlier) and i am very much in favor of trying to create( people can keep the current points; point mongers that they are) a point system that might serve to give at least some indication of how well informed the poster is or, at the very least, how well other posters believe him to be. It's not that i don't see how difficult that is but i do think the owners should start somewhere and the sooner the better.

I suppose the striking/funny/sad thing is that i am unaware of a better system elsewhere, in this 'field', online; talk about ironic social commentary on our times!

Either way i will be around for a long time to come to see how all of this turns out; thanks for trying.

Stellar

Edit because I don't want to hit you with points.

spiderj

[edit on 3/27/2009 by Spiderj]

I think it's more than appropriate to discuss your feelings about what you think may or may not be a problem with the board but if you're going to use this thread as a pulpit to slam all the threads you have a problem with, well that could be a problem.

Cool?

Spiderj

I felt it was a good way to back up my perspective. That last thread, that I used as an example, was "flamingly" stereotypical of the posts I am pointing out.

But, you are the Mod.

I merely wanted to show that I am not overreacting, and that there actually are threads that are literally a waste of space and time.

But, it's up to you.

Thanks.

SK

reply to post by SumnerKagan

3. "Could the movie "Dude, where's My Car?" actually be a message from the future?"

Well, could it?

reply to post by SumnerKagan


Sumner, I would like to say that most assuredly I empathize with your point of view on many of your observations.

When I occasionally choose to enter a particularly heated thread which has ALL the hallmarks of a venomous, shat-slingin', non-fact based, hate fest. I enjoy the mental gymnastics of painstakingly crafting and then soundly interjecting a point of view that has (if I have succeeded) a solid bedrock foundation in FACTS, without actually crossing the sordid line into the realm of vulgar, imbecilic, gutter sniping.

Now my true joy, in these particular situations, is derived from my attempts to also sprinkle within my offerings a bit of wry (albeit dark at times) humor.

I have been accused by some (who shall remain unnamed) as occasionally coming across as trying to sound "Shakespearean"????. But far from being offended by accusations such as this, I find a measure of solace in that a few folks are having to spend a bit of time (if they must) to stop and ponder the ultimate meaning of the aforementioned points of view that I am offering to counter their arguments. Personally I view myself as a cut-rate idiot savant illusionist.

I do not choose to communicate in this particular fashion as a means of "Mental Masturbation" quite to the contrary, this is truly the way in which my thought process' tends to play out, especially in a forum such as A.T.S where our brethren exemplify the full spectrum of humanity but the intellectual dynamos amongst us challenge me (by their mere presence) to at least give the phantasmagorical illusion of proximity worthiness....

But now... I must digress~

“Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it 'creative observation.' Creative viewing.” ~ William S. Burroughs

Well, well, well. It would seem that, since this thread has been moved to the "Rant" section, the rules have slightly changed.

Welcome to my world.


In short:

"All your THREADS are belong to us!"



Hmmmm, now, let me see. Who has recently created an objectionable post?

[edit on 27-3-2009 by SumnerKagan]

reply to post by SumnerKagan



In retrpospect my post may seem off topic ( and somewhat rantish) so sorry for helping in getting this thread moved to where it's now. I mentioned the whole point issue because there litterally isn't any mechanism to discourage nonsense that does not rest on the moderators who are in my opinion more adept at rote tasks where they still seem hopelessly biased in favor of denfending convention.

But i suppose i should take this up with the proper authorities instead bothering you with my personal ramblings.

/my bad.

Stellar

Originally posted by SumnerKagan
Well, well, well. It would seem that, since this thread has been moved to the "Rant" section, the rules have slightly changed.

Welcome to my world.

In short:

"All your THREADS are belong to us!"

Hmmmm, now, let me see. Who has recently created an objectionable post?

[edit on 27-3-2009 by SumnerKagan]

Hmmmm, now, let me see. Who has recently created an objectionable post?

LOL summer.

have a

:w:

Hey, hey, hey! Time to revive the thread! I gots me an idear.

I just saw this thread, which is apparently exactly what the OP of this thread was talking about. And then it hit me:

How about any thread that is moved into skunk works (or into BTS) for being unsubstantiated costs the OP all the points he/she received from that thread? Also, the thread does not count toward minimum post requirements for certain features. Points could still be given if some0ne starts their thread in one of the aforementioned dumping grounds; I am only suggesting this action if the threads are written as an informative thread, have no substantiation, and are moved do the dumping grounds by the mods.

This way there's no suppression of information, since the threads are still active, but there is no incentive to post garbage disguised as threads.

Come on Mods! SO, you reading this? You listening Springer? We got us a solution!

TheRedneck

1. "running his car on human poop"
or
2. "I am Seymor Butz, an Alien from Beta 5, and I'm here to answer your questions"
or
3. "Could the movie "Dude, where's My Car?" actually be a message from the future?"

Actually, vehicles that run on digestive waste, an open press conference with aliens and the ability to send movies back in time would be profound inventions that would solve at least 50 per cent of this planets problems.

Pwnt by yr own examples.