ABOUT ATS: (comments on the new info threads), page 6

The "quote" rules state, in part: "Compound quoting: If you quote someone quoting someone, this will result in a penalty."

I have absolutely no idea why this should result in a penalty, and there are times that it's necessary. The primary reason that any poster quotes another is to provide context for her/his own statements. Often, those statements don't make sense by themselves, and only make sense as a direct response to another statement. If one is to quote the response, then it still won't make sense unless it's accompanied by the earlier, quoted, statement.

And in general, I find the quote rules to be sort of ridiculous. I can understand why the owners don't want people quoting entire posts as a lead-in to a short response, but if you really don't want people to do that, then the solution is to get rid of the "Quote" button. Let anyone who knows how to use markup and Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V quote as necessary, and stop others from doing it simply by not giving them a tool with which to do it.

And if you REALLY want to get rid of excessive quoting, get rid of much of the necessity for it by making the boards threaded rather than flat. On a threaded board, each response is a direct response to one other post, so there's no confusion regarding to whom a response is directed. On a flat board (such as this one), the posts are simply listed chronologically, so if one is responding to a post that someone else made yesterday, and there are any unrelated posts after that one, then one really HAS to quote at least some portion of the post in question just to provide context and prevent the later posters from wondering why you said what you did, since THEY didn't say anything about blah, blah, blah...

Regarding points-- it's a terrible idea to allow mods free rein to grant or remove points. Even in the short time that I've been here, I've seen that there are some mods that grant points based on their personal feelings for the poster in question, or the poster who's at the receiving end of the ire of the poster in question, or the point that the poster in question has made, or any of a number of entirely personal reasons that have nothing to do with the nominal purpose of actually adding to the overall quality of the boards. I like the point system in general, since post counts by themselves just encourage people to post as much nonsense as possible, but I think that if mods are to be allowed to grant points, they should be strictly monitored, and should be harshly penalized themselves for abusing the system.

Personally, I'd prefer to see no points, no post count, no avatars-- nothing but text. A poster on a message board shouldn't need such things to lend him/herself credibility. Either one can think and write compellingly and well, or one cannot. Posters on message boards gain or lose credibility over time based on the content and the form of their posts, and by their character as evidenced by their posts. Post counts and points and such seem to me to be artificial and manipulable constructs designed to usurp that natural process.

All in all, this is a fine site-- one of the better forums on the web. I don't want my criticisms to be taken as anything other than what they are-- suggestions that could conceivably make this place better than it already is...