Dear ATS,

Has anyone ever instituted a 'Theory Gauge'?

I know we have relatively regular surveys from the membership, about the top ten theories etc, but we don't seem to have any way of keeping up with popular ATS membership opinion.

Would we be able to make an ATS theory gauge? Essentially, a well discussed (specific) theory could be displayed, and then voted on by the membership. No discussion, no opinions, just a gauge. The important thing is, members could at any point change their vote.

The three vote categories, to keep it simple, would be "PROVEN TRUE", "PROVEN FALSE" or "UNDECIDED".

In order for a theory to have it's status changed, the TRUE or FALSE categories would have to reach 75% of the vote. The UNDECIDED category would be active until the poll reaches 40 Votes, and would then remain active until a 75% from either way had been reached.

EXAMPLE 1:

THEORY: "9/11 was an inside job, perpetrated by elements of the U.S government and other clandestine organisations"

The ATS membership thinks...
PROVEN FALSE = 16%
UNDECIDED = 7%
PROVEN TRUE = 77%

Therefore, the ATS membership (for the moment) considers this theory to be TRUE. Can you prove otherwise? Get posting to inform and educate your fellow ATS members!

EXAMPLE 2:

THEORY: "9/11 was an inside job, perpetrated by elements of the U.S government and other clandestine organisations"

The ATS membership thinks...
PROVEN FALSE = 46%
UNDECIDED = 17%
PROVEN TRUE = 37%

Therefore, the ATS membership (for the moment) considers this theory to be UNDECIDED. Can you prove otherwise? Get posting to inform and educate your fellow ATS members!

*************************************

This facility would help settle alot of differences on ATS, it would stop alot of the flaming and silly schoolchildren arguing, and would also provide an excellent opinion poll, at any given time about the important topics current to ATS. Alot of the time I often wonder to myself - "Am I way off base here with my opinions on this subject?" This would help people like me to understand whether or not I'm being shouted down by a minority in an argument, or whether I'm just plain wrong.

What do we think?

Parallex.

I like this idea. It will allow us to get a feel for what the ATS community thinks without having to dig through long threads and analyze each post to find their position. Maybe it could be implemented in a 'poll of the day' format?

Here's my opinion on this:
If ATS would make a gauge like that then all conspiracies should be checked on "undecided". They're all conspiracies and they all have people supporting them and rejecting them,nothing really is absolute about them.

About you wondering if your opinion is off base:
Well,think about your own opinions for a while.How did you form them?You see,having an opinion about anything doesn't mean that you shouldn't take a second or even a third look on that subject.Don't get shaken up by people who argue with your opinion,check for yourself.


I hope you got my point,and btw,i'm not supposed to be right or anything with this,it's just my opinion too.

Great idea. I would support and vote. I have always thought conspiracists lack clarity to a certain degree. This would help reveal the state of our community and its beliefs, thoughts and opinions.
Plus it gives newbies a jumping off platform

Maybe to take it a little further, after the proven true or proven false thing there could be a short list of arguments that contributed to the outcome. Like "Here's why ATS thinks this is True or Why False. Not big posts, but rather short bullet lists that give you the nugget of info. and perhaps the members name who brought it to light, that swayed the argument. Just a thought. I know I would love to have a list like this. Anywho

[edit on 24-1-2010 by sparrowstail]

[edit on 24-1-2010 by sparrowstail]

Implemented on a per-thread basis, sounds good, but sounds a lot like an "Un-Star" or "Thumbs Up/Down" type of thing.

People could have five choices: "Highly Probable", "Possible", "Not Sure", "Not Likely" and "Impossible", and their choice would display adjacent to their avatar in the thread. "Highly Probable" and "Impossible" would both carry the same weight as "Possible" and "Not Likely" respectively, for the purposes of the group total, but are included only to show the strength of the person's opinion / convictions.
Then the results could display in the Thread header like:
"ATS Members, as a whole consider this topic "...
"Highly Probable" requiring at least 85% popular opinion in favor of Possible,
"Possible" requiring at least 60% popular opinion in favor of "Possible",
"Not Likely" requiring at least 60% popular opinion in favor of "Not Possible",
"Highly Unlikely" requiring at least 85% popular opinion in favor of "Not Possible",
"Uncertain" when either the plurality of opinions are "Not Sure" or none of the others have reached their criteria.
And then show what the opinion percentages are.

[edit on 1/24/2010 by abecedarian]

Moderators - care to comment on this?

This thread seems to have fallen off a cliff, so I'm bumping it as I think it has mileage.

Parallex.

We've done it before, back in 2004. Think two surveys occurred.

The results were very surprising, mainly because we are not all paranoid tin-foiling drones. I recall some of the results.

The ATS membership thinks...
PROVEN FALSE = 16%
UNDECIDED = 7%
PROVEN TRUE = 77%

And majority of the membership did not think 9/11 was an inside job, when we were asked.

Nice - Thanks for that Infinite.

Wouldn't it be helpful if there was a 'constant' tool for this sort of thing?

It would help under-represented topics get more limelight, and over discussed topics get knocked off their pedestal - perhaps it would help people deny ignorance more efficiently?

Parallex.

Originally posted by infinite

No because you get paranoid members asking why the majority don't believe in certain conspiracy theories. The term "deny ignorance" is not a tag that can be randomly thrown around, targeting those who happen to disagree with you.

I think you've missed my main thrust with this. Perhaps I missed a vital point on this.

It's not a member-base tool. This is a tool that a 'committee' would supply topics to. You're right, the membership would abuse it, but a solid-contributor committee would put useful topics into that the membership could then vote on.

Also, ease up on the hostility - the deny ignorance term is something that I happen to hold in high regard. I'm not an 'ATShole' willing to throw it around lightly, to have a bash at people that disagree with me. I really dislike your tone here - or am I misinterpreting what you're saying?

Originally posted by infinite

As for potential polls, we've had it before at ATS and the feature was abused. Random topics of "is so-so gay?" - I very much doubt some members are mature enough to use a feature correctly.

I think your opinion is a singular one, and you seem to have a beef with me, although I'm not sure why.

Does anyone else have any useful opinions like the other posters?

Parallex.

[edit on 26-1-2010 by Parallex]

Originally posted by redoubt

Basically, I think there are no off-base opinions... just differing ones. And each of those opinions will demand their own right to exist regardless of what any particular majority thinks of them.

People cannot be stuffed into an equation to be quantified and summed. It has never worked and it never will.

Cheers

I agree with you about the 'differing' opinions, thats not the point of this thread or suggestion. Nor is it the idea of quantifying people or 'stuffing them into pigeon-holes'. (Votes would be private)

On a side note to everyone, please don't get in a strop about freedom of speech or censorship (as usual) this isn't about that.

This is purely to help everyone understand the 'common thinking' on a subject, and to stop unrepresentative opinions and activity from being taken as the 'norm'. Which is a common occurence on ATS!

ADMINS - Is this idea practicable or not? If it isn't, would you be willing to help me develop it until it is?

Parallex.

As Infinite has tried to point out, we had a system that was essentially the same thing as this before. It was abused.

Adding an additional layer of "select" members to choose the theories/threads that get voted on would only serve to delay the ultimate outcome... People will vote up the theories/threads of those they like and will vote down the same of the members they don't like.

We've been doing this for over 7 years now and have painfully learned a few lessons...

It's an unfortunate reality of the internet that in a communal environment that offers anonymity, such as ATS, people tend to over employ the ability to "shoot down" those they disagree with or just don't like.

That's why all of the member features on ATS are positive in nature. If you like a thread, flag and star it. If you don't like it, then don't. Simple and effective with zero drama and it avoids the cancer of negativity.

Springer...

Apologies Infinite, it does indeed appear that I totally got the wrong end of the stick.

Perhaps you could 'soften' your prose for me in future? The way you came across threw me somewhat. I will certainly be more aware in future not to get 'thrown'.

@ Springer

I don't understand why something like this would be viewed as 'negative' or 'telling people what to think'. As put in the examples I created above, wouldn't something like this be a useful way to inspire people to bring evidence to the table, and to 'win' debates rather than 'war' with others?

I appreciate your point about the 'committee', and I see how it would be difficult to implement. The issue still remains though - there are a lot of unrepresentative 'givens' floating about on ATS, and 'consensus' is sadly lacking on a lot of subjects. Again, this isn't about suppression of fringe subjects or minority subjects - far from it - it supports those. It's about developing conspiracy theory topics into proper areas of study and expertise. 'Schools of thought' could be established, and they could also be broken by new information.

As it is now, there are no 'groupings' of theory, it's one big soupy mire that only the most dedicated can begin to understand. I'm committed to truth, but don't have the time to fully understand what is going where in terms of theory on ATS.

Something like this would perhaps help form 'directions' of specialisation, and develop the community in further unexpected ways.

Alas, I know nothing.

Parallex.

I have to say having a conspiracy gauge sounds like a conspiracy in and of its self to me!

Who will be keeping this gauge? How do we know we can trust them? Will they be willing to subject themselves to water boarding too convince us that the results of the gauge haven’t been tampered with? How will we know that the people doing the water boarding really water boarded the people that they were supposed to?

Yes in my humble opinion the conspiracy gauge is a conspiracy!