Hijacking OP

Greetings fellow schkeptikz...

It's time once again to listen to the rant raving lunatic with an important request from my fellow ATS members, as well as the mods and other important administrative types on the domain...

As the title states, this is a thread about an occurrance that seems to be becoming more and more of a modus operendi here on ATS. it's called:

Thread Hijacking

i.e.: the act of creating a new post from ideas generated from someone elses post, and then diverting traffic from the OP to the new one.

I've watched feuds break out here on ATS over this very thing. Since that form of behavior has recently been addressed by the administration, this contributing factor of that behavior must therefore be addressed as well. I submit my own example for the benefit of expressing the relevance of this topic, and for that end alone....



I'm posting this, yes, out of a frustrated observation that my posts are being hijacked, and the benefits of posting the information here on ATS (stars, flags, recognition, etc.) is being taken away from the efforts I've made to be in turn rewarded with them by.

That is a form of theft... not just of benevolent recognition but too of points that should have been earned by the original OP, that thus will become the benefit of the hijacker.

It's also a borderline form of Intellectual Property theft, in that the original ideas and philosophy incorporated into the OP has now become the thing being used to reward the hijacker.

How would you feel if you posted information unique to your perception that would open the eyes of your fellow members, that immediately was taken from you by someone else - and used to benefit themselves with it?

Normally, the MODS here on ATS have been pretty good about monitoring threads - but lately it appears that for some reason - my posts have been getting side lined, while others blatantly have taken the thread I'd posted and created thier own with it - and little has been done to correct it so far...

Here are a couple of examples of the hijacked threads I created that will show you what I'm talking about. I will post my OP, and then the post that hijacked it... and I will compare post times to provide the validity of what I'm stating.

Example 1

Anatomy of Publicly Published Propaganda (Final Destination Iran?)

posted on 15-3-2010 @ 02:49 AM

4 STARS AND 3 FLAGS

Final destination Iran?

posted on 15-3-2010 @ 04:28 AM

40 STARS AND 52 FLAGS


This speaks for itself. And what's more, even when I got onto the thread and trumpeted it as a hijacking, it still moved ahead, and was allowed to remain active.

Example 2

Chilean Volcanic DataSheet


If you will notice, a person also immediately tried to redirect the thread to thier post, when in reality the OP I posted, even though it was similarly related, had nothing to do with the post the hijacker attempted to steal it away with.

Interestingly the post was edited, the hijacked attempt removed and the link taken away. only my reply to the person who attempted to hijack my thread remains as evidence this even happened.

That thread too, has stagnated, and I put alot of effort into these posts!

Example 3

Giant planetary body named G1.9

posted on 14-1-2010 @ 11:53 AM

19 flags and 14 stars



Searches On Nibiru/Planet X Seemed To Be Censored

posted on 28-2-2010 @ 10:13 AM

15 flags and 6 stars


This one wouldn't have really mattered much to me, if it weren't for the fact that the person who created the thread to redirect traffic to posted it onto my OP and told everyone, once again, to go there, which when I came back onto ATS a day later I discovered what he had done.

for an entire day no one posted to the thread, while the hijacker already had 4 pages of posts and several flags and stars.

Needless to say I went to those alternative threads and posted my rant right on their thread. but here's the big thing...

When a person hijacks a thread, it becomes apparent that that thread becomes lost somehow... even after the fact, those threads that hijacked mine continued on, while the ones I posted stagnated.

This thread too unfortunately, has stagnated!

I'd like to sum up this post with the request from me towards my fellow ATS members.

I'd like to ask that you PLEASE show your fellows around here the courtesy of respect by not stealing their ideas or their posts. just because you had intentions to post the same information, and that person posted it in advance, don't get angry about it, find another thing to post about instead.

Or if you don't have any resources to mine information from, ask how you can get some from the folks that bring you Breaking News here on ATS... do this, instead of surfing the threads to find one you can branch off of to get a few of the 'brownie points' that OP would have received instead.

The recommended way to discern if information you are about to post has already made it to ATS is simple.

from the task bar on the header of the ATS website there is a search option. put a couple of the key words of your topic's title in the search feature and see if something comes up to match it. if it does, feel free to post whatever you wish to at THAT post, instead of creating a new one.

thanks for the time you spent reviewing this.

Stars and flags are nice, but for me they are not what ATS is about. ATS is about learning about a wide range of interesting topics. The stars and flags are just an extra. My personal opinion at least. Knowledge is a lot better than stars and flags. But for writing this you get a flag for me. Hopefully no one hijacks this thread.

[edit on 16-3-2010 by Maddogkull]

Needless to say I went to those alternative threads and posted my rant right on their thread. but here's the big thing...

It's tempting but probably not the best course...

When a person hijacks a thread, it becomes apparent that that thread becomes lost somehow... even after the fact, those threads that hijacked mine continued on, while the ones I posted stagnated.

Maybe they were better written? Maybe they had catchier titles? Who knows?

I understand what you're saying here but it sounds like a bunch of cry-babying to me...None of those examples you presented would hunt...Looks like they were trying to help your posts.

Who cares about flags & stars? Write what you feel and the collective decides for all of us...

I understand what you're saying here but it sounds like a bunch of cry-babying to me

the stars and flags dont mean much, youre right, however it's the only reason why I can think of for why folks feel it necessary to hijack a thread.

Thread hijacking is rude, and what's more it's against the Code and Conduct rule for ATS.

IT'S A RULES VIOLATION...

and for good reason.

All this post is asking is for people to honorably interact with their fellow members, which I'm sure SkepticalOverlord wants as well.

If thread hijacking is ok with you, then why bother bringing content to ATS? someone else is going to come along and steal it out from under you, so let them go do the footwork!

'nough said.

reply to post by DarkspARCS


Agreed. Some courses of action that work in varying degrees:

• pimp your old thread in the new thread
  
• contact thread OP to let them know you're thinking about doing a spin-off
  
• politely let them know about the search function or thread already in progress
  

I feel 'ya though, some of my best threads have been ignored while seemingly copy-cats get lots of attention...such is life.

Well, My thoughts on the matter.

There are some members who look for those who they agree with and visit their threads and just star and flag without reading the post or replying.

I believe that no one should be able to star or flag if they have not posted a reply.

No more "drive by" starring and flagging.

Contribution is the key to a good forum.

I also think the stars and flags should be visible ONLY to the members when they are logged in.

They can see how many have actually responded but all others can only see the viewing numbers.

The QUALITY and ORIGINALITY of the threads has diminished significantly on this site.

There is very little truly educated,articulate discussion or debate anymore.

There is also to much main stream article postings that basically come off of Yahoo.

We have already read that drivel before we came here!

They are also copying and pasting the exact same post from on social site to this one.

I have read the same thread title and post on Digg and GLP and others.

Younger members have become the dominant feature here.

They have a attention span of a gnat and do not know how to research a subject and post it here.

They have No originality.

[edit on 17-3-2010 by Oneolddude]

[edit on 17-3-2010 by Oneolddude]

reply to post by DarkspARCS
I guess I'm a little confused. I thought starting a new thread with a tangential connection to the current topic was preferable to being off topic. For example, the thread topic is say, 'Inerrancy of Scripture' and a disagreement arises on say 'Nature of Christ' which threatens to cause change of subject for the thread, it's better to start another thread dealing with the newly arisen subject rather than change the subject of the current thread.

Other than that, I tend to agree with Oneolddude's take on the situation.

Flags do keep a thread from disappearing longer. So there is some importance to them, I think. And even if some one does not write a comment, they should still be able to star and flag. If someone agrees with a post so strongly that there is no reason to respond, a star is appropriate.



[edit on 17-3-2010 by pthena]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/dba94f99683c.jpg[/atsimg]

yep lol... I got a little artistic with this picture, but it shows what I'm trying to discuss here.

Whoever it was that posted the first post on this should have the other posts combined with it, and the stars and flags attributed to the outside threads reassigned to that post as well.

Posts are time stamped, so discovering this info should be a cake walk.

Sometimes folks post at exactly the same time. In cases like that the threads should be left alone. But what I'm talking about regarding Hijacking - folks come around and then create a new post, then go to the original thread and say "Hey everyone - got a great new thread over here - come on over and talk about it here: new thread url".

they even post a link on the OP's thread to thiers!

Disagreements and such are the basis for skeptical discussion. those things should stay put within the thread too because it's directly related to topic. If someone else posts a thread in direct opposition to the 'opinion' bases thread that's their perogative - my main subject on this topic of thread hijacking is pretty much for "Breaking News" type threads alone - where folks, like myself, spend hours on the internet researching news and topics of profound interest.

News might be debunked and such, but it's still news, not opinion.

There is no original thought, just a rearrrangement of what has existed forever.
If someone presents an idea with more flair good on them, isnt it the thoughtt that counts