What happened to the ''Anonymous ATS'' feature ?

I was looking over some older threads on ATS, and noticed that there were a lot of posts made by ''Anonymous ATS'' ( 77,449, to be precise ! ) which apparently was a ''General account for replies from anonymous readers of ATS.''

As I haven't seen any posts from this source since I've been on ATS, I am assuming that the feature must have been discontinued.

It seemed quite a useful feature for those who weren't registered or for someone who wanted to make a sensitive post without the post being linked to their username.

I realise it must have had its drawbacks, such as a lack of accountability for the poster, but I'm sure this would also have been advantageous, considering that plenty of established members may have been reluctant to post something a little ''out there'' and this maybe gave them the opportunity to do so.

I'm just curious, and I wondered what the reason was for ending this feature.

Thankfully that trollbait feature is history.

I thought that it put too much pressure on the mods who are already overworked as it is.

reply to post by whatukno


A lack of accountability for the ''anonymous'' poster was the biggest drawback that I could think of.

I suppose people were abusing the feature to troll with impunity.

Well, the posts by anon weren't posted right away, the moderators had to approve them first, well that takes away from valuable time spent keeping an eye on me which as any of the political moderators can tell you is a 24/7/365 job.

I mean I got a bill from one of their doctors for the carpel tunnel surgery, and I hear tell that one has had to be institutionalized from moderating my posts. Add on top of all of that, having to deal with anon posts? It's just unfair.

Originally posted by Sherlock Holmes
It seemed quite a useful feature for those who weren't registered or for someone who wanted to make a sensitive post without the post being linked to their username.

edit on 20-1-2011 by Sherlock Holmes because: (no reason given)

That was the problem, it also gave people the facility to post non-sense.

I'm also fairly certain that any "established" ATS members wouldn't really have a problem sharing their thoughts or opinions on a particular subject, no matter how "out there" or strange they may be.

All you can do if offer an opinion, the readers then have the option of commenting (whether in a productive manner or more times than not, a negative manner) or ignoring.

Apparently we only let the three letter guys use Anon now a days.

CIA, FBI and Cyber..something or other.

~Keeper

reply to post by Sherlock Holmes


There is no anonymity. Never was... never will be. I'm living proof. Tentacles tentacles everywhere. The obits pretty much spell it out.

Originally posted by Sherlock Holmes

I suppose people were abusing the feature to troll with impunity.

Exactly.

There were two options presented to us... either have all Anonymous posts visible and then kill the bad ones, or have all Anonymous posts hidden and then unhide the good ones.

Both proved impossible to do. Leaving them visible by default left us vulnerable to spammers and drive by trolling. Leaving them hidden left a backlog of thousands of posts for our already busy staff to go read through in order to find the one or two great posts buried in there.

It was a great idea... but in the end proved impossible for our staff to manage.

When I first Joined ATS, I thought the anonymous poster was a real guy or woman, with the coolest avatar…below

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2ae4d5cacd26.jpg[/atsimg]

and with an incredibly versatile posting style lol

Then I woke up and smelt the coffee.

Shame ATS couldn’t find a way to get past the technical management problems surrounding it.

Have to admit though, it was frustrating having regular ATS’ers post something non constructive, and then not be able to chase them up on it, or find out their overall angle on the subject, from their previous non anonymous posts.


- JC

Those were the good old days of ATS. Like the wild west with a mouse instead of a shootin iron.

Hey how about you need a account with ATS with a option to post it anonymous and good reason to post anonymous.
you get 3 strikes if your just trolling then your out the door?

Maybe this might be a good feature to hide your identity, But should not be abused by people. Maybe even have 2 posts a month as "anonymous ats" just a idea to make the old idea of it work better.

But the anonymous poster must have a account with ATS so you moderators can keep track of the abusers.