ATS is losing it's intergrity - They're gaining on us

Up until a couple of months ago, ATS made my palms sweat when I got on. I mean some serious edge of my seat type stuff. All of a sudden, seemingly overnight, ATS became a place of over opinionated haters, ego tripping, middle school style back and forth with no BASIS to arguments, constant bicker about the existence or non existence of God, and countless doomsday prophets and psychics. Now I read a bunch of posts that start with "I think that..." or "It's very possible that...." and they're followed with absolutely NO sources! This leads to a full 2 pages of people saying "sources?", "what's your source", and "this guy's trollin us", when in reality, those of us who have been around for a while need to realize that we are ALL being trolled. Disinfo isn't even veiled on ATS anymore it's as clear as day. For the past week I've been bored as heck and have only found around 10 threads that I wanted to read, and I feel like I was settling then. Either we've talked about EVERY conspiracy, anomaly, or fishy news story (which I highly doubt) or the sun is setting over ATS.

In short, I feel as though we've struck a serious nerve, and the validity of ATS is under attack. The weapon, is the FLOODING of this site with "psychics", "prophets", "messages from aliens", and cgi ghosts and ufo's.

Thread dedicated to Mitchell Coombes trolling ***.

I could not agree with you more.

Something is up...it's changed for the worse badly!

reply to post by jerryznv


Glad I'm not alone. It's kind of sad to see. It's like watching your child grow up and instead of going to college, he starts smoking crack!!

Likewise. I have been thinking noticing exactly the same thing. I'm of the opinion that it's most likely deliberate.

Here is one more recent example of what you describe:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I really hope the mods do something about these threads.

About once a year.... Every year I see a similar thread... It usually just so happens to coincide with school letting out for the summer.

Look, I assure you nothing is changing...

You just watch, school will get back in and it will improve again...

Besides, not every day will be consistently amazing on ATS...

But ultimately, ATS is what YOU make of it. This is a member driven site.

If you do not like the content you are seeing, change it. Start adding content that you want to see.

It's up to you as a member.

Originally posted by wcitizen
Here is one more recent example of what you describe:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I really hope the mods do something about these threads.

Yes, if you'll notice I posted on that (ridicule of course) right before I created this thread.

I REALLY want the old ATS back. I loved reading threads with SUPER LONG op's and a whole lot of links and sources.

I feel as the popularity of this sight grows more people are joining
and probably with that the quality of posts are going down.
ATS is more or less turning into a gigantic bulletin board.
Some of the best posts on here are years old and probably won't see the light of day.
Insightful posts that are well researched tend to get buried.
I feel it because of the volume of new people joning ATS is turning more into social network.

Probably in another year it will just turn in to a political sight.

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


Wow, I can't wait until august/september. lol
I sure hope you're right. You've been around since '07 so I would assume you know.

Originally posted by ELahrairah
I feel as the popularity of this sight grows more people are joining
and probably with that the quality of posts are going down.
ATS is more or less turning into a gigantic bulletin board.
Some of the best posts on here are years old and probably won't see the light of day.
Insightful posts that are well researched tend to get buried.
I feel it because of the volume of new people joning ATS is turning more into social network.

Probably in another year it will just turn in to a political sight.

Such optimism! lol

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


You know I didn't think about this.
The whole kids getting out of school thing is most likely a contributing factor.

There have always been silly threads, stupid bored kids, and evil trolls on ATS. There always will be. This is teh intranets we are talking here. But even so, I challenge you to find me one free board that gets as much traffic as this and is as well-organized and chaos-free.

One thing that has happened/is happening is the site is getting more popular as conspiracy/fringe increasingly enters the public mind. I see this as a very good thing, something important, something to celebrate! We are taking off, the launch pad is covered in clouds of smoke, chunks of ice are breaking off the fusalage, the thrusters are rumbling...can't you feel it? This is a very exciting time to be alive and to reach out to the great numbers of people waking up to all sorts of things. Yes, with popularity comes an inevitable simplificiation, but ATS has room for both simplicity and more well-put-together, reasoned arguments. Throw open the doors and welcome all comers to the great banquet, says I!

I wrote a thread a while back pretty much saying the same thing.

There's not much we can do. The anti political, religious, anti-conspiracy and anti "out-of-the-box" thinker assassins have been on this site for a while. Even some of our most experienced members have fallen prey to the hype!

I guess we just move on......

Originally posted by silent thunder
There have always been silly threads, stupid bored kids, and evil trolls on ATS. There always will be. This is teh intranets we are talking here. But even so, I challenge you to find me one free board that gets as much traffic as this and is as well-organized and chaos-free.

One thing that has happened/is happening is the site is getting more popular as conspiracy/fringe increasingly enters the public mind. I see this as a very good thing, something important, something to celebrate! We are taking off, the launch pad is covered in clouds of smoke, chunks of ice are breaking off the fusalage, the thrusters are rumbling...can't you feel it? This is a very exciting time to be alive and to reach out to the great numbers of people waking up to all sorts of things. Yes, with popularity comes an inevitable simplificiation, but ATS has room for both simplicity and more well-put-together, reasoned arguments. Throw open the doors and welcome all comers to the great banquet, says I!

I've seen more people join in the last few months to riducule and distrupt, rather than research, learn, and contribute. So I definitely disagree with you there. The good threads (which are slowly becoming more scarce) always seem to be created by the same people who have been here for a couple of years now.

Originally posted by sheepslayer247
I wrote a thread a while back pretty much saying the same thing.

There's not much we can do. The anti political, religious, anti-conspiracy and anti "out-of-the-box" thinker assassins have been on this site for a while. Even some of our most experienced members have fallen prey to the hype!

I guess we just move on......

I have a hard time letting go, and moving on. I'd rather grab a gun and clean up this mess. lol

I may have my occasional gripes with them but
the mods do a decent job keeping the sight running fairly smooth.
I mean their are forums boards that are total anarchy
the rules keep things fairly smooth.

reply to post by My.mind.is.mine


Let me get this straight

Yes, if you'll notice I posted on that (ridicule of course) right before I created this thread.

You trolled that thread instead of alerting staff?

Then make your own thread complaining about other threads on ATS

reply to post by Sauron


I was complaining less of those who troll in response, and more of those who troll in the very creation of a thread, such as that one.

is it already that time of year again?

Hi. I'm new here in terms of writing, but have been reading the site for a few months now. Can some of the old timers on this thread please link some of their favorite threads from the past, to show both the quality and to share some of the better information available with readers. Thanks!