A Day in the Life of an ATS Member 6 years ago

I don't want to offend anyone either or anything, but in my mind there were better, um, personalities, I would say "back in the day". Like the most well known people posting all over the board.

reply to post by enjoies05


man I wish I'd said that...

Shugo is right when he says that the quality of posts has degraded and I can't say that I disagree with him. I've been here about as long as he has and he is right when he says it. I've known him for close to five years and its true about what he says. The quality of threads and posts have went downhill drastically in the last three to four years. I mean it was every day on here that someone was posting a well though out thread and it got people's attention. It was not every single day and hour that you would be seeing a thread with a few lines of text and a link to a Youtube video. Now, it's every single hour that we see those kinds of threads. I, along with Shugo, also remember the minimum and maximum amount of characters. Used to be that threads and posts that fell under the minimum character limit were sent straight to the trash bin by the moderators and administrators. I'm not bashing the moderators and administrators only because they are taking time out of their day to look at the site. It is time that they could be using elsewhere to volunteer to take out of their day so that we have a great environment. I mean its hard enough being a mod on a forum. Hell, I used to be a moderator myself until the forum I was a mod on shut down two months ago. So yeah, I can see why it is hard on the mods and administrators to do their duties especially with a sight the size of ATS.

A majority of the problem now and has been over the last three years is that no one takes the time to browse the internet and do some research on a topic. I mean it is pretty sad when some members don't even take the time to use the search function to see if the topic they are looking for. New members now a days are using things like Youtube and Google Video as their research tool. Yet, when someone finds a video on Youtube or Google now they post the video with a few lines of text and it gets all kinds of recognition. While the opposite goes for threads on topics that have been well researched, well documented, and where new evidence may come forth from whatever it is that the thread is covering. We have a search function on here that is thirty times more effective than the last search engine we had on here. I cannot count how many times I've used that search function over the years. It is not going to hurt people to use the search function or to delve deeper into a topic that they are researching.

Then again, I forgot the "ultimate research" tools now are Youtube, Google Video, and the Huffington Post. Or maybe some people don't want to thoroughly research a topic because, "It would be a waste of time." Then again it may be something else that I'm missing... I do not really know!!!

reply to post by gimmefootball400


I remember when I started here, not that long ago actually, they still seemed to have the minimum character limit. I accidentally hit post after only typing in the title of a thread and I got a message saying I needed to write something in the OP. It seemed to be an automatic thing. Today, I see plenty of threads where this happens and people post before the OP gets a chance to fix it. Sometimes the OP never comes back and the OP stays empty.

I remember trying to post a thread and having it get kicked back saying that there was already a thread on that subject. Same type of automatic thing as the too short thread. Now, I see dupe threads sharing the exact same titles popping up all the time.

The automatic censors may have been a pain in the but sometimes but, they forced us to search before writing out a thread (or we might lose all our work) and actually make a thread that counts, not the two liners we see today.

I hate it when I put work into researching and writing a thread only to have it ignored while some two liner gets tons of attention. I'd even settle for someone flaming my thread over that.

I've lost my motivation to post original, researched threads because of this and, more often than not just post "drive by threads" anymore; threads where I present an existing news story along with my opinions. They take a lot less time and if they get ignored, its not such a big deal.

I think a large part of that is the fact that ATS has grown so much and with all of the threads posted, nobody can keep up with all of them and good threads get buried along with the bad. There's just too much to wade through anymore.

Originally posted by FortAnthem
I've lost my motivation to post original, researched threads because of this and, more often than not just post "drive by threads" anymore; threads where I present an existing news story along with my opinions. They take a lot less time and if they get ignored, its not such a big deal.

Exactly, you have every chance in the world now of being immediately called out, ignored, or psuedo-trolled into a discussion that has no logical output anymore. It's depressing really. It's turned into quantity over quality, and I really don't think that's right in any sense of the phrase.

I think a large part of that is the fact that ATS has grown so much and with all of the threads posted, nobody can keep up with all of them and good threads get buried along with the bad. There's just too much to wade through anymore.

That is a fantastic point, which I couldn't have pointed out better!

At the same time, I would also say that the "genre" so to speak of those posters has declined, now I'm sure a lot of people are going to say "wait a minute, I'm newer, so I'm a declined statistic?", well...if you have to ask yourself that, then it's possible, but quality posters know who they are, and they don't need to defend their posts for it.

Thank you for bringing this up!

Hey I remember you!

Things have changed so many times on ATS I can't keep count. One thing that hasn't is the awesome members and interesting discussions.....in my most humble of opinions of course.

reply to post by kinglizard


Hey kinglizard! Nice to see you still around too!

I should be quick to say that this has nothing to do with the fact that the topics themselves aren't interesting, most members are sitting on a gold mine, it's simply how it's presented, handled, and executed...followed by strictly closed-minded individuals that make things difficult. Research doesn't seem to go into things like it used to.