Debunking and Rebuttals - as an option?

reply to post by Pigraphia

Well, if people were all on the same level, your reasoning would be valid. The truth is, that people are on different levels of experience, and ATS should treat them as such.

As I mentioned in a previous post, if a person does not have any encounters with any or all of the following: ghosts, UFOs, witches, astral travel, God, Satan, angels, demons, conspiracies, strange sounds in sky, birds flying all crazy, time slips, time travel, aliens, abductions, as opposed to the OPs here, then they are essentially on a different level, and no amount of trying to talk OPs out of their experience from skeptics will prove otherwise. They saw what they saw.

So a rebuttal from people who are not in the know... is almost always non-productive. I would say that people who read and believe what the OP has to say really do not want to be bothered by 'an opposing view'... It's a time-consumer and a distraction to read these posts. It's the OPs that make ATS special... not the posts of opposing 3d-worldviews. If ppl want to read material from people who have a 3d-worldview, they can go to any MSM site for that. The OPs viewpoints should be protected as such... not exposed to "the elements" to be eroded and maligned.

It would not be all loss for the skeptic. There is an advantage to this system for you as well.... I bet, and actually have read.. that people are gun-shy to share their experiences on ATS- for fear of ridicule, undue scrutiny, and attacks.

If they knew that on one level (literally), they would Not be opposed, I guarantee that many more posts and threads of unusual non-3d experiences would be submitted- for all of our reading pleasure.

reply to post by Pigraphia

Pigraphia wrote:

I removed it because honestly not only is your idea horrible but to thread jack someone else's thread just to gain views/reads of a thread that hasn't been replied to in over 2 months is just rude.

To address your point...

Honestly, I don't recall the post you are addressing, but if the thread was dormant for over 2 months, I was likely posting on it for two reasons: 1. Because my thought at the time was relevant to the thread. 2. The thread was worthy enough IMO for a bump. My post got you reading it, didn't it?

reply to post by MarkJS


Your idea would destroy the website.
A sheltered life and closed mind won't foster discussion.
Segregating out people based on their opinions is the first step towards hating them.
At the very least it would prevent on the fence persons from being able to easily see both sides.
Sure you can argue that people can chose to reveal dissenting posts, but they shouldn't have to.
Adding an extra step to see dissenting posts is a form of censorship.
If you want a lock step true believer website go find one or start one yourself.
ATS isn't about 100% lock step belief, it's about open and honest discussion.
It's about Denying Ignorance.
You can't Deny Ignorance if you hide what 1/2 the people say.
What you want is equivalent to internet totalitarianism where only certain views are given priority over others.
That would flat out destroy this website.

reply to post by MarkJS


You misunderstand me.
The thread you were jacking was the active thread, the thread you were linking to(this one) was the dormant thread.

You had gone into an active thread and loosely tied the topic to a dormant thread.
The connection was tangential at best(I'm being kind with calling it tangential) and the thread jacking post didn't add to the active thread at all.
In fact all you did was respond to a dissenting comment and said something like "this is why the idea of my thread should be used" and linked to your thread.
You added nothing to the actual discussion at hand.
All it did was link to this thread which had been dormant for over two months, and one month before that.
You didn't help the other thread at all you just used it to promote your thread.
That is what I found rude.

Heck even now this thread received no posts for the three months between my post and your reply.
If your idea was liked by more members this thread wouldn't keep dying.
This thread(and your idea) is dying despite your thread jacking, and attempts to breathe life into it.

Oh and I am responding to both your messages at once so as to not bump the thread twice while I type the second one.

The categorization of people's posts who oppose the OP's idea can be segregated simply by changing part of their post.... such as the color of the background, or the color of the text... That would be an easy way to indicate quickly to the reader what the nature of the post is.

reply to post by DISRAELI


I understand the ungainliness of trying to isolate debunking posts.

However, I think the suggestion has many good points.

Perhaps one check-item when posting to a thread could be:

FOR
BOTH/ NEITHER/ NEUTRAL
AGAINST

And that designation could be noted or color coded at the beginning of each post. At least it would give a warning for readers to have a head's up about the totally negative posts.

Sometimes I feel like reading them and sometimes I don't. When I don't, currently, I'll often just not bother with the thread at all--when actually, I'm interested in it. I just don't want to wade through all the horrifically attacking negative posts to read the more thoughtful posts on the topic.
.

reply to post by MarkJS

Members who are reading the thread can correspondingly opt at the top of page 1 of each thread- "Include Attempted Debunking and Rebuttal Posts?", which when checked off, will add all said posts. Otherwise if not checked, the thread will read like no-one ever disputed the OP- making the thread clean, concise and probably much more interesting.

Seriously?

So basically you only want to have to see the posts that you agree with, this policy would just lead to madness on the boards.

I could write a thread "The world is flat" and go through the whole thread thinking i am right just because i can ignore everyone else who say's I am wrong

This is a really really bad idea, IT WOULD DESTROY ATS