reply to post by TrueAmerican
No. What we need is some way to 'poll' each thread. A user should be able to see a summary of each thread. That summary would indicate the two main
points-of-view of the thread, how many people were on each side, and what the overall conclusion of the thread was.
Follow my train of thought here - almost every thread on ATS is essentially a debate about the topic at hand. Users present what opinions and evidence
they have, and at some point each thread reaches some sort of conclusion based on those opinions and evidence. The summary should have a list of links
to the most flagged and starred posts in the thread.
ATS threads are a global conversation. Without a way to catalogue, rank and show the outcome of each thread, we risk losing a lot of quality and end
up rehashing things over and over. SOME topics should "end" at some point - until further evidence is provided, or an alternative point of view. We
should be able to see that at the current time, most of our users think that, for example, 9/11 was an organised false flag, with links to the
relevant threads / posts.
Some of you might already realise that I don't really know what I am talking about and have no idea how to design it. I hope that some understand
what I am trying to get at and can help to "flesh it out". I see ATS as a wealth of information, poorly organised, with duplicate content and no
"outcome" to any topic. It's like the news - so, this and that happened, omg how terrible, what are we going to do, humans are disgusting, end of
story, on to the next thread.
I believe there must be a way to turn our conversations and opinions into ACTION. We need to attract more "professional" posts, spread the
conversation, have some links to where you can help take action, grow into a more authoritative resource on topics affecting our world. We have a lot
of people on ATS who don't know how to argue properly, are close-minded and uneducated - but on the other hand we have a lot of people who are able
to take on new ideas, present a good argument, and follow a thread through to it's "temporary conclusion", meaning, that until new ideas or
evidence are presented, this particular topic is "solved" - it cannot really be discussed any further.
ATS should be more like an encyclopaedia of knowledge. If we can start to catalogue the threads and information correctly, I think we can get
somewhere. Users with sufficient experience on ATS should be given privilege and be able to take certain actions on posts. If someone is simply not
making any sense, or there is no value in their post, that post should be able to be voted down to irrelevancy. On the other hand, if a post has a lot
of value, information, evidence, it should be promoted, it should be set as the current "agreed conclusion" of the thread, or as one of the more
important posts in the thread, until someone can prove otherwise.
Unfortunately, I feel that I have not expressed myself properly and I seriously hope someone can understand what I am driving at better than I can
explain it. Too much information and "decisions" are lost here in ATS, only to be rehashed again and again without taking into account important
data from other threads.
I don't see any advantage in allowing two threads per topic. In fact, it sounds like a nightmare.
There are already too many duplicate threads.
There are already toooo many duplicates of threads because people don't look before they post. Why
have two threads? It's already a cluttered mess, why add to it? 
