The ATS Conspiracy: Are controversial threads allowed to remain to drive traffic?

reply to post by bknapple32

it could be way deeper. Paid trolls or Mods with alternate profiles, could be a real Conspiracy. I am very serious

think about it....how far behind Facebook is ATS with membership
How far behind facebook is the REVENUE stir the pot extend log in time its a win for ATS

reply to post by bknapple32


Hmmm, I think your probably correct about the AD revenue angle of keeping controversial threads going, BUT... In terms of evidence on the speculative threads. You can present some people with witnesses, pictures, videos, published article's, sound scientific evidence, police reports etc etc and they will still scream 'Fake!' 'Liar!' 'Bullcrap!' 'CGI!' 'Drug Abuser!' or something similar, Some people refuse to accept ANY amount of evidence so consigning speculative threads to the possible hoax/skunk works forum's may be discrediting the thread based on relatively few (but loud) peoples interpretation of the evidence presented. Maybe it needs some kind of points scoring system on the actual presented evidence alongside the S/F for the thread itself? Maybe a threshold of some kind? (believers/non believers in the presented evidence) Gets beyond the threshold and the thread gets moved.

The first thread you mentioned I participated in (in fact I was the one who traced down the OP from youtube and encouraged her to join ATS and participate in the discussion) and for a while it was a genuinely interesting thread before it turned into an insult fest/argument. How the hell it's got to 44 pages is beyond me however especially with the last 20 or so pages with nothing new to add? But that could have been resolved with the evidence rating idea and could have been moved (or stayed put) dependent on the ratings. As you say though, top topic = thousands of people seeing the ad's. So i'm in agreement with you. This very well might just be a money generating exercise. If so... Shame on you ATS!

reply to post by Anon77


And let me be clear. Im not faulting ATS for making money on this free service they are giving us. What Im questioning here is the way the site seems to be ran in order to generate the most hits, which makes the most money. I think it effects the quality of the site. When serious minded and curious folks want serious answers to issues, they shouldnt have to see the 18th million obama fake hoax birth certificate thread sitting in the main page as if it is legitimate. They will take the credibility of ATS at face value and wonder "hmm there must be something to this if it's on the ATS main page". Now luckily the thread was thrown in the hoax bin where it belongs, but after what? 100 flags and stars? And if enough of us didnt say something who knows how long the thread would have remained. Yet threads like this are moved right away, and harmless off topic posts are taken care of in seconds. It makes one wonder, why keep controversial, already proven to be hoax bunk like that up?

Because it generates hits.

Perhaps it is because what some people consider sufficient PROOF to debunk an idea is viewed by others as mere opinion or speculation. Who gets to decide when something has been debunked.
For example:
The Mars rover returns a picture showing what is obviously a 52 inch Sony flat screen TV on the Martian surface
Mr. A say 'Look at this? What is going on? Was this really taken on Mars?
Mr. B says "It's just a rock"
After this every time the subject of the Sony TV is brought up a dozen debunkers say "Mr. B. debunked that claim" but has he really?
So again we return to the question of who gets to determine when a particular issue has been sufficiently debunked?
I would guess the mods.
And that is what is happening.
You seem upset that it is the mods and not you.
YOU are content that the matter has been debunked but perhaps others are not. The fact that the thread continues seems to demonstrate that others do not accept the debunkers arguments either.
Hmmmm...how to resolve the issue.
Perhaps we should have some people appointed as objective monitors to determine this.
But my guess is no matter what they decide there will be people who disagree with them.
I'm guessing we will be able to spot these malcontents by the fact that they create threads like "Why has this debunked thread been allowed to continue?
Question: Since no thread is mandatory reading why does it bother you if the mods allow a discussion to continue that continuing responses seem to indicate that members do not wish to end.
Why not ignore it? Why the desire that 'no one should be allowed to talk about this' rather than just not getting involved yourself?
Do you lose sleep at night knowing people are discussing things you believe they shouldn't or are believing in things YOU have decided are unworthy of belief?
Do you suffer anxiety attacks due to frustration at not being allowed to determine which threads people should be interested in?
Why do you care? Why don't you ignore these threads and continue on to the ones you deem worthy?
Strange. At least from my POV

reply to post by Puck 22


Again, for the millionth time. I am not advocating for the end of those threads. But they should be discussed in the context of what they are proven to be. I care that honest people come to the main page and see outlandish threads being shown as legitimate topics. The Obama thread we have been discussing WAS A PROVEN HOAX 3 YEARS AGO. Yet it sat on the ATS main page last night, where we deny ignorance on a daily basis, as if it was some new piece of legitimate evidence.

reply to post by bknapple32


Well there are some simple answers to your questions.

The reason that people post what you think to be absurd theories based on hunches is mostly do the nature of a hunch.
The hunch started as an inkling millions of years ago in mankind's history and slowly works itself to the surface of the subconscious as belief.

People tend to have hunches leading to beliefs that lead to convictions that the president is not American.
Even if it were true, the hunch points to a deeper illumination.

Eventually with the power of concrete-hunch-coordination we begin to realize that:
maybe,
just a hunch:
500,000 - 100,000 years ago the current advanced humanoid/earthling civilization could have easily been 300,000 to 400,000 years ahead of our by the most 100,000 year "modern human civilization".
Give or take

Take the Obama conspiracy for instance. The hunches people have is a build up of hunches that stem from the overwhelming belief that the elite survivors of the previous civilization have been pulling the strings on the few but scattered (who were knocked back to the stone age). And these very elite illuminati, overlords, (gods), have been pulling the strings and keeping their bloodline in power.
Everybody know this.
Sometimes certain players are placed onto the world stage that do not necessarily carry on the bloodline. Sometimes certain actors are placed because of their customized training.
Usually these certain types of actors are trained from a very young age and even sometimes from birth.
These are just hunches however.
Hunches that extend from the ether world of inklings that show glimpses into the remnants of displaced energy clouds from the previous "world".

Best damn explanation of hunches Ive read in a long time. Disagree with about 90% of it. But damn good none the less. Star.

reply to post by bknapple32


Thanks. I was kinda using an absurd example to demonstrate my Hunch Theory.
It's going to be a unified theory for relative hunches.

reply to post by bknapple32

Again, why are you so upset over this? If the people who continued discussing the issue were not upset and the mods were not upset why does it seem to upset you so much?
"WAS A PROVEN HOAX THREE YEARS AGO"
Again, proven by who and to whose satisfaction?
If the thread continued then it would appear that there were others who disagreed with your assessment of the value of that proof, or considered there were other valid points to discuss not dependent on whatever point was disproved.
The bottom line is others, for whatever reason, thought the subject worth continuing but you seem upset that they should have been allowed to.
Very strange. I'm guessing in school you did not interact well with the other children who kept insisting on playing games you had decided were silly rather than the one you had decided was worthy of your time.
Again, why don't you just skip the thread and move on to those you like? Why the need to govern what others discuss? Why do you seem upset by what others discuss?
Curiouser and curiouser

Originally posted by bknapple32
Subject is pretty self explanatory. It seems to me and a few others (quietly) that ATS, whether it be the mods, upper level staff, or both have been allowing the kind of threads that seem to be based on hunches, theories without much fact, or sometimes outright lies to go on and on. Why would this be? Why, if something is darn near proven to be HIGHLY HIGHLY speculative, does it not go to skunk works or "Highly speculative" sections. Im not calling for outright deletion of these threads. Obviously there will be those of you who disagree that a thread is speculative. But there is also some of you who will believe anything posted on here these days. ( and to be fair some of us who cry hoax at every turn) But why don't they go where ATS classifies where they should belong. If something doesn't have proof, its speculative. Simple.

Its not a secret that when threads get moved to places like skunk works, they usually die off in a matter of a couple days. But when they remain in the bigger more frequented forums on ATS, they can go for pages amongst pages.. Such as this thread www.abovetopsecret.com...

For instance, this thread www.abovetopsecret.com... has been proven to be a hoax. Now Im not going to get into a debate over Obama's birth. But the thread facts have been proven false. Not the concept,( I get some of you will never believe Obama was born in the US) but the specific facts in that thread are a hoax. Yet it remains.

The possible answer? To drive up internet traffic, and thus sell ad revenue perhaps? Controversial topics give us all something to remember to argue about. And where else to fight than on the ATS website. Thus we log on here, driving up internet traffic and in turn ATS can sell ad space at a higher dollar to sellers. And I (business wise) see nothing wrong with that. ATS is a business and they gotta make their bottom line. NO problem whatsoever with that. Heck, I work at corporate for one of the biggest advertisers on this site. I just personally find it a little peculiar that a site that asks us to deny ignorance might be playing us for ignorant fools .

I only bring this up to perhaps start a discussion about this and see if others feel this conspiracy may be true. I know I'll get flamed by die hard ATS supporters. Im an ATS supporter as well, I tell all my friends to sign up here. But that doesn't mean we have to be blind and not ask questions... I just hope this doesn't get moved into a lesser used forum on here to stuff this question away from the majority of the site's users. And Mods feel free to join in. I don't need you guys to defend your actions about specific threads you move. Rather I'd love your opinions as if you weren't mods.. if that makes sense..

edit on Sun Feb 26 2012 by DontTreadOnMe because: FROM BBQ

edit on Sun Feb 26 2012 by DontTreadOnMe because: removed member name from title

Simple question, who the # cares?

reply to post by whenWEallFALLdown


Apparently you dont, and thats fine with me.

reply to post by bknapple32


Even if you're claims are true does it matter?

I consider everything I find online as buyer beware, use at your own caution, no refunds or exchanges.

If people like the threads and want to argue even though something has been proven false it's on them.
It doesn't hurt you to let these threads continue, and who knows maybe the controversial threads will bring in more new members who have something to contribute.

If it's a matter of people continuing to believe something false that's on them too.
They will believe false claims no matter where they find them, ATS doesn't add to this it would happen any way.

I'm not flaming you I'm just saying IMHO it doesn't matter.

Personally I use ATS for a few reasons.
One for an opinion and sources the mainstream might not cover.
Two because I do believe there are things we can't explain and hearing about them even false claims interests me.
Three for shiggles, I know there are BS threads on here and sometimes I just wanna be amused(from the greek to not think) for a short spell.

When I come to ATS I switch on my own internal filter based on why I'm there at that point in time.

If other people don't have that filter installed it's on them it doesn't affect me.
If anything it adds to the richness of the site.

Originally posted by Puck 22
reply to post by bknapple32

 

Again, why are you so upset over this? If the people who continued discussing the issue were not upset and the mods were not upset why does it seem to upset you so much?
"WAS A PROVEN HOAX THREE YEARS AGO"
Again, proven by who and to whose satisfaction?
If the thread continued then it would appear that there were others who disagreed with your assessment of the value of that proof, or considered there were other valid points to discuss not dependent on whatever point was disproved.
The bottom line is others, for whatever reason, thought the subject worth continuing but you seem upset that they should have been allowed to.
Very strange. I'm guessing in school you did not interact well with the other children who kept insisting on playing games you had decided were silly rather than the one you had decided was worthy of your time.
Again, why don't you just skip the thread and move on to those you like? Why the need to govern what others discuss? Why do you seem upset by what others discuss?
Curiouser and curiouser

I love how you can deduct how I interacted in school based on a thread on ATS. Again, you have missed the point. Im not saying these topics shouldn't be talked about. Im saying the forum they are discussed in needs to reflect the context of the evidence supported in that thread. But yet again, you have ignored that point and seem to want to cast me in the light of " wanting to prohibit discussion". I understand that makes it easier to avoid the topic, but it doesn't make you more profound or correct.

I could make assumptions on your childhood based on this behavior but I wont, because like you, I might be wrong.

Originally posted by bknapple32
. But yet again, you have ignored that point and seem to want to cast me in the light of " wanting to prohibit discussion". I understand that makes it easier to avoid the topic, but it doesn't make you more profound or correct.

Doesn't moving something to one of the forums where threads often die off count as prohibiting discussion?
At the very least it censors or hides it.
You admit in your original post that threads often die out in the other forums, and that's where you want some threads to go.
While that isn't the same as out right deleting them it has the same affect.

Maybe it's just possible the Board Moderators know this pattern, and keep threads where they are because they know some people who haven't yet commented or read them may still show up.
That's as plausible as your conspiracy theory and far less devious than driving up traffic.

The solution is simple, if in your belief a thread is a waste of time don't read it, don't flag it, and don't post in it.
Having it in a forum you disagree with doesn't take anything away from your experience.
This is the interweb our experience is what we make of it.

Interestingly enough, a much better thread that relates to your topic would be this one here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

In this topic, posters ARE upset.

The topic of the thread was debunked by page 3. Yet the thread persisted. Many posts were made by people who read (watched the video rather) on the OP, then simply posted a reply without bothering to read the rest of the thread pages (once a thread starts getting to many pages, people just can't be bothered to read through them unfortunately). Many were posting things like "Great OP! S&F for you!" and then later actually came back and retracted after the Hoax was exposed to them.
Yet the thread persisted.

By Page 16 we get down to one individual pretty much being the only individual still trying to defend the thread, with an odd post here and there of a "Thread Skimmer" posting (Thread Skimmer being a person that reads the first post only and posts a reply). Worse, that single individual started to derail the thread from the original topic.
Even more worse, they were able to bait many responses from those trying to convience this individual that the OP was a Hoax and had been debunked.

By page 26, I posted how anyone could go take a look, if they owned a telescope, that the area in question was not on the far side of the moon. I also pointed out that the video was made by a group who has had many of their videos debunked or proven to be hoaxes and those threads on here had been dumped in the Hoax forum.

My post was lost quickly several pages later, that are made up mostly of off topic posts, and name calling. Clear violations of the T&S.
I privately messaged one of the Mods and asked politely what was going on, and exactly what did they require to prove something was a Hoax? Never got a reply.

However, I did notice that this thread ended up on this past Saturday's ATS Live broadcast show. Unfortunately I was not able to tune in until after this had been discussed and their rewind section is OOC right now, so I have no idea what they said about it.

Finally, by page 30, I hit the "Alert" button, and politely pointed out to the Mods that this thread was pages and pages of off topic posts, and basically a flame war. That the OP had been debunked and proven a hoax. Not too long after that, a mod DID lock the topic, briefly, and they did edit some posts (but only page 31). They did not look any further back than that.
Some time yesterday, they unlocked the topic. This time the same individual (and the ONLY ONE) defending the thread sort of stayed on topic, but the flaming started right up again.

So this morning, I once again hit the Alert button, again pointed out that it was just one big flame war, and that:

1) The thread had been debunked and proven a Hoax, it no longer belonged in the Aliens & UFOs forum.
2) That by leaving that thread there, and allowing the flaming to continue, they (the mods) and this site were doing a disservice to both Ufologists and Skeptics.

After a couple of hours, the thread was locked, and finally moved to the Hoax forum.

This whole incident had me raising an eyebrow like Mr. Spock. It did seem as though the Mods were letting this thread ride.......for some reason.

The problem is that the thread itself was not intelligent in anyway, but instead is a prime example of people flaming and belittling each other with name calling, and mental status claims.

Then again, maybe the Mods are just too over worked to have the time and read every thread, or are out sick, or on vacation........who knows?

I still find it very interesting that they let this one ride for so long with such obvious violations of T&S going on for almost 30 pages......

Originally posted by eriktheawful
www.abovetopsecret.com...

In this topic, posters ARE upset.

The topic of the thread was debunked by page 3. Yet the thread persisted.

I moved it into the HOAX forum while it was only two pages deep.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Hmm sounds like Erik is the one elling hoaxes now...

reply to post by bknapple32


Oh no, I'm not.

Skeptic: the thread YOU moved was this one, and you did it by page 3:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

That's the one with the video of the car racing down the highway with guys yelling WOO HOO, and then it screeches to a halt, and the "UFO" lands, and on the side of a building is the logo for the people that made the video.

The thread that I'm talking about, is showing a supposed Alien Moon Base, from pictures supposed from the Chang'e-2 Chinese probe, but the picture is actually from the Lunar Orbiter III.

bknapple32 you yourself posted quite a bit in the thread, starting about page 24, here is the link:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

And no, this thread that I'm talking about did not get moved to the Hoax part of the forum until this morning, after 34 pages.

Originally posted by eriktheawful
The topic of the thread was debunked by page 3. Yet the thread persisted. Many posts were made by people who read (watched the video rather) on the OP, then simply posted a reply without bothering to read the rest of the thread pages (once a thread starts getting to many pages, people just can't be bothered to read through them unfortunately). Many were posting things like "Great OP! S&F for you!" and then later actually came back and retracted after the Hoax was exposed to them.
Yet the thread persisted.

This paragraph of your post gives me a great idea.
Have a new feature in each thread where either by popular vote or by control of the mods relevant posts are set aside on an important page.
Have it be listed after the >> call it "important posts" or "relevant info" that way people have the option of seeing a digest of the thread with the OP and 3-5 of the best threads in support or debunking the thread.
That way people can get a gist of the thread and not post without knowing the topic has been debunked.

I'm sure it will take some coding and will be a pain to manage at first but it could have some benefits.
If after reading the digest people still wanna post because they want to add on or they don't believe the debunked info they can but at least they are more informed.