Originally posted by Destinyone
What more do you suggest the owners do to accommodate us.

The occasional back rub would be nice. Maybe a coffee refill, biscuit... just kidding! I think the mods do a decent enough job. Moderating can be tough work, lots of 'fly by the seat of your pants' decisions they have to make, enemies made and friends lost.

We all know that they noticed it was getting a little bit off in here and decided to act, and good on them for it. If not, we would still be looking at 30 posts a day of "hate caused hate related hatred, read more about hate inside" type posts.

Just my 2 cents. I like the mods. I am a moderator on another site and I know it can be tough sometimes. Overall, I think they're doing a good job. Now, where's my coffee?

Part of the problem is that both society and the MSM have been egging on racial and religious differences in an attempt to keep the public preoccupied with irrelevant matters.
Meanwhile the economies of the Western powers are going down the drain, creeping authoritarianism is now running a sprint and top bankers are jumping ship.
There are powerful forces at work in the real world and they are attempting to create a diversion.
Unfortunately, many are falling for it.

In a way, ATS is simply a reflection of the world at large.
The difference is we aren't going to allow it to drag us down by allowing such partisan, racial and religious bickering as we've all seen of late.
We are going to hold ourselves to a higher standard and do our best to spotlight the real issues that are going on and provide a safe haven for civil discussion.
ATS has the best membership on the web and deserve a higher standard of behavior than what other sites provide.

Im going to have to write a user script to block out all of these "ATS has become.." "ATS is a..." "So many shills" "Disonfo agents everywhere!!!"..... twaddle.

or at least stop reading the threads...

nothing new in any of them, it like someone threw out a template for it and random people started using them.

Here's a tip.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
There sure are a lot of threads lately started about Shills, Disinfo agents and Infiltrators? Something happen that I entirely missed for why this topc is the hot one this week and not last week or the week before? I'm just wondering what started the recent fad here?

It's because they are kicking said behaviour into high gear, Rabbit.

A favourite tactic, I'm noticing, is actually suggesting that any thread they don't like be moved to the Rant forum; which is a marginally dishonest means of essentially deleting it. If you go and check the viewing statistics for different subforums, Rant is essentially a black hole. It's more or less a means of censorship without actually going 100% of the entire way, but the end result is still achieved, in that hardly anybody will end up seeing a thread which gets moved here.

ATS won't be shut down overtly. The government doesn't need to do that, and it would likely create too much outcry. All they really need to do is flood the site with the brotherhood of Richard Dawkins. That will produce the same result in practical terms, because if you try and make any statement that is outside of the accepted range of opinions, the pseudo-rationalist attack dogs will immediately descend on you in swarms.

As for the very real problem of the apparent use of forums to influence opinion and general perceptions of issues? Well.. I hate it too and I see it far more blatantly at other sites than ATS. Although it sure happens here...is my guess. Oh well... I'd love to think up grand ideas and groundbreaking new solutions that will tie the whole problem up in a bag for a trip to the landfill but....I think we have to accept something here. We have to simply get used to it.

That was why Usenet had to be killed. It had no centralised administration, which as a result, also meant that it had no means of censorship.

The net is maturing....evolving..and being used in ways it wasn't even a few months let a long a few years ago. Now, it would seem there are as many out there looking at Forums EVERYWHERE as a tool to achieve an end result as any stage for the free flow of ideas.

It isn't maturing or evolving at all. Those two words would imply that the change is positive. Iit's anything but. The Internet is being bound up, repressed, and gradually destroyed. The net has not gone forward developmentally since 2000, at all; it has gone backwards. Sure, to a certain extent there's more "stuff," but that just amounts to corporate material and rubbish, for the most part. There isn't real dialogue or communication going on, because everywhere is a gated community.

Originally posted by mainidh
Im going to have to write a user script to block out all of these "ATS has become.." "ATS is a..." "So many shills" "Disonfo agents everywhere!!!"..... twaddle.

or at least stop reading the threads...

nothing new in any of them, it like someone threw out a template for it and random people started using them.

Here's a tip.

There's a certain amount of irony, here. See if you can guess what it might be in relation to.

Interesting thread admittedly, and this is a topic which always seems to pop up every few weeks/months - But, I guess that's no surprise really given the nature of what's routinely discussed here on ATS I suppose...

I have to be completely honest though, and this may not be a popular opinion but remember it is of course just my opinion as a member here, but I really don't believe there is any disinfo agents here, I honestly don't. In fact I think the disinfo debate is rather silly if anything. I also think the vast majority of people almost see it as a given around here and I just don't understand that at all. I mean let's be honest here, are we all really that important? No, not in my opinion. We're just a collection of people who like to discuss Aliens, who like to discuss Chemtrails, who like to discuss politics, who like to discuss conspiracies on the whole and so on. I like to think those Intelligence groups have much bigger fish to fry than us.

Do we, the collective we that is, really think any Intelligence agency is routinely monitoring and then influencing an online message board such as us? Again, personally I just don't think so and I really don't think we're, as a whole that is, all that important to them. That's not to say Intelligence of some kind hasn't made It's way here in some form or another at some point, but I certainly don't buy that any groups are here in a routinely basis specifically to spread disinformation, to sway the discussion away from something and the like. I dare say that's a little bit of paranoia.

It's unfortunate, far too often people get bogged down over this topic. They personally attack others, they repeatedly throw out accusations and so on. It's become something of a witch hunt in fact, members desperately looking out for who could be working for the "man." In reality, I think we ought to just enjoy ourselves already, start focusing on our own personal research and just enjoy the discussions and debates which often take place here.

Sure, they will get heated from time to time, that's the way it is and that's the way It's always going to be. On the internet and in real life in fact. That's something we all will have to deal with, no argument there. But some people just get soo stuck on the disinformation topic, or some others mindlessly throw out the accusations when they're losing in a debate and it's such a drag to see in my opinion, It's a real down side to participating here. Some are so convinced "they're" here they get paranoid and actually forget to enjoy themselves, and they completely forget to actually discuss and focus on the topic at hand.. Which is actually rather ironic when you think about it.

So all in all no, I don't think disinformation agents are here and, this being my opinion as a member and now a staff member, I've never personally come across any reason to believe they are here. I just think some people need to stop being so paranoid, stop throwing out accusations, stop getting so bogged down with a modern conspiracy witch hunt and just start focusing on actually getting somewhere and continuing your own personal search for the truth - The importance of which I can't stress enough.

If, god forbid, you do come across a post which you think is an attempt at derailing the thread or an attempt at spreading dis or misinformation (and there is a massive difference between the two which we musn't forget here), then either ignore or alert it - Preferably the latter as the staff will always take the time to look at it, have a discussion over it and then take action if needs be. There, problem solved. You can always alert whenever you feel the need to, no one is stopping you. But the main thing is you don't respond and surely that's understandably really - After all if you think a post is derailing why would anyone want to highlight that post? Surely no one would and of course no one should. Just move on and reply to those who want to learn, not those who want to be a nuisance.

Anyway, like I said, this is certainly an interesting topic and I imagine It's one that is always going to come about and be discussed at length, but once again I just really don't believe there is any disinformation agents here - But, I'm just throwing out an alternative opinion for people to read through, take it as you will.