Duplicate threads ?

Are duplicate threads on the same forum a permitted thing now ?
I sent an alert for a duplicate thread on the Aliens + UFOs forum , the duplicate remains and got more attention than the original thread which I think unfair on the original OP , I would like clarification on this so I know not to bother reporting it when it happens again.

originally posted by: gortex
Are duplicate threads on the same forum a permitted thing now ?
I sent an alert for a duplicate thread on the Aliens + UFOs forum , the duplicate remains and got more attention than the original thread which I think unfair on the original OP , I would like clarification on this so I know not to bother reporting it when it happens again.

Ah, but posting on ATS is about spreading awareness and adding great content - it is not about attention. I am sure the OP of the first thread is delighted that the subject is being discussed.

The removal of duplicate threads is less about recognition that it is about trying to avoid too much fragmentation on the boards.

Also, mods might be busy - it is a huge sige after all - when you alert them, so they might not have the chance to look into the alert until one thread (or both)have garnered a lot of responses, and at that point it might not make sense to kill the second thread.

I can definitely see how it might be best left up to the mods' discretion to decide how to handle a dube-thread-alert!

Duplicate threads are rampant of late. It seems like no one checks the new threads at all, before creating their own thread.

Often times it's a race from Huffington, NWD or Drudge. Just a regurgitation of media's already published news.

The days of the sort of news or events that were of interest on ATS seem to be fading. Here's an example of remembering
'the good ol'days' of Above Top Secret. The days when topics were more unusual, mysterious and captivating. Let's see what the millennials do with ATS.

Duplicates are not allowed, except under certain circumstances.
1. We allow a thread in Breaking Alternative News, and another in a different forum.

2. And, in the Mud Pit:

YOU CAN CREATE A NEW THREAD: Quote the post that inspired your ire, link to the non-mud-pit ATS thread, and start a new thread in the Political Mud-Pit forum, making certain not to call-out or otherwise throw mud at any ATS member in the original thread outside the Mud-Pit.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

if you alerted, and saw no action, either staff decided they were not similar enough....or it got overlooked....as sometimes happens.
OR.....you said there was a duplicate, but provided no link.

3. Also, we allow repeats of topics if the older thread is more than a month old.

We've got a couple of factors working against us here. For one, most of the duplicate threads are generated by new accounts, and they don't bother with the search function. They know it's there...they simply don't care, because it's not their problem.

Also, the boards are so inundated with garbage threads that I think it's probably difficult for the mods to keep up with all of it...they delete one and five more crop up in its place. They obviously can't all be online all the time, but it doesn't help matters either that most people don't bother to use the alert function. They simply link the older thread in a reply, letting the OP know there's already a discussion on it. Well...that's not going to stop an OP who disregards the rules to begin with, and the mods don't read every single thread, so they may not even see those replies at all.

They have repeatedly and emphatically advised us to alert them if there is an issue that may need to be addressed, but how many of us actually utilize that tool? I'm betting a relative few, compared to the number of members we've got on the site.

And one of my biggest pet peeves about this site is that there is a rather lengthy period of time after alerting something that you are not permitted to alert anything else. I'm assuming this is so that people are not just reporting every little tiny thing every five minutes, and also to keep people from targeting those with whom they do not disagree or simply do not like with a string of complaints, as they are given free reign to do on sites like Facebook or Twitter.

It's a brilliant concept but the reality is that in a scenario like this, a lot of things get overlooked because our ability to call attention to them is inhibited by that time limit. There was a scenario recently where a member was essentially bouncing from thread to thread, making inappropriate and vulgar comments that had little to no relevancy to the actual topic. Well, I alerted a particularly disgusting comment on one thread, but was unable to alert anything else this individual was saying across multiple threads and topics...and he/she/it was saying a lot. I could have found a mod online and sent a u2u, but I didn't have time to mess with that, and it's very likely that they wouldn't even see the message in the first place.

So we've got this relentless flow of duplicate threads and TnC violations, we've got an alert function that it seems hardly anyone utilizes, and we've got a limit as to how often those who actually use it are able to do so. And all of those factors are significantly impacting the content and post quality on this site.

As a side note, people may be using the alert function but get no results because what they're reporting is not prohibited within that particular forum. I'm guilty of that myself...if I'm rushed or distracted, I sometimes forget to check which forum things are posted in. The MP is a perfect example of that. I have no doubt that I have personally caused many eyerolls from the mods for making that mistake.

However...that being said, people should definitely report something that they think is questionable, because it very well may be, and whatever mods are online might not catch it. They're not going to point and laugh at someone if it was a false alarm. If it's legit, they'll take action. If it's not, they won't.

I don't know what the solution could be, because it's a complex issue, but I'm sure there is one out there. Maybe by the time I post this, a mod will have already weighed in on the subject.

a reply to: tigertatzen

In addition to alerting, you are more than welcome to send a PM to a staff member giving us a heads up.

A search option to list search hits from latest to oldest would curtail most of the problems, IMHO.
If it does exist already, then also making it quite obvious in the search page on how to accomplish it would be nice as well.