Can we have ATS back, please?

a reply to: ForteanOrg
Yes please, I am so tired of the monotonous political BS that pervades ATS these days.

a reply to: Darkchao45

This is really more about monitoring to keep the threads on topic. For instance if the topic is what do werewolves eat, and someone rants to say something about Donald Trump should be what they eat, then the comment should not be permitted to be posted. While it could be funny to many members, it derails the intent of the thread and make it easier for it to get more and more off topic. But the mods have a lot of work to do, and they may not be able to keep up with all the posts, so ATS should have a program (bot) that looks at keywords in the post, like Trump, Democrat, Clinton, etc for the US, and other names for other countries. If the key word shows up, the program won't let the response be posted unless it is in a specifically designated political forum. Human Mods could then issue warnings for members trying to get around the bot, like using D.Rump for Donald Trump, D-crats, for Democrats etc, or C*inton for Clinton. etc. Since most of us hate censorship, All posts that violate the policy/bot could be put into a new forum called something like Ejected posts. That way if you want to search on a members historical posts,you still can see it, and if you wanted to, a member could start just looking though all the ejected posts.

Personally, i signed up because there is a wealth of really, really, good stuff on ATS.

Be it 'esoteric strangeness', serious (and not so serious) space 'stuff', general conspiracies that could have a whiff of 'truthiness' in there somewhere .. things that make you scratch your chin and think 'hmmm mmm...'

That's always been my impression of ATS

Things changed with Bush II

Before 911, Bush was just an unknown entity,
a 'familly' name, a simple goverrner,
happy to have been elected pres and just be coool

Maybe 1 term would have suited him, who knows

But then 911 happened ....

The 'recent posts tab' was saturated,
just like now, with anti/for/let's pick apart threads
Show you links or shut it

That all ultimately led to me stop lurking for quite a while
(Although i could/should have signed up at that time, and would have had a hay day !!!)

It's the same today
yes it will pass
but ....

(not trolling by any means)

Maybe ATS sould consider creating a Trump forum ?
Given that he is so divisive

Even so, will that really help ?
'Trump' threads, for now, will allways nix other threads
Trump is indeed creating buzz/reaction

We are all 'triggered' by anything Trump says or does
Just like with Bush, less so with Clinton
('Cigar', 'Blue Dress and 'president juice')
Even less so with Barack.

a reply to: ForteanOrg

I remember the ATS of old when it was just conspiracy theories, aliens. Back then politics was a minor part of the ATS world and I was just a lurker. Then Obama came onto the scene and politics blew up. All of a sudden the constitution and big government became the center of attention. Now the whitehouse has flipped and we have Trump, who has largely gained favouritism here on ATS with the majority of members. Now all of a sudden, politics is bad, we shouldn't be discussing it, big government is too much of a distraction.

The old ATS ended when members decided the bring political discourse after being unhappy with the election result in 2008. It's not going back because people suddenly find it inconvenient now.

This is why I don't come here much anymore. I'm so tired of coming here and seeing 'TRUMP' and political garbage everywhere. There is more political garbage on here than political websites and forums. Politics in general is garbage, no one can fix the problems we all see in the news every night, and everyone in government is just the other side of the same dirty coin. I spend my time much more wisely with work, play, creative things, and more play. Coming here isn't interesting like it was 5 years ago or more. Let the people that have overrun the site enjoy Trump and politics. There are better places now to read about UFO stories and conspiracies.

originally posted by: Darkchao45
ATS benefits more from the traffic regarding US politics. Sadly, because of this, it has become a political news site, with some conspiracy sprinkled here and there. I don't think ATS will go back to the way it was.

And not just a political site but a Trump fan boy circle jerk, star and flag fest. I don't think ATS will ever go back to it's glory days either....sad, very very very sad, believe me...sad.

Honestly, all this political bickering is a conspiracy in itself.

People are guilible and love to pick a side, moreso if they see the winning side ahead of time and feel " something " for it.

However, I'm not really seeing Trump fans or Hillary fans, left or right, I'm seeing people more or less not act like normal ATS members with minds of their own and willing to post some " meat " along with their " bait " post.

I don't know why it's not heavily enforced to post a video or a link and have a 2 sentence comment about it and that's it. Why is that ok to start an article?

The SEO for this site alone must be that of a nightmare, because I wouldn't know where to canonical what and how to even get a forum head for Trump to be seen as opposed to the thousands of " trump this and trump that " threads.

While there is going to be some threads about the president, the amount of side fighting here speaks more of an agenda than random chatter. I'd be more interested to know who participates in the political threads more than others and who posts those threads that said partitipants are engagning in.

There always seems to be someone posting a thread with underlying tones towards an opinion they might have or want to be more accepted. Using a forum or the internet as a means to introduce more " acceptable " behavior is something that has been done before, of course using non digital means and I'm sure digital for the more recent examples. But never the less, it's something that should be seriously looked into.

I'd even suggest moving the political threads to a RATS like forum but maybe one you could monitize better if it does make good money, but keep the site more appealing to your loyal users, who come here to see the news and information they don't see plastered from every lightpost and arsecrack, 4chan, reddit, twitter and facebook do a great job already of that.

More be more happening than even ATS mods know, I'd hate to have my forum hijack and have but I'm lucky, it's so small I can shut it down if it gets spam or people " misusing " it.

a reply to: Tranceopticalinclined

Honestly, all this political bickering is a conspiracy in itself.

People are guilible and love to pick a side, moreso if they see the winning side ahead of time and feel " something " for it.

However, I'm not really seeing Trump fans or Hillary fans, left or right, I'm seeing people more or less not act like normal ATS members with minds of their own and willing to post some " meat " along with their " bait " post.

Yeah.

Even though i'm neither one or the other, i just can't help but shouting out/coming on all ranty
'Guyyyyys wake up, look at what is happening'

Maybe i don't always comme across as i would like to,
perhaps it's a reflection of my own, personal, knee jerk reaction to todays political scene.

ATS does give an outlet to that, and is extremely worthy for that.

*Notice how a totally, neutral, thread about bringing back the real ATS includes allusions to Trump !!!*

I came here for UFO info. Have done a ton of supernatural study.....study of the supernatural rather, other topics diffusion, ect.

However I also did political science in college, and religion. Folks sick of the Trump factor might as well just stay off the political threads then. Make some Big Foot threads or something. Whats going on with american political theater these days is downright interesting......watching the press and party boys sell their souls.....the noble constitution being savaged by packs of wild political dogs, large scale political ass covering, the sort of political air that lends itself to assassination, press fully exposed at last as cold propaganda truth ministry spewers of bull scrap ect.....great days to study politics i.e. the conspiracy that is politics v.s. say higher elevations of the human development, governance, law, philosophy, the development of western thought.........struggling with the baser ideas of party politics and a press that spews out lies in behalf of the baser and imported trash philosophies of the last century.

originally posted by: Darkchao45
ATS benefits more from the traffic regarding US politics. Sadly, because of this, it has become a political news site, with some conspiracy sprinkled here and there. I don't think ATS will go back to the way it was.

Just checked on Alexa, ATS has the lowest traffic in 1 year, probably more, but the graph only shows the last 12 months.

a reply to: Necrose

Doesn't surprise me. I have visited the site more in the last week than I have the past three years total. More out of curiosity than anything else I suppose. The site certainly isn't what it once was, but that's more on the posters than administrators. Shrug.

originally posted by: Gh0stwalker
a reply to: Paschar0

The air reeks of arrogance...

He's not wrong.

I agree.there is so much hot air thrown around with politics and whining which side you like.

Nostalgia hitting hard now!

I came here for conspiracies, ufos, aliens, MIBS and now I only get politics and more politics, yeah make ATS dark again!

I gave up long ago. This site has been getting worse for many years. Not least because the owners are resistant to community feedback and can't adapt so fluidly to changing situations. Many members, too, would rather engage in flippant debates and arguments, rather than constructive conversations. It's a shame, but it is what it is. ATS used to be the best place to be. There are many superior forums out there now.

I agree, I used to visit here at least once a day, just to see some cool reading between the lines stuff or whatever. Nowadays, everytime I pop in here, it looks the same as my facebook feed, all US politics. The place started to feel different ever since the LOL forum was created, and seems to have rolled on downhill ever since.

a reply to: TKDRL

I noticed quite a difference around 2012, I guess. If you look at my profile, that's what it reflects. I was once a substantial contributer here, but I slowed way down since about 2012. I think my last thread contribution here was in October of 2014. It just became too much.
I'd like to get involved in the site again, but as it is now, I don't see it happening. It's not because I am apathetic towards politics. I am very engaged, but I am antithetical to the partisan politics here, and I don't think my views of both sides of the spectrum would be very appreciated. I don't view neither the Republicans or Democrats in a positive light. As a matter of fact, I view both as complicit in the problems we have in this country. I suspect, judging by the partisan bickering I have seen, I'd be demonized quickly by both sides.