Transparency On The Future of ATS

MOD NOTE......

originally posted by: DBCowboy
I just want to say something serious for a moment.

Many on this thread have been critical and have blamed, actually blamed, members for the sites potential demise.

It's as if some are saying that people should have not expressed themselves.

Ironically, for many members, the internet will soon be very monochromatic and many of those voices you have blamed will be silenced by giants like Google.

There will be fewer and fewer sites that are open to ALL ideas.

That's not something just to be sad about, it's really something to mourn.

This!!!!!!

Can we please keep this about the OP.....and not about left/right???

Do NOT reply to this post!

Unfortunate. This will descend into another left-right p!ssing match. Hey I know someone that might help but MEHHH, not unless you get rid of the you-know-whos. People already setting up agendas. Sad, been coming here not as a member since Art Bell, and I appreciate the outlet. It was a lot different for me then. UFO's, Bigfoot you name it. My eyes were wide open. Now, the innocence is gone.

a reply to: JameSimon

I suggested a possible solution, one that doesn't involve the outright banning of speech but might allow for more diversity of discourse and the potential to be more attractive to new members and a mod deleted it. Don't want to see ATS go but finding it harder and harder to find a reason to stay around.


(I have put in a formal complaint about said mod)

How about actually looking at what ATS has been competing against for years?

Facebook,Twitter,Instagram and other social media platforms.

'Conspiracy theory's never had a very large demographic to begin with.

Never been a problem with content, and it's a problem that's been exacerbated by all trusting mainstream media npc's.

That lack critical thinking skills.

originally posted by: NoFearsEqualsFreeMan

originally posted by: JameSimon
I can bet the moment ATS became a platform for far right nutters to roam free instead of the mostly healthy discussion there was before 2015 it started losing visits. This is a far cry from the ATS I visited way back in 2009 and from the time I made most posts. Deny ignorance stopped being the motto long ago. Enjoy your slow fade.

To deny something, is to accept ignorance about the thing youre denying - never like that slogan, but like what it tries to say.

Please stop making this about left or right - idiots are on both sides, they are on ALL sides... Yes, there is to much ridicule for peoples beliefs on this site - but you and me are no different if we starts to blame left or right for it.

I'm not saying idiots are not on both sides. The problem is that while there were far right and far left idiots here before, most content provided by users was in the form of actual content, and the front page / recent posts were not filled with far right politics. It's insane how this forum went from a half decent discussion platform on interesting subjects and conspiracy theories to a Trump echo chamber.

To each his own, I guess, I visited this website to learn, comment and debunk, not to stand in a Trump echo chamber.

And I'm not saying mods need to ban people for having their political opinion, but the front page should be more curated towards a bigger variety of topics, to stimulate actual discussion. Also, a ton of topics, ranging from left to far right political discussions, would have been straight deleted 5 years ago.

Anyway, as I said, enjoy your slow demise, ATS. I'm sure an healthier platform will arise.

a reply to: DBCowboy

Since you are serious, I’ll drop a serious line as well.

Myself, as a mod, have the power to rewrite any post in any forum that I have power within, which is almost all them. I can change your post to read that you eat honeybees when you feel lonely or anything thing else. If the original message wasn’t saved by me or you then reconstruction would be harder (or maybe even impossible for a complex post).

Yes that would be abuse of power and I would be demodded for it. But the fact is that it could be done and you are somewhat aware. But still you as a member post knowing that because there is a level of trust that has been developed over these long, long years that neither I nor the rest of the staff interfere with member’s thoughts, unless it ran afoul of the T&C. And we as staff trusted the membership to post along those lines by not having to approve posts before they went public (the old anonymous account was the exception to that general rule).

So as I read the mods, the owners, the staff turned ATS into a right wing echo chamber...I shake my head. As those were not the people that wrote all those posts. Have I participated in politics? Yes. And do so from the very beginning of my time here some 14 years ago, ten of which has been on staff.

Here within this thread has been calls of Nazi mods censoring things as the problem. Too one sided in political topics (there used to be four sites —ATS, PTS, BTS, ATSNN— and three different categories of points (Conspiracy, Political, General Below Top Secret).

Have mistakes been made? Maybe. There was a push for the relaxing of T&C enforcement a few years ago. And we did. Seems to have been felt as there are less hate sites dedicated to ATS Staff and Ownership. Some of which had some...we will just say rather creative writing. When the venom came to naming names, they are a who’s who of former staff and those not as active but still serving. But when we relaxed the T&C the hate sites stopped...but the noise to signal increased on here as well.

I was never on the hatelists because no one cared enough to hate me. Heck there is even a thread asking who I am after having been a mod for five years because I didn’t appear on the membership list and they figured I was some sort of ghost mod or hacker. I attribute that mostly to my idea of being a member and interacting with the membership as much as I can. Because what I always hated was a separation between members and staff that is all too common all over the net. ATS is and was different. And that is one of the ways I contributed. If that was a mistake because people learned my thoughts and opinion then so be it. I don’t think of it as a mistake.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

The site may fade...but not what you've achieved here.

You've set high standards ...for the voice of equal opinions, topics and theories...wrong and right..

Thank you

a reply to: JameSimon

Lol. Trump killed ATS.

Man it is not about Trump at all.

Please stay on Topic. This might not be important to you but it is to some of us.

Of course this happens soon after I write about appreciating ATS for being one of the last remaining places which allows free speech. The members who are happy about this should just stop using this website now, why are you even here if you hate it so much? Wanting it to be shut down is just another example of applauding the death of free speech... hopefully if we get new owners they will be fair.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

This is really sad news. Alot of bright minds and researchers are in this forum right now. Without ATS I and many others would not know the things we know now.

But there has to be solutions... why not allow for donations? Bitchute is an example of a website that is crowd funded. The model is not perfect; but it might keep the site alive for awhile longer...


I just would hate for this site to not be here anymore. That and the information contained in threads by many researchers...there is no price tag for that. I really hope a solution is brought to the table...

a reply to: Ahabstar

Politics is conspiracy.

Probably bigger than most any other topic.

It's like many can't see the forest through the trees.

Toss in tech giants manipulating forums where the actual conspiracies can be discussed and we're living in one of the biggest conspiracies of our time.

a reply to: Lumenari

I'll 'second' what L just said. I love this place ... and lurk a ton more than I post. With news media as untrustworthy as it has become elsewhere, this site is vital for the dissection performed by ATS'ers of the world's information and events. That isn't replaceable elsewhere.

I have lots of thoughts, feelings and opinions on this. But, as decorum was always supposed to be valued on ATS, I'll just say this - without ATS I would not have met so many amazing people or made some dear real life friends, or had so many interesting discussions (arguments, let's be honest) nor would I be who I am today.

So, thank you. Hope it works out.

a reply to: JameSimon

*sigh*

Bill expressed in the OP that a restructuring will take both time and money not available at this time. Is there any thought that the reason that 85/100 currently active thread getting replies are political (made up number that is probably way lower like 60/100) is because those are the threads that people are responding to with their replies?

Are politics a cesspool because it is politics or because people make it that way?
Was the Tic Tac UFO admission ignored because it wasn’t interesting or because it wasn’t as interesting as Covid Lockdowns?