How Are we going to Fix ATS???

ATS is going nuts...


Anyone thats been here for a while has noticed the changes...


Seems now, 1/2 of the topics are either closed, or deleated...
More and more posts are being removed, for whatever reasons...
The Subjects are repeating... or totaly dead topics...
Long standing, well respected members disapearing for whatever reason...

Theres still good content being generated here, but the garbage is taking up all the attention...

I am just hoping that this is the political season making everyone suffer from tempory insanity...

But what if its not?

What if ATS is just growing out of control? And the owners and the mods just can't handle it anymore?

When i first found this place many years ago, i felt i had wondered into a place of intelectual anarchy, where ANYTHING went, where EVERYONE was taken seriously, and the mods and membership respected each other... It was the Garden of Eden of intelectual thought on the internet...

Now it is a former shell of what it was... taking on the very straights of the things we hate... and yet what can we do?

This is what i ask of you, all of you.

First, what would be the nature of such fix in question?

What happens whenever a site is generated, is that such a project is started by several individuals who have more or less same dissatisfaction to other sites. It also happens to be case that they see a market to work in. Those individuals are usually ones who can think for themselves, and such a group attracks more people with same capability and/or interest.

As site gains popularity and draws new members, statistical truth about humans in general begins to show up. This means that views of world and truth itself stats to disperse to the extent that serious conflicts will arise. It is a problem in social environments, and it won't go away. Ever. This is one of the things that you cannot change in this world, no matter how pissed off you are about it, from where comes the saying you can't change the world.

There are however several ways to miminize such conflict and keep threads interesting to members. Also, you propably shouldn't concencrate on those threads that are, for you, totally impossible to be true. As you said there are threads that are intelligent enough to participate in.

Do you really even have the time to participate in every single thread there is? If not, then your obvious and logical act should be to ignore what you don't like or what aggravates you in some manner, and concencrate on those thread that you truly have time for.

It is clear that if majority of threads are indeed crap, what follows is that reputation of those who thinik differently is partially lost as well. But can you really help it that much? It happens in every possible context in life.

Only working model would be to close up part of forums for those who because of somebody's opinion deserves such closed environment, and that does not work. What would happen is birth of elite, which would be invite only. Such an environment quickly adapts to believe in common ground and again dismisses everything that is outside of it.

Because our subjects are what tehy are, such an act of elitism would destroy everything that ATS still is, so I for one would not want such to happen. What would you think will happen if in our environment we suddenly officially divide people to those who are crazy and to those who are intelligent?

There is in fact one system of moderation that works better than others. That is the system slashdot (www.slashdot.org) is using.

On that site, everybody who gets a "star" is also allowed to give a star. Others are not. It is based on points, not stars, but I just used it as an analogy.

I wonder what Springer's opinion on such a system is..

Anyway, about the best thing internet has to offer is birth of new information. This of course is dependant on what you are using internet for. I could start to write with my own name, and you can bet that quality of my posts would increase because I should actually care if my opinions ever surface in a job interview, for example. So, that would increase quality but it would also decrease out of the box postings because of the same reasons.





[edit on 13/7/08 by rawsom]

We have to believe in god and have faith. Most of those threads over there are about proving another wrong or debunkin' some UFO video. Lately it's been more about politics, and honestly after Hillary lost, i'd give a damn anymore about politics. I quit. so we have to start more personal threads with a personal touch. I liked it when the topics dealt with religion and jesus, those were fun. Look, people are lost and are seeking help. it's hard to find the answer in a pool of fakes.

I agree with the OP. I joined a while back but haven't posted just read stuff. Most of ATS is like some news service, most threads start with a news link. Maybe the NWO is dumbing people's brains?

theres a couple things that have been turning me off about ats, the constant religious vs nonreligious thread hi-jacks, the dismissiveness and arrogance of the "scholars", and the one that annoys me is when i see someone starting a thread or joining in on about any particular topic and asking a question or posting an idea, they are immediately ridiculed by wannabe mods or the actual mods for not using the search function first, then, if they go ahead and use the search and a thread topic of theyre interest comes up, they are again ridiculed for reviving a dead thread, its ridiculous.

Well personally i think that the Staff here do an amazing job, there are what ... 60+ forums in total and there's about that many staff since they cant all stay on they got to be every where at once when there online. ATS is always going to have idiots on it, people who don't show any respect to others, but as always ATS wipes them up and throws them away. If your going off ATS feel free to come to TinWiki, Tin Rocks

Fox

P.s was that TinWiki bit in there OK ? or is it advertising ? Tin is owned by ATS after all.

I have noticed this and have even started a related thread, as many have. I am noticing these types of threads come up occasionally and always will.

From my observations, there is usually an influx of people wanting to have a say and some are probably used to less structured forums but are soon sorted out here and either smarten up or drop off. (I have done neither so I guess that makes me the exception)

I think the best way to fix the situation is to avoid and therefore not encourage threads like “Mars rock looks like Wiggles Big Red Car” or “Sex tape proves Pamela Anderson is a reptilian”


[edit on 13/7/2008 by VIKINGANT]

Neformore has a great idea that I am going to put into my signature line about this kind of subject.

Be the change you wish to see.

A very insightful thread about what a lot of the "older" members have long been complaining about. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. I would love to see ATS have the brightest articles, and the best posts. I would love to see the hoax and other nonsense threads eliminated. However I am just one. There are thousands here that all want to see different things.

This site is like democracy and anarchy if those concepts would have a child. It's completely user generated content, in that it's the members that contribute to the site and make up what goes into each and every post. So in that, we have to consider the many are outweighing the few in those posts we sometimes view as outrageous or idiotic. Others do not feel this way and they continue to contribute to these threads because that is the ATS they wish to see.

[edit on 7/13/2008 by whatukno]

mmmmm, Im agreeing with the OP on this one. I remember when I joined ATS there was soo much here, people seemed to do more research into the topics they posted on, there was generaly a lot less bs and crap that goes on now days. Not to say tho that the mods and owners are doing a bad job. Its more to do with some of the users.