Should ATS Membership Registration be closed temporarily?

Recently alot of focus has been put on ATS mainly because of the Loughner incident.

The Washingtonpost made light of this in an article a few days ago:

www.washingtonpost.com...

His Wikipedia page also references ATS as a site he visited:

en.wikipedia.org...


And ATS has been thrust into the limelight for better or for worse. It has been said that any publicity is "good" publicity, but this doesn't seem to be the case with the trend of recent threads.

The crowd from the chat rooms overwhelmingly agrees that ALOT of new people who are signing up are attention seekers or just general trolls.


For example, this was just posted:

www.abovetopsecret.com... (404'd out now, but trust me, it was bad)





Will ATS's popularity also be its downfall? I hope not.

After some recent posting mishaps, I concur with v1rtu0s0. Registration should be closed until this all blows over. This is getting absolutely nuts.


Peace be with you.

-truthseeker

Let's hire the TSA to do a thorough screening of new and old members to determine hidden agenda's



I wonder if that character ever posted at facebook, or stopped a a McDonald's for a burger We better screen McD's from now on too... (even though the BIGGEST crime there is the 'burger' )

Not really sure why this is such a big deal... or a surprise to anyone really. Its a very large international, very popular forum that draws people from every walk of life. The Anthrax guy was here too...


So what you going to do when you shut down registration? People post here anonymously... how you going to screen them to decide who can become a member?

Sillyness...

reply to post by v1rtu0s0


He was a member of the online conspiracy theory message board Above Top Secret, though members of the site did not respond warmly to his posts.[24][26][27][28]

That is the quote from wikipedia....I don't think that made ATS look bad at all. In fact the opposite would be true.
That idea sounds very anti-ATS.

reply to post by queenofjacob


I agree, I think ats should remain open. Will there be an upswing in trolls? Yes, but it we expect that, or at least should, and even in normal times, there are still a fair amount of troublemakers, so it won't eliminate the problem anyway.

I think in these times of added publicity members should be even more vigilant in their honest, intelligent postings and that we the trolls don't find their food, they will move on quickly.

reply to post by v1rtu0s0


So attention seekers and trolls are a recent problem ? me thinks not

Should ATS Membership Registration be closed temporarily?

It won't happen.

Mods never sleep , but we can't possibly read +9,000 posts per day. However, if you use the alert feature, it will be handled.

Definitely not. This is our chance to awaken some more sleepers. Let them come, good and bad.

reply to post by v1rtu0s0


I don't think registration should be closed. If there is a new ongoing problem, the adminstrators can simply require a higher number of reply posts before someone can start a thread, or even have a longer waiting period after membership signup before any replies or posts can be made. This situation is not anything new to the forum. The adminstrators and mods are smart enough to figure out what they need to do on their own, and institute countermeasures as needed, even if only on a temporary basis.

I vote NO on immigration reform.

"Give me your curious, your shills,
Your tinfoiled masses yearning to post free,
The illuminated refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the flagless, star-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the ats door!"

I don't believe ATS is a non profit organization. Hits = money

I have to concur. Trolls and problem makers live short ATS lives, but this moment in time might garner us a great member or two.

The growth of the community is worth the growing pains.

~Heff

I can see where you are coming from with this, and yeah temporarily (a day or two) just may be what we need.

More importantly, perhaps a rework of some kind would be in order regarding newly registered member's? The 20 posts before a new thread idea seems a little too loose IMO. Throughout the past few days or so, I've seen quite a few newly registered members rush to their 20 posts (with hardly any contribution at all) only to start duplicated threads or threads that are irrelevant.

Additionally, people are so used to agreeing to numerous T&C's throughout their day, they probably think to themselves, why bother reading one more?

Seeing as how I don't like like people who complain and then fail to offer suggestions, here's mine.

Make the Freshman Forum not a place where tips and tricks and F.A.Q's are but make it a for real "Freshman Forum" with a few subcategories...or even have threads in this forum policed by the Mods before publishing. Restrict them there for say, a month or so. This way, the newly appointed thread starters can start threads in what seasoned people will know to be the "Freshman Forum"... Still get ad revenue, still get new topics, and new members can feel as if they are contributing...Is this making any sense?

Anyway, my two cents.

Originally posted by StlSteve
I don't believe ATS is a non profit organization. Hits = money

Was there a claim that ATS is not-for-profit? As far as I understood, ATS is part of the above top network, a business. In any case, IMO, there is nothing wrong with making a profit from doing something you work hard at and care about.

reply to post by v1rtu0s0

No, I see no reason for such a drastic measure. Of course, I can't speak for the management, the owners etc. But really, ATS is strong and it will survive ... becoming hopefully even better in the process. You have to understand that while the suspect was a member here, this does not mean anything ... he could have been a member elsewhere and do the same thing. Of course, politicians will try to exploit the situation, but I'm confident we will survive ...

reply to post by LadySkadi


Hey, I merely stating my point as to why they won't stop new member registration.

NO...

Noo...

Never...

More people mean more numbers to give to adverts peoples to get more money for ats...

its all good....

and



is this enough for a good post...

let me know


thank you

No way. It makes no sense to punish everyone based on the actions of a few. The beauty of ATS is that it is largely self-limiting where trolls and attention seekers are concerned. They will soon be weeded out by more level heads and genuine hearts than their own. Sometimes, you simply have to take the good with the bad. Also, I'm a big believer in the yin and yang -- you cannot fully appreciate the earnest and responsible members without the presence of the occasional lousy ones.

I don't think ATS is getting any bad publicity right now, so we were in the news as other websites. Closing the registration just might make those on the outside think we have something to hide. Mods do a great job handling the trolls and what have you. I would like registration to remain open.