What's ATS turning into?!

It would be nice to see post get bumped up and be in order of how many stars they have so the relevent post would be at the forfront..

I have a hell of a time flipping through page after page of crap most the time I read the first two then flip to the last to read the conclusion... I know I'm missing good post... its just not worth it anymore

I am with you. I used to try to point out the fallacy of many of the dumbest threads and attempt to infuse facts to counter stupidity. No sale. So now I come here for the entertainment value, or to stare in disbelief at the absurdity. it restores my faith in the utter ignorance of our species. I now mostly post negative shots at the most idiotic posts. It's amusing when they get riled up at me, or when the uber clown mods remove my posts and assess childish demerits to my posts. I fully expect to be banned at some point in the future and that would be a badge of honor. ATS has lost it's reason for being.

Gotta agree with some other posters here Paradox...


Maybe you ought to change the content of the site by posting all this enlightening - intelligent - informative stuff you want to see here.

Sorry you couldn't post in the past 8 years...but don't come back here to complain about it now that you can

Do something about it

I totally agree. I use to log in everyday. I would read my local news, then national news. After, I would come on here to get opinions and "outside of the box" thinking on current events. I enjoyed reading posts backed by science and as much actual proof as possible. Now it's just a big joke. Aliens and disastrous earth quakes. Volcanoes that are going to erupt in 15 days 17 hours and 32 seconds. REALLY?

I do like the general chit chat areas. Sometimes I like to vent and talk about daily things with people who have the same mindset as myself. But a lot of those people seemed to have left the site. I could post a totally neutral topic... something about music or current events. Just wanting to chat. And I was able to have back and forth conversation with others. Now everything turns into a huge debate. People throwing insults, etc.



Oh! And might I add... the posts that are posted with half a brain get maybe a few flags and a star or two.

To the OP...S&F....I agree completely


reply to post by mikem

It would be nice to see post get bumped up and be in order of how many stars they have so the relevent post would be at the forfront.

That might make it a little hard to follow. There are some of us that still read entire threads because we value others opinions. Bumping a post because of 'stars' would just throw the timeline into kaos and make it nearly impossible to follow.

Personally, I think we should throw the S & F system out the door. It only encourages morons to post when they have very little to say.

Please star this post if you think that the stars should be abolished.

reply to post by paradox


I thought that Aliens will invade next month was a total disgrace.

It seems only headlines such as " Apocalyse Begins Tommorrow" and other bs headlines get flags anymore.

reply to post by paradox


I agree with you completely. As a matter of fact, I almost made a thread about the exact same pseudo-science thread you are complaining about in your OP, but then I thought about it and decided not to and here's why:

The reason why people star and flagged that thread so much is because it was entertaining, period. I don't think anyone could take that post seriously (except for maybe a few). The simple truth is, people like the far-out stuff. It's just something that goes with any conspiracy site. The more sensational the post, the more likely people will star and flag it, even if it contains absolutely no facts what so ever.

I know its frustrating, I just came back from a long hiatus from this site because I was sick of the frivolous, unrealistic threads that were getting so much attention. But then one day I realized, its just the nature of the beast.

So, don't let it get you down too much. The important thing is to have fun, and if you enlighten a few people then, hey, that's icing on the cake. I hope you feel better soon.

reply to post by ProjectBlue


Great point - I notice the same thing from threads saying "I have an inside source...and here's a timeline of apocalyptic events to come! My source has worked several decades for the CIA and has high level clearance and chose to tell a shmuck like me everything he knows!"

Those threads tend to have a boatload of crazy information the readers got to dig through, no matter how obviously fraudulent all of it was.

BTW - to answer the question in the thread - "What is ATS turning in to?!"



Apparently ATS is turning in to a place where instead of creating quality content with sources or proof, it's a place where we just start threads to rant about the content that is already here and do nothing to change that

Noooo don't tell me this place is going to hell, I just got here!

And I like what I see when I come here.

So, I take objection to the OP's rant. Sorry.

Originally posted by Hawking
Gotta agree with some other posters here Paradox...


Maybe you ought to change the content of the site by posting all this enlightening - intelligent - informative stuff you want to see here.

Sorry you couldn't post in the past 8 years...but don't come back here to complain about it now that you can

Do something about it

Is the rant forum not meant for complaining?

I do not much care what you think I should or shouldn't do. It is a rant forum. I ranted. Sorry about that, chief.

reply to post by paradox


I joined in 2004, password reset destroyed my old account. But yeah, it had generally more intelligent topics and not goofy world is ending threads. It did seem like it had a lot more chem trail believes back then though

reply to post by RealSpoke


I think once all this 2012 doom comes to an end, we will be right back with chemtrails and UFO videos

reply to post by paradox


I couldn't agree more: for example, I don't get this second post in the first thread you mentioned.....

(+++++ stars) +17 more give this post a star
posted on 14-3-2012 @ 11:13 PM this post

Why do the aliens want to attack us?

There is a lot of hype in thread titles rather than providing an objective thread title and or opinion of a certain subject matter.

Too many lazy posters out there that also don't provide enough factual evidence and efforts to research the subject before providing their own opinion on it.

ATS members should be a little bit more thoughtful in their threads and posts. It's getting more ridiculous the further we get into our research, and the further we also go from getting to discover the truth, hard facts that we can confront on many important issues...not theories.

The reason there is so much bogus unsubstantiated crap thrown around is because it's part of "their" plan to muddy the waters and saturate the market with bogus claims to make us look bad and obfuscate the real truth. For every paid debunker here there are probably several paid 'poes'.

reply to post by paradox



Thanks for turning me on to that thread. Was pretty interesting. I don't know how I missed it. Maybe the crazy title. I think it got so many stars because people are interested in anything Area 51 or Alien rather that spend all day here like we are either on Meet the Press or at a KKK Rally. And I was thinking of changing my last name to Paul so I could maybe care more about all those Ron Paul threads....ad nauseum and finally there's something about OUTER SPACE for a change so it gets a lot of stars. Right now I'd star anything with the word alien in it. Ignorance is awfully hard to deny. It's out there.

I agree with you Paradox and have ranted inside many times almost word for word. Sometimes I'm standing in the supermarket checkout and I look at some of the magazines they line up in the racks with the gum and the gift cars they have there. The headlines on the cover remind me of the vapid post appearing all to often on ATS. " The face of Jesus eating a Mars bar captured during freak explosion!"..."Structures on mars prove cats on earth are about to make an offensive move on humanity!" and so it goes, so much so that I wonder if I should stop visiting and get a life I now come here to be entertained by the twits getting blown out of the water by the heavy hitters. If it were possible, I'd like to see a system where you join ATS and find yourself on the general forum but there's a special door to a sub forum for serious debate and to get there you have to be invited by a sub member. I'm sure there would be complications but I think one can get the gist of it. In the meantime I'll just sift through the gibberish of things like "No planes hit the second tower!" uploaded at 240p. I won't be juvenile and give you a star I do think you deserve one though!

reply to post by paradox


Well thanks for setting the record straight......

I have learned quite a bit from the "ridiculous posts" because people who are so incredibly superior in their intelligence JUST LIKE YOU!!! show up and show me what reality is all about...

Honestly though, because of the "ridiculous" posts I have learned way more than I should know about:

hot pixels, lens flares, rolling clouds, and other various cloud formations, sun dogs, tectonic plates, etc etc so on and so forth...the discussions and debates and swapping of opinions and information is critical and valuable even if you cannot find value in it...it is there.

There are people on this site capable of explaining situations/ideas etc with their experience/knowledge that would otherwise continue on in ignorance...if not prompted to speak out against the "ridiculousness"...

I say BRING MORE ridiculous threads...I feel they do more to educate people than constantly validating simple knowledge no one cares to discuss anymore...Yes we know the sky is blue, bla bla...

Stop acting as if every "ridiculous" post on ATS isn't countered with an equal amount of "rational" posts...there is fair exchange...A discussion everyone agrees on doesn't last very long...

there is value in all discussions...I hope you see that and maybe take the opportunity to check your ego and educate people on a level that they will listen to you.

"you are all stupid idiots" is not a good way to start off if you are truly concerned with educating people...

just some friendly advice

ATS is turning into absolute dribble. I blame the influx of Facebook users. Ever since ATS has cuddled up to Facebook this place has gone straight down hill at breakneck speed. The posts are getting stupider and stupider every single day. We used to have brilliant thought provoking threads with lots of research and effort put into them, now we have some moronic crap about alien invasions with old rehashed videos and stories as the supposed evidence, and it was the most flagged thread on ATS for a while. We are losing all our good researchers because they are either getting sick of this place and leaving or getting banned for speaking out. Have a look at some old threads, and you'll see that 90% of the people with a couple of thousand posts are banned. So many good posters have been lost over the years, and now all we have are a bunch of Facebook kiddies overrunning this place with nonsense. And ATS doesn't care, because it's all about profit in their business model, they are trying to get all "hip" with the social networking crap, and it's just attracting a bunch of idiots who ruin this place.

reply to post by Sly1one


I'm guessing you didn't read anything past the first post of this thread