A call to action: Vetting your sources and adding credible contributions to ATS

I'm not quite sure if this belongs here but it pertains to posting news articles on the breaking political news forum... Its no secret, when something breaks, a lot of good posters will try and rush to be the first thread to break here on ATS. I'm not sure if this is to try and cash in on easy stars and flags, or to just build some kind of credibility, or to be known here to break news first. Either way, it can lead to some problems. ATS's system works great, but there's some things we as contributors can do to smooth out the edges.

This is by no means the end all be all on how to properly add to ATS, Im not a mod, and I welcome criticism.

Number 1 is the easiest and best way to ensure you are contributing something worthwhile to ATS. Vet your sources This means, that just because you are reading it on the NY times, or Tea party daily, or liberals r us, you should double check to see what exactly is in the article. Does the article make a splashing headline? If so, you want to check if the meat of the article supports the title. Does your article cite sources? Have you seen this website before, did you get it off a link from drudge? Point is, if its the first time youve ever seen the web page, have a look around. Check to see if there is an obvious agenda on the site.

Number 2. Try and provide a link to a second source. 2 is always better than 1. This may take an extra few minutes, but it really can be the difference between finding out if its a blog and an actual news article. Lately a lot of blogs are trying to pass themselves off as legit news articles. If you found a great news article that should make headlines in your opinion, but cant find a second supporting article ANYWHERE else, chances are you've found something too good to be news

Number 3. Explain where you got the article from in your OP. This way, if you think the article may be from a fringe source, but wanted to bring it to our attention anyways, a brief explanation of the origin would help readers put a little context behind the article. A simple step like this could avoid a lot of meaningless arguments in the future.

Any other ideas?

A lot of the people who rush to post a story has to do with controlling they way the story is talked about in a thread. The mods will move any other threads saying one already exist. If you post a opposing thought in the thread that exist your attacked for derailing the thread and so on. Simply put they can control the story by posting it first and the mods will force you into there controlled thread.

I honestly dont have an issue with what the mods do after something has been posted. Sometimes I feel threads belong in the gray area of hoax bin after evidence has been provided in the thread, or zero evidence has been given to prove whatever the OP claims...

This is more about trying to help out the ATS community as a whole when it comes to posting news here. Im not claiming to know more than other, but these three simple steps seem like a common sense approach to raising the bar here on ATS.

reply to post by bknapple32


Good ideas.. All should be common sense. I wouldn't mind seeing a verification system type that runs in the background. Even with the upgrades to the search feature it still has issues.

I wouldnt mind seeing a verification type deal when someone goes to make a new thread. Aside from self crrated, when a person enters the thread title (which with T and C should be the exact title of the article unless its to big) it does a quick check to see if like titled threads already exist. I know the search feature does this but as we see not everyone uses it. Why not make it semi mandatory by crossing new thread titles with an auto check.

reply to post by bknapple32


Hold on, hold on, hold on. This all sounds like a lot of work! What do you mean, "source"? What is that and how is that important? I mean, if it's on a website, that's a source enough, right? I mean, it's there in black and white.

Humor aside, the junk posts will continue, and spastic posters will continue to litter the site with the first thing that excites them. That is one troublesome thing with an open posting policy...you take the junk with the gems.

I belong to a newsgroup that requires all posting to be approved by a moderator. Needless to say, there is no spam or junk to be found. It's very nice. * Of course, if that were tried here, people would scream censorship.

*Once you are recognized as a trusted person, I guess the moderator automatically approves your things, otherwise it would get very tedious.

Perhaps a labeling system would be nice, like "blog" next to a title to let us know that the only source is a blog or video. Or, "MSM" for MSM sources..."vlog" for video blogger only. "Scientific" for ones from a major scientific agency. I can see this working well in certain cases, such as a someone posting hearsay on NASA. If the thread title says "NASA " but it's from a vlog and not the scientific community, that's enough for me to say, Next...

Id love to hear some mods opinions about this about what is practical and not...

no one?

reply to post by daynight42


And also will the narcissistic persona who wants to graduate to moderator
Would this thread be a rant. Like the rest of the O............never mind.

Originally posted by rebellender
reply to post by daynight42

 

And also will the narcissistic persona who wants to graduate to moderator
Would this thread be a rant. Like the rest of the O............never mind.

Not quite getting your point.... Help me out a little?