ATS Quality Check ...

I know for a fact this has been discussed before but seriously, I think it needs to be brought up again because I just read 5 Breaking News Articles in a row and NONE had more then 1-2 lines worth of writing by the OP.

IMO, this brings the quality of ATS down, many people are coming to ATS for breaking news given the vast diversification of the ATS population and various news outlets being monitored..

However, users who fish for points and post articles without an ounce of effort involved, erode what the Breaking News section should be..

Perhaps posting Breaking News should be a privilege, and if you consistently post articles without an ounce of effort to comment and expand upon the original article, you shouldn't be posting Breaking News articles..

At the very least, Moderators should close threads where the OP did not put forth effort and keep articles covering the same subject but the OP worked on it open. Threads where an article is posted and a comment "gee this sucks" should be considered unacceptable.

[edit on 8/14/2008 by Rockpuck]

That's a good idea, Rockpuck. It is especially frustrating when a string of those threads push something good off the first page of the breaking news and it gets completely missed as a result.

I could not agree with you more. ATS is no longer a news site; it has become more of a playground for children. For the first few years I was on the site I would spend an hour or more a day reading well researched threads. Now I spend less than an hour a week.

I get tired of wading through dozens meaningless responses and personal attacks by the new member populous. Only about one in 10 (that's a guess) responses to threads actually provides information that is useful to the discussion. Many of the other responses are people attacking others for their views.

In my opinion, ATS is quickly becoming the new GLP. I have followed several threads on this topic and they only draw programmed responses from moderators, and have accomplshed very little. I hope your's gets more attention.

[edit on 14-8-2008 by mo_trot]

Thanks for the reminder Rockpuck.

Its all outlined in the Forum Guidelines of "Breaking Alternative News", but it does deserve some repeating.

The Alert Reader

As always, don't forget that if you should encounter any post that doesn't meet ATS standards, you are welcome to hit the ALERT button beneath that post and let us know about it.

We can't be everywhere at once, but with your help we can make ATS better.

It seems to me like a nice challenge for someone to post some breaking news!

Find something new, post it and give a nice comment, or post a short 'how to' on how to find and post breaking news.

Perhaps even give a short example of what is a good reply to such an article, then come here and reinforce your point 'See, this is how to post a great Breaking News post'.

Everybody learns, everybody wins.

Make sense?

Another thing that seems to happen alot is the reposting of the same material in 3 or 4 different threads within hours. Maybe this is offtopic but to me it seems related.

I haven't been here long but in that short time the cries against these sorts of things seem to have gone up significantly.

I agree with the multiple thread issue..

Seems like there are always multiple threads on the same topic because of the news/conspiracy side of the board. I tend to read forum threads over Breaking News threads because of the higher quality of OP posting (which imo has a major effect on the thread, because it is what every one reads first).

What good are points anyway? I mean what cvan they buy except access to razts and silly things I can live without.