I'm sick of people not paying attention to the facts here on ATS!

I haven't been on this forum for a little while and, you know, standards seem to have slipped... even further.

I'd just really like people to pay attention to the facts of any given story, in so far as they can be established, rather than flying off the handle over something that isn't even true.

It's bad enough that there are plenty of people out there partisan enough to distort things to their own advantage out in the mainstream media. I appeal to ATS members

• to ensure that if they post a story, it's an accurate representation of the source
  
• to check any controversial assertions in a source, if possible
  
• to correct any misrepresentations they come across with sourced material rather than simple "no it isn't!"/"yes it is!" denial
  

Two examples

Now I'm used to a lot of nonsense being talked about Iran. Even a couple of years ago it was obvious that there was a disinfo campaign being waged against Iran and that the neocons and Israel were trying to trump up something similar to the mythical Iraq WMDs to justify an invasion.

It's still going on... as this thread eloquently demonstrates.

The initial source is NewsMax, and, really, you'd think that someone would be inclined to check the facts with a source like that. The central assertion is that Mohammed El Baradei says that Iran is going to have a nuke in six months.

If you look at my post on page three, you'll see that it was a simple matter to CHECK THIS USING PUBLISHED SOURCES AND REFUTE IT. ElBaradei actually said the opposite:

"If Iran wants to turn to the production of nuclear weapons, it must leave the NPT, expel the IAEA inspectors, and then it would need at least, considering the number of centrifuges and the quantity of uranium Iran has...It would need at least six months to one year," ElBaradei said.

"Therefore, Iran will not be able to reach the point where we would wake up one morning to an Iran with a nuclear weapon," he said.

(My emphasis: see thread for source, it's the IAEA website.)

I was also able to show that Iran hadn't expelled the IAEA or leave the NPT. This is not rocket science: it's simple fact checking which anyone can do.

And now I find this thread about nuking Gaza.

The idea of Israel nuking Gaza is sufficiently insane, one would have thought, to wake up even the sleepiest poster: but no. The OP produces a quote that refers to Israel fighting Hamas like the US fought the Japanese in WWII... but any mention of nukes? No.

I guess I have to ask... mods, are there no standards being enforced about this at all? I mean I'm used to wading rhrough a lot of stuff I find delusional, but at least it's at the level of personal assertions that people have every right to make whether I agree with them or not. The examples I've given are simple errors of fact and I'd like to see a little less leniency on that count, particularly w.r.t. the second example, which is a distortion actually perpetrated by an ATS member, whereas the first is just a posting by someone who thinks NewsMax is better than toilet paper.

Come on, people, get your act together. As Doctor Funkenstein put it,

THINK! IT AIN'T ILLEGAL YET!

(edited for typo)

[edit on 15-1-2009 by rich23]

I think the problem is that people reply too quickly with what they think are the facts without checking.

From all the negative ATS points on peoples profiles I keep seeing, I think a lot of people are posting using their emotions and not their brains.

This is ATS get used to it. People can post a thread about seeing a reptile shift into a person or the masonic symbol on their big mac and get great approval.

The problem is you cannot prove anything over the Internet. Facts and sources can be distorted, contaminated.

Come to think of it, you cannot prove anything anymore these days it seems, let alone on a conspiracy forum.

So let´s just keep running around in circles like we are supposed to, what else is there to do? (Insert answer here)

FACTS on ATS!?!!

- Bwah hah ha hah ha ha!!!!

You can find some though - you must be willing to be like a P.I. and dig through quite a bit of trash however...

Frankly it's alot better than 80% of the web - shapeshifting alien lizards included..

reply to post by TruthMagnet


lol tend to agree

But at the same time sex with aliens is to damn funny lol

Only on ATS BABY!!

lol

From my original post:

I mean I'm used to wading rhrough a lot of stuff I find delusional, but at least it's at the level of personal assertions that people have every right to make whether I agree with them or not

Sure... shapeshifting lizards, endless drivel about psychic communications from whoever... that's all fair game. It's stuff you can neither prove nor disprove. But the examples I gave are simple. The Israeli politician didn't mention nukes. ElBaradei didn't say what he was alleged to have. Simple stuff that anyone can just look up, you know? I don't expect people to source allegations about shapeshifting lizards, and I recognise there's room for controversy over a lot of stuff. That's the interesting part of ATS. The motto of this place is "Deny Ignorance" - it's just honoured more in the breach than the observance, which is tiresome.

I am new to the forums as well and already I have come to say the same smiley faces with the opposing opinion and watch as they keep wording the same thing in slightly different ways until they see a star next to their name , that is when they are up and running along the same line hoping to get more and more stars.

I used to argue with a person who used the line "If it isn't in the Encyclopedia Brittanica it isn't real"

even after showing him physical evidence of the subject at hand as well as another encyclopedia, he still refused to believe.

some people are like that.
Go into a discussion with a closed mind and you come out with a very narrow view.

PLEASE don't get me wrong. If you look at my posts you'll see all sorts of stuff espoused that some people find dumb and wacky.

You can argue two opposing points of view from exactly the same set of facts . It's fun. You can also debate the reality of things. For example, through doing t'ai chi for a number of years, have come to a number of conclusions not shared by many on these boards. All I have to back it up is personal experience which others lack. I'll argue my case, I'll present my own personal testimony, but...

The examples I quoted are different. These are simple assertions about what one person said that are easy to check and not open to interpretation. Either ElBaradei DID say that Iran would have a nuke in six months, or he didn't. You can simply go and check that stuff. Three pages that thread went on, NOBODY CHECKED! Get with the program, people.

It's not rocket science, for crying out loud.

Originally posted by rich23
... mods, are there no standards being enforced about this at all?...The examples I've given are simple errors of fact and I'd like to see a little less leniency on that count, particularly w.r.t. the second example, which is a distortion actually perpetrated by an ATS member, whereas the first is just a posting by someone who thinks NewsMax is better than toilet paper.
...

You will find that the owners of this site could care less about facts, as long as the web-hits keep coming. I had a similar complaint about 6 months ago, where there was incontrovertible proof that a poster had lied, but none of the "moderators" cared (even though it is ostensibly against the T&C here). They said it was a "difference of opinion". Yeah, when an article says "X" and the person posts it and says "This article says 'exact opposite of X' ", you have to wonder. Another good one you find all the time is that someone says "This link says 'Y' ", and you go to the link, and it says NOTHING about "Y". You'd have to be totally lying to even make the case that it is remotely connected with "Y". Those are nice too.

When conspiracy sites get to this level, they implode. I've seen it happen to many, many, conspiracy sites. ATS won't be any different.

Yeah. I notice that now, when I sign in, there are still ads being displayed. It used to be that there weren't any for members.

I used to find out lots of cool new stuff every itme I signed in but I have to say, the standard has dropped. The standard of debate, too.

There always were idiots around but there were some really cool people posting too. And I don't much care for what I've seen about the whole John Lear business. On his website he's got the whole correspondence laid out for people to make their own minds up. Here, it's all buried.

Every so often there used to be a thread about how ATS had been "taken over" by the government, and those threads would always be quashed pretty quickly. It always struck me as possible: a board like this would be a natural target for the PTB. Of course, open debate about this subject, again, was discouraged - amd it's not as if there haven't been historical parallels, the obvious one being the history of MUFON. But those discussion threads would be quickly closed down, every time. There was one thread where someone started looking hard at IP addresses and routing. If memory serves, it didn't last long.

I found it really weird that a site that was supposed to be for people who wanted to consider alternatives to the pabulum of our daily news attracted so many people who would cry "hoax" at the drop of a hat. I mean, you'd expect those people to congregate at sites like that of the appalling Randy, but no, there'd be mob attacks.

And you could always spot the government disinfo agents, too, which was fun. There were a couple of posters on the 9/11 boards who just had too much time and had that sneaky disregard for facts disguised as logic. These days I look and just see a mob mentality.

Another disturbing new development is the "reply anonymously" button. There shouldn't be any need for that at all.

Maybe it's time to find a board with a more open policy and a better clientele. Anyone know any other good boards?

Amen to you OP. I too have found myself upset at what this site has become. When I first signed up, this website had a lot of promise "Show evidence to support your claim or it's fake" was the mantra. If it was simply an opinion piece, it was imperative that you stated that it was an opinion.

I have seen people ignore facts such as a very old leaked video from 2005 (dealing in Gaza) being portrayed as being a "recent" video, even though a poster had shown facts that it wasn't. That poster got ignored, and everyone in that thread went back to bickering amongst themselves. I have seen the same type of behavior in Obama threads as well and it literally infuriated me to no end. I'm starting to see this more and more in many threads and It has sickened me how this site is starting to debase itself into nothing more than sensationalism.

When I came to this site, I came here looking for a venue to start finding the truth, and in fact applauded posters that make many valid arguments and statements backed up with truth (such as the guy who debunked the "leaked" video of Gaza from 2005 being portrayed as being shot only recently)

What I have found out to be more disturbing of all, is that the users themselves have deluded themselves into the "I am right, you are wrong" kind of behavior. They have let their egos overtake them to the point to where they no longer care about facts, they no longer care about the truth. They only care about being "right" or rather, "feeling right" regardless of whether the evidence presented goes against their personal beliefs or not. They've become the thing that they claimed not to be, a Partisan, which incidentally, was considered to be a heinous insult during the time of the fore fathers. To be called a "party man" was basically the same as being called nothing more than sheep, devoid of individual thought. In other words, not a man at all.

When I am wrong, I am wrong, and have no shame in admitting it, after all, I am just human. I try not to let my self serving ego take over my emotions and my mind. But some of the people here really need to look into a mirror and try to remember why exactly it is that they signed up into this website in the first place. This website is starting to become no different than mainstream biased websites, the very thing this website was supposed to be complete opposite of.

O' My God get a life people. If you don't like it here then turn the page, get a better website "doubt that" but complaining about a website that is a conspiracy sight, a discussion forum, a debate forum with speculations and imaginations and tons of ideas is crazy. Why don't we just have the truth forum and that's it. If you don't have proof or the facts then you can't discuss the issue. I believe in "Denying Ignorance" but do you think you'll get all the facts and truth in the "Alien & UFO" forum without ignorance? How about " Secret Societies " It wouldn't be a secret with all the facts.

I know people will say things without thinking, but that's when you correct them. We're denying ignorance here not forbidding it, aren't we? Sometimes being ignorant is better than thinking you know it all. And people have their own ideas that came from their mind not any news source. And theres another one, "news source", who's to say they are telling the truth? Hell history itself isn't perfect and completely factual is it? I believe in reading all sides of a story from all of human race and getting new ideas and perspectives. The truth is out there in all the trash and junk and it's up to everyone ignorant or not to find it or help it along the way.

Originally posted by rich23
From my original post:

I don't expect people to source allegations about shapeshifting lizards, and I recognise there's room for controversy over a lot of stuff. That's the interesting part of ATS. The motto of this place is "Deny Ignorance" - it's just honoured more in the breach than the observance, which is tiresome.

You would remove half our reason to debate if people were actually required to only post sourced fact. It would be like reading the newspaper (I use that reference lightly). I think its up to the reader to determine if the poster that they are replying to did their homework or not. This is ATS, not the Harvard Debate Club.

Originally posted by Solarskye
O' My God get a life people. If you don't like it here then turn the page, get a better website "doubt that" but complaining about a website that is a conspiracy sight, a discussion forum, a debate forum with speculations and imaginations and tons of ideas is crazy. Why don't we just have the truth forum and that's it. If you don't have proof or the facts then you can't discuss the issue. I believe in "Denying Ignorance" but do you think you'll get all the facts and truth in the "Alien & UFO" forum without ignorance? How about " Secret Societies " It wouldn't be a secret with all the facts.

I know people will say things without thinking, but that's when you correct them. We're denying ignorance here not forbidding it, aren't we? Sometimes being ignorant is better than thinking you know it all. And people have their own ideas that came from their mind not any news source. And theres another one, "news source", who's to say they are telling the truth? Hell history itself isn't perfect and completely factual is it? I believe in reading all sides of a story from all of human race and getting new ideas and perspectives. The truth is out there in all the trash and junk and it's up to everyone ignorant or not to find it or help it along the way.

Yes, we understand that not everything here that will be said will necessarily truthful and in fact, I've seen many here try to correct them as you suggest. But when these people are IGNORED and the lie keeps being perpetuated because of someone with a self deluded super ego, wanting to "feel right" instead of actually knowing the truth, then we have problems, because lies will continue to be perpetuated and be told as "truth" even when they were proven not to be. That is what many of us are against. The perpetuation of outright lies and ignorance to truth all so the partisans can continue their useless bickering.

the ATS motto is "deny ignorance" not spread it, if people with good solid facts are going to be IGNORED all so people can continue their silly arguments and chest thumping while screaming "I am right, you are wrong" then we're not following the motto.

Originally posted by Question
the ATS motto is "deny ignorance" not spread it, if people with good solid facts are going to be IGNORED all so people can continue their silly arguments and chest thumping while screaming "I am right, you are wrong" then we're not following the motto.

Drives me nuts as well. I'm SO into politics but this tripe has turned me off. That said, if it isn't against the T&C what can we do? Maybe more of the thinking members should post more. Just a thought.

I'm to lazy to post much of anything but I read a lot.How can you expect posters to do research,find facts,and what ever.When they are not willing to do a simple search to keep from make the same post as some one else.just a few examples . .


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