What's with all the Questions?

G'Day ATS,

It may be just me but I've been noticing heaps of threads lately that go a little something like this:

Hey guys,

Just a quick question, have you heard anything about this place in the Arctic?

It's supposed to be like an alien base or something. Buried in the snow.

A friend of mine told me about it and I wondered if anybody knows about it?

If you could post a few links or something that would be awesome

Now don't get me wrong, ATS is IMO a place we we come to learn, enrich our knowledge about a myriad of wonderful topics and get the opinions of others, as well as express our own. But shouldn't we strive to do better than the fictitious example above.

I know, not everyone has the know-how to make a master thread, and I'm not trying to discourage people from giving it a go, but surely the way to do it is to research the topic yourself and then write a thread displaying all the info that you yourself would want to know?

There's a new page ATS activity from the beginning that has some damn amazing threads on it. A lot of hard work and time has gone into some of them. Granted there are some glaring exceptions to this but that's usually because they are ongoing like What's going on at Yellowstone?

Maybe it's just me like I said, but I think if you have gone out of your way to ask a question, maybe you could go a little further and research it yourself and post it?

If you don't know how (posting pics, videos, quotes etc), I'll gladly help as I'm sure any member who's done a thread or two will, just U2U me.

All the best ATS, Kiwi

I can understand to a point. I am thinking about a thread I want to start that contains a question. If someone is not that good at research, I think it is ok for them to start a "question thread." Sometimes it is tough to think of all the possible keywords for a google search.

Actually that is not the proper way to ever start a thread and usually they get closed or trashed - unless there are aa lot of responses and discussion is taking place.

Please read: Starting a New Thread?

Be Descriptive: Please do not create minimal thread-starters that simply ask people to check out a link or video.

Respect Content: Please refrain from pasting very-large portions of content from other sites, simply paste a relevant snippet and link.

No Shorthand: Please do not use "txting" shorthand in your posts, this is an international site and many people may not understand your post.

Proper Title: Make sure your title properly describes your new thread, and please do not use ALL-CAPS.

[edit on September 7th 2010 by greeneyedleo]

reply to post by greeneyedleo


Is it wrong to post a thread, stating that you have done the research, but are unable to find the answer? Then ask ATS posters for help?

reply to post by kiwifoot


I have ceased replying to threads which follow that style from now on.

As well, I will not reply to any thread, based on a blog or other forum.

It is not worth my time, nor does it foster creativity, it only divides ATS.

As well, I have ceased replying to threads, created as wolf-traps.

Little to no research done with bigoted, hateful, or judgmental orientation.

I think it's just part of a learning curve for some new and newer members.

There are some sites out there, where the sites are dedicated to asking questions.

Unfortunately not all the new members bother to read the terms of service, so giving them a tutorial in threads that they do this, can lead to getting called a few select names.

But hey it's some of the newer members like these that make us older members look so darn brilliant.

I vote we keep them on those grounds alone.