All Members: Updates and Changes to the ATS Terms and Conditions

What its referring to are certain parties who on behalf of various entities i.e governments .. alphabet agencies etc . that run ops to sway / influence public opinion in the direction they want it to go ..

Ahh.. well .. will leave it to you guys to figure out .. been long day and english giving me headache again ..

damn!..nice catch, SO....it's nice to know we have Sherlock Holmes for an owner, a thousand huzzahs to you.

"ForteanOrg" you should contact site ownership immediately and reveal your intentions as your username violates our terms and conditions.

originally posted by: ForteanOrg
Help me out here, folks, I can't for the life of me understand what this means (and hence what I should (not) do:

It's rather clear, if a member registers and does nothing but be disruptive on a single topic, it's cause for staff to review the member's actions.

If a member registers on behalf of another organization, or paying client, and begins posting material to promote that client/organization, or viewpoints of that client/organization, it's cause for staff review. This might be a concern in your specific case.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Ok, good deal, thanks zaphod

a reply to: one4all
thanks, one4all...your explanation cleared it up for me, and I now know that I've seen this happen in various threads

originally posted by: g146541
a reply to: InhaleExhale

There must be some evidence of collaboration for a ban right?

Nope, as I have said numerous times, our chalk, their board, they hold the erasers.
They also hold the ban hammer.
Luckily ATS is not the only board.

So, using your analogy here...

- Don't get with other kids and simultaneously write the same doodle on the chalk board, taking up all the space with only one color that nobody else even likes.
- Don't use chalk from another classroom.
- Don't write the same sentence on the chalkboard over and over (unless it's punishment).
- Don't pass notes in class about how mean the teacher is or how Timmy in the third row smells funny.

I never would have guessed but I think I learned the T&Cs for ATS with 3rd grade chalkboard etiquette. You would think everybody would be able to follow the basic principles without having to be told.

This is a big step, and something that needs to be addressed. Acknowledging that there are paid promoters or shills as some like to call them, gave me a warm fuzzy feeling that may or may not be my sunburn. Ouch! Btw.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: ForteanOrg
"prolific" in my book means something like "fertile, fruit-bearing".

Prolific, in this case, would mean an unusually high volume of posts.

Aha, thanks

This is a good policy change, but in reference to internet gangs: This is going to be hard to enforce, since all a group would have to do is use an out of system IM (like yahoo message service, or AOL IM) instead of the U2U that exists here. Unless I'm looking at this wrong.

Well all of the staff at ATS deserve this...



Way to keep on top of things.

originally posted by: NarcolepticBuddha
a reply to: one4all

Oh dang! That's happened to me before. Except it wasn't a gang, just one very determined member

I think one determined member being tuculent is called discourse and is slightly different,ha ha ha.Touche.

The hair almost split but not quite,ha ha ha. I understand it is tough to handle curative actions which challenge status quo traditional dynamics.

When rules have been made and actioned they become challenges to some and supports to others , rules are for a reason,and so are challenges to those rules made by an individual or a group of individually catalysed people ,however when you encounter an organised coercive effort to undermine the rules actioned by a GROUP of people who show no cohesive history of developing individual drivers that are paralell but instead all come out instantly on the same page then you can see it is an intentional negative intervention, you have the beginnings of a revolution,if those beginnings are created artificially by intention they can creaae wide-spread discourse and unrest.This dynamic impact may initially show itself as Thread unrest but has the potential to undermine the very core value concepts behind an entire site if curative actions are not made.



It is called sitting in the weeds, and these simple rules flush these influences out of the weeds and into the open where we can all recognise the impacts they are having ,and this allows us to create an opinion on how we feel about these influences and whether or not we want them present.

I noticed patterns of organised suppressive intervention actioned using VOLUME of peripheral but borderline inflamatory posts to bury peoples contributions on threads under an umbrella of contention years ago and have my own personal list of co-operative negative and organised online influences lurking about, I used the list for personal direction and never brought it up or complained because these influences CAN be easy to deflect and can even be used progressively if you put some thought into it and know who they are,I am just happy someone else has decided to take pro-active and curative actions from an administrative perspective.

Change is progressive and healthy,keep em coming fellas and gals.Thank you for the due dilligence.

Social media professionals can create impressive impacts if they are not monitored and policed.There is a huge gap in understanding cause and effect online for many many people,they do not understand how impacts can and are generated online, most do not understand the immense impacts one well thought out and actioned persons influences can tangibly be with where cyber=spaces evolution is at right now.They also do not understand that even Multi-billion dollar companies cannot always generate traditional impacts online even with epic volumes of fiscal resources,this is what they are learning to do,tilt the playing field in their favor by paying many individuals instead of massive advertising companies to get what they want done ,to force perspectives down out throats .

Here at ATS TOGETHER we are defining cyber=spaces future along with millions of other people,everything we do is important and the freedom to make AUTHENTIC progressive peer supported change must always be protected.The recent rule changes will not affect anyone except those abusing the system for their own subversive benefits, normal opinionated truculent bread and butter posters will not be affected in any negative ways at all.Everyone can still be as stubborn and true as they choose to be,AS INDIVIDUALS,as it should be,and if those individuals catalyse a group perspective there will be a clear dynamic template showing the evolution of this group perspective,which is fine on all counts.It is the artificial construction of this dynamic series of natural actions with negative intentions by a colluding group of stakeholders which will now be harder to action.This helps everyone I think.

Happy day.

originally posted by: one4all


If a member posts something valid and groundbreaking...
MANY times in the past a "GANG" an ORGANISED gang of like minded posters would intentionally BURY the valid critical posts under 3-4 PAGES of posts about peripheral thread related data
.... the critical data is buried under VOLUMES of posts so the readership potentiality is very low when anyone else reads the complete thread.

There is a long and obvious trail of these actions within the ATS archives,
the actions are very easy to spot and to define, AS ARE the posters or members who participate,

This kind of scrutiny seems beyond the staff @ ATS.... it would likely take a sophisticated program of 'profiling' to uncover a cell or group or gang that pushes a position (be it political, religious, or whatever)

perhaps facebook or google could build enough pigeon-holes for individuals and then connect them in a evidential way
so---here we are at the 'thought crimes' threshold




ADD: in response to a poster below:

...Can't even remember the username as it wasn't someone who posted much before or after the fact. They ended up spamming full pages of one-line replies instead of stating their case neatly, orderly, and concisely. It was not an expressed viewpoint, but a deliberate attack.

I am not really 10% certain, but I enjoyed the sharp tongue of a poster that was a one-liner trademask
and that is not an Attack in my book....
I think it was Mask or Masked or something like that

originally posted by: Guyfriday
This is a good policy change, but in reference to internet gangs: This is going to be hard to enforce, since all a group would have to do is use an out of system IM (like yahoo message service, or AOL IM) instead of the U2U that exists here. Unless I'm looking at this wrong.

I don't think it is possible to come up with a fool-proof method of identifying professional posters. This is a private site so if it painfully obvious to staff by their own opinion it should be good enough. If staff over reaches they will eventually suffer from loss of memberships. I think it is in their best interest to be fair and forthcoming.

originally posted by: FinalCountdown
Who?

Can't even remember the username as it wasn't someone who posted much before or after the fact. They ended up spamming full pages of one-line replies instead of stating their case neatly, orderly, and concisely. It was not an expressed viewpoint, but a deliberate attack.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Sremmos80

A forum gang is when several members get together, and decide to basically lock a topic down, and make it impossible for other members to discuss anything. Not four or five members having a similar interest in one topic, and posting, but we are talking about members sending messages to each other, and organizing how to discuss the topic so that others eventually get frustrated and leave the topic.

Hold up, I have a question. How can you even begin to prove such activity (the above underlined portion) when S.O. just said above:

We never look at any member private messages without first receiving a complaint that alleges serious T&C violations.

It seems that to prove the above underlined that it would necessitate reading member private messages, no?

ATS has changed soo much, sometimes I wonder if the changes are good or just a reflection of what happen when a good thing becomes too big.

But I guess some will be happy with the changes, me and my conspirators mind, just keeps getting flags.

All is good.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

How do I get in touch with the site owner..? Who IS the site owner?

Help again!

a reply to: LeatherNLace

IF there is a complaint, then yes, Admin, and Admin alone can read the messages. But only with a very good reason. We would have to have a member complaint, as well as other evidence to do it.

However, if you read what I said, I also didn't say that we were reading the messages, I simply said that members of a forum gang were communicating, as to how to discuss the topic. Nothing about us reading the messages, or anything else.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
"ForteanOrg" you should contact site ownership immediately and reveal your intentions as your username violates our terms and conditions.


he/she has been a member since nearly 2 years and you only noticed this