Did the Mods go on vacation?

Let me speak about some things speaking with the experience of being an ATS moderator, but in no way does my opinion in what I'm about to post reflect the view point of the rest of ATS staff, admin or owners.

Complaints and Alerts: There are exactly 47 active moderators and super moderators here on ATS. Not all of us are online 24/7. We have lives outside of ATS, and we do not have a set schedule of when we moderate.

47 of us, compared to 309,865 of you.

Almost 20 MILLION posts are on here. Over 1 MILLION threads.

No. Sorry, we can not be everywhere at once. Especially when not all 47 of us are not always online, but instead, just a few handfuls.

I've seen posted here: "I didn't report it, maybe I should have."

Yes. Yes you should have. Yes, yes everyone should. This does not make you a tattle tale, a rat, a narc, or whatever, it makes a you a responsible adult who cares about this site. If you see something that you think we need to do something about then for gods sakes, ALERT US TO IT!

Now...with that in mind......let me say something about the Political Mud Pit Forum.

We get a lot of complaints from you all about things in that forum. If you are in a thread, and you see something that you think needs to be actioned by us, then by all means, alert it.

However...keep in mind this: There are only two main rules in the Mud Pit:

1) No vulgarities and 2) No threats.

This means if someone is off topic......oh well. If they call you an idiot or jerk, or stupid......oh well. If they call all Conservatives racist......oh well. If they call all Liberals morons......oh well.

As per the site owners, here are the rules for the Mud Pit:

Mud Pit Forum Guidelines

Now, if someone threatens another member, or if someone uses vulgar words, then yes, most likely we will do something about that.

Someone does an ad hominem attack on you? We'll look at your complaint, but if it's a post that is in the Mud Pit, most likely we are not going to do anything, because that is what the Mud Pit is for.

Don't like it? Don't like the name calling, the political trolling, and other pretty much deplorable things that get posted in there?

Then stop reading and participating in threads that are located in there!

It's that simple.

Stay in the areas outside of the Pit.

Now.....if you are outside the Pit, and someone calls you a name, insults you, is rude, mean, snarky, off topic, etc, etc, etc, then PLEASE alert us to it! If you do not, I can not assure you that something will be done. We may not see it.

"But, but....you all take so LONG to get things done! It takes forever!"

Sorry, but we rarely do "Lone Wolf" moderation. Instead, we make sure that we do the correct action by discussing it with each other first. Consensus rules, that way no one can claim "Man! That moderator dude is out to get me!", because, no, we're not out to get anyone.

Getting a consensus can take time. We are from all over the world and we all live in different time zones, have lives outside of ATS, and are not on here 24/7.

We do not rule with an iron fist either.

Our jobs here as staff is to facilitate discussion.......not walk around with a sledge hammer threatening you all to toe the line or we're going to ban the crap out of you.

If that is what I was asked to do, I would have resigned from being a mod on here on day one.

Don't like the atmosphere right now? No problem! Take a break! We'll still be here when you get back. We'll keep the lights on for you.

It is a very nasty election cycle. We also have some members that are rather.....uhm......"passionate", yah, that's the word I will use, about how they feel about certain candidates. That means, yah, they kind of spam ATS with their threads.

Tired of it? Well, unless they are violating our rules, there is nothing we can do about it. As far as they are concerned, they are providing content, and I can not honestly say they are wrong.

But there ARE some things ALL OF YOU can do about it!

1) Stop reading their threads, and stop participating in their threads.
2) Find other threads that you like and participate there.
3) START some new threads about things YOU want to talk about. You don't need to make the perfect thread, just give it some effort.

Right now, I'm sure there are more than enough people on here that would be very, very happy to have something other than Trump and Hillary to talk about. Even if it's a re-hash of something that was posted years ago. We allow that.

Be the change you think ATS needs. We are simply here to help discussion, and sometimes it can take us a while to do that. We also can not be every where on here 24/7.

But when any of you click on that Alert of Complain button, those of us that are on here will look at it as soon as we can, and we will discuss it. I can't promise we are able to do something (someone calls you an idiot in a Mud Pit thread), but if we can we will (someone called you an idiot in a UFO thread).

Again: only you guys can make ATS the place you want to be. If you're tired of certain things, then don't participate. Don't feed the ones that are keeping ATS that way.

Again: this was all my opinion, not the opinion of ATS staff or the owners.