ATS In Decline?

originally posted by: Painterz

Heavens. It's depressing to see the alt-right members piling into this post throwing insults and offensive pictures...

What offensive pictures?

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

You are most likely totally correct but ATS as a barometer of social attitudes is also a good point.

How literate the generation of the Kid's are today whom join this site, the Varied attitudes (not always correct to speak for myself and point a finger in my own general direction - as if there was someone else standing behind me honestly) of the older generation's.

The members of the site cover every race, creed, belief and political persuasion as well as a great many nation's - predominantly English speaking but not all.

But it is mainly a US site and there are a hell of a lot of us Limeys on here as well as Canuck's like yourself, Kiwis, Aussies in the English speaking community and of course Politic's, Large Scale non English speaking migration and military affairs are all big issues in many of these nation's so will of course headline.

But yes I was not attracted for the political or the religious point's though hypocritically I have become embroiled on more than one occasion in those discussion's which are often very heated and long winded affair's.

I miss the TRUE ATS, the one whose thread's were about Mysteries, UFO's, Lost civilizations etc and of course while you and Heart and other long time members would often trash those theory's they still hold that attractiveness and that deep longing that all human being's have which is finding out who we really are and trying to fill that overwhelming sense of something important lost that most of us Have that even religion seldom fill's.


Still all subject's hold some interest but you are correct and I too have to hang my head in shame as there are thread's that I personally should never have gotten embroiled in, thread's which are topical and relate to the damage racism which has been re-inflamed by terrorism and economic woes but they do serve a purpose, as long as there are site's like ATS in the world there is a way for people to express there anger, a method for the more intelligent politician's if they ever looked at these site's to gauge public opinion and a method to gauge the temperature of public opinion among the Conspiracy.

It is also great for the intelligence service whom have members that join these site's from all nation's and engage in honing there own disinformation skill's as well as other uses.

But yes, Too much politics, too little ancient mystery, history and genuine ufology, a little more tech would not hurt but that is just a general knowledge subject rather than what ATS seem's aimed at.

Too much trolling, yes, we have all made a light pun on occasion but it is beyond a problem now but given the sheer volume of post's the Mod's are probably a little overwhelmed.

To be honest though were it comes to the politics that is part and parcel of that subject, the idea of civil and gentile civilized politics is just that an idea, in truth anger in parliament's and senates around the world has often spilled over into fisticuffs so a little letting off of steam on here is a good thing.

The site is divided not only between the left and the right however but also between the centre and the extreme of all version's of those opposing ideological stand point's.

So when the Chimp's start throwing there feces pretend you are David Attenborough with a documentary film crew and just watch the (then) fascinating primate behavior as they tussle with there various primate tribes to decide who has the best alpha male and first pick of the choice mates and best food sources and remember that analogy the next time you look at your own politician's.

You sir have been here longer than I, are I believe smarter than I and indeed perhaps than a great many members here and are valued even when what you say on some post's is a bringing back down to earth, same for heart and co.

Back to politics just to be ironic I was always a center left British political persuasion which these day's mean's I am radically left and only very slightly right of Jeremy Corbyn our current Labor Party leader whom I do disagree on several point's but these day's I find myself challenged by the increasing number of migrant's - so extremely disagree with him on that point - and the lack of faithfulness that not only Labor but all MAJOR party's have shown to the British people, I could not ever bring myself to support the extreme right though.

While in the US they as you know are extremely polarized between rich and poor, European american and non European american and many other social divides which as a nation today pose a very serious and indeed detrimental challenge to all of them, Canada has almost avoided this but not quite and the terrorist attack upon your parliament a few years back was a wake up call there too BUT that is not a problem of Politics or race but of Religious extremism and that does play into the whole migration argument as well as drive the fiery wheel of racial intollerance on all sides.

So chimp's, best only to jump in when you know your poo is a gorilla sized piece, but then I am poor at taking my own advice and mysteriously often change my opinion's - even deeply entrenched one's over surprisingly short periods of time.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Want to discuss it outside the Pit but you have other members acting badly? THEN REPORT IT FOR GOD'S SAKE. Seriously. How many times do we have to point out that we can not be everywhere, read every post, every thread, and be on here 24/7??? "Oh, but I don't want to snitch........" Don't want to report the bad behavior? Then deal with it. We are not all knowing and all seeing on here. "But I have reported it, and nothing was done!!!" Yep...that happens some times. Want to know why? Because a LOT of the complaints we get are for....wait for it........political trolling in the....again, wait for it.....POLITICAL MUD PIT FORUM........doh! It's allowed there, so NO we won't be doing anything about it if it's there.

Agreed.

I believe the mods here do an outstanding job for the most part.

And you can please some of the people, some of the time, but...

I guess what I think is missing from this discussion is what I believe Johnny was really saying: He gives a rat's ass about this site and is saddened to see what he perceives to be a major problem at the moment.

ATS should be thrilled to have members like him.

My $0.02...

a reply to: Painterz

Because we come here together very well aware, pretty much 100% aware and certain that we will encounter someone with an entirely different up-bringing/outlook/mind-map of the world.

So we can discuss, not throw insults at the person.
And as much as I hate myself for saying that, but I wish every personal insult gets punished. One a day a warning, or so.
People are too often going after eachother. Positive and negative. Maybe to be fair both should be punished?

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

So would it be ATS in decline, or our entire social fabric inc haos which happens to be observable herein?

After the liberals just spent the Obama years slurring everyone against any of His policies as "YOU'RE AGAINST OBAMACARE BECAUSE YOU'RE RACIST", and that was just the tip of the iceberg, what did anyone really expect to happen?

When you're of the view that everyone against must all be right wingers no matter the trends and tides, I suppose you might not be capable of catching my drift.

Let me put it this way, the day of the Congress shooting mass murder terrorism attempt, and since, we've had perhaps as much as half the liberal regulars in the site virtue signal that the attack was totally justified because they were conservatives, and because Obamacare is under attack. I mean scores of individuals flat out overtly supporting the dude, and not just the mere 'defend via derail' type tactics that are too common like when liberals see the atrocities of the BLM crowd under fire all last year every thread was derailed to support them.

How do you expect people in a civilized society to react to society being torn apart from the inside, the 'reasons' for which mostly based on pure fallacy, conjecture and baseless conspiracy theory no less.

Here's some food for thought, when you yourself observe lifelong liberal types start defending Trump (I've noticed one such individual already in this very thread), that isn't inherently because they're "Alt-Right", its more likely that the Liberal Machine is so far off its rocker into total destructively divisive lunacy that what they're saying that you dont like it needs to be said.

It's most important for people to keep their own groups honest and rational, not the other way around. This goes for everyone of every groupthink.

When you start calling you own comrades things like "Alt-Right" for speaking out against in group insanity & bigotry, I'd say its time to acknowledge you've hit rock bottom of morality and just cause, whereby your team would be rightfully on the losing side of history.

a reply to: Riffrafter

I think hes just pissed he is in a minority pot. What's he complaning about really ?

People trolling...well...sometimes the trolling is deserved.

People being racist or xenophobes in an online discussion ? Well...that in itself is not a crime punishable by law. Oh...and btw...welcome to the internet guys.

I dont know how old are you...but there is a zoo out there...and we are all part of it.

Even johnny...he just thinks he's right.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: eriktheawful
I'd love it if we had some way for each of you to be a moderator here on ATS for just one day........There would be a LOT more open eyes here, and a lot less baseless claims.

Why not post one of the 'alert' threads from the moderator forum where there was some back and forth between all of you and just remove everyone's names, mods included? It would show the internal dynamic and how not everyone is aligned.

Can't. We have another golden rule back here: What gets discussed between a member and staff is private.

Very private.

Even if we removed names, it would be breaking that rule, and it's a rule that we take very, very seriously.

What I can tell you is this: we discuss politics back here too where none of you can see.

Who moderates the moderators? We do it ourselves. In other words: guess what? Left vs Right get's discussed back here and man, does it go off the chain sometimes.......

BUT!

At the end of the day, we actually shake hands and still chat with each other, still work together and still get along.

So YES, all of you out there COULD debate politics all day long, and still get along and not make it hate filled. We do it back here all the time. We still get along just fine, even if we disagree with each other.

Worse: while you all debate politics out here, we are also having to debate complaints you all make, to debate whether action should be taken or not, and no, we do not always agree what should be done.

But we do agree that consensus rules, and we move on to the next thing.

We don't get nasty with each other. We don't start calling each other names. We just agree to disagree and move on.

Gee.....wonder why people out here on the boards can't do that?

I can personally vouch that there have been many times that one or more of us have removed ourselves from a discussion about taking action on something, either because of political bias or personal bias.

We don't do the: Let's Get That Guy Because They Are (insert political leaning here).

Do we have mods that lean hard left and right? Sure do! We also have mods that really don't give a rats ass about politics at all. One thing we also have: overwatch. If any staff were to use their political leanings as a basis for taking action, that's going to be noticed, and acted upon: harshly.

But, but, but, there's a mod that expresses strong opinions in threads!!!!

Let me correct you on that: You have a fellow ATS member that is expressing a strong opinion on something.

If we are participating in a thread, we are doing it AS A MEMBER. Not as a moderator.

Again: if we (staff) had to stop being members and were not allowed to participate in threads when we became staff, each and everyone of us would have turned the offer to become staff down.

But my point is still valid: we discuss politics back here too, and we don't have anyone moderating us.....and yet, as diverse as we are, as strongly as we disagree back here.......we still do it with out being hateful, insulting, and if we can't agree, we just shake hands on it and move on.

If we can do it back here, then you all should be able to do it to.

And if someone can't? REPORT THEM.....let us look at it.

i've been here for a fairly long time too, under a couple of guises
and i totally agree, it's never been like this.
there've definitely been times when it felt like the site was at war with itself - does anyone remember the wild drama around the Occupy movement? - that was a time and a half.
but now it feels so much more... vicious.
constant 'triggering' and insult slinging, every day it feels more and more like my little brother invited his immature 4chan friends over to play and they just won't leave. and now they've set up camp in the lounge and i try to keep my head down and focus on the book of ufo sightings but they're hurling xenophobic invective at the seven o'clock news and it's loud.

and yeah of course there are people who are going to call sick about it but it's a fact that that sort of behaviour is really only coming from one side of the political aisle.

originally posted by: eriktheawful
But my point is still valid: we discuss politics back here too, and we don't have anyone moderating us.....and yet, as diverse as we are, as strongly as we disagree back here.......we still do it with out being hateful, insulting, and if we can't agree, we just shake hands on it and move on.

I figured it could be a learning experience for many and help dispel the hominization of opinion myth but I understand the privacy aspect.

We don't get nasty with each other. We don't start calling each other names. We just agree to disagree and move on.

And here I was picturing an all out hair pulling fest between DToM and KJ and the guys cheering them on.

originally posted by: Grambler
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Yes this thread you did citing an article by a racist that hates white people certainly has a civil tone.
Perhaps you ought to look in the mirror before criticizing others.

I can't control what you took away from the article but I note that it got 41 stars and 37 flags so somebody thought it was of interest and I'm sure that they were not all America-hating racists. Those who are, feel free to correct me on the matter.

But it was not a troll post, and for an outsider, albeit one that has probably seen more of America than most Americans, it answered some questions. You can take the thread up again if you wish...it's still there.

visit GLP or 4chan
ATS is a breeze compared

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

I never agree with these arguments. This is not a safe space and it is well modded. Sometimes too well.

The right gets trolled hard here. Mostly because facts that cant be contested with facts lead to name calling and obtuse "resistance".

Why would I respect someone who doesnt respect me? I wont go off, but I dont owe anyone anything.

Freaking respect me or I will be what you say I am.

The decline? In safe spaces maybe.

I LOVE YOU ALL

a reply to: tadaman

But to follow intrptr to a different thread, to kick his as one more time when he's already down, was crossing a line.

Maybe that's it and "what happens in the thread stays in the thread" would help, if we could agree on that?

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck

originally posted by: Grambler
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Yes this thread you did citing an article by a racist that hates white people certainly has a civil tone.
Perhaps you ought to look in the mirror before criticizing others.

I can't control what you took away from the article but I note that it got 41 stars and 37 flags so somebody thought it was of interest and I'm sure that they were not all America-hating racists. Those who are, feel free to correct me on the matter.

But it was not a troll post, and for an outsider, albeit one that has probably seen more of America than most Americans, it answered some questions. You can take the thread up again if you wish...it's still there.

So when a pro trump thread gets stars and flags, it's a right wing echo chamber.

But when your racist article gets them, it was from decent people.

Interesting double standard.

Gotta love it when folks show they ass.

originally posted by: Grambler

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck

originally posted by: Grambler
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Yes this thread you did citing an article by a racist that hates white people certainly has a civil tone.
Perhaps you ought to look in the mirror before criticizing others.

I can't control what you took away from the article but I note that it got 41 stars and 37 flags so somebody thought it was of interest and I'm sure that they were not all America-hating racists. Those who are, feel free to correct me on the matter.

But it was not a troll post, and for an outsider, albeit one that has probably seen more of America than most Americans, it answered some questions. You can take the thread up again if you wish...it's still there.

So when a pro trump thread gets stars and flags, it's a right wing echo chamber.
But when your racist article gets them, it was from decent people.
Interesting double standard.

Sure thing...that's just what I've been saying.

can i also just take a moment to point out an interesting little factoid that feels kinda relevant;

we have a LOT of extremely conservative members here, and a pretty large contingent of quite far or alt right members, along with, you know, a majority of moderate members of whatever persuasion.... but we have literally no far left members. In fact, i'm probably about as left-wing as it gets around here, and i'm considered by most of the hard-line leftists i know to be almost offensively moderate.
just a nibble for a thought there.