ATS is lacking political balance

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Haha, dude

I bet it was that Josh guy.

It sounds like his going away post.

originally posted by: Sillyolme


No dear...they are trump supporters....

No dear, some of us are generic president_01 supporters... I don't think you can understand that... He is your President, so support him...

a reply to: neo96

Nope.

Because Trump lost the popular election but won the Electorial College. CT are always against the sitting president because of counter culture, but in this case he “isn’t, because he didn’t win” but just happens to be president.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Apologies! I thought it was him. I'm bad with names sometimes.

For the record I haven't ever seen you moderate from a biased position either. Original statement stands.

And if we're being honest, ATS is one of the very few places left on the internet that isn't a full-blown liberal echo chamber. And even then, calling ATS an alt-right site would be disingenuous.

Nevermind the fact that 95% of the MSM and every major social platform leans left.

But hey, there is no balance on ATS.

a reply to: Serdgiam

I'm sure there are some issues that are not about being a victim that the left support but like you mention at some point it always turns into something that is being denied them or oppressing them or even to go further they have to be the saving grace that comes in and champions for the victims. I think having some positive view points about the world we live in would go a long way in helping the cause of people who identify as being left of center. It always seems to be doom and gloom and how everything is somebody else's fault. I really think the democrats mascot should move from being a random donkey to Eeyore.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: latic

Wow.... he puts words in my mouth and you tell him how dead on he is.... and I have no idea who you even are.

Words in your mouth!!!?

That’s a new one and I am looking forward to when those words are thought about and reposted...

Go for it Silly...

ATS is what people post.

As long as what you post stays within our Terms and Conditions it stays on ATS.

We are not in the business of asking our membership what "side" of the political spectrum they are on. That's not a fair way to have a community. You can believe anything you want as long as you express that belief within our T&C.

Are there more members from one "side" than another "side"? Maybe. The official opinion of TheAboveNetwork is that we don't care. All participants from all walks of life are welcome provided they follow the above mentioned T&C. If someone isn't following them? There are lots of ways to report that, not including whiny threads about people not being nice (not talking about this thread FYI but some of you know what I mean).

Mod bias? Nope. Moderator action is done be consensus. There are enough former staffers still active on the site that can vouch for that if you're not interested in my personal take on it. It's also well known that a mod can't ding a post in a thread he/she is participating in so please... Additionally as I've mentioned several dozen times before, EVERY mod action is logged so if you disagree with something, speak up via the complaint form or email etc. We check the email. It goes to my phone. So do all the adorable death threats we get. It breaks up the kittens of instagram posts.

Wikipedia? Really? Hey I like Wikipedia on a personal level because there's always something to read when I'm bored, but frankly why the hell do we have a Wikipedia entry? Ah... ATS history... every time we would ban a topic of conversation here back in the day, like illicit drugs, pornography, or any time there was a tiff about something or other suddenly there would be "ATS Sucks" forums opening up and we'd have creatively edited wiki entries about how terrible we are. Oddly some of those very people end up closing their ATS sucks forums and coming back. Including some participating on this thread. Hi honey! So in a nutshell, TheAboveNetwork doesn't really give a crap about what some disgruntled former members/returned members/redisgruntled members have to say about us on wikipedia. My fortune cookie from last night's dinner is more important to me.

I would love it if there would be more non political threads, but we are what our membership posts. If you want more non-political threads, someone's gotta create them. Please do. I'd love to read it. Seriously.

But as it stands, this is where things are.

I've run quite a few Q&A type threads with our members over the years explaining how things work around here. I don't mind it at all. I'm pretty much the longest tenured active staffer here so it's my pleasure to answer questions. I'm not going anywhere either, unlike our precious wiki commentators so by all means, if there's something bothering you just reach out.

I don't post enough on here for you to really recognize my username, but I believe you and I have had differing opinions at times. But I've never thought of your content as trash at all. You have original thoughts....hard to come by these days whether one agrees with it or not.

You mentioned one key ingredient to the decline in discourse. Respect! It absolutely used to live here. And it absolutely has been lost in far too many threads.

To be honest, this thread may be my last. I see what I think the problems are but I don't know if those problems will ever be resolved. I miss Slayer69. I haven't seen as much of Zaphod. FlyersFan is long gone. But as I recall, those members and many others of the past always seemed to write with respect, no matter what the topic.

originally posted by: Sillyolme
a reply to: Quantumgamer1776

I'm sure I'm too stupid to know.... Thats why I am still here.

See your incapable of forming a good argument so you resort to deflection and projection, this is why you guys have trouble swaying people.

Just to add, this thread was correctly moved into the BBQ forum because it is relevant to board business.

The lack of ability to "get stars" for your posts in the BBQ forum is not a factor and sadly for some, they're not worth anything so... who cares? Personal disclosure: I don't like the stars feature and would rather people actually post to explain why they agree with a statement. If it was up to me I'd remove the feature to begin with, but again that's my personal view, not TAN's view. (Yes, those can differ.)

a reply to: xuenchen

That is not an answer.

a reply to: IgnorantGod

Depends...do you curse the fire for burning down the barn or thank heaven the horses escaped?

a reply to: CriticalStinker

I keep missing the star function. ⭐

originally posted by: netwarrior
a reply to: burdman30ott6

Apologies! I thought it was him. I'm bad with names sometimes.

For the record I haven't ever seen you moderate from a biased position either. Original statement stands.

Staff does a good job leaving their biases at the door when we moderate. We use consensus, which is an excellent tool to ensure a balanced mod record... and we have moderators with left, center, and right leaning personal opinions. I am very likely the furthest right of the Staff politically, so the fact that you see my moderating as unbiased means that the ATS Moderation team is working as intended and the site is being run properly.

I'm still here - - there's just no point really in posting in the majority of the political threads. Teflon Trump - - ya know.

I do peruse and look for a balanced discussion, but they are few an far between these days.

I'm sure the pendulum will swing - - someday.

In the mean time - - I look for other subject threads.

In the past week we (Staff) have seen one member rail at us over how liberal ATS' mods are and how the site has gone to dogs on the left side and here we have a thread which is stating exactly the opposite. Translation: when the fringe on both sides is pissed at us and saying we're agents of their opposition, we're doing it exactly right and nothing needs fixed. The correct people are verclempt and the individuals we probably don't need around here to begin with, as they represent the radical sides, are the only people grousing about how far left or right ATS has drifted.

a reply to: Sillyolme

I won't curse anything. It's what life's about, falling and getting back up. Cursing won't get me anywhere from where I'm currently am, except dragging me down.There's only one curse I consider, which I state as follow:"The curse of the human being is being human". That's it, nothing more, nothing less.

I think we have to be fair to the mods.

Now to claim that there is no bias in my view is just flat out wrong, they are human beings and they have a bias some of them have a very strong political bias. What annoys me is how the old mantra of attack the ball not the player is almost non-existent. I have personally been involved in a thread were I am being attacked and a mod is posting away like nothing has happened and no action is taken....usually because its a right-leaning mod. There is a bias at play.

HOWEVER.....

I do believe that for the most part the majority of mods (no all of them) do a very good job, I have seen loads of members I would call "right leaning" banned, have posts removed and treads trashed so I think it would be wrong to say they are bias because if that was the case it wouldn't be happening. I do feel that I have had interactions with the mods in the past where they have been extremely reasonable.

Now this isn't me kissing ass, its more of an observation, I think the membership are more to blame for this situation than the mods, if the mods were to remove every single post that was off-topic then some threads would be barren. So I do think they are also in a difficult position.

There are things I think they could do to help with the situation, I think that a real clamp down on personal insults is desperately required to bring back civility to the forums. The mud-pit is a problem, but I remember Bill once writing that the mud-pit was in no way a safe area to be uncivil and insulting to other members. So that would be a huge help.

I was here for example after 2012 when they mods were out in force to make sure that nobody was being too harsh on the poor folks who thought the world was about to end. They even posted a thread warning us all not to be running around saying "told ya so".

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Just because you are so Right you don't make left hand turns in your truck doesn't mean you can't moderate from a position of fairness. Yeah, you're to the right and outspoken about it, but in all the time i've been here i've never seen it abused.

Maybe that's what we, as a species, have lost. The ability to come to the conclusion that an action is fair even if you don't like the outcome.