My reply for Skeptic Overview 10, why posts are declining.

And another thing that is distasteful about ATS is that if you're a Christian you are supposed to go the Christian ghetto, and some people think you're not supposed to give an opinion from a Christian point of view on any topic, but, Honey, why not run on over to the religion section? On the thread, How Does Creationism Explain -- well, that just means, let's all of us evolutionists get together and knock the creationists. If a Creationist actually comes on and defends Creationism -- you're told, why not just get off this thread and go on over to the religion section? I'm starting to get the gist that board is only for poorly-informed atheists or cultists or New Agers or whatever.

I have no doubt I could start lots of healthy threads because I have a lot of interests and I can keep a lively discussion going. Maybe I oughta tell people they can't post their atheist junk on my threads. Huh?

Threads are a dime a dozen. You can start one up in two seconds. So if nobody wants to post on one thread they can go to another or start another. So when I tell the people on the Creation thread that I'm outa here, and they say "the board won't be the same without you," yeah, it sure won't. It will probably just DIE.

And why is the thread on Which Bible been moved to Below Top Secret? But things about the Catholic Church's latest pronouncement gets to stay on Above Top Secret? Who wants to go running over to another section, have to log in, go dig up your stupid number someplace, and try to get in to post? This is just the Christian ghetto. The Masons get to have about six threads going on Above Top Secret, Satanists, anybody -- but the Christians can't even talk about Which Bible.








[edit on 24-10-2005 by resistance]

resistance, English please.

Your post is a load of crap, to be honest. Enough people are religious on these forums and able to hold a debate with those who are not without such attacks coming in.

However, if your whole arguement is based off of a book, no matter what that one book is a vast majority of people will tell you to go away because the arguement is flawed.

Odium -- Well, then why don't you just read Zipdot's last response to me on the Creation thread? I have only seen four Christians posting here. Amythyst posts very judiciously. There are two women who post, and are not what I'd call bold as the wind in what they say. Then there was me.

I can start my own threads, no problem, and I have no doubt that people will post to them and they will enjoy a long and healthy life.

So if that's what I have to do, I will do it. But I can see what's coming -- everything will get sent to Below Top Secret. So what's the use?

You guys are just gonna break my heart!

Jungle Jake is a Christian and one of the sites highest posters.
Thomas Crowne is as well...

If it has a purpose being on ATS it'll stay here, if it doesn't it won't.

I did see the post, in fact I am sad enough to read most of the posts on ATS but you have to remember ATS is a conspiracy site, if you do not make your post towards that aspect it'll be moved to BTS or PTS.

Originally posted by resistance
I have only seen four Christians posting here. Amythyst posts very judiciously. There are two women who post, and are not what I'd call bold as the wind in what they say. Then there was me.

We just gotta get you and Machine together. I bet you would be good friends...

Look around for some of his threads.

Heh.

Originally posted by resistance
So if that's what I have to do, I will do it. But I can see what's coming -- everything will get sent to Below Top Secret. So what's the use?

Waaah waaah

Posts are not declining because of the lack of points.
The gaining of points for replys or the creation of topics has little to no bearing on why posts are declining.
If such was the case, then why not strive to be the best and largest board on the entire net, and offer cash for each post?
I hope you understand the point I am making?

This alleged phenomena is simply more in tune with the analogy of ATS ebbing and flowing like the tide, methinks.





seekerof

[edit on 24-10-2005 by Seekerof]

Maybe the decline is posts is simply due to the fact that their aren’t many good, unexplored conspiracy related topics out there any more.

Most of the standard topics have been done ad nauseum.

Many of the new topics are so far off the wall or so obscure that no one wants to participate in them.

Well, heck I didn't even know we got points for posting. Shows my ignorance, eh?

I wondered who was going to be the first to post something like that Nygdan and now I know--LOL.

I don't have any idea if posts are going up or down or sideways. All I know is every topic I get interested in seems to have plenty of posters. I tend to prefer news topics over anything else--especially science & technology related news topics, but I probably spend more time reading posts about personal politics and beliefs than anything else. I avoid the far out conspiracies and wild theories simply because the posters are not as interesting as the ones who jump on current news. Mostly I stick to ATS because I constantly learn new things there. Some pretty good research goes on by a lot of people and then they summarize it for you and present it--sometimes with a bit of bias--and that saves me hours upon hours of time doing the research myself. All in all, I love the place and spend far too much of my time here.

[edit on 24-10-2005 by Astronomer68]

pehaps there is a decline because of the increase in fascsim. perhaps people are becoming afraid to speak their minds, because they know, as good conspiracy theorists do, that the NSA, FBI, CIA, ONI, and AVON can all track any user to his/her physical location, home address, next of kin, casual acquaintainces, school records, dental records, financial status, political status......
with all the awesome police powers being granted to the gestapo, conspiracy theory is perhaps being driven back underground.

the nwo is REAL. now, that it's raising up it's head, you should be able to see it more clearly.

Originally posted by billybob
perhaps people are becoming afraid to speak their minds, because they know, as good conspiracy theorists do, that the NSA, FBI, CIA, ONI, and AVON can all track any user to his/her physical location, home address, next of kin, casual acquaintainces, school records, dental records, financial status, political status......

Isolating The Problem

Originally posted by resistance
Odium -- Well, then why don't you just read Zipdot's last response to me on the Creation thread? I have only seen four Christians posting here. Amythyst posts very judiciously. There are two women who post, and are not what I'd call bold as the wind in what they say. Then there was me.

There are many devout Christians on ATS, but only a few of them are obnoxious about it.

There are also many devout Marxists on ATS, but only a few of them are obnoxious about it.

The problem is not that ATS is anti-Christian, because it most certainly is not. In my capacity as a member representative, I have examined your complaints and find them utterly groundless.

In other words, you're wrong. Your feelings of persecution are based on the fact that you can't control the discussion, and that people don't dutifully fall into line lockstep with your beliefs.

Lo and behold, ATS is not a place where attempting to bully people into agreement works. That's why your attempts to do so are failing.

I know this sounds harsh, and I wish I could say it in a way that does not sound harsh, but doing so would require me to lie. Thus the unvarnished, painful truth, right here in public, because you chose to make this a grievance for public drama.

The patent absurdity of your claims gives lie to them.

ATS is not the problem. I recommend giving some honest thought to the feedback you are getting from so many of your fellow members.

If a community that allows differing opinions to be expressed is so problematic for your agenda, then ATS is not for you.

Huh? Christian Ghetto?

Hey, Skeptic, did I miss something when I made that detour to the pool hall when I was supposed to go to last week's staff meeting? Am I supposed toround up all the Christians and take them to the Christian Ghetto?

If so, I got dibs on that big refridgerator cardboard box!

hi folks
A small percentage of the decline in posting, must have something to do with podcasting, dont get me wrong i do enjoy listening to podcasts, but it must have had an effect on the numbers of posting,
also, there's a lot of ppl on ATS, who are very knowledgeable in there opinions, this could intimidate others not to post,
plus the increase of factless threads, cant help much,

I dont really know the reason for the decline in posting, maybe we need some new idea's?

A skepticks board,
A Moderators Post/Thread of the week
ATS points for regular Posting

Just a thought, all the best... Ian

C'mon ATS, hand out the Candy.

Originally posted by iamian
maybe we need some new idea's?A skepticks board,
A Moderators Post/Thread of the week
ATS points for regular Posting

We already have points of course, a thread of the week might be interesting tho the newsletter often points out some big ones. As for a sceptics board, we're all sceptics here. Really. I don't think that there's anyone here who credulously accepts what anyone tells them, without question.

[edit on 24-10-2005 by Nygdan]

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Maybe the decline is posts is simply due to the fact that their aren’t many good, unexplored conspiracy related topics out there any more.

Most of the standard topics have been done ad nauseum.

I think that actually has a lot to do with it. If you make a new topic, somebody comes in and posts 10 links to old threads about it, then if you try to add to the old thread nobody wants to read through 6 pages of 2 year old posts... the thread immediately dies again and a new person is left with nobody to talk to.

Because of this, newer things can't be brought up if they are too close to anything that somebody remembers from "way back when..."


In reality, changing the point system with have a psychological effect on people who are trying to get points for a purpose.
If you teach somebody that they will get a certain reward, then cut the reward in 1/2 or 1/3, they naturally will fall away from the act because they weren't getting what they used to get for it.

You can't compare a board with no points to one that cuts points.

I don't tend to say much, but I spent close to a year trying to get WATS access, started getting close and my ATS points got cut in half, I would have to post a few thousand times more just to get it now. Honestly, it did make me feel like it wasn't worth it because I was just curious and there is only so much running around trying to find something new that I have time for.

Whether or not it effects people with 50k+ points, it isn't going to help morale to make it nearly impossible for anybody to gain points.
For the record, I think it does make people feel out of place to be told their thread doesn't matter because something similar to it once existed with a completely different group of people. New people=a new discussion even when it's a topic we've seen. If we don't let new people speak we are hardly going to get anywhere when it comes to finding truth.

Originally posted by ZeddicusZulZorander

exactly. "ra", the egyptian sun god.
it's, "the revenge of the pharoahs", in 3D living colour.

This alleged phenomena is simply more in tune with the analogy of ATS ebbing and flowing like the tide, methinks.

Have to agree with the above....

Not to mention, it's like CNN viewership between wars, or The Weather Channel viewership between storms...ebb and flow of the tide....

I seriously doubt it's points... We were growing WAY before the points system was even a concept... I don't know about you, but when I was a member, applauds and WATS votes or even friendly U2Us from someone saying they enjoyed a post meant FAR more than any points EVER did....

Some of my best (imho) posts were after becoming a mod (and points don't really mean much to us, when you have the power to give them out), and were done only to share information. If someone found them informative or helpful...all the better...and that was well worth the effort.

I can definitely agree to this statement.

I'm not posting as much as usual because of many reasons, one of which is school. So what ever ideas and research I've done on my spare time that would interest people I tend to post them. Some of these subjects I spend weeks on (the Iapetus: Debunked thread took me a good 3 weeks and tonnes of reading) and get relatively little, trivial replies, so I asked myself "what's the point" and didn't continue with the thread. All that work and no decent responses, I'm use to it (I did get an applause though, but it means nothing unless people are willing to debate my topic). Also being on ATS for a long time, the topics get repeated, I ignore them now.

PODcasting, It's a great idea but there is too much emphasis on it. People with slower computers can't be bothered accessing them (people I know have slow machines and can't access PODcasts when they visit this site, takes 10 minutes for a download sometimes). I think there great, but people are slowed by them. The majority of the action now is PODcasts on ATS and most people don't use them.

Points... Don't bother me at all, in fact the total points I made on ATS since I joined was at least 10000. Never got into the WATS forum, probably never will.

Forums are getting slower and slower (except the UFO and Aliens one, that's a hot topic). Not as many people are posting anymore. Also ATS is too polarized and topics break down into all out brawls.

Take it as it is, those are my opinions and observations.


GoldEagle