Divide ATS's UFO Section into "The Factual" and "The Fanciful" - Thoughts?

Crakuer, your "example" was right on up to the last part where in you completely misunderstood our stance on the issue.

Our position is this, we keep ALL personal experiences out there in the main forum and if the membership deems them worthy of their time or enjoyable enough to continue to discuss then GREAT. Friendly conversation among millions of people about WHATEVER THEY WANT TO DISCUSS (within the bounds of the TAC) is why ATS exists.

If we were to do what some of you are suggesting, and segregate the "personal experiences" to a sub forum, then the one in a thousand (million?) who come here with something GENUINELY incredible would most likely take that as a snub or decide there is little hope of getting the answers or collaboration they hoped to get and give up.

The bottom line is we aren't here to filter ANYTHING but blatant hoaxes, and even then we generally get membership input before we drop the hammer. If you need an example of what a hoax is look for "Lake Erie UFO Images" or something like that.

Personal experiences that declare UP FRONT they have no proof, aren't trying to sell us a DVD or a book or anything else are WELCOME HERE. We realize we may have to tolerate a hundred ( thousand?) "stories" of otherwise fanciful imaginations in the hope of getting the ONE GOLDEN NUGGET.

That's the reality of the internet, that's also why we have the added feature of an ignore button. And to say that ANY thread in a UFO/ALIEN FORUM runs the risk of detracting from the credibility of that forum is to TRULY misunderstand the genre/topic.

There isn't a SINGLE CASE in all of "Ufology" that as rock solid evidence PERIOD to think that separating the forum is going to change that is just unrealistic IMHO.

While I see there is no real harm to allowing folks like Sleeper, TimeDrifter, Win 52 and OnTheDeck to spin yarns of aliens sex love, time travelling selves, Jesus rocking out at a Slayer concert with dead people, god predicting the China market crash etc, and I do understand the stance of letting them speak freely, they are, in my eyes, perpetrating hoaxes. Is there harm from this? I can't say. I can say that hoaxing gets punished and, at least in the case of TimeDrifter, I think the blatant lie about his visit and subsequent "contact" outside the IRS office in Montauk is a sign that the rest of the story is probably b.s. too. (for those not following that thread, OnTheDeck posted the timeline of events, one of which was the aforementioned IRS event and there is no IRS office in Montauk. When pressed for clarification on this, TimeDrifter continually claimed the IRS office is there and even gave the exit off the highway that was used to get there. He was off by 19 exits, adding 2 hours of drive time as a result)

In any event, as I said in the earlier post, I don't necessarily think shutting these threads down is the way to go but either a disclaimer of sorts or a section devoted to what has been deemed "probably malarky" might make sense.

I do think that these games people are playing in the various threads are for a purpose beyond having a little fun. Both Sleeper and TimeDrifter have books on their sites. I know one is free, not sure of the other but I do feel that by garnering attention and hits to their sites, they can then go to publishers and say "look at the attention my story is getting on ATS and check out the number of hits my website is getting. there's a demand for this book."

I'm all for free speech but I think there needs to be some control over the people who use the boards for motives that differ from the intended purpose. I used to be very active in a board that focused on a hooby of mine. I was one of a handful of members who contributed a hell of a lot of time (and money) in making the board the best site for information in that area and the owner of the site told me that he hit a trade show and when he mentioned who he was they all made comments about how the site was that crakeur site or something along those lines. Eventually we overshadowed the site and it wasn't good for his business.

I'd hate to see someone with an actual story opt out of dealing with ATS because it is viewed as a site where the inane gets more attention than the real deals.

and then there's this response which I'm sure violates some copywrite issues, no?

Originally posted by OnTheDeck
Also, the second book will include more detail, all of the message board exchanges here and elsewhere (Yes, Crakeur, you'll be famous You might even be nicknamed, "The Montauk Guy". Don't respond when people call you that. Just nod knowingly and maybe people will begin to think you're somehow affiliated. Cool.), a full, detailed timeline, Renato's friends and family's experiences with time travel and ETs, prophecies, missions/travels, our history - past and future - and car chases (OK, there won't be car chases).

bold emphasis by me