**ALL MEMBERS** A REMINDER OF WHY WE ARE HERE AND HOW TO ACT.

I think the issue below has got out of hand again in our beloved UFO/Aliens Forum. The absolute REQUIREMENT for civility is slipping and that's not acceptable. The following is a post I made in a thread that was particularly horrid and I feel it's an important enough issue to bring it to everyone's attention.

I have removed the quoted Member's name because I am not trying to pick on any single member, our community has forgotten what civil discourse is and the desire is to bring us ALL back to that.

It is so easy for someone to come on here and post a "story" and get everyone so riled up, lol. Maybe that's why they do it. ATS has a lot of people out there that like nothing better than to see a bunch of members here fall over themselves concerning some ridicules story that they themselves, or their "buddies" posted.

It goes something like this:

"Hey (insert buddy name here) go look at what I just posted over at ATS, hee hee. Lets watch them make fools of themselves"

While there may be a few bored and boring individuals "out there" who would do something that stupid, it doesn't matter. This sort of paranoia, and yes it IS paranoia, that we may look foolish for allowing someone to use the forum for exactly what it was created for is really wearing me out.

WHO, exactly will be "laughing" in your example above? WHY would we care that people like that are laughing at us? If a situation like the one described above comes about it won't take long for it to be found out and the hoaxer banned, etc...

On the other hand, IF there is truth to the story (NO matter how hard it is for some to believe) using the above criteria, we would never find out. It is the policy of this site that it's worth slogging through and exposing a thousand hoaxes to get ONE AMAZING, LIFE CHANGING FACT.

I've had to restate the "rules of engagement" a few times in the past and I had hoped and believed we were past this level of immaturity as a community but after reviewing this thread I see we are not.

When someone comes to ATS with an experience or a "story" to tell they WILL RECEIVE THE COURTESY AND THE ABILITY TO SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCE WITHOUT BEING ACCUSED OF HOAXING, CALLED A LIAR, RUDELY INTERROGATED, BADGERED OR ILL TREATED IN ANY WAY.

If after the ALL THE DETAILS are presented the vast majority of the Membership feel the story/experience is a hoax it will be addressed accordingly.

I will say however that anyone who expects to come to ATS and present an extraordinary story without getting politely questioned and asked for supporting details to bolster the claim has certainly come to the wrong forum.

This is a two way street, the skeptics must be polite and the presenters/true believers must have thick enough skin for discussion.

We have established a new policy that the "[HOAX]" tag will only be applied by one of the three owners of this site going forward. The reason for that should be obvious and we hope it will avoid the confusion we saw in this thread.

I want to reiterate, if you can't add to the discussion, DON'T POST, if all you have to add is your opinion that the OP is liar and a hoaxer BEFORE all the details have been presented DON'T POST.

Also, if you can't take the "heat" of courteous questions, challenges and the logical demand for supporting details to your story, DON'T POST it.

Springer...

Excellent post Springer.

While I wasn't a participant in that thread, I did watch it get out of hand. I too have noticed this trend lately in a lot of threads here at ATS. It is truly disheartening to me when I see this happen. I hope very sincerely that people will read this and take it to heart. The last thing on earth I ever want to see is for ATS to fall into the pit of so many other communities online.

I personally hold ATS to a very high standard, and thus treat it accordingly.

Thanks Springer,

Hopefully this will help remind us members to approach subjects offered up for our perusal with a little more patience and courtesy, and to give a story time to truly reveal its truth or falsehood instead of immeadiately bludgeoning it to death with maniacal one upmanship and the ever over used premature HOAX hammer.

Springer,
Thank you for leading. If you didn't notice, and I doubt you will until I tell you, and I hope you don't mind, I quoted your post in my signature. I feel that says it all.

I've been here for a couple of years and I'm the guy who READS more than he POSTS. I think if everyone did that, there would be more quality and not so much quantity. Lately, I have been posting more and it's usually to admonish posters for not having, what I call, class in posting. It's not my job to do so, but, sometimes I find the flak so pointless and distracting from the Original Post, I am compelled to say "Foul!" I want to stop doing this but it's running rampant all over the board. Please understand. I don't want to be labeled Miss Manners or anything, but, Mom taught me how to be polite. I'm a big, bald, scary-looking guy and manners always go farther than threats and intimidation. Calm, logical discussion is a blessing here at ATS. It happens. I've seen and read such unbelievable things here and didn't post because I couldn't advance the thread or discussion. I didn't feel obligated to post "B.S. man!" just because I thought it was. I felt that my NOT-POSTING would say enough. Am I wrong here? Unless you have direct facts to oppose a position, or you are inquiring as to receive MORE information to deduce your suspitions, wouldn't it be better to just shut up? Keep reading until there IS something you can add to the subject? Is that wrong? Because there are SO many members and a couple of mods, who I swear, are posting for stars and points and bar length, more than to establish fact from supposition.

Well, maybe my post is just a mini-rant. I just get sick of reading between the attacks.

My $.02

Cuhail

Thank you so much Springer. The TLH thread is by no means the only thread with such prolific bashing and ridicule. It has occured on too many occasions to even count. It's more often than not the same instigators who rifle up and down the page on every other thread, insult the OP or anyone trying to discuss the POSSIBILITIES of something real, usually by infering they're delusional or questioning their intelligence or integrity.

Hopefully, people won't have to continue to be worried of the intimidation and ridicule to discuss things that they have experienced.

Thanks again for putting this up-Hopefully this will be made a permanent sticky as to promote change.

Originally posted by Springer
I want to reiterate, if you can't add to the discussion, DON'T POST, if all you have to add is your opinion that the OP is liar and a hoaxer BEFORE all the details have been presented DON'T POST.

Delete, delete, delete! Because they still post and post and post...


UFO's over house, son scared to play in the backyard
Displaying page 1 page of 47 posts in this thread authored by XXXXXX.

Honest to goodness, 3 pages! The spamming of one posters ramblings really spoiled it for me and personally I think they should have had one of those 3 day post bans when they didnt stop. But thats just me... never make me a mod.

Well, I think that if some of the people were not thinking on that thread that perhaps it should start, so I agree. Of course there were questions to begin with on how it was explained and on who was doing what in that thread. After awhile, soon I suppose many people (well, maybe myself) started ignoring what was being posted because still the cons and pros of posting about the picture seem to seesaw back and forth on whether the picture was legitimate or not concerning how the son did not want to play in the back yard anymore and everything else that was mentioned on that thread.

My only thought going on at the time was placing myself in the situation and how I may react being that children can preceive some things in the end than adults can do learning to be bias and prejudice in life due to life experiences that may have happened to them in the Past.

I also think that most posters should at least attempt to place theirselves in the situation that is being described first and then thinking on how to best get to the facts and how best to deal with the information.

I hope that fellow gals and guys posters learn that all things can not be so readily clear sometimes in the first place and that everyone here is not also going to post all details at first because it is a new strange experience everytime the page "Aliens and UFOs" are looked at.

At least all we have is the fact that most of us are assuming in the first place that all posters are Human to begin with. While I certainly hope that it is the case again being on this forum, that at least if anyone did not think of all the possibilities to begin with, then at least now some other posters will also consider that -- we only suspect that all posters will be human here. It stands to reason, but then again, who actually knows?

Ya, know, just sometimes I like to think that I am also a spacealien but at least I know I am just a stuckie on this Planet and it seems that I am not going out in SpaceTime any time soon. That all may change, so a little flexibility may have to be considered.

I certainly hope that you see my problems with this and respond in kind on this community action spacetime spacealien UFO part of the forum.

Thank you for your time,
G'Day!~

O.K. I understand keeping an open mind, and everyone wants to say we have to give EVERYONE (the space serpent believers, the hollow planet believers, the planet x believers, the john lear believers, the reptile illuminati believers, the people who claim to have been abducted, the people who can tell us how aliens have sex and reproduce, the people who claim there are underground bases where aliens eat babies (lol) etc) I understand giving everyone the benefit of a doubt, believe me.

But here's my point, take it with a grain of salt. All you people say we need to treat every poster as if they are genuine, and what they say is 100% unless proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be either a hoax or a misunderstanding. That simply "having a bad feeling" or a "gut feeling" or the like is not ground for questioning the specifics of any persons post. BUT, come on, on posts that have nothing but a story, no evidence, NOTHING to investigate, we have to judge solely on the post itself, do we not? There is no evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt either way, so those who choose to believe do, and those us us who choose the side of logic and reason can only give you our opinions (as there are no facts to research in most of the outlandish posts on here) In this case, "having a gut feeling" is no different than just coming on here and posting a story about lights you saw in the sky or playgrounds your kid's scared to play on. With posts like that, there is often nothing empirical to discuss or investigate, so you HAVE to go with your gut feeling.

It's like screaming rape and coming up with the Duke lacrosse case for crying out loud. Now, I don't believe those of us that want a little more common sense, evidence, and data are being rude in any way. If somebody had an experience they will stick it out, plain and simple. If we have to start handling people with kid gloves then nothing will get done. Civility is one thing, but blind gullibility is another.

The reason why aliens and ufos are not taken seriously is some of the outlandish claims that have no supporting evidence, and the huge amount of gullible people willing to swallow anything because they want to believe. It harms us all.

remember, take what I say with a grain of salt, it may come across harsh in the cold environment of the internet.

[edit on 22-8-2007 by IgnoreTheFacts]

Thanks Springer.

I also, think it's important to keep the thread on topic. Of course drifting off course is inevitable on most subjects. I think that's fine, but as long as it's directly related to a topic. I recently posted a Thread on John Lear's theories. I had to start the thread by saying:

I've just recently been doing some researching on John Lear and his theories. If you've come here to discredit John Lear, please refrain. Everyone can and should state their opinion, but only in relation to the thread and the thread has nothing to do with the man. This is not a discussion about John, it's a philosophical discussion in regards to his theories.

It's a shame when you can't simply open up with what's on your mind and you have to imply simple guidelines that people with any courtesy what-so-ever should already follow. It still didn't work though. LMAO.

reply to post by tyranny22

I've just recently been doing some researching on John Lear and his theories. If you've come here to discredit John Lear, please refrain. Everyone can and should state their opinion, but only in relation to the thread and the thread has nothing to do with the man. This is not a discussion about John, it's a philosophical discussion in regards to his theories.

Well, with the above disclaimer anyone who disagrees with his "moon" ideas could be considered trying to discredit him, so where do you draw the line? The thread has nothing to do with the man, but his ideas, if someone gets on there and says there is not a soul machine on the moon, no hanging gardens, no hollow moon, etc, is not disagreeing with the man who put it out there?

Originally posted by IgnoreTheFacts
O.K. I understand keeping an open mind, and everyone wants to say we have to give EVERYONE (the space serpent believers, the hollow planet believers, the planet x believers, the john lear believers, the reptile illuminati believers, the people who claim to have been abducted, the people who can tell us how aliens have sex and reproduce, the people who claim there are underground bases where aliens eat babies (lol) etc) I understand giving everyone the benefit of a doubt, believe me.

Yes and No.

Yes to allowing all those lumped-together people the ability to present all they have to offer before OPPOSING them. If you have information to the contrary, it's welcome. If you have an opinion on his belief? I'm sure you can respectfully voice that opinion. But ridicule? Not acceptable in ATS. Period. The poster has a choice. Bring thier information to the table and defend it with logic and intellegence, or, don't. Regardless of the different levels of personal intellegence each member has, the Original Poster should be treated as a fellow member of ATS and as a person.

No to the fact that if you don't believe the poster, you have no right to call him a liar, hoax, etc; until all of the facts are presented. If you don't have information to directly refute any claim here, don't post. Opinions add up to nothing in a post delivering a recounting. Questions regarding clarification is expected. But don't post to see your words on the screen. It's a waste of the OPs time and the readers behind you. Why belittle a poster? Does it add to the debate? There are dis-info agents on ATS and I swear they have a key on thier keyboards that says "hoax" and it's quickly becoming a worn-out key.

Like I've read ssssoooooo many times here: Attack the info, not the poster.

Peace.
Cuhail

[edit on 8/22/2007 by Cuhail]

[edit on 8/22/2007 by Cuhail]

reply to post by IgnoreTheFacts


Sorry, in an attempt to further the discussion, I've only taken it off course.

I understand your questioning, and do agree with you that there is a fine line in disucssing things that correspond with a topic.

But, in this instance I fully explained in the opening paragraphs of the thread that I would be assuming all John's theories to be true and it was a fully philosophical question of "Do you really want to know?". Not a question of "Do you agree with this man?" or "Do you question the credentials of this man?"

Back to the topic at hand:

I'm glad we have owner/moderators here on ATS who're willing to go the extra mile. When someone is able to discover hoaxes and false stories posted by members of other sites, it's quite encouraging to us all.

[edit on 22-8-2007 by tyranny22]

Springer, Im big enough to admit "guilty as charged" I got sucked into another members rants on the TL thread and strayed from the topic under discussion. Your points are well taken and will be adheared to by myself going forward. I am like many here and only wish to have good debates and civil disagreements as well as maybe finding some answers along the way. Pride is a kicker in the Arse isnt it and sometimes I get very POed when someone calls me out. Should have taken the high road and said "sticks and stones." anyway whats done is done so moving on we will.

Take care

Thank you Springer for an excellent and timely post. The UFO forum quite rightly deserves this wake-up call. For some time now, the mere thought of participating was far outweighed by the thought of the hopelessness of it.

I was just reading the thread "UFO state of emergency" but an hour ago and was frankly appalled by the viper pit of disdain--and that is the only way to describe it--that several members subjected the OP to. It was uncivil to say the least, and the appropriate word is nearer grotesque. And all the more surprising that it came from long-time members, who should know better.

And the worst part of it was, they could have simply tested the OP's proposition themselves at their local town hall and reported back their findings. Instead, they sat behind their keyboards, doing nothing, and crucified the guy.



[edit on 22-8-2007 by gottago]

Hi,

Being a new member here, I thought this sort of communication with each other was normal. I am happy to find out, it is not... It does not look very tempting to post, though
On the other hand, I can understand why people are getting upset, because there have been several hoaxes in the past, apparantly, and also "dooms day" predictions, but nothing ever happens...

cc

reply to post by ClickClack


Welcome to ATS!!! By the way, I'm a Railfan, so, I'm digging the screen name!

I'll tell ya what about all the hoaxes we've had. Not one of them was debunked because one person yelled at another or belittled them or insulted them. Every hoax solved was done so by hard work and a butt-load of research on the part of dedicated members who love ATS for what it is. A group of scared, intellegent people. So scared they do all sorts of searches and research and digging because it makes them feel like they can maybe do something about that. I applaud the hard workers and the scared people who come here and bare their souls to understand what the heck they saw or heard or read. It takes far more cahones to stand up and say "I saw something I don't understand" than "Man, you are nuts, buddy, take it to the gullible!" I will read a potential hoax thread and not say a word. I don't have the patience and skill to research so thoroughly. But I know the guy asking serious questions will reap a response worth reading. I know the guy throwing around names isn't worth the time I spent shaking my head at his post.
There are smart people here. Recognize them. They aren't so hard to spot. Some are new, some have been here for a long time. You'll meet them in your reading. Don't be afraid to post what you see as the truth, but, be prepared to answer questions. Be polite. Be articulate. Be thoughtful. You'll gain respect and an ear or two. Be a troll and I'll be sure to run all Irish on ya. But interact just the same and be true to yourself.

I feel so much better about all this than I did this morning. I was flippin bugged.

Peace all!
Cuhail

lol nah, its not that bad

ive seen worse (if u been around here awhile, u will have seen it too)

its a real shame u gotta post a warning tho, a real shame indeed.

But, this is the price of democracy and international forum...you get all types... it still doesnt excuse rude behavior however.

i cant recall a thread more than 3 pages long without a Mod warning in it about someone doing something

It does show us great insights to human nature tho eh?

Just cuz im downplaying it, dont take that the wrong way tho.

I agree 100% with Springers reminders.
As ive tried my best to uphold them and remind other members to uphold them also. (no ones perfect tho)

Something we need a little more of, i believe. Cooperation!

Originally posted by Cuhail
I'll tell ya what about all the hoaxes we've had. Not one of them was debunked because one person yelled at another or belittled them or insulted them. Every hoax solved was done so by hard work and a butt-load of research on the part of dedicated members who love ATS for what it is.

Not true. I personally judged 95% of them as hoaxes at my initial contact. No hard work, or digging, no butt-loads of research.

I find most of them so transparent its boring.

How's that for scary?

Very well put ..Springer I like to post that "fact" and not the "fiction".
were ever possible ..

reply to post by Cuhail


Well put! I'm nominating you for the next Moderator induction. Springer, please take note (I'm sure he already has).

Also, I second the motion on the Paris execution.

reply to post by MrPenny


The keyword being: Judged ... not proved.