The ATS Issues Thread

Originally posted by gormly


I "insulted" the OP so shame on me....

No "shame", just a deleted post. Don't insult someone. The end.

This is a perfect example of what is wrong with this forum.
It happens CONSTANTLY, people telling others the end is neigh and prompting them to act accordingly. Knowing the fine line some of the people here walk on mentally, it's akin to a criminal act.

And I can't call them on it...

your idea of free speech really sucks.

There's a T&C. You might want to read it. Point out whatever you'd like. Discuss as you see fit. But do it in a T&C compliant manner without insult or ridicule, or run the risk of having your post deleted. It's not complicated. And it's your choice. If you have something to say that you want people to see, you'll learn how to do it in a way that's acceptable, or you won't.

reply to post by gormly



...heres the post of yours in question.

I've bolded and underlined the bits where I see the faults were - just so everyone else can be on the same page of what you're having an issue with.

Ok.. for those of you just jumping on the bandwagon.. this topic has been covered every week for the last two or so years on ATS.. each time it's more and more dire.. each time..

It doesn't happen.

The OP and the paranoid yehaws like him like to sow panic and fret amoung you.. the weak minded, they tell you over and over to stop being sheep all the while peddling their own brand of "fear" and since it isn't coming from the big bad oil company controlled MSM, you eat it up like the sheep they know you are...

When someone questions them, they pull out the bullet points...

"That's what Rome thought.."
"History repeats itself"

Over and over these bafoons talk and squak and nothing happens.
They selectively pick out headlines and jump and shout and say "SEE?? I TOLD you so"

"Get yer gun and start target shooting"
"Start learning to grown tomatoes in your NYC apartment"
"Get some MRE's stocked up folks"

Then dozens of you chime in with a wink and a nod to tell us how they "are not going to get my gun" and how "I can grow beets on my potty seat"

I ask...why don't you gaggle of brain cell challendged people just start your own website called endoftheworldforthenutjobs.com ??


The OP and people like him are the threat....not the economy, or anything else.. it's people like him. In their tremendously screwed up minds, a little adversity creates panic and that panic causes the need for them to be vindicated or feel lost in mental illness, the more people they can get to say "Thanks OP, I will start to stock my basement" the more they feel "normal"


You think the world is ending because the stock market is "crashing"
Go to the mall on a saturday afternoon, go to the supermarket.
Go to the Movies this Friday night, go toi a TGIF fridays for dinner..

If no one is there with you, go ahead, be my guest.. panic.
Otherwise when you run into the normal crowds.. thank me for not letting you fall into this idiotic panic trap.

I dont care what the policy is here.. the OP is a jerk.. ATS should not let this crap go, it is not a conspiracy theory and has nothing to do with anythng except this persons desire to see people PANIC.

This is a kin to shouting FIRE in a theatre and should NOT BE ALLOWED.
Discussing whats happening in the country is fine, debationg is fine.. telling people the world will end is NOT ACCEPTABLE!

Guys like the OP make me SICK TO MY STOMACH.


I am F***** tired of this BS, it needs to STOP you are hurting people.
People will spend savings on MRE's, purifiers, guns and plastic jugs of water and endless rolls of duct tape.
They will stress and frighten their families. The effects on some of the weaker minded will be HUGE.

STOP DOING THIS - YOU ARE CAUSING THE VERY PANIC YOU ARE PREDICTING.

...right then...

...so, what we have there is a rather expansive list of insults - both personal to the OP and to others as a collective, we have censor circumvention...knowingly so with your "I don't care what the rules are..." bit.

Yet you call it Free Speech.

You think it was somehow unjustified that it was removed by an 'overzealous Moderator.

While I can understand the frustration...what I will not understand nor accept is when that frustration is put in the way you did above.

"Its not what you say its how you say it"

Originally posted by hsur2112
Ok, I am not one to complain, in fact I do very little of it...especially when it comes to the decisions of staff and owners, I have only the highest respect for them. But I'm really curious about this and need some clarity.

(deleted specifics of threads closed)

...and I think I'm missing the point on how this is related to those threads. IMO these were fun little games that contributed to the whole point of BTS....to deny boredom. And if they didn't belong in chit-chat then maybe they could have been moved to games or jokes.

I'd like a little more feedback about these also, as I see them the same way Rush does.

I never participated in "Kiss or Kill" but "Guilty/Not guilty" was always good for a laugh during a downtime on ATS.

These, along with "3 word story" and "Word Game" threads, provide a bit of light-hearted, humorous, interaction between ATS/BTS members who might butt heads on more serious threads. In my opinion, it is immensely helpful to find myself laughing uproariously at a "Guilty/Not guilty?" question posted by someone who has just pushed all my buttons in a "Conspiracies in Medicine" thread, or whatever the case is.

They are also a good way for shyer members to begin to participate in the more social BTS scene, since they don't require direct interaction in the same way that, for example, DATS (along with Fight Club Pub here at ATS, and other similar one-thread tension-relief places) do. It is possible to start to get to know people obliquely in question-and-answer threads, or word game threads, which is much less scary for some newcomers (like me, but I doubt I'm completely unique here).

If the concern was with the content of the thread perhaps veering off into the unacceptable (as I know there has been some concern about sexually explicit talk in chat recently, for example), perhaps just a mod warning would be appropriate?

Whatever is decided is okay, and I promise I won't start screaming "censorship"

I just wanted to let admin know how I saw those threads, as their benefit to the community might not be clear to everyone.

Thanks for keeping ATS/BTS up and safe

adb

reply to post by Heike


0k i think we are getting somewhere.

The whole Blossom thing will create contrasting opinion forever as things of this type tend to. It would be impossible probably to prove that she was deliberately misleading people.

Most of us have had odd experiences. I have the upmost respect for anyone who has had an occult, esoteric or simply odd experience and has the cahones (?) to share this in forum of this type. Sometimes I can realistically understand what people are describing because I can relate it to experiences that I have had, other times not.

Just as in court, many people get let off due to lack of evidence and I am not for one second suggesting that we begin witch hunting honest posters out of the forum.

A purely subjective entity can generally not be proved in an objective manner but as with the example above, the poster can be proved to be lying using empirical evidence. Then and only then can a warn/ban scenario be put into place.

Not sure if this is the place for this so sorry ahead of time.

I have recently been wondering if there is some way to petition a member to be banned? Now I know as a lowly member of ATS it really isn't my place to say who goes and who stays. Although I feel (and I don't think I am alone) that certain members just drag this site through the mud with there rantings and finger pointing. Would it be possible to have some form of a petition to have a member banned or is this way out of my league.

reply to post by hILB3rT


Don't do that. Anytime you see a T&C violation, please use the Alert button that appears at the bottom of every post. Or send a Complaint/Suggestion from the Member Center. We don't run a popularity contest. The only thing that will get someone permabanned is a repeated abuse of the T&C with no willingness to modify the inappropriate habits.

reply to post by yeahright


Ok, I kind of thought this would be the response. The person I bring this against is trolling multiple threads and there seems to be no end to it. I have never actually seen this person present anything of value and is mostly finger pointing. I guess I will just have to deal with it.

thank you

MY question is to skeptic overlord,

Dear skeptic overlord you gave me two warnings and a warning that a third would ban me temporarily,

I was just wondering, how long are my two warnings valid, is there a time period, like time off for good behavior?

I am trying to behave.

Yours truly, Jackie



I was just trying to be funny, not attack anyone.

[edit on 113131p://bFriday2008 by Stormdancer777]

Question.....

Why doesn't "foe" status go away when a member is banned?

The "members", who were all banned within hours of signing up BTW, all listed me as a "foe" and I believe they are all the same person. Does this just stick even though they are banned and all they did was troll?

reply to post by skeptic1

reply to post by NGC2736


No...what bothered me was the fact that all of those seem to be the same person. Register, add foes, post some BS on a thread, run away, get banned. And, do it all over again....different name, different day, same MO.

Don't people have real lives and better things to do with their time??

reply to post by skeptic1

LOL...I was coming here to post the same thing! One seems to have the same nick as another "legit" poster.

It is annoying ENOUGH to get emailed everytime we are "foed" but it is twice as annoying when they are bogus members.

Originally posted by Stormdancer777
MY question is to skeptic overlord,

Dear skeptic overlord you gave me two warnings and a warning that a third would ban me temporarily,

I was just wondering, how long are my two warnings valid, is there a time period, like time off for good behavior?

I am trying to behave.

Yours truly, Jackie

I was just trying to be funny, not attack anyone.

[edit on 113131p://bFriday2008 by Stormdancer777]

actually any mod can answer this I guess

reply to post by skeptic1


I'm jealous skeptic1, they only got me 3x. So unfair. lmao

Rush

reply to post by alien


ATS is complicit in allowing people to sow panic and hysteria, and routinely hushes anyone who doesn't jump on the band wagon. I realize most of the profit from the traffic from this site comes from those who enjoy embracing the panic, but seriously, this is ridiculous.

I've seen posts 10x worse and people telling me I'm a idiot because I don't believe the end is nigh. They never get deleted. But let anyone not towing the doom line to say something mildly offensive....BAM, deleted.

reply to post by Cedik

Originally posted by Cedik
Sometimes I think that people do not understand the implications of their statements and make them to improve their rating or simply get some attention.

I think you are correct regarding the observation of this behavior. Making a thread that is as simple as abortion is right or wrong and not starting the thread with a reasonable thought out supportive line of logic makes for poor thread formation.

The issue of point generation allows for a simple glance for what appears to be seniority or content, but in truth, with all the bunk threads and sections that are appearing on ATS, that number means nothing at all.

Everyones voice here is valid, but not everyones voice is heard. Bunk threads are mucking up the system. Rewriting, and rehashing used to be something that ATS consolidated. Im not sure whats happening now.

Originally posted by Cedik
What does annoy me is that any thread which takes into account ATS actions is dumped into this megathread (or whatever).

The action by ATS of calling them out on a particular issue is dealt with on a per case basis. Sometimes, the thread is moved, other times its closed.
Light a fire where a fire needs to be lit, and dont light one, merely because you like doing it or flaming others. And Im sure, that there are many that agree, there are trouble makers abound within these forums, with myself, having been known to get tangled up or starting one my own self.

But all in all, I have seen prudent action and caution in this matter.
From leer, to privacy. Its been handled in a matter of what is as it is.
And if one has an issue with it, well HERE we are. In the issues thread, which I personally thing was a great thread line.

Put yourself in the site owner or mod seat. Try to maintain quality threads without censoring, and when things do get out of hand, exercise caution in the handling of the matter and explain why things were done the way they were...which, IMO has been done.

Peace



[edit on 17-10-2008 by HIFIGUY]

Originally posted by LowLevelMason
reply to post by alien

 

ATS is complicit in allowing people to sow panic and hysteria, and routinely hushes anyone who doesn't jump on the band wagon. I realize most of the profit from the traffic from this site comes from those who enjoy embracing the panic, but seriously, this is ridiculous.

I've seen posts 10x worse and people telling me I'm a idiot because I don't believe the end is nigh. They never get deleted. But let anyone not towing the doom line to say something mildly offensive....BAM, deleted.

...care to Alert us when you see each infraction? Given we can't be everywhere at once.

Granted we can't catch 'em all...and granted also what YOU personally think is unacceptable a Staff Member may not see that way. Though if people are calling you an idiot etc I'd want to know about it - having *pinged* people many times for doing exactly that.

So...theres the offer and the advice: Alert them.

Much like other Members alerted in regards to the post I addressed above.

You say we routinely hush people who don't jump on the bandwagon?
No - we routinely hush people who can't make their point without insulting others. Perhaps you missed that bit?

You realise most of the profit from the traffic of this site comes from enjoy embracing the panic? Oh yes...had a peak at the Income Stats for the site have you? Are you privy to them are you? Are you the sites Accounts Manager to be able to make such a claim...or is that claim something not based in reality but in your own perception??

Care to back up that claim at all??? Would love to see you show it. If you can't - which I'm laying dollars to donuts you can't - then your claim has NO basis whatsoever so why did you make it?


Peace.

I didn't really want to make a new thread about this (unless I'm asked to as a result of this post) but is there anywhere on the site I can see site statistitics in regards to its users? What I'd like to know is how many members we have from different countries (like how many members from the UK , how many from Australia ect ect) , and the average age of members (if there is an average). Can anyone help with this info? I'm really curious.

I had just finished making a thread when I hit post topic, in my clumsiness, I had forgotten to put the title and erased the whole thing. Stupid Time Anyway what I'm suggesting is it would be extremely helpful if the written work was cached in the case of unofficial submission. I will retype the thread sometime with no errors hopefully.

Thanks in advance.