Rebuttal In Defiance Of The GFL

I really think the only fair alternative is the Comic Relief section.... It doesn't censor the post or delete information or quell the free exchange of ideas.... it just moves the data to the most appropriate bucket. In this case the BS bucket and then once in there the normal rules of decorum should not apply so that people can vent their frustrations at the posters who "contribute" garbage. It's fair. There is nothing wrong with telling some one their idea is total BS.... it's only politically correct not too. And I think that ATS is over-doing it a bit in the politically correct decorum rules. This would provide a place where we can MOCK those posts that are obviously nonsense and completely worthy of being mocked.


-Euclid

reply to post by InfaRedMan


Way to go! Keep us the great work!

Is there a way to treat the ATS like a democracy? We can already flag threads that we enjoy; why can't we vote to remove threads that we don't. Each and every person could have a voice and ever vote would count. There could be "Flags" for good threads and "Flops" for bad threads. If a thread receives more "flops" than "flags" in a predefined time period then the thread will be moved to a secondary category.

I really wonder if the term censorship can apply to an individual thread. Try to think of a thread like a small group of people you invite into your home to have a discussion with. Anyone can show up and give their opinions, but it is my right to kick their tush out the door if they cause trouble.

Just a thought. I am fairly new to ATS, but love the heck out of this place. Keep up the great work!

I believe there is a motive behind all the troll/bogus/nonsense threads.

1. to totally make the ufo subject look fabricated and a bunch of nonsense to the ordinary person

2. and more importantly to bog down the really good threads that maybe some would like to deter attention from, there are a few gem threads each week and they are gone (page 2,3)before you know it with alot of the bs threads above them.

reply to post by euclid


who decides whats nonsense and whats not?

we dont have to all agree on everything, there are people who come here who genuinley believe they have seen something out of the ordinary is it right to condem them too for misinterpreting something or is it better counter their claim with reason and logic if no evidence can be found either for or against

what if its someone with a mental illness who genuinley believes what they are posting? its quite possible alittle logic may help to calm them if the claim was refuted properly.

truth is stranger than fiction and none of us here truley understands everything that is going on in the world.

What about creating a "If you read this, your IQ is 25+ your age" forum. Then dump this crap in there and let us cuss these little 6th graders out if we want to go and read it. If we could smack em once, I would like that too.

Easy we do. With the flag and flop like the post above mentions. If it gets flags it stays where it is.... if it gets flops it ends up in a temporary bucket so a moderator can put it into the proper bucket i.e. -gray area, skunk works, comic relief. Simple..... Well actually not too simple. But I should add that it would need to be dynamic so that if some thread becomes more flagged it could be pulled out of the BS buckets.

The simplicity of implementing it depends upon the database architecture and the codebase of the BBS. So unless ATS initial DB and application design was architected to use a very modular developement workflow they may some work to do. But just my guess from 13 years as an information systems architect..... It would be something that should take about a month to implement at worst and 2 weeks at best; and that is if they have the optimum architecture. If it is something other than what I think it is, or should be, then it would take longer.

-Euclid

Originally posted by Demandred
reply to post by euclid

 

who decides whats nonsense and whats not?

we dont have to all agree on everything, there are people who come here who genuinley believe they have seen something out of the ordinary is it right to condem them too for misinterpreting something or is it better counter their claim with reason and logic if no evidence can be found either for or against

what if its someone with a mental illness who genuinley believes what they are posting? its quite possible alittle logic may help to calm them if the claim was refuted properly.

truth is stranger than fiction and none of us here truley understands everything that is going on in the world.

[edit on 6-8-2008 by euclid]

reply to post by euclid


probably one of the better ideas, and i think it would seriously begin to raise the quality of ATS. latley its been a little annoying with some of the things ive been reading a flop button would have been very handy.

the more i think about it the more i like it

what happens if it gets an even amount of flags and flops?

[edit on 6-8-2008 by Demandred]

reply to post by fatdeeman


Hi fatdeeman,

I was blown away by your very eloquent post! I couldn't have made those points any more clearer myself. I actually read it twice - finding myself constantly nodding my head and giggling going "yep.....yep....yep".

Thankyou for your quality contribution. It is very much appreciated!

IRM

Originally posted by internos
Too bad that an interstellar organization like the Galactical federation of light is UNABLE to provide us some proof of their existence: no, they do prefer to share their message with some girl who makes Reiki.

"commander, we are approaching Earth, what now?: a mass landing on all the capitols?"

"mnaahhh: lets contact this girl, she will open the doors on this unknown world: she will speak for us because despite we are the galactic federation of light, we are unable to communicate with them, we need to channel someone, and this person is SPECIAL: yes, let's do so: all the rest of mankind will wait"

Because she's special, right? While we are a bunch of mere mortals, we have to wait the announcement of this person, of the new Messiah. Is this correct?

OMG! Internos!

I spilled my coffee everywhere... my screen is a mess! That's the funniest thing I've read in a while. A chuckle is always a great way to start my day! Thank you for what is actually a very insightful post.

And hell yeah, ain't it kinda funny indeed. I went to that Reiki website you posted on page one. At least she has some taste in web design... simple but effective...

Perhaps she channeled the HTML & CSS onto the page as well. Surely a minor task after becoming a conduit for the Galactic Federation of Light! Wonders will never cease!

Awesome Post Internos (as always)

IRM




Edit To Add:

reply to post by Fulcrum29


Fulcrum, I completely agree with everything you have said! Thank you for a valuable contribution to the thread.


Though I would love to reply to you all, I am at work now and very busy for a little while... cleaning coffee off my screen for one... lol ... but I will be back later. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your fantastic thoughts and contributions to the thread. Your all valuable in your own way! I feel like we've made a bit of headway here in the last 24 hours and all thanks to you guys n gals!

All the best and speak to you all later! x

IRM

[edit on 6/8/08 by InfaRedMan]

I've also starred this thread. While I do not favor censorship, I believe, like several other posters, that GFL and others like it, do serious harm to the study of UFOs. I'm not convinced that this is not another case of government disinformation to discredit those that believe that we may have been visited. Every time one of these hoaxes (let's call it what it is) is perpetrated, and fails to come true, the government and the MSM points to it, and uses to "prove" that UFO's "don't exist".

To understand the Galactic Federation of Light, click on the link just below -
GFL money generation site.

Not hard to understand really. It is an attempt to start a pseudo-religion and use it to generate an income. Follow the money is not a dumb old adage, but is a wise saying. Simply follow the money to understand this.

Click on some of the areas of that site and you will find things to buy on nearly every page. They also are trying to attract people who feel left out -
Source page from GFL Site.

Starseeds are individuals who feel excitement and longing upon learning that they might have originated from another world. They experience the aloneness and separateness that is the human condition, but also have the sense of being foreigners on this planet. They find the behavior and motives of our society puzzling and illogical.

They are forming a type of church by making people feel as though they are contributing to something important, that they have special knowledge or powers and by giving them a community.
Source from GFL Site.

PAGs are spiritually committed defenders of the Earth's environment (Gaia's physical essence). They are to be Mother Earth's informed and trusted champions...
...We are on the edge of developing a new era of spirituality.
... Planetary Activation Groups are the vehicle to assist Earth's humanity during this period of consciousness transformation.

It is an old familiar game that has played out many times in the past. Find peoples weaknesses, exploit them and enjoy a life of leisure on the generated income.

The problem your going to have in the premise of this thread is those who have been duped see themselves as victims of some sort of discrimination when in fact they have already been victimized and in essence brainwashed.

These groups always seem to prey on the young and in particular young adults unprepared emotionally. They seek out insecure people who feel helpless and left out and exploit their pocket books. They make them feel like the money they spend on books, tapes, pins, shirts or whatever is being peddled is well spent as they are doing an important service for humanity justifying the expense.

As to the other - I just saw a UFO shine a beam on Obama's head and it revealed to me a giant mothership will be here any minute - threads, they will probably continue to be a fact of life. To have an open forum you can not restrict things to only what one group of people want to see as opposed to others. It is like Cable TV in that nobody is forced to read any thread and can simply not click on that channel. Instead click the ones you are interested in. People are always hollering for freedom of speech as long as it is their speech and censor the things they don't agree with.

Educate people with your posts about this nonsense, but don't become a lynch mob who wants to control the board by censoring the things you don't want to read. These threads are not like a hoax that can be identified, but they can be ignored quite easily. Don't post in them, ignore them and they will go away, just like my Wifes cats do

Splitting hairs (and points of view ) as to what is (sponge ) 'worthy' SIMPLY won't work.

There will ALWAYS be ridiculous claims no matter what the standard.

Just because YOU find some of these claims ridiculous, doesn't mean, people who do things like channel, have visions, etc. don't see you as the cerebral squares you are vis-a-vis this outlandish area.

It doesn't mean their inquiries are bogus, it doesn't mean they aren't engaged in pursuits of knowledge comparable to yours. They're just unorthodox.

It will just be blatant censorship, or heavy handed moderation. Far worse, far more damaging to ATS. It's a ridiculous burden to heap on the moderators.

The problem it would seem comes in when you take yourself too seriously, this website too seriously...

The entire subject too seriously...

I guess one can only say it reflects an inflated sense of ego.

If you're one tenth of the investigator you claim to be, if no one can slip anything by you (I guess cuz you have super powers or something ), you don't think you're going to have the OP scoped in the first paragraph?

You don't think time will expose the ultimate nature of the claim?

Here is a novel concept...

Use that 'Back' key and find a thread worthy of your egoness.



Sorry guys... it's a strange... strange world. No matter how thick your rose colored glasses.

totally agree op...we must have DUMB written across or foreheads,
i'm sure theres been cults like these,yes cults thats what i said,,for many years .i remember a couple of theses cults even commiting mass suicide ,
so its not to be sniffed at,
so the GLF wont be the first and wont be the last we hear of them,
the only thing we can do is wait to the stated date in october see it come ,see it go..IF,, and thats a big if, something happens on that date i will be the first to eat humble pie...
untill then prove me wrong GLF!!

ps
folks if you want to see real accounts,and great footage please check out the documentary thread on the alien and ufo board,,,
right behind you on this one poster!!!

I had an idea which would require software modification to implement but it would improve this site, so here the idea is offered freely. There should be rings of verity. People of ranked verity would initiate others into those rings. A user mod would be allowed to post only within his highest ring or lower. Meaning that wilder less constrained postings would be for the most part be done in the lower rings. If someone of higer verity wanted to be wild they could post in the lower rings.

The benefit is that the higher the ring the more exclusive and vetted the contributors would be. There would be a very pure and committed ring at the top. The number of contributers would be fewer, but aspiration would inspire others to be more compliant with guidelines.

This may sound elitist at first but everyone would enjoy the benefit of really great clean threads on the better subjects, and there could be parallel threads of lower quality in a lower ring.

Everyone would be able to read, but not every one could post to the higher rings.

The Points system could be used as the vetting mechanism. Get points, reach a new ring.

A variation on this would spin the same thread onto multiple rings so that a lower ring would be open to all, with all the higer ring entrys showing in the higer and lower ring, but only the higer ring entrys in the higher ring.
The only limitation with this concept is that the higher ring people are blind to the lower ring people's contributions, and if you did not understand that you might think you were being ignored.

I hope you don't consider this off topic. I think it is not.

[edit on 6-8-2008 by Cyberbian]

[edit on 6-8-2008 by Cyberbian]

Hmmmm..... you would have to throw a monkey wrench in the machine wouldn't you

Logically I would think it would stay were it is when it receives the equalizing flag or flop. So if it were in the UFO section, and it obviously starts with 0 flags and 0 flops, as it progresses it gets 10 flags and then a while later it gets 10 flops. It would stay where it is. But as soon as it got the 11th flop then it would be moved to the temp bucket for proper BS classifcation by a mod.

There would/could also need to be a stored procedure that would need to be kicked off at intervals during the day to move flopped threads to the temp bucket because it shouldn't be something that happens dynamically now that I think about it a little more. There would be a stored proc that would go through all the active threads and identify the flag to flop count for each one and move them accordingly. It would actually be kinda easy if they have an app server that looks hueristically at the content of a thread, kind of the same way google does and kind of the same way an OCR app works. It looks at the words, has a dictionary of sorts to understand the context of what the OP is about and correlates that to the content of the replies. It then looks at the flag to flop count. If it sees a bunch of keyword indicators like GFL, galactic federation, nonsense, etc it would know that thread would go to the comic relief bucket if it had a more flops than flags.

It would be kinda neat.

-Euclid

Originally posted by Demandred
reply to post by euclid

 

probably one of the better ideas, and i think it would seriously begin to raise the quality of ATS. latley its been a little annoying with some of the things ive been reading a flop button would have been very handy.

the more i think about it the more i like it

what happens if it gets an even amount of flags and flops?

[edit on 6-8-2008 by Demandred]

[edit on 7-8-2008 by euclid]

[edit on 7-8-2008 by euclid]

[edit on 7-8-2008 by euclid]

Agree with the OP.
When I first joined late last year, it was the amazing content and research into the aliens and UFO threads that got my on board, mikesingh's articles absolutely blew me away with his in depth research. I mean, I am only talking not even 1 year ago.

But now I think we have hit the commercial side of ATS, maybe more people means more power for the ATS management, but its had its TOLL on the CONTENT around here.
Yes, even I am to blame for some POOR threads on here which I should be kicked in the bum for doing. I am not a points or flag monger, I am here for the content.

In another thread (I can't remember which) I stated in a post that if you want to post a thread REQUIREMENTS must be met, like the basics, PHOTOS. OP: "Hey I took this really great photo" Poster: “WOW thats great, soo aam when are you putting it up?" 1 week later OP: "Yeah, about that, seems I deleted my photos, sorry about that".
By this time the thread is really ticking along, maybe 10 flags and a good amount of stars, the OP has what he/she wants and the rest are left for dust.





[edit on 7-8-2008 by crackerjack]

I think you are mostly right. It might be hard for some of you to understand, but there are a few people that might just hear voices in their head and think it is aliens telling them things when in reality they are just a little bit phcyo, but there is the slimest of chance that they might have something valuable to add maybe ATS schould add a section jsut for them, call it "Padded Room!" Just don't squach something that doesn't agree with you. I like to red some of their ranting and raving. It can be good to get a good laugh in from time to time.

I say keep the crazy people just give them space.

It's great to see so many people joining in the discussion, and very little descent in regards to the thread. No arguments, no flames etc. It seems there's high evidence here of a major consensus.

Oh yeah, except for the one passive aggressive GFL Troll Post. How predictable!

Keep the ideas and solutions flooding in good people of ATS! I'm enjoying reading all of your posts so far

IRM

Reading on and thinking about it, I'd hate to have censorship, maybe a button that allows us to tag threads as "questionable". That could backfire though and I figure the only thing we can do is ignore threads that seem bogus, or out of the ordinary , or .... Never mind I would then be ignoring a lot of good reads!!

Peace