A Freshman's Guide To Not Getting Angry

Alright, it's summer. Which means more traffic, more news and ofcourse, more newbs. Now we at ATS have a long standing reputation of being civil and attempting to behave ourselves and treat others in the way we would like for people to behave and be treated.

That being said, I see alot of new members, perhaps feeling targeted or insulted by some of the older member's posts and comments about their behaviour or the information they are putting forth.

So this thread is meant to shed some light on how to read between the lines and take the higher ground when somebody does over step their boundries.

Introduce Yourself

We love nothing better than to lend a hand to our new members. Our introduction forum is the best place to ask simple questions about ATS as well as get pointed in the right direction in regards to your favorite topics.

But we also love to get to know our new members, after all, we are a friendship oriented community.


Do Your Research--Know Your Fellow Members

This is a simple enough concept. To new members it might be a little difficult to do that ofcourse but, this is the reason we have profiles. Member profiles are an awesome way to get information about a particular member's views and opinions on certain subjects.

You can visit anybody's profile by clicking on their name or using the member search function. And leave a message to the ones you like or admire, they will appreciate it.

Take The Entire Threat Into Consideration Before Posting A Reply

I know we all dread reading 20 pages of a very heated discussion ,but the further a discussion gets, the more reasons people have to reply the way they do. Don't expect a member to be nice if they've answered the same question 12 times in previous pages. It's our responsibility to read the information at hand.

Threads of large sizes may contain multiple topics. We try to stay on topic but sometimes segways will emerge when information is presented in relation to the topic at hand.

It is important to note that alot of the most popular threads will be sensitive topics. Sometimes our emotions and beliefs can get the best of us, and we all have the right to our mistakes.

Take The High Road

Feel targeted? Member overstepped their boundries? Been called you out perhaps a bit too harshly?

It will happen, I promise you. Probably within the first day. Remember your alert button, this is why we have a very fine set of mods and staff on ATS. To make sure that people act with integrity and respect for each other.

It's ok to post a response to an attack, however injecting an attack within the response will only start a vicious cycle of "mine is bigger than yours" scenarios. And this encourages other members to behave this way.

Now let's not abuse this feature either. Alerting the mods for trivial things like "he called me ignorant", is a waste of such a feature. There is a very big gap between attacks and difference of opinion.

Rise Of The ATS Invertebrate

Encourage Tact

The internet is an amazing place to discuss topics. However we loose out on things like body language, eye contact as well as pronounciation and inflexion. It's important to remember that members may type something that seems like an insult, but really it's a simple language barrier.

We are not all English on ATS. It's a global community. Yes we expect our members to converse in English simply because it is the general language used, however we cannot expect them to have a 100% grasp of writting it.

This goes back to knowing your members.

If You Get Worked Up--Take A Break

There are some threads which will ALWAYS start off really good, but end up being 3 or 4 members arguing and bashing each other's point of view. If you are caught in such a situation, then take a break. There is no shame in refusing to feed circular debate.

I've had to take my leave on many threads that I have been pationate about, simply because I had made my point and arguing it would ammount to nothing more than a warning from the mods for loosing my temper.

Don't Open A Can Of Worms

I will use our Conspiracy In Religion forum for this example. Don't post if you have nothing to add. I use this specific forum as a example because alot of the time we see a religious based thread going wonderfully, and somebody all of the suddenly posts:

"You guys are stupid, God doesn't exist and here's why!"

This WILL cause conflict with alteast one other member, completely ruining the thread and extending it faster than it should. You don't agree with the evidence presented in a thread, do some research, form an opinion and then present it in your own thread.

Arbitrarily dismissing members thoughts and opinions based on your own only serves to alienate us away from good, contributing conversation that arises when we place respect and quality of information above all else.

Don't Feed The Trolls

Well this one is pretty obvious, we get trollers all too often I am afraid and sometimes their outlandish and baseless stories actually become popular. The only reason they do is members end up arguing over whether or not the OP is telling the truth and why.

This is not a productive way of doing things, these people only want attention, and giving it to them is denying our moto.

Now there is a difference between trollers and people who have had a personal experience in relation to a certain topic. The My Story of the Aliens section or the prophecies and predictions forum is a good example.

Reach Out To Fellow Members

Dont' be afraid to ask for help, no question is stupid. Every ATS member who contributes on a regular basis want all the members to be as informed as they are. We are all willing to help, and will do so gladly.

It's better to ask and be told the answer by a specific trusted memberthan to open a thread and have a mod remove it or give you a warning for something you may not have known.

We can only help those who ask for it, so please do not be shy.

Well that's my little piece of help for our new members this summer and perhaps it will help some more established members remember where they sit in such a vast community of ideals and beliefs.

Please contribute anything you think is important to this. I would greatly appreciate it .

~Keeper

Nice post.
Good talking points and good advice. Flag on this.

To add a few points of my own,

1 When you become irritated or annoyed by others in a debate, that's life. Learn to be the better person and let it go or respond logically and with civility. Don't let others control your emotions.

2 When you realize that you are the party that may be off base or in the wrong, learn to acknowledge this. Admitting that somebody else might have a better idea or understanding of a subject shows maturity and promotes collaboration.

3 When some mouthy nutcase gets so far under your skin that you just want to take a three iron to his kneecaps, throttle him, steal his wallet and kick his dog?
Take a break, breathe deep, count to ten and remember that
kicking dogs is not cool.

I think its important to keep in mind that for every one person that you feel insulted you, there are 10 people that will welcome you. That was one of my first lessons here. There are more welcoming members on ATS then harsh ones. You will unfortunately come across someone that flames you first in most cases, but keep in mind that there are TONS of friendly and intelligent people on ATS.

It can be hard sometimes to not get upset. But, once you start talking to other members this site becomes very rewarding and informative.

Keeper-

Many thanks for a clear, concise, informative & insightful thread.

I'm pretty much a newbie to ATS...and just discovered that a skipped a pretty important step: the introduction part...so now I've got an additional item on my ATS "to do" list

I appreciate the other posters' valuable advice, too

Keep the suggestions coming for us new folks

-

reply to post by sonjah1


It is my pleasure to help you guys get your feet wet. It can be alot for an new member.

Please feel free to contact me if you need anything.

~Keeper

I hope there are more members who can contribute to this thread. It was posted yesterday so traffic was a bit low.

Perhaps now that we are in full swing today, we can have a little more imput?

~Keeper

It's cool a established member is taking the time to give us noobs a little advice! I've only been on for two weeks and I can totally get what you are saying. Thank you for taking the time to reach out to us novices!