"What's with the anger on ATS?"

The Good News- It's not nearly as bad as yahoo comments. Have you folks ever read the comments random people leave after yahoo articles?

Every other comment is filled with political or racial hatred.

"Liberals are to blame for everything."

"Conservatives are morons."

"Illegals the cause of all our taxes."

"Blacks suck."

"Whites suck."


Man I tell you folks, people somehow believe that the educational process ends after high school or after college. Somehow they convince themselves that there is nothing more to learn or understand.

What's really happening is the world is becoming too complex for alot of folks, so they turn to easy to remember stereotypes.

Originally posted by B.Morrison

perhaps this is just the time of year people decide to watch "network" again?

well, the summer vacation for kiddies is drawing to an end. most school aged kids are back in school, and it is .... back to adult swim, so to speak.
not that the younger ones don't have anything to offer us on ATS. i mean, they do have access to a routine where education is a priority. not survival or how to balance the family budget and so on.

________________________________

i've been giving the "frustration" some thought.

we are engineered genetically to rely on all of our senses when we are having a conversation with eachother.

when we communicate our subconscious minds provide us with "gut" feelings about many aspects of sharing a dialogue, private or in a group discussion.

i've been "spoken" to in ways here on ATS that no one has spoken to me in person since... junior high. either that or my imagination takes something out of context, or in a way the sender did not intend.

we rely on body language for input when we communicate.
we rely on facial expressions for input when we communicate.
we rely on tone of voice when we communicate.
we rely on eye contact when we communicate.

yet, we relinquish these things here on ATS, and still people accuse others of "ego" related issues. look up the definition of "ego" and tell me which part of it is bad, please.

it is easier to misinterpret emotions when on a message board. we don't utilize the usual mediums of communication that we have relied upon for generations, and then some.

and frustration leads to aggravation, ie anger.

some ATSers assume the worst of others. few assume the best of others.
but, this pattern is changing, imo.

even when we look at a member's profile page, not everyone leaves alot of information to go off of when trying to gauge who it is we are talking to.

am i talking with someone who is a young single mother of two?
am i talking with someone who is a 64 yr old war vet?
am i talking with someone who is developmentally disabled?

no, these things do not always matter, but i can use military jargon with a 64 year old vet that a young single mother of two may know what it means.

even professions have their own terminology and jargon, practically their own languages. So, even those ATSers who have knowledge specific to an issue can only share said knowledge by utilizing words that are not even found in Webster. here again lies a causality of angry posts, sometimes.

these are some of the thoughts i had, and thought i would share.

ATS can be, and should be fun & informative.

but the only thing we are permitted to know about our target audience when authoring a thread is what the members are willing to share.

want to know how much a member is willing to share with you?
want to know how much a member trusts their fellow members?

look at their profile. do they share their birthday? do they share their likes? do they share their dislikes?

if not, that is ok. there are still methods of knowing stuff about a member.

it is possible to have a passionate conversation in an intellectual advisarial manner without having to be enemies.

all a disagreement means in one thread is that you disagreed with someone on a topic IN ONE THREAD!

End Transmission,
E.T.

[edit on 17-8-2010 by Esoteric Teacher]

Very good post. I have to say, your points about the main stream media's intention to inflame the public rather than inform is spot on. I don't understand why this is. Every time I watch the news I can't help but think that out of an entire days activities on planet Earth, why are just those handpicked news items selected to be jabbered about ad nauseum/ad infinitum? The airline steward escape guy, Snookies recent party details, a Muslim mosque that is being built SEVERAL CITY BLOCKS AWAY from the 911 ground zero site, NOT ON IT, and oh yeah there has been a mosque sitting peacefully about a block away for 40 years, but let's ignore that, right?

Out of all the events that happened, what about life going on, people inventing things, solutions, long term events that lead to progress? As much as I enjoy coming to ATS, whenever I scan the headlines, I can't help but think these are perfect examples (with CAPS and !!!), of a reactionary culture that's become addicted to becoming inflamed.

Good thread. S&F.

My anger has probably been observed from time to time here. The seed of my discontent stems from the endless wave of idiotic alarmist substance-less threads that hit the ATS Aliens & UFO boards every day. It makes it damn near impossible to navigate and is literally equivalent to panning for gold to get the info. I need. Why do the MODS let these idiots get away with this time and time again? Even better: Why do I remain here?

If I were in charge, I would ban each and every one of them. Then find their residences and destroy their computers so they can never post again. Complete waists of hair and skin. Believe me, you do not want me in charge here. There would be about 25 people posting, total.

reply to post by warza


I dissagree, I think people are starting to wake up to several realities. Hence the anger. The general public is spending far more time on-line, VS listening to the MSM. ATS is one site that does not, at least for the time being, condone sensorship. I think the more people who wake up to the world, the more anger there is bound to be. I also believe ATS should be a "safety net" for these people, who need to speak on their new-found reallity. We need to keep ATS free from any form of censorship, that does not betray the original T&C. Freedom of thought is what this site is about. If it simply becomes a site for the worldwide PC, it will become one of the most boring sites on the net, and ten years from now the remaining ten members who agree with eachother all day, every day, will get bored, and then they will leave as well.

Overall, I buy the perfect storm theory. Here are some thoughts on three things I've specifically noticed.

What makes today's crisis different from, say, the Vietnam or the Civil War eras, is the internet. This is the first moment, at least insofar as American history is concerned (would love to hear opinions from non-Americans as to whether this holds in their countries as well -- I assume it does), where we have a major partisan split being paired with crisis after crisis and basically everyone in the entire country has the ability to quickly express opinions on it to wide audiences.

Where criticism and anger during previous eras of history would be confined either to the home or the community, today we are free to put it anywhere at any time for anyone to read. The reason it is not as bad on ATS as it is on places like Yahoo and Huff Post honestly boils down to the quality of moderation. Where the internet has been in reasonably common use since the mid 90s, there were no major crises the likes of those we have seen in the years following 2000. We have a unique pairing of anger and the ability to express it that we've simply never had before now.

It's also important not to forget the differences in communication approaches by generation. You spend most of your time with your peers and communicating with them. The patterns that develop over the adolescent and young adult years will be very difficult to break when interacting with people who are older or younger than those of whom they're accustomed.

Take the 14-24 male demographic and consider how they speak to each other, and how they refer to each other. It's common that they'll say harsh, abrasive, or otherwise insulting things and yet this is in many groups merely considered a sign of affection. There is a major gap between how a 20 year old speaks to his or her peers compared to how a 40 year old does. We cannot put age or environment into context of the conversation very well here, and for younger people it is often hard to stop and consider whether the language appropriate for conversation with their peers is equally appropriate for unknown parties.

I don't have the data of course, but I feel certain that as many of the younger generations begin to enter a phase of life where they wish to communicate and are interested in topics that would draw them to ATS, we in turn see an influx of new members who seem far more mean-spirited than the rest of us, at least until communication patterns amongst young people change for the better.

Elitism, once available only to the rich, seems to flow through everyone these days. Most commonly, it now appears with people who have information that other people do not. People who feel they are superior to those to whom they're talking will never feel the need to explain themselves thoroughly and kindly, since they look down on the audience. Would you argue the merits of anthropogenic global warming with a dog or bother to cite your sources to him? Unfortunately this can't be combated except internally. It can be hard to remember that you aren't ultimately better than anyone else, even if you are technically better at a certain thing, or more informed than they are at the moment. This also reflects on how we inherently do not value each other, which is alarming in and of itself.

Media saturation is staggering, and the voice-of-God journalists are dead. To wax a little hyperbolic, if you can find a news article or broadcast anywhere on the face of the planet that contains only statements of facts (headline included), write down the date, because it's probably never going to happen again. What constitutes the news these days is to present a juicy story to the public rich with opinionated rhetoric and short on facts. We have little left to go on but our raw emotional reactions. That always presents problems when we then attempt to communicate.

reply to post by NightVision


I think 25 may be a bit high.

From my observation the problem appears to be the seemingly random enforcement of the rules, what is okay for an atheist to say a christian will get a warning for.

reply to post by Openmindlight


I have to disagree with you on that, I think that the rules are enforced inconsistently but we humans are an inconstant lot. I don’t think that the Mods would discriminate however just because you say “I am a Christian “. Such wild accusations only fuel the hate,

Don’t hate, laugh!

Maybe the combination of that annoying popup box and the redundant character limits on EX brackets have everyone pissed about being treated like little kids? Sort of like a self-fulfilling deal like that Muhammad cartoon.

Sheeple do not get angry when conspired against, I do. I speak up and relate how ripping me off and endangering my life makes me angry. 99% of the world will take a kick to the face when someone says they deserve it, and they don't get mad. They think they deserve it.

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Haha...I have to admit both of those sort of shortened my fuse.

They certainly don't help the situation. When people are already iriitated, it doesn't take much to send them over the edge.

Whatever is causing this anger, it is certainly discernible. In fact, it has become so bad that I am considering leaving ATS, because quite honestly, I don't believe anyone should have to put up with it, when they have a choice to leave.

I can say that one of the causes of this, seems to be the lack of reading comprehension by many of the members. In addition, laziness has become a large part of the problem, as it has become apparent that many people merely read the thread title, perhaps the last few posts on the thread, and then READY, FIRE, AIM.

The name-calling has gotten out of hand, in my opinion. Name-calling is the last resort of those who have no rational point of debate. In the last month, I have been called virtually everything in the book, merely for expressing my point of view.

Likewise, it seems that many members cannot seem to understand the difference between a bigoted remark and sarcasm. A case in point are the threads regarding the Ground Zero Mosque. I made a sarcastic comment that we should allow as many mosques at ground zero as churches built in Saudi Arabia. Even after I made it clear in subsequent posts that it was a sarcastic comment, intended to show the IRONY of this situation, members continued to call me names, claim I want the US to be like Saudi Arabia(which I don't), and take other detractors comments about me, as MY beliefs, which they are not.

I am in the unenviable position of being a retired professor who happens to have conservative views, not a very common position. As a result, many feel that I couldn't possibly be a professor, because "a professor would not hold your views". Apparently, there is a belief that only liberals may be professors. Of course, I also found that belief with many of my colleagues, and people wonder why the colleges and universities are so liberal! They should have tried living in my shoes. Maybe then they would understand.

I have enjoyed debating with some of the respected members of ATS, but lately, it has become far too difficult to do that, because every thread seems to get taken over by those who insist on throwing invectives at anyone they disagree with, rather than having a reasoned, civil debate.

Fortunately, I have family and grandchildren, as well as hobbies to occupy the time that I will gain by avoiding ATS.

Perhaps, I will stop by every so often to see if things change.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Angst during election time is from the media.

Angst during summer time is crazy little 12 year olds with nothing better to do.

LETS INITIATE AGE DISCRIMINATION!!! *gets ban hammer*

Edit: Before people start screaming at me let me also bring to light the fact that not ALL 12 year olds are crazy... just MOST of them are!

[edit on 17-8-2010 by Sumdumguy]

I see a lot of fragile egos, desperate to hang on to the scrap of relevance they think they`ve found here. Perhaps if there was a limit to the amount of posts per thread and a way to earn more...then some more of the off topic squabbles would be relegated to a U2U, which would be easier for a person to either ignore, or respond to less brashly since its not taking place "in the spotlight" where they feel a need to protect , ya I know it sounds pathetic... their image. Personally, I only leave my one post stating my piece of mind, then I move on to another thread. That`s simply due to time constraints, I really wish sometimes I had time to stick around more & chat, but there`s way too many other threads to visit & so little time. But I figure if someone has something to say to me personally, they`ll use the u2u function. Mods could also be urged, or allowed, to take a more pro active roll in quelling some of these "posts of fury" before they reach "critical mass". Maybe the position of moderator should be modified to be likened to that of a bartender. Part guide, part friend, part referee, part therapist. I`d say you probly need some more mods as it is. The problem is pretty big from where I`m sitting. I see a lot of misunderstandings, where, perhaps if a 3rd party had been there in time they could`ve smoothed things over. Anyway there`s a lot of other little things that could be done by those with the power to do so.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
We've been seeing somewhat of an increase of complaints and threads where many see what appears to be a rise in overall angst displayed in many threads and posts. As we discussed this among staff, there's a general agreement that "something" is infecting the tonality on ATS, and our aspirations for a high-level of decorum are being unfulfilled.

Sorry that I am late.

During the past three weeks, I noticed there is a heightened conflict between a wide variety of subjects.

(1) United States politically driven issues are causing heated exchanges between bystanders, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Anarchists. While all five attempt to debate in a civil manner, things explode when random people walk in and start yelling haters, racists, bigots, etc...

(2) We have a 'serious Anti-American government and Anti-American military group' hanging around in theses forums. I have seen a few veteran soldiers being bashed for surviving their country. At one point a moderator had censored a military veteran for defending himself. I don't blame the moderator, for he or she was just trying to keep things civil. However, it did send a small shock wave when it happened, for 'it appeared' to come off very disrespectful. (Similar to the Anti-Christian, Muslim, and Zionist forum movement.)

(3) When it comes to people defending their 'subjects of interests', (UFOs, Government Conspiracies, etc...), we have people who get upset when others do not agree with them. As a result of not making their cases, they resort to name calling and bashing people who present evidence in opposition.

(4) We also have people who present online propaganda as fact, and then get upset when people don't see it as fact? I hope that made sense. Other words, people cannot agree upon what is considered acceptable resources, which can be taken into consideration to support or debunk a 'theory'.

Technically, many people are not exercising tolerance, patience, and respect.

[edit on 17-8-2010 by Section31]

reply to post by Retseh

This (what I'm replying to) is actually a typical disinformation post of the sort that elicits more "hate." I have not seen that "racism" is prohibited here. What is "racism" anyway?

When I registered as ATS member 4 years ago, I was very impressed by how the discussion was done. There was so much researches and knowledges. The members were very detail with their presentation. The skeptics and believers were very careful with their posts. Each sides back up their claims with citied sources and prepare to analyst the sources with amazing critical thinking. It was so much fun back then. I admit I contributed little to the forum as I knew I couldn't possibly enter the debates without much homework compare to much senior and experienced members of ATS.

But now, I find myself doing much defense posting lately. Especially against ill mannered religion related topics. Many times I wonder myself why am I defending the Christian or Muslim or Religion in general. Many time I wonder myself why am I wasting my time researching religion related topics only to be ignored in the end. Seriously I don't mind if the discussion is based on conspiracy. Isn't that what I'm here for? But I'm deeply hurt and stressful if someone posted x religion core is Satan blah blah or those religion x 'SOB' should be wiped out blah blah... Someone even quoted wrong translation, interpretation and careless/bias research in manner to disinfo and provoke other people. I've try to ignore such post but almost every topics I've come, there're always someone driving my interest away with such manner. Everyday I have to read this, endure the hurt, loosing my interest and log out from ATS. I'm thinking if the situation doesn't improved, I might be better off searching for other conspiracy forum.

I hope I don't have to come to such heavy decision as ATS used to be special to me. I hope whatever magic ATS have 4 years ago still spark and last long.

Well as ATS grows and gains popularity it will pull in more and more people. More people means more beliefs and points of view and things which will lead to more flame wars. More and more topics will become taboo untill ATS becomes just a real generic forum where people only talk about the news and mundane topics out of fear of becoming victim of moderation. The size and "lets make everyone happy" attitude will eventually destroy ATS.
I say let people post whatever they want, if you do not like it don't post in those threads and don't create them yourself. But that is too simple the members of ATS like the US citizens need police and mods to keep themselves in line.

I have noticed some posts lately which have definitely made me think that the site could easily be tarred as a hate site, even racist. Whilst this is definitely not the majority i personally think it's important to blatantly ignore these posts, report any concern and mods must step in quickly. Sometimes i only have to look at the titles on the twitter feed to sigh.
This is not to say I'm sensitive, far from it.
Also, I'm aware that this brings the dilemma of 'free speech' but IMO subtle or overtly racist and bigoted posts and posts slamming opinion as opposed to guiding and debating need to be avoided.
The idea imo is that it's a collective of totally open minded people that simply have a passion for knowledge, exploration and help.