Mundane, Boring! Has that what has happened to ATS?

reply to post by nixie_nox


I agree. And, doesn't it get boring of hearing the same gloom and doom? I'll read them, but then the 4 YouTube videos you are asked to watch just turn me off. Just my opinion.

whyamIhere
Remember it's member driven content.

It is difficult to discuss UFO's since CGI.

So if the thread quality has dropped.

We have nobody to blame but the members.

I agree, after all, it is the members that are creating the threads and posts. And, I am not saying ALL are just lacking a certain luster or a desire to read further, there are some wonderful well thought out threads, however, more recently it just appears that these have become less and less. As I stated in the beginning.....the current topics just seem mundane and a reiteration of current MSM reports, lacking a lot of substance.

One of the reasons for this, I think, is "Topic creep." People seem not content with ATS as a conspiracy site with interests in UFOs, the paranormal, and the like. Today we have a serious thread asking for an "animal topic" because, you know, people like animals. The justification for this is that not everything needs to be serious and sometimes a light topic is appropriate. Note, for example, the "post a funny picture" thread which is now in its second iteration and extremely popular.

As OP stated, ATS has also become a repository for everything else on Drudge, Fox, or CNN. As soon as there is an article there, it shows up here as "breaking news," often 4 or 5 posts worth. In other words, there is a tendency for members to increase the breadth of coverage. But adding water to soup, i.e.: Bringing in additional content that is largely irrelevant to the original purpose of the site, weakens it and brings about the lament of the OP. It's difficult to find the good stuff in the midst of the trivia.

It used to be, for example, that ATS was THE place to come for UFO material. It is why I originally joined 7 years ago. Now there are still a few posts on the topic, but they are few and far between, and they are buried behind all the other posts on everything from cooking recipes to repetitious news stories we can get anywhere. In other words, ATS has lost its focus. It is now a site about "everything" and not particularly good or cutting edge about "anything."

This begs the question of why this is happening. Is it because a wider audience has been attracted that simply wants a more diverse content? Or is it ATS drifting toward the average IQ of people who aren't particularly interested in anything but light entertainment? Page views and click throughs equals enhanced revenue, so there is a tendency to increase these to keep the site viable, but one wonders what he threshold is when ATS becomes just another MSM site with nothing particular to recommend it to people who are genuinely interested in exploring alternative subjects in depth? After all, Drudge has UFO stories, just like the LA Times. What is ATS bringing to the equation? For every Isaac Koi there are dozens of people extolling the virtues of Greer, Bassett, and Billy Meiers, who rail against those who point out these folks have been toast for years.

It's a thankless job and I do not know the answer to it. If you look at the statistics, you see that those actually participating in the site are a small fraction of the so-called "membership." Only 55% of members have bothered to post, and the vast majority of them have posted less than 20 times (100K out of 160K), meaning they are not full participants. My goodness, if you look at how many people have posted more than 500 times, i.e.: at least somewhat active participants, it's about 2% of the total membership. It's one thing to brag about nearly 300,000 member accounts, but most of these people have been drive-by lookee-lus, never to be seen again.

So there you have it. ATS is vastly smaller than it looks, with an active participation base of 2% or less, and it is suffering from dilution as people think of more and more ways to weaken the presentation. So you want a forum on animals? OK, and how, exactly, does that deny ignorance?

wtbengineer
reply to post by ItDepends

 

There are still some members here who do the research, and take the time/effort to make excellent threads. I won't name any names. They are few and far between though, and I must admit, I am not one who has been taking the time to do it myself, so I can't complain.

You are correct, there are members that do take the time to do excellent research provide a cogent and provocative or informative thread. That's why I will keep coming back to ATS. My point is simple, there seems to be an overwhelming amount of trivial threads, pointless and/or repetitive. However, I want to be careful, I am not saying it's ALL like that, but more so of late, just lack of good quality reads. Just my opinion. And I agree, I have wanted to create a thread, and have started, but it does take time to put it together and make it worthwhile. Thanks

reply to post by ItDepends


A working thread and user ignore option would be great to improve quality as it would deprecated trash discussions and help mine the valid contributions out. The lack of sub-threaded posts (like slashdot) also makes it difficult to keep order in a discussion and select the any valid subject that is raised in the middle of multiple posts (most people, me included only check the first and last page of a thread most of the time), unless it is a subject that merits deeper examination...

The replies that evaporate after you see them also does not help maintain continuity (that and sometimes pointing to the wrong locations, especially if its the last post on a page it will erroneously point to the next).

IkNOwSTuff
Be the change you want to see is all I can say

Yup, fair enough!

reply to post by schuyler

You do bring up some excellent points schuyler and many of which I tried to articulate in my opening. As far as the various threads, forums, topics. I subscribe to a fair amount of them, however, there are a bunch more that are not of interest to me and I simply do not subscribe to them, as you cited about animals as an example.

Tongue in cheek, is it possible that we have beat the death out of all the conspiracies known to man? LOL

reply to post by schuyler


Great in site BTW!!

However, you did miss one very large segment of information.

Of those 98% at least 30% are " post restricted" members, who were great members and would contribute, but are technically banned but not actually banned.

They can't post, but are not banned for dumb passed things, for instance a member I know with damn near 3 stars for every post " inverslyproportional" who was " banned" for saying he hoped Obama died of an STD.

No threats, nothing like that, just stating " I hope Obama dies of ghoneria and burns in hell".

Inverslyproportional inquired many times with no response, he is one of many very valuable temp/permabanned members.

Look no further than the corporate interests of ATS if you want a reason for the decline.

They will ban des, geez, rabbit....hell even slayer69 if they think it is in their add providers political interests, even for minor things, like say " I hope Obama dies of goneria and burns in hell"

Though they won't actually bag them, as they want the member logs as high as possible.

They will only " temp/permabann" them, never resolving their permaban.

If your "temp" banned, that means it ends one way or another at some point, vs actually banning a member some for some actual rulei breakage, which didn't even occur
f

oblvion
reply to post by schuyler

 

However, you did miss one very large segment of information.

Of those 98% at least 30% are " post restricted" members, who were great members and would contribute, but are technically banned but not actually banned.

I'm curious as to where you derived your 30% statistic. Can you provide a link that shows this?

reply to post by schuyler


Yup, you nailed it.

Also, there is little motivation for providing good material when somebody puts a bunch of research and days of effort into a quality, on topic thread only to see it die the first day with 3 flags and 7 posts while a thread where someone posts "I'm an alien, ask me anything." gets 20 +Flags, hundreds of posts and weeks of attention. Or worse, "Post you favorite nature pic". That thread is still going strong three and a half years, and 340 posts later (despite complaints that most of the images are posted from off site sources without credit to the author).

reply to post by schuyler


Schuyler,
Your post does put into perspective, some of the possible reasons why many here feel (insert whatever adjective here) that ATS has changed, and not for the better.

No, it's not the new layout.. not the new interface, that's not the problem for me you see. Back when I signed up here, there were alot of interesting topics - too many to read, perhaps. Over the course of these years I've spent here, there has been some really thought provoking ones, some rather UFO'ish (like Isaac's CARET drone thing) to some bordering on outright ludicrous hoaxes, and a few things that go way over peoples heads.

In your post you mention a couple of ideas:

1. A wider audience - which leads to more diverse content.
Which it does, but that develops a lead (I feel) to more members signing up to respond to a post, or post something random with no substance or quality. Or outright trolling/hoaxing. Which is both good and bad, as it might make someone sign up to post something to investigate, the exact opposite could also be said. Wild goose chase.

2. Drifting to average IQ. (ie - casual entertainment for the masses.)
I won't put the blame solely on a matter of intelligence, or IQ. There are plenty of very smart people here, and some very great research can be done when it is allowed breathing room for discussion.

T-