William's ATS rant

(caution: rant below)

I've been watching the pissing and moaning about ATS post quality, secrecy of staff, harsh staff, blah-de-blah for far too long now. It's time for the Skeptic Overlord to have his day in the rant forum. If you're feint of heart, on blood thinning medication, prone to being startled, or are scared by large dogs, you'd be best warned not to read further. Having said that disclaimer...


I've been "with" ATS for almost 4 years, and nearly 2 of them as staff... many have been around longer. I've seen all manner of MALE BOVINE SHYTE over the years, and this latest round of me-too complainers is particularly irksome since it is occurring at exactly the same time over 9,000 people are voting in-favor of ATS by the mere fact of spending an average of 35 minutes looking at 18 pages. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

No one expects that long-time senior staff, or senior members, would receive automatic respect from every new or old member. That's far too much to anticipate, and frankly unrealistic. However, from members that have come to understand the ATS hierarchy, we do (myself included) expect "benefit of the doubt". With over 1,300 new posts on some days, it's a significant effort for our current staff to keep things in line. We only average 12 to 14 moderators online during any given day... to expect that we'll review and sanitize every post to baby and coddle every member's sensitivities is both absurd and naive. If you see a crappy post... here's a freaking thought... move on, don't give it any more attention. Ignored posts tend to die.

We have a current crop of newly-active members that couldn't give a rats ass about the effort it takes to maintain this very large online community. It seems as though our newly-active members have no regard for the history of time and effort that has gone into getting ATS to the standard it is today. This doesn't happen by accident, it takes an effort. For a long time, the solitary effort of Simon Gray. But the actions of some members is comparable to being invited to someone's house, eating their food, messing their furniture, then pissing on the carpet as you walk out the door. And then these members still expect to come back tomorrow and do the same thing!

The reason I mentioned my time with ATS was not to impress you, but to establish that I've seen a great deal... and our current crop of newly-active members (less than 6 months of membership, yet daily posters) seem to be the poorest group yet when it comes to an overall understanding and appreciation of what ATS is, and what it takes to keep it that way. Far too much is taken for granted because they haven't experienced the tough periods of constant hack attacks, or slow servers, or outages because ATS exceeded the bandwidth allotment.

So these members too easily over-react to staff action that never before saw this kind of over-reaction. We went through periods where there were daily bannings or deletion of posts. The response from membership was not harsh at all... but appreciative of the vigilance to keep the board clean. And now we're to the point were we have threads complaining about a global ignore on a complete troll... what utter crap! And a member starts a thread designed to incite specific members, and then he becomes enraged when his target responds in-kind. Amazing... carpet pissing!

Are we perfect? No.
Are we trying? Yes.
Because of our effort, should we get some leniency from members? Absolutely.
Are we? Rarely.

Have some mods taken their position too seriously from time to time? Sure. Have I been included in that? Certainly. But I can assure you that each one of our staff is on the job because the mission of ATS is important to them, not because they love the power-trip of deleting posts and handing out warnings. Lately, it seems that many of our newly-active members have a mission of simply standing against authority of any kind... even if it means disrupting the goals of ATS.

In the end, it's not the responsibility of the staff to keep up the quality of posts for you and hold your little hands and lead you to the better forums with the better posts. ATS is not here to do something for you, make your life better, provide great stuff, or even improve your complexion. You get out of ATS what you put into it, and if all you put into it is bickering, pissing-and-moaning, complaining, and pissing-on-carpets... that's exactly what you're going to get out of it.


(end of rant)






[Edited on 7-11-2003 by William]

i do feel sorry for the hard work you undertake, but i also understand you wouldnt do it, if the negatives knock out the possitives...

but i do feel you should listen to the members after all they do make the site...i certainly feel that ats is having a rough patch.. maybe i cant comment anyway as i am more of a lurker and a chit chat person than a highly regaurded poster.. who posts brilliant articles week in week out, i do alot of reading anyway.. maybe when i said i also think the deccent posts have had a drop reccently i was just genrillizing.. maybe they have only seamed to drop from my viewpoint.. its just alot of other members seamed the same way. some of them being here twice as long as i have... some of them who made more informative posts than i have made about chit chat rubbish probably a 1000+ posts..

i am and want to stick around ats because i feel it is only a phase and it will improve again..

Just something I'd also like to point out, the staff are always open to any suggestions you may have to improve any aspect of the boards. Theres no guidebook for this, and we are all still learning and always implementing new ideas to try and improve the boards. Some work, some don't, its a learning curve for all.

way to go william you tell them Dynomite

[Edited on 7-11-2003 by tealc]

I don't know if I'm one of the people you're referring to but I'd like to say I have adapted to the flow of change.

And I see there is more suspense. I will keep my eye on the space.

i am as well watching The Space

The Space

has kind of a chilling feeling that comes with it...

This should be good.

THE SPACE Has A sort of aurora around it it's alive mwahhahahahhahaha THE SPACE

'thisspace' is foreseen in the fostweiser prophecy.

Doesn't seem like William is. Whenever an ATS member "piss and moans" about a negative aspect of the board, he gets angry about it.





William admits ATS isn't perfect, but yet, he doesn't admit to an imperfection when a member brings it up. Sure we should be gratefull, and we are, but William should be gratefull the members of ATS speak out and tell people how they feel about the board, even if it's not all good stuff. Sure no one is perfect, but we can always strive to be better, and more open to suggestions.

I myself have no suggestions, because I feel the content on the board is fine right now, sure, it's in a low-point, but I am aware of the potential ATS content has, and just check up every now and then to see if that huge potential is back.

Just William please, try not to take it so personally whenever a member says what they feel about the board. As with everything in life, there are imperfections. Admit them and review them, but don't get angry like you don't have any. Your rant is appreciated and read.

Aha, tact has failed, so as my first non-tame comment since returning, I'll handle this one.

My official response to you 10dead, is

'blow it out your arse'

William is sensitive to people bashing the board for no reason as he does a whole #load of work keeping this bastard thing afloat. 'Big Willy' (its what he makes us call him) and the staff are always open to sensible suggestions. But people forever whining about stupid crap gets plenty tiring.

have a nice day

I agree 100% William....
It is up to "us"......
"We" make this as we see fit....

Though, there would be no "we" and "us" if not for the hard work and unpayed dedication of those devoted to the success of the ATS community.....to them....I say only:
Thank you! Thank you for a great community. It is by your devotion and hard work that we can all come together, give our opinions, argue, debate, etc. as "one", "we", and "us".....


regards
seekerof

[Edited on 7-11-2003 by Seekerof]

How would you know if a suggestion is "whining"? People perceive things how they want to perceive them. It seems you already have your mind send on seeing kurtcobainuk as whining in his thread, but to others it's just them speaking their mind. I am aware that William does a lot of work on keeping this site fast and awesome, and I thank him for that, but that still doesn't make it right to dismiss suggestions from members who have something to say.

... and if its a sensible useful idea then it will be considered. If its 'aww this site isnt as good as it used to be' from someone who has been a member for 2 months, it will be treated with less consideration.

There has been enormous change for the past several months.

We need constructive input from both old & new members otherwise there wouldn't be a need for these surveys.

If only the rift between these 2 groups could somehow be narrowed.

Length of time a member has been at ATS doesn't mean anything. As long as a person is a part of ATS, then they should have a say in any situation, regardless of whether or not the mods like it. You say they will be treated with less consideration, but it seems to me like you're showing them no consideration. All members deserve the same attention and respect, and they deserve this for being apart of ATS. We were all "2 months" old at ATS at one point too. Seems like new members get less respect because they're new.

A good idea will be looked at no matter who it is from.

But alas, length of time does mean something, when the complaint is of the likes of 'it isn't as good as it use to be' or something similar.

Primarily (and rather obviously I would have thought) because people gain respect from others by what they post and how they conduct themselves on the board over time.

Respect in these sorts of online communities is not granted just for being a member. It is ridiculous to infer that someone who just recently joined would have as much idea how the board is run as a member who has been here for many years. They are therefore in a weaker position to make comments on how it is better run.

Now doesn't everyone feel better?

Thats 1 long #in rant there William! support your every move