Changes To News Submissions For The Breaking Alternative News Forum

Our staff has been seeing an increasing number of news submissions that, for a wide variety of reasons, simply don't belong in our Breaking Alternative News Forum. The news forum is intended as a place to submit late-braking current events that fit within the mix of topics discussed within the forums on ATS.

As a result of what appears to be some confusion, the news submission form has undergone some slight modifications. Here are the important changes and/or additions below...


The new top-of-page text
IMPORTANT: Off-topic submissions that do not relate to the "alternative topics" of ATS, are more than 36 hours old at the time of submission, or cover news stories already submitted to the news forum, are subject to immediate removal without warning or explanation.

The time-frame for news submissions has changed from 48 hours to 36 hours. The date of your submitted story must less than 36 hours old at the time of submission. If it's older than that, please use the appropriate ATS forum to open a discussion on your found topic.

Also, we'll no longer be closing duplicate submissions with a redirect. Submissions of news stories that already exist in the news forum will simply be trashed... most likely without warning.


Revised Breaking News text at bottom
This form is for the submission of breaking news articles that are no older than 36 hours.

Another reminder of the time window for submissions.


Revised Immediate Posting text at bottom
News submissions are now immediately added to the board for discussions. Please make sure your submission is unique, and check the board to ensure the story you plan to submit is not already discussed. Submissions of news that already exists in our news forum are subject to immediate removal without warning or explanation..

Another reminder not to submit stories that are already in the news forum.


Revised Headline text at bottom
You must use the original story headline from your source. If the headline is biased or otherwise inapporpriate, explain why you think it is so in your submission comments.

This reminder has been modified to reinforce the need to keep the submission headline exactly the same as the news story headline, but also now encourages you to explain why you may feel the headline is biased. We've had some members thinking they were doing the right thing by modifying what appeared to be a biased headline... this now clarifies what to do when you disagree with the source headline wording.


New Sources text at bottom
Any source of timely information in the "alternative topics" arena is a valid web site to be used as your source, as long as it is the originator of the story. Source web sites that quote other sites as the source of the story are not allowed, and may result in the immediate removal of your submission without warning or explanation. Also, if your submission is of a political nature, only mainstream news sources are allowed. Do not use blogs or "rumor mill" web sites as your source for political news.

This provides some much-needed clarification of what kinds of sources are allowed. Essentially any mainstream news web is a valid submission source. If you source a web site outside the "mainstream," it must be the original source -- the creator -- of the story you're submitting.

Also, due to problems in the past, only mainstream sources are allowed for politically-slanted news submitted to Breaking Alternative News... blogs and rumor sites have proven to be way too biased or full of outright lies.

For purely political news, we're no longer using the news submission form, simply create a new thread in the Breaking Political News forum.



And to clarify... these submission rules and guidelines only apply to the Breaking Alternative News Forum.



Thanks in advance for your cooperation and assistance in improving the focus of this very-active and important forum on ATS.


[edit on 21-4-2009 by SkepticOverlord]

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actually its something alot of people have been arguing for , for quite sometime - dupe threads to be closed quicker , and worthy news not simply reposting blogs

A few weeks ago, I had posted a news item in the breaking news forum and i had used the actual title from the news report. The days hardprint newspaper used this title too...

At some point, the news agency changed the title that was displayed online.
I think it was the daily mail..

I had received some recognition by on of the mods by bringing that particular topic to peoples attention, but a day later another mod came along and changed the title to the title that was now being displayed by the news agency.

It would seem that the title offended someone 'high up' and the only evidence of the original titles existence is on the hard copy.. I tried looking every where to get a copy of it.. to show that i had indeed used the original title.. It was a lot more stunning than the title that it had been changed to and I feel this mod edit affected the attention that the topic was getting..

It's not a big problem for me.. I really don't mind.. I'm just highlighting something that happened and felt that I had been 'told off' for no fault of my own.. It's one of those issues that happens.. but it was even more amazing as to why the news agency had to change the title.


Edit to add the thread Worse than terrorists
I think the original title was something along the lines of "Jail the bankers", or something like that..

[edit on 21-4-2009 by Extralien]

Soory about this... but just cheked my U2U for the recognition i got from one of the mods and that u2u still has the original title on it



It just makes you wonder how many titles get changed after the news agencies have changed their titles..

[edit on 21-4-2009 by Extralien]

reply to post by Next_Heap_With

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Does this mean no more breaking news stories allowed from places like Infowars? I, for one am hoping so........!!!!!


ooooooooooooo, I was gonna say so much more, but your post was deleted!!!!!!!! Thank Goodness!

[edit on 21-4-2009 by Blanca Rose]

I'm not sure how you could have that take-away from the opening post.

If Infowars is the original source of the story... then yes. But if the Infowars site is simply repackaging a AP news story (as they sometimes do), then you should use the original source... AP.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

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I'm interpreting that to understand that there can still be 2 threads discussing the same topic, as long as they don't both reside in BAN. One thread can be in Other Current Events, for example, correct?

I am sorry to be hearing that:



Often, unintentional repeat posting have very valuable input from the members who, through no fault of their own, simply picked the topic of interest without knowledge that it had been posted earlier because:

1. It may have been posted from another source with a less attractive headline
   
2. It may have been posted in a different 'specialized' forum where the thread had special significance beside being 'breaking news'.
   
3. The poster may have not looked carefully enough or expanded search terms to accommodate the varied ways verbiage might be used to describe the article.
   
4. The posters input might represent a completely disparate 'take' on the subject, or be focusing on a tangential aspect of the article
   

I understand the need to make policing the forum easier, but this seems to be a one-dimensional response to a multi-dimensional issue.

Is there no way to salvage the input on a duplicate thread? Can it not be simply 'piggybacked' onto the original?

I suspect that judgment calls are often heavily questioned and can lead to unproductive ends, but terminating without so much as notice seems personally harsh to me; a deviation from the member-centric model upon which you have been operating until recently.

You've probably considered all this before, so forgive me if I am asking a tiresome question.

Of course, I will abide by your constraints, and encourage others members to do so as well. But it is irksome to find your comments have been vaporized by technical regulation, especially if you are particularly proud of the contribution you made and wish to salvage it for posterity. Would it be possible to have temporary, lapsing, access to your 'trashed' thread before it vanishes into the ether?

Generally... yes. However, if we see a "BAN" submission covering a story with an already active discussion in another forum, we'll probably delete it. We've seen too many cases of some members picking up on active new threads, and posting the story to the "BAN" forum to get the increased points from replies.

The answer is simple... contribute to the existing thread, rather than creating a new one.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

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Evidently I was unclear. But thank you for responding, I will trouble you no further on this matter.

reply to post by Maxmars

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That's a good idea, since most people don't even realize they're making a duplicate thread, but I guess you already got your answer.

No... not really. But I think you misunderstood the point of all this... asking our members to make a little more effort before submitting a news item to the "BAN" forum. I'm working on a page that shows all new "BAN" threads, in descending order of submission date, which should make double-checking for duplicates much easier.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

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That should make 90% of all your issues vanish! (Of course I pulled that statistic out of the air). Thanks again.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

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Isn't that a bit ironic? Most members on ATS, including myself, do not believe that the MSM is very unbiased. In fact, in many cases, the only way to arrive at any truth regarding political events, is from other-than-MSM sources.

Many members have commented that the ONLY place that they can rely on the truth is from alternative, non-MSM sources, ESPECIALLY for political news.

I believe, as do other members, that a good part of the reason we are in such a mess financially, is because too many people got their political news from the MSM.

It's your ballpark, you can certainly make the rules, but it sure is ironic to be excluding the source where much of the discussion regarding politics comes from.

As has been made clear... these guidelines apply ONLY to the "Breaking Alternative News" forum, and not ATS as a whole. Feel free to discuss these points, with blogs or non-mainstream sources as your reference, in any other forum. And alternatively, examine the bias of the mainstream political story in the comments section of your news submission.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

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Thanks. I apologize, I guess I misunderstood that.

Now you can check the ATS news "firehose" for a quick one-page look at recently submitted news stories, sorted in order of recency, without needed to run a search:

www.abovetopsecret.com/firehose.html

Seems like a wise move, However I would like some clarification on the 36 hour rule.

My questions, lets say, for example, there is a large UFO sighting ala stephenville. If you recall there were numerours articles and mentions about it on the news for about a week or so.

So does our thread have to be posted within 36 hours of the actual event that happened, or is it 36 hours after the article you are using as a source was published? I think I know the answer however just want to make sure.

Thanks SO, ahead of time.

EDIT TO ADD: Loving the fire hose addition

[edit on 21-4-2009 by gimme_some_truth]

You must know how happy I am to read about that.

Well done for these and other recent changes.....things are looking good.