Are the PTB behind ATS?

[Springer]

Torbjon,

Please don't mistake my "realistic bluntness" for "blowing it off or ego", it's not either. The reality is some piece of code that restricts the banning of a member over a certain amount of time isn't going to change the system IMHO.

Your situation was unique in as much as we intentionally ignored you for all the wrong reasons. I don't want to sound egotistical here my man but from the inside looking out this is a VERY small "issue" in the grand scheme of things. <1% of the total number of members have been banned over 10+ years. That's an amazing stat for ANY forum, it's unbelievable for one the size of ATS.

It's a human thing, it needs to be dealt with by humans and it is being dealt with differently now than when you were banned. The "post ban system" DOES exactly what you are suggesting. The "perma ban" is only used for porno, spammers, returning banned members bent on disruption, etc... the OBVIOUS that need ZERO thought or "time".

Springer...

[Chorlton]

Torbjon,
It's a human thing, it needs to be dealt with by humans and it is being dealt with differently now than when you were banned. The "post ban system" DOES exactly what you are suggesting. The "perma ban" is only used for porno, spammers, returning banned members bent on disruption, etc... the OBVIOUS that need ZERO thought or "time".

Springer...

If this forum used your rules you would be banned. Fortunately for you, it allows everyday English and not ATS Namby Pamby, dont upset the wusses,speak

[Springer]

If this forum used your rules you would be banned. Fortunately for you, it allows everyday English and not ATS Namby Pamby, dont upset the wusses,speak

No I wouldn't and yes it does.

S...

[torbjon]

Springer:
The reality is some piece of code that restricts the banning of a member over a certain amount of time isn't going to change the system IMHO.

Okay. Are you the 'be all end all' of ATS or is there a board of directors / board of trustees that this type of proposal could be put before?

Is is just you, S.O. and Simon? If so what do they have to say about it?

Does your membership have any say in the matter?

Springer:
Your situation was unique in as much as we intentionally ignored you for all the wrong reasons.

So, are you saying that I am the only human being in the ten year history of ATS that has been intentionally ignored by staff and management and that it will never ever happen again? That's a nice thing to Say but what assurances does your membership have on that? Currently there doesn't seem to be any machinery or apparatus in place to Protect your membership from "mods running amok", only written procedures and guidelines which can be easily ignored by those in power.

Springer:
I don't want to sound egotistical here my man but from the inside looking out this is a VERY small "issue" in the grand scheme of things.

Of Course it looks like a small issue from the inside looking out. We're not discussing Management looking out, we're discussing Membership looking in.

Springer, the Intentional Actions of ATS Management HARMED a member. You've confessed, admitted, and owned up to that, for which I am grateful, but so far I'm not seeing anything on the table that could help prevent that type of Harm befalling other ATS members in the future.

Please don't belittle the damage done to me. I am NOT talking about 'bruised egos' here. I'm talking about very real Potential financial gain (or in my case, financial Loss)

Among other things ATS is an outstanding portal for networking with other human beings... for certain subjects / skills it is probably the Best portal for networking currently available on the internet. Case in point Jeff Ritzmann. I doubt his time spent on ATS has hurt him financially. That was good advertising for him, his skills and abilities, and it wouldn't surprise me if he picked up a few third party contracts as a result of his time spent on ATS. (which is Great)

By jumping the gun, flying off of the handle, and running amok the Management of ATS has cost me over a year of some of the Best Networking the internet has to offer, through No Fault Of My Own.

Networking has Value. Monetary Value. And I was denied that due to a "fluke" of "human nature" which, according to our conversations here, I have every reason to believe could happen again to some other member. Perhaps to a member even more destitute than myself.

YES, from the manufactures viewpoint looking out, having only ONE out of a MILLION units crash and burn and kill all the occupants is a "very small issue".

To that poor schmuck who crashed and burned it truly was a Life or Death event.

I ask you to please reconsider your position on this issue and to please discuss it with your partners, board members, staff or whatever group of people you have who determine company policy.

Thank you
twj

[elendal]

You've "lured" Bill into the open? whooooo wooo woooooo.......

Excellent! You are finally beginning to learn. You have just done exactly what I've been showing you all this time in this thread. You may see it, or you may not, but the fact that you've done it successfully is what matters.

What remains for you is to understand what you have just done. It may take some time, but you willl certainly get there.

[TheSkepticOverlord]

What remains for you is to understand what you have just done. It may take some time, but you willl certainly get there.

I'm suddenly reminded of one of my favorite passages, from one of my favorite books, by my favorite author...
Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein.

Granted, the passage is referring to modern art, however, the sentiment applies here. The character Jubal Harshaw said: "But it's up to the artist to use the language that can be understood. Most of these jokers don't want to use the language you and I can learn; they would rather sneer because we 'fail' to see what they're driving at. If anything. Obscurity is the refuge of the incompetent."

[ryguy]

Actually, I think a much more apt quote is one that I've been reminded of often lately over the past few weeks.

From Aesop's famous greek fables:

"The smaller the mind the greater the conceit"

And then of course there's this one - even more apt from Tolstoy:

"Conceit is incompatible with understanding"

-Ry

[MrPenny]

Hmmmm....I suppose this indicates something important.....possibly about my mindset.....

I was thinking more along the lines of Groucho Marx;

Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!

[torbjon]

I'm bumping this up, it deserves to be addressed.

Springer:
The reality is some piece of code that restricts the banning of a member over a certain amount of time isn't going to change the system IMHO.

Okay. Are you the 'be all end all' of ATS or is there a board of directors / board of trustees that this type of proposal could be put before?

Is is just you, S.O. and Simon? If so what do they have to say about it?

Does your membership have any say in the matter?

Springer:
Your situation was unique in as much as we intentionally ignored you for all the wrong reasons.

So, are you saying that I am the only human being in the ten year history of ATS that has been intentionally ignored by staff and management and that it will never ever happen again? That's a nice thing to Say but what assurances does your membership have on that? Currently there doesn't seem to be any machinery or apparatus in place to Protect your membership from "mods running amok", only written procedures and guidelines which can be easily ignored by those in power.

Springer:
I don't want to sound egotistical here my man but from the inside looking out this is a VERY small "issue" in the grand scheme of things.

Of Course it looks like a small issue from the inside looking out. We're not discussing Management looking out, we're discussing Membership looking in.

Springer, the Intentional Actions of ATS Management HARMED a member. You've confessed, admitted, and owned up to that, for which I am grateful, but so far I'm not seeing anything on the table that could help prevent that type of Harm befalling other ATS members in the future.

Please don't belittle the damage done to me. I am NOT talking about 'bruised egos' here. I'm talking about very real Potential financial gain (or in my case, financial Loss)

Among other things ATS is an outstanding portal for networking with other human beings... for certain subjects / skills it is probably the Best portal for networking currently available on the internet. Case in point Jeff Ritzmann. I doubt his time spent on ATS has hurt him financially. That was good advertising for him, his skills and abilities, and it wouldn't surprise me if he picked up a few third party contracts as a result of his time spent on ATS. (which is Great)

By jumping the gun, flying off of the handle, and running amok the Management of ATS has cost me over a year of some of the Best Networking the internet has to offer, through No Fault Of My Own.

Networking has Value. Monetary Value. And I was denied that due to a "fluke" of "human nature" which, according to our conversations here, I have every reason to believe could happen again to some other member. Perhaps to a member even more destitute than myself.

YES, from the manufactures viewpoint looking out, having only ONE out of a MILLION units crash and burn and kill all the occupants is a "very small issue".

To that poor schmuck who crashed and burned it truly was a Life or Death event.

I ask you to please reconsider your position on this issue and to please discuss it with your partners, board members, staff or whatever group of people you have who determine company policy.

Thank you
twj

[elendal]

What remains for you is to understand what you have just done. It may take some time, but you willl certainly get there.

I'm suddenly reminded of one of my favorite passages, from one of my favorite books, by my favorite author...
Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein.

Granted, the passage is referring to modern art, however, the sentiment applies here. The character Jubal Harshaw said: "But it's up to the artist to use the language that can be understood. Most of these jokers don't want to use the language you and I can learn; they would rather sneer because we 'fail' to see what they're driving at. If anything. Obscurity is the refuge of the incompetent."

Hmmm... I took a really long break from this whole business since it was extremely draining for me, and when I came back to see what has transpired in the meantime... I am pleasantly surprised. This is the first (and only) truly human reply I have ever seen coming from SkepticOverlord's direction.

I've never read 'Stranger in a Strange Land', but I followed that Wikipedia link you gave, and read the plot summary. I knew Heinlein was a great Sci-Fi writer, but the only things I knew of him were from 'Starship Troopers' movie. It's true no movie can ever capture the true feeling from a book, but this one had it all. Just drop the Sci-Fi background, and you see a perfect description of fascism in its purest form - "us versus them". It can be seen very clearly from historical references to World War II, if one cares to look. Actually, the word fascism alone has a very interesting background.

"The Italian name of the movement, fascismo, is derived from fascio, "bundle, (political) group," but also refers to the movement's emblem, the fasces, a bundle of rods bound around a projecting axe-head that was carried before an ancient Roman magistrate by an attendant as a symbol of authority and power."
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fascism)

But what's really interesting to me is that the mentality of fascism never died. I suppose that's because so many Nazi scientists got rescued by one side or another just after the war, and the idea survived. Just replace "humanity versus 'the bugs'" with "the shining beacon of freedom and democracy versus Al-Qaeda and the forces of terrorism", and "the war on the bugs" with "the war on terror", and you'll see how close they are. Not to mention the absolute (but almost invisible) control of the state (in the movie) over its citizens through "receiving the full citizenship through 'voluntary' military service". So many parallels... No wonder USA is sometimes referred to as The New Roman Empire. But I'm digressing.

I must say that this SkepticOverlord would have been very much worth talking to. Why didn't you do this much sooner? This whole thread would have taken a completely different direction. It's truly a shame it didn't.

There are so many implications in SO's post... so many... and there's so little time. Have you noticed how time seems to be running out? Hardly a day passes by without me seeing one news or another, each one of them being quite sufficient to bring down the whole modern society. The price of oil is certainly at the top (after all, energy is the only thing that matters here), but there are others as well. I am almost certain we'll see all of them unraveling by the end of this year. But I''m digressing again.

I will answer one (unasked) question from SO's post, though.

No, that's not me. I am here to teach. And what a better way to teach than to gather everyone at the same place, at the same time? You may look at it as a giant party being thrown in the classroom for everyone who wishes to join. But the dangers are still very real, have no doubt about it. Those who don't learn will most probably perish. That's, unfortunately, how this world works. It's as simple as that.

Now... I think I will take another very long break. Don't worry, I will no longer bother you with my "incomprehensible gibberish". I do regret, however, not having the time to discuss this further with this SkepticOverlord. It's a pity how we lost that time... it truly is.

[ryguy]

Now... I think I will take another very long break. Don't worry, I will no longer bother you with my "incomprehensible gibberish". I do regret, however, not having the time to discuss this further with this SkepticOverlord. It's a pity how we lost that time... it truly is.

Hey elendal...here's a great website for ya. One particular excerpt:

***

1914 CE - Probably the single most important and hyped-to-hades date in the history of the Jehovah's Witnesses, 1914 became the target for Charles T. Russell's Armageddon almost immediately after the 1881 date went up in smoke... or rather, didn't. Dropping pyramidology like a big, chiseled rock, Charlie fell back on the old End-Timer's standby; he picked out odd quotes from the Book of Daniel, assigned them random numerical values, totaled them up and spat them back out again as the "definitive" date for the Big Good-bye. It was during this period that the JW's really got themselves organized and their shiny, new Doomsdate helped them to win over oodles of followers.

Probably the single best advertisement the sect ever got was the outbreak of World War I. Truly, nothing cheers the heart of an apocalypse fan more than hearing that millions of their fellow human beings are about to be slaughtered like pigs in an abattoir, and the JWs were simply twirling in ecstasy at the news. Unfortunately, 1914 insisted on turning over into 1915, then 1916, etc. Still, the war was coming along swimmingly. The death rate was just (if you'll excuse the expression) rapturously high, and the atrocities, what with the trenches and the mustard gas and the attacks on civilians and all, were very nearly Biblical. Fortified by all this devastation, Charlie Russell gave one last try for a definitive cosmic kaboom.

1918 CE - It was a date poor Charlie Russell never did get to see. Despite his bolted-to-the-baseboard belief that he would never, ever die,... die he most certainly did on October 31, (Halloween! Another holiday the JWs don't celebrate) 1916. Before he went the way of all things, though, Charlie reset his apocalypse clock for 1918 and his followers dutifully fell in behind the re-drawn line. Hard as Charlie's supposedly impossible death hit them, the reality of the times gave the flock reason to hold out hope.

Besides the protracted nightmare of the war, 1917 also brought the Spanish Flu, a hideous disease that seemed to have come out of nowhere and perversely struck down those who were the most strong and vital. As the pandemic tore its fatal swath across the globe, killing some 30,000,000 people, the JWs took heart. It seemed they had good reason. I mean,... did all that calamity look like the signature blood-drenched, poxied hand of God, or what? Yet, before 1917 ran out, the flu ran its course and disappeared, and the only thing that came to an end in 1918 was the war. As the rest of the world celebrated the new peace, these became dark days indeed for the Doomsday deprived Witnesses...
****

As my favorite poet, T.S. Eliot writes:

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Difficult times come and go - but life goes on. Tomorrow stubbornly arrives. When the end does come, you won't be around to know it.

-Ry