How Should We Treat Time Travelers?

I hope you guys are treating these ttrs well. Sometimes I think you are arguing just to make it hard on these people. Give them a chance to prove themselves or bust, please. I would like to know what happens in the future, too, but if you're going to make them angry enough to go away, then it's your own fault. Some of you have already done that to someone else, who hasn't really returned, and he told me he certainly won't be talking to any of you anymore when he did show up for a little while again to tell me this.

These folks bring it on themselves JasperMoon. Now, it goes without saying that if you come here pretending...and I do mean pretending...to be a time traveler, then you can expect some Good Ole Fashioned constructive criticism. Not everyone is gonna fall for the yarns these folks spin in an attempt to gain some form of attention or thrill. I try to keep an open mind, but I still believe in the Scientific Method as well. Proof and identity remain valid attempts to weed out such fakery. And when these posters can not keep the story consistent, what do they do? Resort to either calling those who asked these logical but frank questions debunker...or sling mud as if to escalate the anger for which they must feel for being caught in the entanglement in which they create. I for one feel no ill will toward a poster who creates these situations just to have it crap back all over em.
What does bother me is the inaccuracy such events do to legitimate claims that could be made here. To understand the meaning and validity of the posters who claim to be from the future, past, or dimension, that poster should understand that such claims will be met with scrutiny.

Hello Mr. Numenorean7,

Thank you for your kind words. I apologize if I've been a strain on your community.

Namaste.

Num7,

Hmmm...sorry about that. But when I read your post on TTI (http://www.timetravelinstitute.com/...r=74058&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1) where you said that there were "three guys pretending to be Titor" (including Ren and TT-1) and invited us to take a look, it sounded like you had already made up your mind that, well, T-1 was pretending to be Titor. As a long time regular on TTI, an original Admin on Anomalies and a long time member but very infrequent poster here, I certainly don't want to disrupt your forum. I can take a pass on Titor #100 (200?) and let the conversation run without my commentary.

In light of the recant events I would like to add my two bananas worth here
1=when anyone shows up and claims the ID. of someone ells they have in my eyes have infact stolen said person's ID and should expect to be treated as a thief for doing it.....sorry but I call a spade a spade..
2= when anyone shows up and makes the claim of being from the future only to reveal later they are not realy from the future, but are infact a remote view/astral projector,,,, they have out rite lied and should expect to be called out fot it....again sorry but a lier, is a lier..

I tend to agree with Zeo on this one, you will get exactly what you ask for.
weather you want/like it or not,, you ask for it, and it will be given..
carry on
P.S.
sorry for the edit
I realy am very interested in time travel and the possablity of it comeing to pass, but there is no place it it for liers and thieves...
sorry for the rant

It's a complicated issue this TT're thing. One because it is such an impossible thing to believe and you have to suspend disbelief to engage in discussion with them about such a preposterous event leading to them being on a BBS. And two, none of them seem honest in what they are saying.

Let's look at our recent visitors shall we. One would have us believe that Time Travel is possible because of different physics in their version of reality and the other was a mirror of JT who meditated through time and physically appeared at his desired location. What, you want me to be friendly in the face of this nonsense? I don't know about you, but I don't like to be insulted by such trite treatment of such a singular event.

So here's how I view it. If someone alleges to be a TT'er and insults me with a tale of such awful logical integrity, then I'll bite his or her ass off. If they beguile me with their tale, I'll play the game. If they prove to be from 20xx or 21xx or even 31xxx, I'll be delighted and drink a bottle of scotch.

I can't stand fools, or people who want to treat me like a fool. If we can avoid that, we're sweet, but I won't play nice for just anyone.

I think there's room for people who make the claims and the people who debunk them, but not both.

As a forum, you thrive on acquiring interesting content. Have you noticed how much more activity we've had since the appearance of people like this? Whether it's real or not, how can you expect to achieve a COMMUNITY if those who want to contribute something interesting are constantly shot down by "senior" members?

I used to be in that camp and look what happened to the site during my ownership; down the fucking tubes. It's taken over a year for Num's higher tolerance for silliness to get this place back to a respectable level of activity. Now that's it's coming back I think we need to have a mechanism to insulate those with fantastic claims from those who have above-average reasoning skills.

There is room for both sides of the argument, but clearly not in the same thread. The naysayers tend to outnumber the wishful thinkers and the conversation eventually decends into negativity that nobody wants to read. I suggested this to Num via PM the other day but I'll post it here too:

I propose a "Fantastic Claims" category which contain both an "I Am A..." forum (for those claiming to be time travelers, vampires, tri-sexuals, whatever) and a "Logic Brigade" forum (for the debunkers).

Each thread containing a claim like the Titor deal we have going on now would be moved to the I Am A forum where all new posts are moderated before becoming visible, and a corresponding thread is created in the Logic Brigade.

If a post contains something along the lines of this, it gets moved to the Logic Brigade thread. Otherwise it gets approved. This lets the conversation, however ridiculous, continue and generates interesting content for the site while at the same time not censoring or penalizing the people who know how to tear a story down.

I realize this coddles the idiots who like to play pretend, but come on. Would you rather read a mildly amusing story and THEN have a resource to educate yourself, or a site full of threads containing nothing but "you're full of shit"?

So we must lighten up on the scrutiny? Seems to me if they are real; our attempts to "debunk" would fail. As
"paranormal investigators" we require the ability to interact with the person who makes the claims. And likewise the person who is making the claim must stick it out. I have had thousands of debates in online forums and the debate itself generates traffic. The attention from members and non-members comes from the debate itself! People will always be on both sides of the fence. If we "coddle" the fools and paint pretty rainbows...we'll have hundreds of leprechauns running around and no realistic points of view.

I'm for freedom of speech and letting a full on debate ensue. If the claimant is being honest he'll be able to weather the storm!

Along those same lines, if someone puts together a horrible story and claims to be something they're not, their thread will die quickly after a couple of good questions expose the logic flaws. We don't need debunkers charging in and turning it into the HDRkid thread.

If anything, doing it the way we're been doing it only serves to perpetuate the horrible threads kill the interesting ones.

The point isn't to verify if they're real; at least not in the context of my idea. The point is to allow the genuinely interesting content to exist without shitting it all up. A forum survives on interesting content, not threads full of garbage like the HDRkid thread:

"You're full of shit"
"I predicted Coke Blaq"
"You're full of shit"
"No I'm not"
x10000

Again, the interesting stuff will float to the top. The garbage will die on it's own.

Sorry for the triple post, the edit function is being weird. Just wanted to add:

Let's be honest, how many genuine vampires/time travelers/Man-Bear-Pigs/dragon slayers/extraterrestrials are we REALLY going to get here? It's about interesting content, not stringent methods of verification. If that were the case we'd be a very empty website.

I guess we all have a different agenda. I remember "frog"...if the kid told frog to wear his underwear on his head walk backwards and sing "Supercalifragalisticexpialidosious" he would and it would be the result of the rainbow painting.

My bottom line is (and always will be) getting to the truth, the heart of the matter.

Also...I agree with your point about the blatant insults, they are unnecessary.

If we had a better balance of debunkers:wishful thinkers it;d be very different. This site has been around a while though and most of the senior or more active members have "seen it all". That attitude tends to tsunami a hoaxer's thread and we're left with very little.

Back when we were Time Travel Forum and Paranormal Network we were hugely active; hundreds of posts per day where you had a respectable balance between the two sides. That's not the case anymore; the balance needs to be artificially generated.

Actually, these are the same staff discussions we all had back in the old days. Forums have a spirit of their own...and this is our crutch...I guess it always will be. It's like a fucked up tattoo we'll never be able to fully cover up.

LOL I remember those. It's not an easy thing to please both sides. It comes down to what kind of site we were, what kind of site we are now and what kind of site Num wants to be. Having seen the change he's made I'm leaning towards the "more content, more craziness" end of the spectrum. It's fun.