Help ATS Recover With Your Contribution

originally posted by: Kandinsky
a reply to: blupblup

Damn, man. You've got an acerbic edge that's good in some contexts and obnoxious in others.

Well I suppose it's all in how you read and what you read into someone's posts?
To me I'm just speaking my mind, not being mean, judgemental, obnoxious... just straight-shooting.
It may come across differently but I mean no offence at all.

If someone wants to say they've contributed, who are we to judge them? And what motivation drives anyone to spill the contempt on those who do?

Fair point... As I said, brag away.
Whatever floats people's boats man.

Yeah, you're 'allowed' a 'classless' comment from time to time like any of us. I was just trying to tug on your better nature and remind you that you never used to go all kung-fu on other members. Give the assholes a kicking cos they invite it. In this case, not justified.

FWIW >>

I didn't see my comment as "Kung-Fu" or even Gung-Ho.... or anything like that.
It was more a "Really, we're actually doing this??"

No venom, no nastiness... just pure exasperation and mostly gentle sarcasm.

I've never liked that kind of stuff on ATS and have usually spoken out against it... for the whole time I've been here.

Sorry again if it offended you or rubbed you up the wrong way, wasn't my intention.

originally posted by: CharlieSpeirs
a reply to: blupblup

Maybe others here would like to know who has contributed so we can give them a spiritual thumbs up for helping to save something we all enjoy.



Old people nowadays.

Wait a minute, am I a kid or an old man now since I posted the conf #?
I'm confused.
Ooooohhh....the WOUND!

Done and done. Piece of cake. Glad you decided on paypal. Love ya anyway Blup!

*thermometer fan or graph or something fan. (Ah, man! You know how curious we are, we want to know how it's going.)

originally posted by: ManBehindTheMask
a reply to: blupblup

I believe it was stated that there wouldnt be any banners or anything to indicate who donated what or how much.......

or did you completely gloss over that, it was on the first page

I know officially there isn't... I'm aware of that.
As someone else just said, people will be putting their "contribution number" in their profile soon.

Oh well.

Whatever.... first world problems.

a reply to: blupblup

Miserable bugger!

Just give your damn donation and shut up about it!

originally posted by: ladyinwaiting
Done and done. Piece of cake. Glad you decided on paypal. Love ya anyway Blup!

LOL

It's actually nice to be able to do more than say thank-you... I may not get along with 98% of the other posters in the forums I frequent but that challenge is rewarding to me in some, I guess, deranged kind of way...

I really do love ATS though.

a reply to: Krakatoa

Actually I was hesitant to say that because it seems like a generalisation.



I put forth an apology to the older folks of ATS thusly.
Forgive me.

originally posted by: LiveForever8
a reply to: blupblup

Miserable bugger!

Just give your damn donation and shut up about it!

Who says I didn't? I just don't need to post about it....


"Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble."

originally posted by: CharlieSpeirs
a reply to: Krakatoa

Actually I was hesitant to say that because it seems like a generalisation.



I put forth an apology to the older folks of ATS thusly.
Forgive me.

You forgot to say, "No Mongo, never kill a customer"

Wow Skeptic Overlord, I can feel you.

Google is EVIL, EVIL, EVIL. I was in internet marketing some while ago, so yes I know exactly what you're going through.
Getting booted from AdSense (or Adwords) is just horrible.

I always hated the double-standards Google has. It applies rules to webmasters but breaks those very same rules itself, eg deceptive advertising in search results etc..etc..

I hope that you guys can sort all this out.

why does google have to be involved in the ads?
can someone explain how it works?
i mean are they the only option?

I've been a long time contributing member of Above Top Secret.

I've been a mod.

I've been and still am the Weapons FSME.

I intend to continue to use ATS as a platform for growth.

Donation Complete. There will be more contributions in the future.

a reply to: Grovit

they are the major player.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I'm the only one working this Christmas.. so i have only given $10..
More if i could do it.

Sounds like we are being a nuisance to something high up.. so for that alone i have donated.

Transaction ID: 05C11377N49637038

Love ATS

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Before I consider contribution I would like to ask some questions about certain matters that are unclear.

As many members know by now, we've suffered some financial losses as the result of several sustained Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS). These attacks have been at levels well beyond automated mitigation available from our hosting provider, and very expensive to defend. As a result, we've been forced to obtain a short-term loan to cover operations and remain viable.

What exactly costed that much money? You were tweeting about how it cost a lot of money when the attack was still going on.

So what happened, did the attack stop or did you throw some money at it in real time to stop it?

How does something like that work?

What I am asking is, are we talking about money that was spent to stop the attack, or are we talking about money that is needed to provide better security in the future?

What has changed that makes ATS suddenly less viable?

This money will be used to repay the loan that's keeping us running,

You are a business man, and ATS is your business, right?

Isn't that what businesses do, lend money and invest in their business?

Are you saying that ATS' survival depends on people donating enough money to pay back that loan?

What if you only raise half of it and ATS still doesn't make it? Do donators get their money back?



I hope I can get a straight answer and this threads stays nice and clean.

0PG84556K52467352
a reply to: SkepticOverlord

originally posted by: Grovit
why does google have to be involved in the ads?
can someone explain how it works?
i mean are they the only option?

There is a long story here, I'll try to make it short.

Back in 2003, ATS had no viable ads and increasing traffic. It actually went dark a few times because the bandwidth exceeded the hosting company's maximum. SImon Gray, the founder, couldn't afford to increase the bandwidth cap.

Being a digital advertising executive, I stepped in and took over the tech side, the agreement that we'd split the ad revenue once I was able to get some, after a long list of tech improvements. So from that point forward, I funded ATS with my credit card for several months.

That time went on… I got several stern looks from Mrs. Overlord every time the credit card statement arrived because the ad networks for banner ads (at the time) were paying pennies -- literally.

So Simon and I had a chat one night, and we agreed that we'd have to shut down ATS.

The next morning, I received an email that we were approved for Google AdSense program. That changed everything. Within two months, we were making enough to pay the credit card charges.


Before all that, among other things at the ad agency where I worked, I ran ad campaigns on Google AdWords for several clients. In a nut shell, it's those small text-based ads that appear either before search results, or to the right in a column. Advertisers bid against search terms. The higher you bid relative to other advertisers, the higher you appeared in the list of ads.

In 2003, Google took that model to websites, in addition to search, and called it AdSense. As an advertiser, I used the same AdWords tools to create ads against specific keywords, but now I could also target those ads to appear on sites with those key words. For example, I could run an ad on Google search for "UFO Invasion" and appear in search results for "UFO Invasion" -- and with AdSense, I could also appear on websites that talk about "UFO Invasion."


For several years, AdSense was our top-performing source of advertising. It wasn't intrusive. Most of the ads were clean text. And users typically didn't mind since the ads were better-targeted than most.



I hope that helps.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

i know that they are but why are they involved?
im trying to understand

they pulled adverts cause of a chick in a bikini but if you search for 'enter the nastiest thing you can think of here' on google you get about a zillion pages worth of it
im just confused

also, how do all these porn sites or sites like friggin stormfront or even sites like peopleofwalmrt get advertising


thanks for explaining but i still dont fully get it.
google has these strict rules for sites they will give adverts to but a search on their engine brings up the worst possible # ever, if you search it of course.

the above still stands
how does pornoblahblah and stormfront get adverts
know what i mean? if it is a content issue...
this site has the cleanest content around