Please ATS Members and Non-Members alike, STOP Blocking Ads- Or there may be NO ATS at ALL

I'm a lurker for the most part. I come here for a couple reasons.

1. Entertainment. I'm not lying...the #1 reason I come on here is to be entertained. A large majority of the crap that gets posted these days is pure entertainment. The constant doomsday predictions, partnerships with alien cultures, and the posts made by the extreme tin foil hat section of the conspiracy society is entertaining.

2. To deny my own ignorance. I like to have perspective on all things that surround my life. You can't get perspective without hearing the opinions of others on all matters. ATS helps me obtain perspective, and deny my own ignorance simply by reading through some of the threads that relate to me. And even some of the posts that relate to me in no way, shape or form.

3. The news. I hate the MSM. ATS has posts on current events pop up quicker than the MSM does sometimes. Not only that, but the variety of opinions that contribute to threads help me get a feel for the whole story and what the impact of that story is on many different walks of life.

Here's my point...there is a value of ATS to me. True, it's not what it once was (I've been lurking for a very long time), but if anything provides a value to me, then I owe something in return. Even if it's removing a simple ad block, which I'm pretty sure I don't have.

Our society is getting to needy. Everyone wants and needs something, but nobody wants to pay for it. Free Free Free. How Bernie Sanders is not winning the Democratic vote boggles my mind, cause he speaks to what a lot of people seem to want. (Disclaimer, I'm not wanting to "feel the bern")

If a simple ad on the side of the page is all I have to allow to get something that provides me a value, then I'm ok with that. HOWEVER...I use an iPad. I absolutely hate when I'm in the middle of a thread on ATS and I get redirected to the App Store. It is utterly annoying and distracting. When it happens time and time again, I no longer have any value from ATS. (That hasn't happened in quite some time, and I hope it stays that way).

ATS is a business....SO and company have a right to run that business as they see fit. If you don't like it, then delete your account. You signed the T & C's...live up to your own signature.

I Had a long standing account under the name undisputable and invested time into posting a few threads. After a few emails to ATS management I was advised my account was hacked and there was no way to retrieve it back. Due to this I lost an account I had for many years and I cant even view my threads I had started. So yes the members are the staff and I cant see where the money is going.

originally posted by: celticviking
So yes the members are the staff and I cant see where the money is going.

Hosting and server maintenance for one.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
a reply to: theySeeme

I gladly openly challenge you here on ATS. We can create a topic in the appropriate section and duke it out with current and up to date information, technologies and configurations.

Oh boy, a showdown? I'm not one to shy away from a good debate but wouldn't it be simpler to just admit that you pulled a number out of your ass?

I'd also like to mention that this page (page 3 of this topic) is currently 14.2kb in size

If you can extrapolate the resource requirements from just the size of the html for a single page of posts, you're obviously some sort of supernatural being.

Why don't you start with what sort of server/specs you're expecting to get for $15-$25/month? Then we can talk about a realistic estimate of the resource overhead for the average page view for ATS and with that, it should be a relatively simple matter to come up with a rough estimate of the number of max concurrent users the server could handle. Be sure that you figure on hosting all the images from your $15-$25/month server too.

Not sure why you are offended? No one pulled any numbers out of their ass, in fact everything I have said thus far is accurate, and I can prove it.

Secondly, there are not much images hosted on this website, and if you bothered to read the admin's replies you would have noticed he stated he is using a CDN, and his webserver is already running on gzip - so that's a non factor.

Lastly, anyone who has 25 years in the field as you lied about would know that SyS - a partner of OVH currently offers

" E3-SAT-2 Intel Xeon E3 1225v2 4 c/ 4 t 3.2 GHz+ 32 GB 2 x 2 TB SATA Soft 16*
$49.00 USD", and Kimsufi is also selling the same machine at 26$ a month - these specifications are complete overkill for this website and still extremely cheap from reputable names (I know you didn't know, so I'll tell you now) OVH being the inventors of fail-over IP technologies.

Anyway



And for someone who claims to be a professional as you do, you should really brush up with the following knowledge

40 Million hits a day using a $10 VPS
reviewsignal.com...

and now, even better is

168 million hits a day on a $10 vps (from digital ocean)
www.itsmdaily.com...

members build content... no site without that content. whomever owns that content has a choice... whomever hosts it owns the site. however whomever hosts the site on their device can choose what they want to see on their device. if someone isnt going to click it? why force them to view it? its the amount of traffic that drives a sites value not the ads.

originally posted by: JackReyes
And whatever happened to that swear every 5 seconds guy who would post videos? He seems to have disappeared. What was his name...Joe I think it was, had long hair and a big blonde beard, kinda like a viking.

That's Next Level BS, the newest one was dec 28, as far as I can see.


First I thought they had just finished season 3.0, but I find they are doing stuff at our friend website disinfo.com

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord

originally posted by: theySeeme
Thats not true. This website does not require keep-alive connections nor does it load much of anything outside of text. The only resource intensive feature of this website is the database and PHP - which are still relatively minimal in use in today's tech field.

If you do not have active (as in current, present) experience in the web field, you will have no idea.

I think you missed my response to you in this post.

It's impossible to host a basic Wordpress site that gets moderate traffic at the numbers you're tossing around.

Seriously, you're not being helpful here. Your numbers are way off.

Are you serious? So what's this - www.itsmdaily.com...

originally posted by: JackReyes

originally posted by: Kryties
a reply to: JackReyes

I've never had that issue. I've never had an issue with overbearing or too many ads whatsoever.

Were you logged in?

Yes and no.

It didn't seem to matter on my Galaxy Tab 7 with andriod. The adds were overbearing. To a point I stopped visiting this website when using a tablet. I wish I could have recorded it for the record. But I am not saying this in spite of anything. Just stating a fact. It was a horrible ordeal using ATS on my tablet because of the adds. A horrible horrible horrible ordeal.

Also why does the main page reload every few seconds. That is also annoying.

At one time, I remember a glitch with the truck ad and the diet pepsi max ad, one had to close it and refresh a couple of times.

Other than that, the multitude of ads you are getting are from your ISP. They are not from here. There are no ads from here that contain spyware. I have rested this about 20x now on mobile logged in and out and on 2 different ISPs. Last night I borrowed my housemate's tablet. It is a Tab4. There was no unusual ad activity.

when i started modderating a site... it was hemmoraging money to the tune of 5k a month and valued the same... becoming a determent to the owners families and ramping their stress. when it sold I was picked by the previous owner to mod with a couple others... and within 2 years, the valuation increased to over 150k with the efforts of all those aboard.

the mods got paid nothing as passionate volunteers, the site manager/coder was mostly absent despite broken modules and paid... and the article social media person that drew traffic was more about money she made than the community, even after scandals arose... they still kept running ads that caused them. this divided the whole community, some built another site... some stayed some use both. but wordpress owns a site built on word press... and the more data sitting in servers as pictures the more they charge for hosting... so i can see the pressure.

perhaps this lends some insight into the situation ats is currently facing?

Wow, I'm gonna be really upset if I get banned from this sight simply for visiting frequently without paying.. Just happened to me over at glp.. Started a thread that got some traction and in the middle of responding my IP address was banned with a message saying that "for $10 a month I can be immune to ALL bans" I said nothing offensive whatsoever at all. Just a money grab at a LNG time member. Hope things don't go that way here.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

First it was Skeptic pleading for a PayPal donation, which I gladly donated to. Now I'm expected to switch of ad block-You can only draw so much blood out of a stone.

Perhaps an entry fee? say ten dollars per member? It's not a lot of money and frankly I was p!$$ed off when i found out I now had to disable adblock. I among others donated to this site under the premise that it needed support, but apparently our sponsorship isn't enough anymore.

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: TrueAmerican

First it was Skeptic pleading for a PayPal donation, which I gladly donated to. Now I'm expected to switch of ad block-You can only draw so much blood out of a stone.

Perhaps an entry fee? say ten dollars per member? It's not a lot of money and frankly I was p!$$ed off when i found out I now had to disable adblock. I among others donated to this site under the premise that it needed support, but apparently our sponsorship isn't enough anymore.

Which, again, begs the question which I have posed twice with no response.

Where did the money go?

a reply to: TrueAmerican

I am using AdblockPlus extension with IE11, where I have the option to "Disable on www.abovetopsecret.com", which I did.

Is that enough for ATS to be safe from extortion?

Thanks for letting me know.

a reply to: introvert

Yes it seems they don't like questions of those sort.

Come on, show us exactly where the money is going. You want more? Show us where it's going, breakdown all your costs and be transparent to your user base, lay it down for everyone so it is plain to see so there can be no doubt whatsoever as to where the money is going.

a reply to: AceWombat04

Maybe the Oxford publishing house should start charging you for using their thesaurus.

I have aided this site financially-should I pay money to attend a football game only for my view to be blocked by the Michelin man? no. if this site is so hard up for cash then there should be an entry fee-It's simple and fair. But then again there could be an exodus as a blog costs nothing.

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
a reply to: TrueAmerican

First it was Skeptic pleading for a PayPal donation, which I gladly donated to. Now I'm expected to switch of ad block-You can only draw so much blood out of a stone.

Perhaps an entry fee? say ten dollars per member? It's not a lot of money and frankly I was p!$$ed off when i found out I now had to disable adblock. I among others donated to this site under the premise that it needed support, but apparently our sponsorship isn't enough anymore.

That's why it was such a big deal when they asked for money - and people knew it would lead to this and then eventually to paid members only.
We were told on ATS by the owners that this would never happen - and here we are.

a reply to: TrueAmerican

New trees have to be planted or the forest will die.

What does that have to do with ad blocking or revenue?
Trees usually grow from acorns & nuts & seeds...no human intervention necessary

Or are you just going to keep taking and taking until there is nothing left to take

Stop just reading, and actually go out and get an interesting topic and bring it here, or write one yourself.

If I have nothing interesting to say do I flood the boards of new threads like a shill with inanities, all in the name of volume? That seems to be going quite well in the religious forums at the moment with disastrous effects.

This should be an interesting thread

Isn't this a repeat thread of what's already in the board forum? I guess since it's a cheer-leading effort, it's okay? That doesn't bode well for future non-paying members. I'm not necessarily against the pay system, I don't even use ad blockers. I just think site owners ought to be careful to not ruin a good thing.

a reply to: ImmortalLegend527

So ,take off your brave mask and stop sticking your chest out and take the sock out your trousers and do as your told and stop blocking the bloody ads.

The shut up, and just do what we tell you to do, think what we tell you to think, and post only those things we agree with, or want you to post, attitude, is another reason that ATS is losing a number of its post generating members.

I agree with those that say that things change over time. The degree of relevance and satisfaction a thing has in one's life will also change with time. Someone mentioned "My Space". I bet there are pople reading this don't even know what "My Space" was about. For many of us, ATS may also go the way of My Space and Dungeons and Dragons. It may just become a place spoken of with a few fond memories. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

If it is going to die, let ATS die a natural death. Beating up on the people that are doing the CPR, is not going to breathe life back into ATS. It is just going to reduce the chances that it will survive.

It may help to keep in mind that like cable TV, also previously mentioned, that we pay for those ads that we are being forced to see; that many of us pay a substantial amount of money every month for the privilage of surfing the web. We pay dearly for every ad forced on us, and even more for those ads that give us the added wonder of video, to sell their wares. It not only costs me to read ATS, it costs me to post to ATS. So some of us cheapskate, food robbing, non-loyal, criminals, have to pay coming and going.

I guess you can find us listed under the category of the "The World's Dumbest Criminals".

a reply to: introvert

Which, again, begs the question which I have posted twice with no response. Where did the money go?

Well I have my own homepage that I have customized for no fee-however if I want the full suite that tracks traffic and cookies then that's only $500 a month...

I don't understand how ATS can punish it's generous donators because they use Adblock-it's a slap in the face to those who were generous enough to keep this site afloat.