Transparency On The Future of ATS

originally posted by: Wookiep

originally posted by: neformore

originally posted by: IMSAM
edit to say that i red here and there about politics being the downfall etc. NEver ever have i seen a political thread on ATS. And thats because i go from the ufo forum to the bigfoot forum to the paranormal studies and back to ufos.

Nice for you, because you are used to being here.

Try being new, and seeing the front page on any given day over the past three years. That's the point we're trying to make.

As stated many, many times before. Politics ARE the conspiracy these days. And if you think ATS is a right-wing think tank to appease right leaning thinkers, then you're a very sheltered individual. I also think it's a huge insult to the staff here, whom you have worked with.

ATS is user generated content, people speak their minds here without worrying within reasonable limits for it to just disappear or to be SHUT OFF from discussion.But it's no surprise to hear hard core lefties, especially the kind from GB hoping to watch it all burn to the ground. Well, you're on the WRONG side of history, guy.

Did you know that if you turn off the news, stop clicking on hot take political links, and remove yourself from the people who only talk about politics...there are no political conspiracies. I know, it sounds crazy. But it’s true.

It takes a lot of work, but people can do it. I spent last week in the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming. No cell service, no internet, no politically obsessed assholes. It was great! I looked up to the stars, listened to Mother Nature, shared in new memories with family. Life is beautiful when you turn off all the noise.

In the everyday world, everyone has an opinion but most opinions are created from MSM. They come from the headlines mostly....you know how many people spew out just the headlines of an article as fact? Then others will read the article or watch the news that goes with it and they never fact check it...they believe whatever they’re told to believe. That exact “thing” is what has infected many of the users on this site. And by golly, if you ain’t with us, you’re against us!!

Don’t believe what Trump says?? You’re a communist!! Don’t believe what Ticker Carlson says...you’re a moron! Don’t believe what Anderson Cooper says...you’re inbred. Don’t believe what Obama says...you’re a racist Nazi! Far too many people are simple minded and fall into that very trap and then it becomes a “my side vs your side” argument and the opportunity for civil discussion fades away.

This users on this site is now heavily populated by conservative ideologists who adamantly refuse to be open-minded. Certainly not all, by any stretch. But the most vocal and the most active you cannot have an open, fact based conversation with. That’s not an attack on conservatives or conservatism...it’s the way the arguments are discussed on the internet as a whole. Go to Reddit and it’s the total opposite, nothing but far left insanity where if you demonstrate any shades of red and you will be eaten alive by the socialists.

Politics aren’t the conspiracy of the day. It’s the conspiracy that’s fed to the masses. And the masses eat them up. This site should have absolutely blown up when the US government admitted to the public the existence of UFO’s and released videos of them, albeit videos we had seen before. Barely a blip on the radar. Lots of people still care about the alternative news out there, but they have been pushed away and ignored by the people who are maniacally obsessed with politics.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Really sad to hear that, I found a great community here and all my Google searches led me to ATS when looking for detailed information about alternative topics before I became a member. This has always been a place where lots of great content was posted in excellent threads by so many fantastic and highly dedicated posters.

It would be a shame if all of this went down the drain, but I understand there's a harsh reality we're facing when it comes to commercial sites that rely a lot on ads and related traffic.

I still hope for the best and can only echo what previous posters said: ATS is a unique forum and, even though the community is largely anonymous, there is a strong sense of belonging and respect towards one another on here. I actually doubt there's a good alternative out there, so I'd be more than glad if someone found a way to save ATS.

Thanks for being transparent about the current situation of ATS and it may sound a bit cynical at this point, but keep up the good work and I hope there'll be a future for this great site...

I posted this in another thread, but thought it worth posting here for visibility:

Unfortunately, as I posted in the "Transparency..." thread, there really is only one solution, and these community suggestions are somewhat moot.

What is needed is either a benefactor or a very wealthy person to buy the site outright (I guess a real membership offer will be considered as seriously as possible), right now. Someone who has the appetite, clout and protections to fight an information war with most of the world.

I'm not even sure that anyone that has the type of influence and finances (and free time) to keep ATS running in it's original form, would even be "allowed" to, due to restrictions and policies being enacted across the world. The infrastructure seems like the simple part... the quagmire of differing rules and policies related to information and discussion, around the world, becomes the real administrative nightmare.

Further, I suspect there is something frighteningly "legal" that will be discovered once NDA's' are signed, that will negate many of our suggestions. There are secret things, that require an NDA, which will highlight "... the realities of the situation... ", as has been stated by SO.

What's more, the Owners would have to feel comfortable with "who" they are selling to, and developing trust takes time, time that likely isn't there. I can only imagine how difficult this decision is... or conversely, how the best solution (... maybe the path with NO resistance, or possibly even safest) is to just let it fade away.

While I like the sentiment of all of the ideas and suggestions (and I fear for a world that can't support the existence of ATS), anything other than an immediate buyout will not work.

For a real "transfer" to happen to either members, or a non-profit, or any other idea, or just community hosted as Open Data, we are essentially discussing the topic of Succession.

Developing and implementing a Succession Plan takes years, and requires the active involvement of future retirees, otherwise handover is effectively doomed to failure.

The Owners have indicated strongly that the time and appetite don't exist for years of succession, for many reasons, some that we may not be allowed to know.

Pray for a Champion, with boundless cash and influence, to present to the Owners!

I'll enjoy my last days among you all, regardless of what happens!

a reply to: Catch2020

Check your messages. The mail folder icon does not light up but you have a PM.

This could be a awful idea but has ATS concidered any kind of holding company that might specialise in buying failing sites. Or even a competitor like InfoWars and presenting the site as a alternative to their comments section.

originally posted by: ArMaP
a reply to: Case74282

Another thing most people do not notice is that Google gives different results according to the browser used to make the search. As I use several different browsers I have noticed that many years ago.

Skeptic Overlord seems to think there is much more to it - Link1 , Link2

Those green lines represent known changes to Google's algorithm. The last one in early May has essentially de-platformed us from search.

through 2015 we'd receive daily notices that URLs (entire threads really) were being delisted from the ad platform. For a time, just about all of them were threads critical of Hillary Clinton.

Other sites are also feeling the heat -Link1, Link2

I would encourage everyone to support your favorite alt search engine like duckduckgo.com. If you cant beat them, then ban them, seems to be the google mantra.

originally posted by: 111DPKING111
Skeptic Overlord seems to think there is much more to it -

Sure there's much more to it, I was talking about the user side of things, as this is not limited to sites being removed from the top results (or completely removed from the results), with all the implications that has, but they also control what you see depending on what software you use. I have to try doing some searches in Linux to see if there's a difference too.

Just as a kind of PS, some years ago, when I first noticed this, it was worse, as all browsers had different results.

I would encourage everyone to support your favorite alt search engine like duckduckgo.com. If you cant beat them, then ban them, seems to be the google mantra.

The problem is that alternative search engines do not have a database as big as Google's, so they miss many results.

This is all a result of the deceitful way Google works, with fake numbers of results to appear they have much more results than they really have and the fact that most people use what looks better, not what is better.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
The website will continue to run. In the event we begin seriously fading away, there will be a fair warning.

While (as I've already said in this thread) I hope ATS survives, just in case, I've been doing a bit of work this weekend to try out various ways of archiving at least some of the material on ATS.

I think that a well organised attempt to archive material may be more complicated and time-consuming than many members realise, so either:

(1) the "fair warning" of any closure will need to be pretty extensive, or

(2) some more exploratory work on archiving at least some material will need to be done before the fate of ATS is known.

Since I fear that economic realities mean that Option 1 is not guaranteed, I'd like permission to start a thread sooner rather than later to develop ideas/techniques for Option 2 (unless one of the owners or moderators of ATS already has something planned) - just in case.

I think most of the owners and moderators here have my email address (isaackoi at gmail dot com) if they would prefer to respond offline, but I wanted to make a public request now.

A lot of people (including me) have put a lot of time and effort into ATS. I'd like that effort to be preserved as well as possible (ideally in more than one format), in case the worst does happen.

Put a link to a donations/funding page. Do that once a year in order to cover hosting and any other costs. If the funding doesn't reach 100% then sell the site. If it does then repeat the next year. This is something that can be done very very easily and takes very little time.

May be worth looking at cheaper hosting options as well. If you haven't already that is.

a reply to: IsaacKoi

Already on it... get to work...

How To Archive Your Posts

I would like to inform members about the r/conspiracy subreddit.

Offering it here as a fall-back if the site goes dark.

originally posted by: MarkOfTheV
a reply to: IsaacKoi

Already on it... get to work...

How To Archive Your Posts

As that thread says, the instructions are for a Mac and a firefox user said the pdf icon doesn't appear on firefox.

I'm not sure that's the only or best way to archive even on a mac, so I think the archive topic warrants a broader discussion than the narrow focus of "here's how to print a pdf on a mac".

If ATS can't find a suitable buyer, before closing, one option might be to put the database on a torrent so it won't be lost forever. Only bandwidth to upload the 50GB one time would be needed, after that interested parties could download it from the torrent swarm.

Alternatively someone mentioned some scripts that can run on Linux to do the archiving. I'd be interested in that because I have one thread which was closed at the 400 page limit and the idea of printing 400 pages 1 at a time in 400 different operations doesn't sound efficient, and that's just for one thread. Running scripts at off-peak times with limiters to avoid using too much bandwidth might be feasible.

IsaacKoi, Arbitrageur, read your messages, please.

This is just devastating news. I feel like I've been punched in the gut and shed many tears since seeing this on Friday. I read every bit of this thread and am just still in disbelief.

I'm not sure when I first discovered ATS but I would usually just come here and read. I finally joined when the BP oil spill happened. I've learned so many fascinating things here & enjoyed every minute of it. It is unfathomable to me that all of this content could just be gone especially in the middle of these crazy times. So many intelligent contributors and so much amazing information just wiped out - just so hard to believe. There is no other place like this and I'm heartbroken. It feels like when my favorite bar closed and my favorite radio station went off the air or like when Art Bell died. I'm praying hard for a miracle. This place is one reason I have stayed sane over the last few months. If ATS really does disappear, I'm going to be more than a little lost. I know that I would be happy to pay a monthly fee & contribute to a Go Fund me. I really hope that there is some way to archive everything at least. There were so many threads that I hadn't gotten around to reading yet.


Thanks to the owners, mods & everyone here. It's truly been an Amazing Ride.

originally posted by: GetStarched
I would like to inform members about the r/conspiracy subreddit.

Offering it here as a fall-back if the site goes dark.

Man, I’ve frequented that sub over the past year or so. No doubt there can be some quality content, but it can also be filled with just as many Chinese and Russian bots as here but multiplied by 100 and on steroids. It’s also got a lot more racism, and a lot less moderation. It seems their version of moderation is absolute censorship.

Right now, on the thread you started over there, some guy is defending racism and supporting an incredibly hate filled website for alternative news. I assume he’s suggesting ATS’ers would be welcomed with open-arms there. Though there are definite racists among the ATS users, the vast majority are not.

Reddit can be entertaining and even a little enlightening but my God is that place a sh**show sometimes.

I would love to see a conspiracy section added to Longecity as they already have a great group discussing the really important thing in life, at least as you get older anyway. Dont really see it happening though.

Brain Health

Supplements

In the interim, while things are being discussed/decided etc is an ATS discord something that would be of interest to anyone?

Just wondering.

i realize one of the main concerns people are having is "staying in touch" which is something that discord can help with.

Let me know. Drop me a PM.