The AboveTopSecret.com Community Should be Proud Today

I was really impressed with ATS members throughout this ordeal even though I was apparently in the wrong thread the whole time. I know there were a lot of folks with 50 open browsers trying to update everyone. It really is a great community, even though it drives me nuts at times (reminds me of family).

I was also highly impressed with the mods. This is one of very few sites where I actually trust the moderators to be fair and level headed.

Of course I'm also going to tip my hat to all the police, fire, medical, Feds, civilians and dispatchers (unsung heroes IMO).

Dear ATS Readers, Writers,

Agreed, there were a lot of folks trying to get to the bottom of this Boston mess. ATS is unique in that it has SO many members, from all over the world.

I appreciated that very few knuckleheads tried to troll the Boston threads too.. that was a relief.

It WAS great to find info faster than MSM was providing it too. MOST folks here at ATS strive to do right and give proper replies and meaningful replies. You can actually have an intelligent conversation here with people! lol

My wife and I QUIT watching MSM a long time ago. And we try our best to get to the ATS LIVE RADIO SHOW every Sunday for us down here in OZ. They give a great review of the weeks top stories and great discussion.
I am sure next weeks shows first hour will probably be on the Boston bombing mess.

ATS usually has someone posting every important story out there, and more importantly for my wife and I.. STORIES THAT AREN'T anywhere else! Passed over by MSM as not worthy, not to be broadcast for some reason.

Yes, ATS members were wonderful during this last week on getting information out there for its readers! Good on ya!

Pravdaseeker

Real Journalist cant listen to a "Cops Feed" and report on it cuz there were many times when they thought they caught him and didnt. Luck is always on the Feed, the actual reporting is the Feed at the same time.

The thread was a great thing though.

Everyone at some point should get there recognition.

It is a good feeling to be here.

It is a real Emotion.

I can say that when I am here on ATS I can feel happiness.

Thankyou ATS.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
Kudos indeed.

And for those who were active in the threads posting the updates, you need to know what you did.

This is an early-in-the-day snapshot of our Google Analytics Real-Time report, about 5 hours before Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was caught in the boat:

On normal busy days, I've never seen the Currently Active Users number break 1,000.

As the crescendo of activity increased, about 20 minutes before the capture, the number was flirting with 6,500 -- that's on a short session of 3 seconds. We were also serving about 215 pages a second for the 10 minutes surrounding the time of capture.

The full analytics analysis of the hour of traffic leading up to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's capture is this:
A total of 162,000 people were following the three primary Boston threads. They were following YOUR updates.

That's more traffic in one hour than ATS got in all of 2003. Because our members were a critical resource for 162,000 people during one of the most intense news days since 9/11.

Great job everyone.



One thing about that number... it's an estimate. Why? I was getting alerts from Google all day that our traffic was exceeding the ability of the Google Analytics platform to accurately count. They estimated that our numbers would be low by 35% and that we'd need to upgrade to the paid Google Analytics Premium so as to not loose data. I used a conservative 30% to extrapolate.

Good heavens!

With numbers like that, we're competing with MSM news outlets now!

When will ATS go "Nielson"?

LOL!!! No disrespect but there are alot of Newbies here.

reply to post by beezzer
ATS went Nielson along time ago. This is just another round of Junkies coming through.

reply to post by Springer


Love this place. Thanks for letting me participate.

yes I agree

I logged in in the arvo and followed the thread and scanners until about 3am!! Was on the edge of my seat during that time. Kudos to Kosmicjack who I think stayed for the whole time! There were other members too!

Much better coverage and up to the minute info than the mainstream news...

I must say that a) I played no part in the recent hectic board activity. One thing and another have kept me away from my computer, and from all the news. I must also say that b) I am thankful that the events have now been immortalised as part of the site, for all of us to refer to at a later date. The oppertunity this presents for further study is enormous, and I would like to thank all members who participated, and of course the staff, moderators, and owners without whom, events like these would fall by the wayside.

I will be sifting through these threads periodically for elements of interest for many weeks no doubt, and perhaps we may yet learn more by examining these reports.

Honestly, I am staggered by the way this has been handled by everyone involved. I am impressed, overwhelmed, and intensely proud to know you all.

Edit to add:

Just a quick question for mods, owners, whomever it may concern. Is there any way we could have all the threads about the Boston Caper on one dedicated forum? The reason I ask, is that it would be good to have them all collated in a seperated area, so that one can view them without distraction.

I also am thankful for ATS. During most of the search for the bomber, from about 2 am on, I had ATS up and was glued to my computer for the day. No TVs in my home. That is another story. Because I usually use WMUR for NH news, I also had the news from MSM.

Majic was correct about the chat room. There was real time involvement on the thread I was watching, plus I was able to check the other 2 threads out also. It was great to be able to go back, on the thread, to check something I remembered seeing or had missed in the first posting.

Congratulations to all of the posters on that thread. I did feel I was in the corner of that room listening to all that was going on. Congratulations to SO and all of the ATS administration for the work you have done. This was necessary to actually follow what was going on in a very important event for all of the US.

Originally posted by pheonix358
In the light of a new day with the chaos of the manhunt behind us I would like to add this thought. For someone as old as I am it is a wonder.

Here I was, sitting in a chair in South Australia, listening to live scanner feeds form Boston, half a world away, effectively communicating with thousand of other like minded individuals, maintaining an up to the moment description of events in real time, so far in advance of what MSM could offer. AND, the whole record is stored for anyone that wants to peruse it at any time.

Bloody awesome when you think about it.

P

Albeit in the UK, I had the same exact thoughts myself. I beats me how we, a rag-tag fleet of folks from all over the place, can co-ordinate sources faster and more effectively that the big MSM outlets. The best example of media ineptitude has to be CNN - through most of the endgame, the CNN live stream was weather forecasts.

Good work to all involved, and a big thank you to those who deprived themselves of sleep to keep updating, those who understood why it was not a bad thing that thirty of us all posted the same scanner update at the same time, and the the ATS team for bringing the site back up every time we broke it doing so (oops)

A lot of the time, I find myself pulling my hair out over some of the folks on here, and I vow this site is not good for my blood pressure. But I stick around, and events like this are the reason why.

reply to post by dogsounds


You got deprived of sleep right .. Coming to an end of a 10 hour work shift to which I only had 2 and half hours sleep before hand just couldn't bare to leave the updates, I tried staying to the end but my bed eventually won

EDIT: on a side note I wonder how many ATS users were reported missing by their loved ones and spouses while the threads were running

It was a great thread... congrats ATS.

Apart from providing faster information than the MSM it also did this (which I posted on page 216 of the now almost 350 page thread)....

Originally posted by RiverRunsFree
Just want to say good job on posting all this info.... I know some feel it's a lot of misinformation but there's also a lot of good information.

Just think of the many threads that can come back to this for reference and information on the subject in the future, help with their research etc. I'm sure what will follow in the next few months will be countless threads on these last few days, imagine if there was a thread like this for previous/other 'events'.

Thanks.

That thread can be used and referred to for countless reasons, dare I say to even help people analyse how the police operation could have been improved etc.. when tac teams were needed and when they weren't, when the bears were needed how many were needed. This was all logged as it developed.

But most of all it could help in future threads and analysis of that time.

Great work guys... it was a pleasure to read and participate in.

I didn't contribute or comment on the thread but I followed it avidly ... along with the scanner link. It's an amazing experience to be part of such a great community. The last time we all came together with such force was on the Fukushima thread (which I still check out to see what's gong on).

The truth is I've been a member here since 2007 and I have active (contributary) and quiet (reading) spells on site ... but I can say with hand on heart that there have been very few days over those years that I have not found time to make at least one visit in any given day ... to me checking-out the ATS boards is as important as brushing my teeth and taking a shower.

Keep up the good work ATS I feel so honoured to be part of such an amazing family.

Woody

I was glued to the site and got nothing done but refresh pages every couple of minutes and of course 3 or 4 were added in this time and had to skip to the most recent and missed a lot of postings. Way to go ATS this really is a community to be proud to be a member of. My problem is that we were invited to join in chat as the site 504'd a few times but because i do not have enough posts, i could not join... guess i will have to post a bit more often.

reply to post by Springer
As always hats off, and many

to you and your staff, An A+ for a job well done by all staff and posters!!!!

BUT when a thread pops up telling us not to question people about it here.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

People who say to this "No we are here to question things" chime up we get our posts removed.
Not on and at the moment I really want to quit ATS.