Transparency On The Future of ATS

Please note TAN has not set up a gofundme. Should that ever change it will be announced by a site owner.

We have no affiliation or control over gofundme campaigns set up by anyone that is not a member of TheAboveNetwork, LLC.

originally posted by: WormwoodSquirm

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord

Couple of options.

Evolve. Lock down visibility of discussion boards to logged in users only. Charge $5 per year to be a member. Create static pages of your best content for non-members, the public and advertisers.

FYI I see a valuable Google remarketing ad at the bottom of this post right now.

I also see your refresh ads script as flawed and working against you. You go for impressions when you need to be going for clicks. People cant even read a whole ad let alone click it before the dang thing changes. Turn that refresh crap off. Impressions generate pennies, clicks mean dollars.

Fire the company handling your ads, friendship or not.

^^ What he said ^^

originally posted by: Ahabstar
a reply to: Snarl

I don’t know the costs of such things....but either of y’all include some serious front end DDoS mitigation? Oh and extra security for the pissed off script kiddies that got popped with an OT or a duplicate topic thread deletion. As I understand it, such things are pretty commonplace around here...

What you're talking about here, shouldn't involve the cost of ATS beyond the services leased. I would be shocked if the mitigation of such events wasn't covered by contract. As memory serves, this site was relatively unusable during those periods. I'm not trying to nitpick the costs. They're extraordinary @ $25K. Nobody is required to shplain it to me. $25K is five times more than this site should cost to run ... and maybe 25X ... but, I didn't wanna go there.

FWIW, I see nothing wrong with selling a product for as much as you can get for it.

For those people coming late into this discussion, perhaps you missed the comments that many of us don't feel this is necessarily about money but about effort and money. As someone mentioned, Springer hasn't chimed in at all.... And SO has seemed to rebuffed all ideas about how to improve efficiency on the site or build a paying membership. He just wants a buyer. To me, that means that he has mentally moved on to other things in his life that are more important at this time. While that is very sad for all of us who are still committed to this place in our hearts and minds, we should respect the thought that maybe SO just wants to focus on other interests or needs?

Sooo....how about this for an option. If SO wants to sell...maybe a committee of people who are fully committed to picking up this site and turning into something should form an LLC or S Corp and set up a contract to buy the boys out?? Then we can make all the upgrades, changes, and reinvigorate the site.

ETA - basically you get ATS'ers running ATS who understand and respect the spirit of what ATS is really about

a reply to: CIAGypsy

My earlier points exactly!!

We need the numbers. We need them to maintain continuity. Could 'we' do it without the numbers? Sure, but it might be turbulent (and I work in aviation).

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I don't think SO or Springer is likely to see these comments. By the time they skim the thread, it will likely be buried pages deep. Might be better off to message them directly.

That being said, someone would need to take the lead and step up. And someone would also have to organize all the effort to make it happen.... And if you want to be part of the LLC or S Corp, obviously you also have to be willing to provide your full identity and contact information.

a reply to: CIAGypsy

That's definitely one way to do it.

The other thought that occurred to me was that maybe rather than trying to make this site into a profit-making business, it could be bought by someone as a labor of love, of sorts. It seems there are more than a few members here that fit that bill - especially if they move to a minimal paid model that covers costs alone and totally scrap the whole idea of an ad-based anything. Ads suck on a site like this anyway.

Is the site for sale? If so, how much for the whole kit & caboodle?

A response via PM by one of the owners would be appreciated. This is more than idle interest.

I would pay $10/mo to keep this site going.

I agree with the last few comments. Kind of what I was suggesting earlier as well.

If a group of us care enough, and I'm sure there are a good number of us who do care. We could make it happen. As far as making a profit. I honestly don't see why this site has to make a profit beyond what it costs to keep it running. Which, as others have stated shouldn't cost what has been stated as operational costs.

a reply to: Riffrafter

I wasn't even really suggesting making it "for profit." You could easily structure it to be a not-for-profit. I was mostly saying that you need a legal entity in order to enter into a contract. That's much easier (and smarter) to do by setting up an LLC or S Corp.

yes, the site is for sale...and they had a buyer who had to back out due to unforeseen circumstances. Now he is looking for a new buyer.

a reply to: CIAGypsy

I'd get in on such a venture

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
but $25k per month is quite a bit for something like this.

That figure was offered as the ball-park for total expenses: hosting, upgrades, etc.

A bit more than a year ago, I got a "friends and family" quote from trusted and talented developers that it might take 3-4 months and $15k-$20k a month to make everything ready for efficient hosting on a cloud platform like AWS.

$25k was my average sum... stuff always takes longer... it always costs more.

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
For all those members making suggestions about subscriptions, donations, lack of tech upgrades, etc. You missed one important missing asset on our end: time.

Pool your resources, make an offer, and become member-run.

THIS.
Consider selling shares to members.
$100 per share? $1000 per share?
Make these offerings quarterly or yearly.
Maintain 51% controlling interest.
This, alone, would cover months of recoding costs.

originally posted by: CIAGypsy
Sooo....how about this for an option. If SO wants to sell...maybe a committee of people who are fully committed to picking up this site and turning into something should form an LLC or S Corp and set up a contract to buy the boys out?? Then we can make all the upgrades, changes, and reinvigorate the site.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“Wow” is all I’ve got right now.

originally posted by: Xcalibur254
a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

My thoughts exactly. I wouldn't pay for an ATS subscription in its current state. Why should I give them money just to be insulted by users on a daily basis?

For me to even consider a subscription they would have to return to the vigilant moderation of the past. No minimal posts. No baiting or insults of any kind. Etc.

Of course I'm sure there's a large group of people that wouldn't subscribe if such methods were put in place. They're paying customers. They should be able to say whatever they want.

I guess the bottom line on that is the internet has really failed to be what it started out aspiring to be. One of the biggest reasons why every one you see on a forum like this has a fake name is to make what is said less personal and more likely to be taken at face value. "OK. Here is a message that was posted by someone who believes X." But we still have to go out of our way to make things personal and to take things personally.

Why is a message from a random person on the internet an insult? Even if it is blatantly mean-spirited, this person really does not know you and does not have enough information about you to be really serious about what they're saying.

This is why most people can have close family members who have completely different political views from themselves and still value them as humans and family members. Because a human being is more than their opinions (which are apt to change (and often do)).

An insult from a random person on the internet is really just a very superficial judgement that was made in less time than it takes to take a few sips of coffee. It's meaningless. It means only as much as the meaning you assign to it.

But also, it might be more helpful to not put so much of ourselves into our posts. Which is (unfortunately) hard to not do. Most people would probably say they want their real personality and who they really are to shine through in their online activities. But when you do that, you are asking to be judged and not everyone is going to like you.

While we all mull this over...

I , and I am sure others, would really like to hear commentary and opinions from some of the "Ask me any Question" guests that have been invited to the site in the past.

Short list for me would be:

George Knapp
Richard Dollan
David Ike

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord

originally posted by: CIAGypsy
Sooo....how about this for an option. If SO wants to sell...maybe a committee of people who are fully committed to picking up this site and turning into something should form an LLC or S Corp and set up a contract to buy the boys out?? Then we can make all the upgrades, changes, and reinvigorate the site.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I think that if this were to happen, it would still be concerning to long-term members because you were the entity that we put our trust in when we joined this site. We know what to expect from you because we have that relationship with you that has been forged from (in many cases) years of participation here. To shift everything to a new entity (even if it is supposed to be essentially the same) isn't really the same.

Double

a reply to: BrianFlanders

It could be contractually agreed that certain changes wouldn't be made except under XYZ circumstance.

When the alternative is death, anything that involves "still alive" looks pretty attractive

Could even purge existing passwords/emails and force users to change them/add them or something like that for privacy purposes. There stored as hashes, but I think the old way was md5 which is not very safe these days