Would popularity be good for ATS?

This thread is becuase of a recent treand of threads that I have read pertaining to the publicity to ATS. The problem is if popularity would either help or harm ATS, not just leave it alone.
My personal opinion is that ATS should remain the underground website that I know and love. It is one of the things that I trully love about it, not to mention the immense amount of intelligent people on here with differing opinions that lead to enlightening debate. Popularity can very well take this away, letting the Facebook and Twitter crowd stampede in and shape ATS into one of those websites. I simply dread the day that I read a thread where the title is "I just farted, lol." I do not want this gem of a website to become a harbor for the ignorant masses.
However, showing ATS to the public can let even more intelligent people join. Lift the veil and they might come, with even more differing opinions with even more knowledge. This can help ATS and its goals, to deny ignorance.

So what say you ATS, yay or nay on popularity?

I would say yes to popularity because the ones that you reffer to (facebook , twitter crowds) will leave anyway due to the fact that they won't understand what's going on .

reply to post by insanedr4gon


Abovetopsecret is not underground at all.
Type Above in Google search and ATS is the second hit.
Type in Secret and it's the 7th Hit.
Nothing underground about it.
For Christ Sake ATS even has a crap load of Mainstream Ads.

The more popular it gets, the less interesting the threads get.

Originally posted by OrNaM3nT
I would say yes to popularity because the ones that you reffer to (facebook , twitter crowds) will leave anyway due to the fact that they won't understand what's going on .

What about the ones that just pretend to know what's going on like that one member, OrNaM3nt?
JK

If you were to decide that ATS would benefit from more popularity, how would you plan to bring that about?

When your plan is formulated, please present it to the site owners who strive on a regular basis to bring more popularity to the site.

Our first two posters on this thread have a total of 87 posts. May I suggest that you wait just a little while to form your beliefs on what ATS is? Amazingly, some people say they have to search for threads they call "gems."

reply to post by charles1952


I am not saying that I have a plan to make it popular, just wondering if it should be.

reply to post by GmoS719


True that ATS is one of the first results to come up in a google search with the right keywords, but how many people really know what it is? How many people run across ATS without clicking on the link? My guess is many because to most it is just another tinfoil hat meeting place, that might infect my computer with who knows how many viruses.
As for the ads, ATS has to support itself somehow. Since there isn't any merchandising to make money off of, the next best plan is to give ad space.

reply to post by insanedr4gon


ATS is already popular. There are thousands of threads, on every imaginable subject. Use the search tool on ATS to see how popular it is. This is a kind of moot thread imoho.

This is a post from 2006....see even way back then...popular.

Statistics for Above Top Secret

Statistics for: Above Top Secret
Government secrets and conspiracy discussion forums
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Forum software: XMB
Number of posts: 9402961
Number of members: 201391
Post per member ratio: 47
Posts last week: 0
Alexa ranking: 19238

www.big-boards.com...

What do you want, to turn it into another facebook...I hope not. Look how that worked out.

reply to post by Destinyone



There are 800 million members on Facebook. I dread that to come to ATS, it would ruin this website. Especially with the whole tracking thing a while back, ATS would be corrupted.
ATS has 248,724 members as of today, just look at the right of the science forums page for stats. Just a quarter of Facebooks members could destroy ATS.
No, I do not want ATS to go to Facebooks standards, that would be horrible. Although, ATS is definetly not popular among most people, as most people don't know about it. I have no plans for the popularity of ATS, I just wonder as to if popularity would be good or not for ATS.
Facebook Stats

reply to post by insanedr4gon


What in the world do you want? More and more people to understand what is going on in front of their noses, or some little semi-secret club where you feel at home with real buddies?

You gotta be a teenager to have an outlook like that because it is not very mature.

Whaa? ATS underground? Maybe five years ago. It's very public, and it's very popular. I can't believe you haven't noticed.