From Skeptic Overlord ATS

[F2d5thCav]

I envision a new site coming soon with many followers.

My thoughts,

Kind regards,

Bally. :)

Hi Bally,

I think you are correct.  Something is afoot, else they would be more open about what is to come.

Cheers

[PLOTUS]

Thinking on it, one might find out some information through  their ancillary needs, like insurance ? Licensing ? LLC  filings (which led me to info about their recent sale and application)  ....I don't know... the premier detective sits right among us. I won't name names or embarrass but She is Quite remarkable in such areas.

[Rodinus]

Thinking on it, one might find out some information through  their ancillary needs, like insurance ? Licensing ? LLC  filings (which led me to info about their recent sale and application)  ....I don't know... the premier detective sits right among us. I won't name names or embarrass but She is Quite remarkable in such areas.

Check out the name Mark Allin by typing his name followed by the Above network Llc on your search bar.

I beleive he is the new owner.

Warmest 

Rod

[drussell41]

So if I understand right only ATS can save the world, man that is one Jesus syndrome

A website presumably created to offer an alternative slant to the machinations of Governmental control.
Well-sourced materials from reliable members and keen on probing topics the lame-stream media tend to
ignore.

Above Top Secret...  friends of the FBI, the major US news-outlets, Google and now rues the lack of of income.
Does this sound like people searching for truths or a business on it's ass, to you?


The 'ball' was always supposed to belong to the site members

Take a look at this if you have a minute:

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comm...something/

[BIAD]

Take a look at this if you have a minute:

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comm...something/

Cheers Drussell, I know there are RN members who have a better view on the workings behind the scenes at ATS
and I hope they can add to this thread. My own dealings -that ended with a ban, involved nothing more than an
accusation that I was using two accounts to 'talk to myself' in a thread regarding who would win a hand-to-hand
fight between a human and an alien!

The other person -who worked with me at the time, didn't have his account closed, which one would think would
occur considering the accusation! But I held no grudge and just re-joined until I noticed other strange behaviour
showing up by the Mods.

[Ninurta]

Check out the name Mark Allin by typing his name followed by the Above network Llc on your search bar.

I beleive he is the new owner.

Warmest 

Rod

Mark Allin was one of the old owners. Are you suggesting he just bought the rest out?

.

[drussell41]

Take a look at this if you have a minute:

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comm...something/

Cheers Drussell, I know there are RN members who have a better view on the workings behind the scenes at ATS
and I hope they can add to this thread. My own dealings -that ended with a ban, involved nothing more than an
accusation that I was using two accounts to 'talk to myself' in a thread regarding who would win a hand-to-hand
fight between a human and an alien!

The other person -who worked with me at the time, didn't have his account closed, which one would think would
occur considering the accusation! But I held no grudge and just re-joined until I noticed other strange behaviour
showing up by the Mods.

 What other strange mod behavior did you experience?

[Schmoe1]

The ATS group on Reddit is also gone, not sure when that happened

[Finspiracy]

Take a look at this if you have a minute:

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comm...something/

Cheers Drussell, I know there are RN members who have a better view on the workings behind the scenes at ATS
and I hope they can add to this thread. My own dealings -that ended with a ban, involved nothing more than an
accusation that I was using two accounts to 'talk to myself' in a thread regarding who would win a hand-to-hand
fight between a human and an alien!

The other person -who worked with me at the time, didn't have his account closed, which one would think would
occur considering the accusation! But I held no grudge and just re-joined until I noticed other strange behaviour
showing up by the Mods.

Reading the opening sentences of your post felt odd. You, banned? You are one of the most polite persons online ever. But then it all made sense. Of course you had two accounts, one for you, and one for the creature in your shed.

9/11 was the wake up call for me. That maybe everything is not what it seems. Maybe everything is not exactly how they tell us on the news. Then i found ATS and all kinds of cool tinfoil stuff there. UFO's / Aliens, secret societies, conspiracies, the paranormal, exactly what i wanted. Now it is just a right-leaning political forum. And i think that it is sad. Just sad.

[PLOTUS]

I guess everything has it's useful life span, ATS is not immortal. They are experiencing the consequence of becoming a political mudpit.

[projectvxn]

Yeah, the statement about feeling 'betrayed' was tone-deaf.

I understand he wanted to make money from the site, no problem.  But for all of us who unwillingly have been bombarded by corporate propaganda our entire lives on radio, TV, and now the internet ... well of course if we have a technological fix to block some of the advertisements, we're going to use it.

I would much rather that such an operation move to a subscription model ... with certain things offered to subscribers in return for their money.  Too many of the pleas for funding never consider what they should offer in return for financial support.

I dunno, there seems to be too much drama in this change of ownership.  Keeping the new owner(s) a secret is not a confidence-building approach.

Cheers

Honestly, "tone deaf" is an understatement. 

They refused to grow and keep up with what made online communities successful in the post dot com boom era. They can blame me (the membership/users) for their lack of imagination all they want, but it will always be the leadership that should take responsibility for failures.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Yeah, I kind of read Septic Overload's  good-byes, not really though, just a little.

That thread welcoming the new owner to introduce themselves, I asked the OP what color his nose was under his mask. That thread seemed like a brown nosing type thread, like bowing down to the new masters, like being in grade school and sucking up to the new teacher.

I saw your reply in that thread, and had a good laugh.  

BUT, if that brown-nosing worked and elicited a response from the new owner, more power to him.  Could POSSIBLY have been the motivation behind the brown-nosing.  I hope...

Yeah, it was all in jest, but the moderator dropped the hammer on me not too long after I posted it.

I posted, "I wonder what color your nose is under that mask? (his avatar wore a mask) It doesn't happen to be brown is it?"

Here is the message they gave me after deleting it.

A member of the forum staff, DontTreadOnMe, has sent you a warning regarding your activity on the thread titled,
Welcome new ATS owner. I look forward to your introduction!. Your have been warned 1 times.
Warnings are recorded, and each individual warning expires in three days (72 hours) from the time it was applied.
If forum staff continue to warn you and you gain 5 or more warnings, a temporary posting ban will be enforced automatically.

Individual warnings carry a points penalty of 500 points which have been deducted from your board total.
Do not reply to this U2U.

Looks like Don't Tread don't have no sense of humor. That was the worst slap they ever gave me there, and I've said worse, much worse, and got less than that. More reason to give up on ATS. Some members have been posting their good-byes, one got canned pretty quick too.

I use to get all kinds of bonus points for for most of my threads and even some posts, but my latest (and might add very worthy and well sourced) threads haven't gotten a peep, even with all the replies - very active threads. Makes me believe that there may be some kind of new rules in regard to what subject matter is awarded points and what subjects get deductions and deletions by the mods.

Now that I think of it, perhaps they are trying to "Shut the Mother F'er Down" (props to my late friend Danny K). Drive off the hard core dissenters and critical thinkers and take control of the mighty ATS, home of alternative thought and conspiracy theories.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

I got tired of editing my last post, so . . .

When I heard the rumors about ATS possibly going under or getting sold out, the board had gone way downhill from when I joined by then. I had come to rely on ATS for news reports before the MSM got them, along with the alternative news sources and of course the paranormal stuff. Forget Facebook, so I got into Parler, Gab and a bunch of other off the wall boards and I'm on to the new stories way before they are on ATS, if they ever even get there now.

My latest approach is to put a thread together "elsewhere" and then put it up everywhere without prejudice. Not over there anymore, not unless I think it will piss off the new owners somehow. I might make it a project to have all my accumulated points get deducted before they band me for life.

[MisterSpock]

I realized last night who bought it. 


Phage.


I don't think he could let go and come to grasp with the fact that he went from one of the most well respected members to a TDS riddled contrarian shell of what he was. 


He probably bought it, so that he can keep the site up and go back and look at old threads back when he used to get all those stars and all that praise.

[Ninurta]

I realized last night who bought it. 


Phage.


I don't think he could let go and come to grasp with the fact that he went from one of the most well respected members to a TDS riddled contrarian shell of what he was. 


He probably bought it, so that he can keep the site up and go back and look at old threads back when he used to get all those stars and all that praise.

You know, I don't know if he somehow lost his ability to critically think, or if maybe he was just playing Devil's Advocate, but his political post don't seem to have the same timber there his scientific posts once had, and I've noticed it too. If he was just playing at having TDS, then he is a Master of the Game!

He is a member here as well, and is always welcome to come set the record straight and remove all doubts!

.

[MisterSpock]

I realized last night who bought it. 


Phage.


I don't think he could let go and come to grasp with the fact that he went from one of the most well respected members to a TDS riddled contrarian shell of what he was. 


He probably bought it, so that he can keep the site up and go back and look at old threads back when he used to get all those stars and all that praise.

You know, I don't know if he somehow lost his ability to critically think, or if maybe he was just playing Devil's Advocate, but his political post don't seem to have the same timber there his scientific posts once had, and I've noticed it too. If he was just playing at having TDS, then he is a Master of the Game!

He is a member here as well, and is always welcome to come set the record straight and remove all doubts!

.

Frankly, I've always viewed his "golden boy" status as questionable, even over a decade ago when I started lurking. Sure, back then he was much more on point and his replies where of much more substance. Lately that is far from the case, he argues syntax or symantics while being a contrarion seeking to trap the original poster into a loop of having to continually restate their opinion. 

He's literally a "goto" programming loop that just keeps going over and over again. I never bought into his "amazement" even though I did think he was sharp, after 10 years I've realized he is just probably autistic at best, retarded more likely.

[Rodinus]

Check out the name Mark Allin by typing his name followed by the Above network Llc on your search bar.

I beleive he is the new owner.

Warmest 

Rod

Mark Allin was one of the old owners. Are you suggesting he just bought the rest out?

.

Hi Nin.

Apologies for answering late as mucho things to do and I guess we are not on the same time zone!? (France here)

I came to this conclusion about 3 weeks ago, as after intensive search I finally managed to come up with an answer (so to speak ) that time stamped Mark Allin as the sole owner of The Above Network at the end of February.

Before February there were multiple owners (The 3 amigos)

However, what is strange... Is that the info I found has suddenly "vanished" from the internet... I am kicking myself that I did not get a screenshot at the time!

If memory serves me right, somewhere on this forum end of February I had already posted his name with a link but I cannot find it now as I am crap!

I am going to dig into this deeper and if I come up with anything will share it here.

Kindest respects

Rod

[Rodinus]

I realized last night who bought it. 


Phage.


I don't think he could let go and come to grasp with the fact that he went from one of the most well respected members to a TDS riddled contrarian shell of what he was. 


He probably bought it, so that he can keep the site up and go back and look at old threads back when he used to get all those stars and all that praise.

Ahhhhhh...

The most condescending self centered arsehole on the internet...

Mr "I am always right and whatever you debate with me for which I can't provide proof I will come back with an off topic question to question your credibility"

The guy is a fully fledged dick head shilltroll.

And I wont go into the details of what I think of some of the power mad Mods over there...

Sincere apologies for my rant.

Just my two €uro centimes.

Kindest respects

Rod

[F2d5thCav]

One thing that ATS has in common with so many other internet sites is arbitrariness.  In making rules, and enforcing them.

We complain today about censorship on the big social media networks, but in truth, the censorship on the net, and before that, on the dial-in bulletin boards, was always there.  And it always boiled down to how the owner's left toe felt that day.

In one way, I understand how it came to be that way.  If a site gave every poster the right of rebuttal, they would do nothing but deal with psycho tools who wasted their time endlessly.

The rub is that the sites take the lowest common denominator approach and apply the "no rebutting" rules to everyone.  Thus, they lose people who contribute usefully to the site.

ATS has to know they have a dedicated cadre of shills and trolls.  Yet, all users are required to refrain from calling others shills or trolls.  That does NOT contribute to useful discussion.  All it does is allow the well of the public discussion to be constantly poisoned by disinformation agents.  Clearly, the people running ATS are not dull ... which makes one wonder, "why do they tolerate this?"

To be fair, I have seen certain of the shills/trolls disappear for periods of time.  I suspect in those cases they got hit with temporary bans.  In other cases, I've seen some of the firebrands tone down their presentation considerably -- perhaps as a result of 'counseling' by ATS staff that they were heading for a permanent ban.  But without such punishment being made public, the rest of the users learn nothing from the exercise.  Someone gets banned: make it public, and explain why that individual was banned.  Like all internet venues, too much is done on the low-low.

This is one thing that is refreshing about RN3.  Yeah, there are mods, but their touch here is light.  Discussion is transparent, and often the site owner joins in.  And I don't get the sense of arbitrariness that hangs over so many other places on the internet.

Cheers

[F2d5thCav]

@"Rodinus" 

Ha!  I recall that post you mentioned and looked for it yesterday, without success.

So ... strange.  If Mark is the sole owner now, why all the pseudo-drama about the owner's identity?

Cheers