I swore it was...so I stand (or sit?) corrected! Anyhoose, SOTW is the one I was referring to.
VerticalScope Inc Headed toward Bankruptcy?
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It was originally based in and run from Finland do close (begins with F) but now of course is based in Canada.
To console myself, I'll tell myself I at least had the right continent.
Still boggles my mind that I joined SOTW 23 years ago.
And this was very interesting. I'm sure many here have heard of ForaFrank, the VS forum "member" that is an AI assistant bot. A lot of members hate it. Its replies are typical AI slop--stating the obvious, getting some of the information wrong or out of context, being patronizing/overly polite, etc. This post sums it up. (A member had asked why some users were blocked.)
So basically, anything we've ever posted in a VS forum is used without our permission to train AI.
Unfortunately, this isn't unique to "companies". I sold one of my site 5+ years ago to an individual. In 5 years, not one single thing on the site has been changed or updated, other than the custom footer is no longer working so some navigational links that members used are gone. The site does have 2-3x the number of ads on it now, and the guy who bought it goes weeks, sometimes months, without even logging in.
The sad part is that I actually offered to work for this dude, running the site as if it were my own, updating features, writing new features, keeping the software up-to-date, etc. About a week into that and he ghosted me and quit replying to text requests to upgrade my permissions (a few were missing) so I could actually do what we'd agreed to. After some time I ended up apologizing to the staff and walking away.
The point is, he doesn't care about that site other than the income it brings in. It hurt me to watch that site just sit there, basically unmaintained, for years knowing the vision I had for it. I've since offered, many times, to come to some arrangement for me to get it back but he's simply not interested in selling it back either.
But, that's on me. It was a decision I made so I have to live with it and hope that one day I'll click over and be pleasantly surprised to see that the site has actually been updated.
One thing is for certain, though. I will never sell another site again. I'd rather shut the site down and let it disappear forever than to sell it to someone who only cares about the income in can generate.
yes and no
Having seen the same thing, I would probably do the same. I have a couple of staff members who could take it over, but they lack the technical knowledge to deal with issues that come up.
One site I used to visit, which was related to the biggest site I administer, used to have the usual banner ads for years, but then started going with AdVally. Every few weeks something would change and users would stat complaining about a huge ad covering the entire screen that they couldn't close (as one example), or causing overall performance issues. Funny because AdVally's site says, "Advally designs custom ad layouts as well as custom-built ad units to maximize revenue without affecting user experience." I call BS since the main complaint that would surface would be the site being largely unreadable, or unusable. My ad blockers of course took care of it, but it alienated a lot of members, including myself, and many of us eventually stopped visiting. The site's still there; I still see a few regulars from the old days, but it's not the same anymore.
bought dnforum (from a company who got it as part of a cleared debt deal) a little over 2 years ago > at that moment it barely had 1 post/day and almost no users.. created a number of free tools that are important for our crowd, introduced, events calendar, removed 550k members (spam and inactive ones), now sending significant number of emails/newsletters related to our industry, got traffic back and advertise the forum (former king of the niche) in events.. a fun fact - an admin wanted to stay with me (as a paid admin), and after I said "no", the answer was > then stay with your dead forum!
bought 2 forums (consult domain & forumndd) both closed down by owners for around 5 years > resurrected the sites, fixed the data and slowly preparing to get the users back..
bought acorn domains also 2+ years ago > lost 80% of member talks, got industry companies coming to it (previously ignored as it could toxic).. bought it, and only then realized that is was in horrible state - could break any moment (Xenforo wasn't updated for 5 years, I think)..
.. yes, and we have implemented openai api, chatgpt subscriptions and grok for fact checking and summarizing threads in complex threads like it is done at X, where you can ask grok for more information.
Also, this is normal > when a new leader/owner comes in > there will be a revolution and old "elite" will leave or will take the new owner down.
==
.. love this thread (have re-read it over the years several times).. but, omg... VS is a business - give them a break.. we all have rights to do business, don't we?
there are tonnes and tonnes of dead forums run by a person who seems to have just 1 forum > does this help really anything?
.. individual forums as discussion places have lost their place to discord, reddit (divine beast), TG groups, WhatsApp groups.. There were FB groups as well - FB removed their reach and now these aren't a threat anymore as they were.
forums are still places for pros of specific niches to network with each other + doing business. for some reason - nobody in this group talks about this part of the forums > free classifieds and finding new business for yourself. If members make money selling/buying goods/services (or hamsters - love the hamster forum of 1 of our members here) > why a forum owner should make money with it?
I dare anyone to show me a quality forum of yours that is active and you don't use for business
all the success to VS!!
Best wishes all!! H
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100%!! I actually bought 1 forum on split payment plan.. this option made the deal prettier than it was and I took a bite
==
.. man, I don't know what is your grudge with VS - competition in auto-space?
100%!! I actually bought 1 forum on split payment plan.. this option made the deal prettier than it was and I took a bite
==
.. man, I don't know what is your grudge with VS - competition in auto-space?
If you've never dealt with them, you would not understand. I only have experience second-hand because the community they want is not mine and was not managed by me at the time, but they have a history of being very aggressive and in general are just a terrible experience to interact with. There is also the fact that almost every single forum they have acquired has progressively gotten worse over time
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If you've never dealt with them, you would not understand. I only have experience second-hand because the community they want is not mine and was not managed by me at the time, but they have a history of being very aggressive and in general are just a terrible experience to interact with. There is also the fact that almost every single forum they have acquired has progressively gotten worse over time
Hi, ok can accept this - I don't have a personal experience dealing with Vertical Scope. You are 10000000% correct.
I do have experience on buying forums, and 99% of old elites have shown open hate towards me.. have called me greedy corporate *******.. while I was struggling for my life, growing the company, fixing these forums and loving the whole idea of forums..
.. wanted to show all the VS haters the pther side > we, buyers, are almost always hated.. you can do whatever you wish - nothing will be good
.. the nature of the beast.. and the other side > sellers, in their heads, had long given up on the forums, had abandoned upgrading these, cleaning these and fighting the battles with rivals (discord groups, fb groups, reddit, whatsapp groups)..==
and, most of all.. we are so lucky we haven't experienced superapps.. at least, yet.. Last year I organized and event in Hong-Kong and visited a couple business contacts in mainland China > wechat has wiped out all the websites, incl. ecommerce ones.. if I was a religious guy, I would pray this wave never hits us. .. the superapp danger is real > it is a power that will wipe out 99% of the forums
Good afternoon Suzanne, best wishes from Latvia (a small country in EU). I can see you are very passionate about forums - I love it
.. I am as well.At the same time, I don't see any experience from your side running large forums, and buying/selling ones. What is the largest forum you have, please?
.. years ago I learnt that it is much more valuable to learn from leaders of every niche than bashing them (doesn't help professionally nor mentally).
I really hope I don't sound arrogant. I come from a country that is constantly abused (raped) by all our larger neighbors (some are more polite than others - though rapist is a rapist) and all our business elites have been wiped out by these.. I am trying to learn from the individuals who fight, risk, make mistakes and achieve insane victories. .. life is too short not living a happy life lead by a hope.
All the best to you and your Aussie Football Forum!!! .. if you need some tech help > I am happy to ask my CTO to solve a problem you have (if you have any).. free of charge
really no problem at all! .. I know how difficult it is to maintain an empty forum.. really painful .. and, maybe you can help me when I open a domain forum in AU
.. there is 1 > owned by a large company, registrations are closed and it is dead.. the moneys I would need to pay to take it over don't make any sense, and I am tempted to establish a new forum for my industry at your country .. even though I know that the possible success rate if you don't have 5-10 core forums members = less than 1% Happy Thursdays all!!
Helmuts
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My largest one i had a long time ago i had 20 members on it.Good afternoon Suzanne, best wishes from Latvia (a small country in EU). I can see you are very passionate about forums - I love it
At the same time, I don't see any experience from your side running large forums, and buying/selling ones. What is the largest forum you have, please?
.. years ago I learnt that it is much more valuable to learn from leaders of every niche than bashing them (doesn't help professionally nor mentally).
I really hope I don't sound arrogant. I come from a country that is constantly abused (raped) by all our larger neighbors (some are more polite than others - though rapist is a rapist) and all our business elites have been wiped out by these.. I am trying to learn from the individuals who fight, risk, make mistakes and achieve insane victories. .. life is too short not living a happy life lead by a hope.
All the best to you and your Aussie Football Forum!!! .. if you need some tech help > I am happy to ask my CTO to solve a problem you have (if you have any).. free of charge
.. and, maybe you can help me when I open a domain forum in AU
Happy Thursdays all!!
Helmuts
My current one has 3 members.
I’m pretty sure that virtually anything you’ve posted publicly online, whether on a forum, social media, a blog, or another platform, has already been scraped multiple times by AI companies, search engines, data brokers, archival services, and countless other automated systems. Some of that scraping may have been authorized or legally permissible, and some of it almost certainly wasn’t.
And it isn’t limited to training AI. Publicly accessible content has been collected, copied, indexed, repackaged, analyzed, and monetized for all kinds of commercial purposes for decades. Once something is posted publicly on the Internet, the practical reality is that you have very little control over who copies it, what datasets it ends up in, or how many copies of it exist.
So while VS explicitly allowing forum content to be used for AI training may be a new policy issue, the idea that our publicly posted forum content has somehow remained untouched until now is almost certainly unrealistic. The forseeable future of this is not going to improve either.
bought dnforum (from a company who got it as part of a cleared debt deal) a little over 2 years ago > at that moment it barely had 1 post/day and almost no users.. created a number of free tools that are important for our crowd, introduced, events calendar, removed 550k members (spam and inactive ones), now sending significant number of emails/newsletters related to our industry, got traffic back and advertise the forum (former king of the niche) in events.. a fun fact - an admin wanted to stay with me (as a paid admin), and after I said "no", the answer was > then stay with your dead forum!
bought 2 forums (consult domain & forumndd) both closed down by owners for around 5 years > resurrected the sites, fixed the data and slowly preparing to get the users back..
bought acorn domains also 2+ years ago > lost 80% of member talks, got industry companies coming to it (previously ignored as it could toxic).. bought it, and only then realized that is was in horrible state - could break any moment (Xenforo wasn't updated for 5 years, I think)..
.. yes, and we have implemented openai api, chatgpt subscriptions and grok for fact checking and summarizing threads in complex threads like it is done at X, where you can ask grok for more information.
Also, this is normal > when a new leader/owner comes in > there will be a revolution and old "elite" will leave or will take the new owner down.
==
.. love this thread (have re-read it over the years several times).. but, omg... VS is a business - give them a break.. we all have rights to do business, don't we?
there are tonnes and tonnes of dead forums run by a person who seems to have just 1 forum > does this help really anything?
.. individual forums as discussion places have lost their place to discord, reddit (divine beast), TG groups, WhatsApp groups.. There were FB groups as well - FB removed their reach and now these aren't a threat anymore as they were.
forums are still places for pros of specific niches to network with each other + doing business. for some reason - nobody in this group talks about this part of the forums > free classifieds and finding new business for yourself. If members make money selling/buying goods/services (or hamsters - love the hamster forum of 1 of our members here) > why a forum owner should make money with it?
I dare anyone to show me a quality forum of yours that is active and you don't use for business
all the success to VS!!
Best wishes all!! H
Yeah, I didn't mean to say that selling a forum always turns out bad. I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to buy them who do care about them and legitimately want to keep them going. I was simply saying that VS isn't the only "villain" out here whose only goal is a pay day. It's quite possible to also sell to an individual who you think is legitimately interested in the forum content, and the community, and who immediately turns it into an advertisement and lets it go.
Personally, I'd just rather shut the site down on my own terms than sell to someone with no interest in it and just watch it go stagnant for years while the owner continues to collect a check from it every month. And so, that's what I've done with almost every single one of my forums. They all now simply display a blank page with a message that they're not for sale.
and what about all those members who miss the times when they could talk to each other at your forums, and doing business among themselves? .. users usually don't care about the owners
.. it is always: what is it there for me .. imagine selling the forum or giving it away free of charge > the beast must live, breathe and hunt smaller animals
... imagine if the capital of your country closed a zoo, shut the gates and put up a sign: Zoo is Closed. For ever. And, it isn't for sale. attendees don't care who owns it.. we all want to see elephants, don't we? .. in a great mood
) .. just playing devils advocate.==
and, what is wrong with making money??
when people go to work > don't they do it for money mostly? .. and then it is fair Businesses are not evil
.. most evil businesses can't survive, as doing most business is a marathon (not sprint), and relies on trust from customers, partners and suppliers .. this reminds me fighting myself years ago - always felt crazy shame for writing an invoice.. as the result, many services were given out for free, couldn't hire employees and in the evenings I was sitting by the beds of my daughters with tears in my eyes and apologizing to them when they were asleep.. still not fully resolved.
Business is good. Creates jobs, creates new produscts and services. Allows to feed the children. Makes life better. .. though this is already a wider issue of the Western culture where business is confused with greed and beeing evil.
I would say: closing the zoo is evil when people want to attend it with their kids or lovers. .. if there is demand, of course
Best wishes all, Helmuts
VS buying up forums and a small one man or two man business buying up forums is absolutely not at all the same thing. I can't get into more but there are people within VS that give a **** but they are hands tied behind their back by upper management that simply wants to be reddit and increase ad exposure. And that is the only goal. The end.
Forums arent reddit and reddit arent forums and its retarded that they keep pushing that. Fora.com is a prime example. Its a ****ty version of reddit. And thats saying a lot, because I also hate reddit's design.
Forums arent reddit and reddit arent forums and its retarded that they keep pushing that. Fora.com is a prime example. Its a ****ty version of reddit. And thats saying a lot, because I also hate reddit's design.
We all need to find our way
.. and the process if often filled with making expensive mistakes.. we all can learn from their mistakes, and victories... I would fly the whole world to spend 2-3 days at some event with their team > the experience they have must be insane.I am sure they will find their way.. and, hopefully will become profitable - then they will able to grow these and find spectrums of colours for these..
best wishes all lords and ladies of the xenforo powered lands
H
VS has been around for over 20 years. Finding their way no longer applies.We all need to find our way
I am sure they will find their way.. and, hopefully will become profitable - then they will able to grow these and find spectrums of colours for these..
best wishes all lords and ladies of the xenforo powered lands
H