Verticalscope

Another thing you should read about VS.  It isn't a forum platform.  It's a data-collecting agency that uses the forum as a front to generate traffic.  Read the privacy policy and user agreements.  Once you log in, it has permission to access your memory, HD, browser history, and scan your network for its configuration.  You also have zero rights to what you publish as it instantly becomes copyrighted property of VS.  Technically, if you cross post something on a VS forum, and then copy and paste it here, you have committed a federal crime.  Once you agreed to that checkbox, you also gave up your right to legal recourse.  If they want to take legal action against you, you have agreed that you can't use the courts, you have to use arbitration.... THEIR arbitration to settle.  Clicking a checkbox on VS more or less signs away every right you have pertaining to your activity on that site.

It's a money and data farm.  You log in, it scans your everythings, and populates the page with ad banners which make them money.  Then later they take the data they've collected and sell it.  The average human generates something like $23 worth of saleable data every day.  They're not offering you a forum, they're letting you offer up your data for sale.

It should be noted that many forums do this, just not as purposefully as VS does.  Back in the day, VBulletin caught on to the trick of offering a product (a forum platform) that they could monetize.  VS is a from-scratch, ground-up data mining operation that later had the smart idea of making forum platforms as a way to get traffic.  In the case of VB, their purpose was to offer a platform and they modestly monetized it.  In the case of VS, they wanted to get in the data/ad game and they made a forum as a vehicle to do it.

DarkMonohue said:

MadScientistMatt said: 

Yes, that's another one of Verticalscope's annoying quirks that I've seen firsthand: They tend to crank the cost of sponsorship way up even as participation on the forum goes down. This generally tends to run off the smaller advertisers who are actively involved in the forum ...

Speaking of, I some some questions about upgrading my elderly MS1/3.0 setup. What's the best way/place to discuss my options?

VS seems to prefer immediately eating the goose over living off the eggs indefinitely.

Yes.  They buy the orange grove, bust in like a frat party, squeeze all the juice out of the oranges, sell the trees for firewood, make their fortune, and not stop to think for a moment that the trees and oranges have value in the long term.

It's a data-collecting agency 

That explains how they make money.  Bots clicking on ads because real people have for the most part, left.

VS bought advrider.com.  The traffic has already dropped noticeably and a lot of long term intellect has left, including moderators. Because of the copyright rules a lot of long time posters have deleted their posts, taking tons of useful information away. It's a complete crapshow.

ddavidv said:

VS bought advrider.com. 

When did that happen?

I think the idea behind buying up these forums is to optimize them such that when people search for a certain topic like YZ125 fork oil or similar, the first hit will be one of their forums, and when you visit them you'll get hammered with advertising. Regular forum users are not what they're interested in, so if people leave en masse, they don't care. As long as they get (ideally) non member visits.

How's TT doing? I don't know. I'm not a big fan of the forum, and only visit because it's the only forum that has a TM section, and it's not normally too busy. Last time I was there I did note that a few of the OK regulars were noticeably absent.

ddavidv said:

VS bought advrider.com.  The traffic has already dropped noticeably and a lot of long term intellect has left, including moderators. Because of the copyright rules a lot of long time posters have deleted their posts, taking tons of useful information away. It's a complete crapshow.

I know Internet Brands will delete all posts by a sponsor if a sponsor stops sponsoring. That's no problem if all they did was advertise, but if the sponsor had been a useful, active member of the forum it was a destructive step to the forum and the community overall.

For some sponsors, this can also be a gift. There was one high profile Miata vendor that had moved to the second generation, and the person who was publicly representing the company was an ass (seriously, we were tempted to send them Christmas cards to thank them for driving customers our way). The vendor's subsection of the forum was full of examples of borderline fraud and bad behavior, and all that went away when they stopped paying their bills. Bad for the forum because the evidence of bad behavior was erased.

I don't have too much to add here, other than to say that I'm happy we're able to stay independent thanks to our GRM+ members, and the support of our partners. Shame to see other forums haven't received the community support ours has. 

In reply to Tom Suddard :

Long distance hug, man.

The only thing that I have to add here is that, other than Reddit, I am only on 4 forums actively. 2 are independent and not on vbulletin. 2 are independent, but on vbulletin. The owners of 3/4 are extremely active. 
 

Thank you to the Suddards, JG, Wallens, and the rest of the GRM family.