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Torstar sold. Future of Survivalist Boards and other VerticalScope forums?

10K views 110 replies 47 participants last post by  Cuteandfuzzybunnies 
#1 · (Edited)
Torstar is the owner of VerticalScope. Torstar bought the majority ownership of VerticalScope for 200 million in 2015.

It was announced last week that Torstar is selling for 52 million.

Pretty huge discrepancy in those millions and not in a good way for VerticalScope and its forums.

If the new owners decide they don't want to fool with forums, I wonder if we'll have a warning?

Worried about that since a forum I was on with a lot of activity (not VerticalScope owned and nothing to do with survival related topics) closed in 2018. The forum owners did, thankfully, announce a few months in advance that they were ditching the forum so members had a chance to save info though transferring threads to other sites was prohibited. But now the forum is gone ...no archives, just a notice when you enter the link stating: On April 5, 2018, Low Carb Friends' management announced that LCF's forums would be permanently shut down on Friday, June 1, 2018. That's all there is left of what was a very active forum. :( Because of the warning in advance of the forum closure, at least we were able to save recipes etc., but the forum owners could've deleted everything without the courtesy of advanced notice.

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#4 ·
After reading an interview done by the possible new owners (the purchase goes up for approval in July per the article) I'm somewhat concerned about how they will treat SB and hope they sell us to a US based company that is more inline with our members.

from the article “The progressive reporting is what we support, and quite frankly, that’s exactly why we brought David in. Someone with an incredible reputation who lives those values every day,” he said.

Peterson said if he thought Bitove and Rivett were about to swing the Star’s political perspective to the right, he wouldn’t have signed on.

“Over my dead body. These guys didn’t bring me in because I’m pretty. I know them. These aren’t partisan, mean-spirited people. This isn’t the United States. It’s not that kind of thing. But I’m going to be very involved in this and I have responsibilities. One is to maintain the Atkinson Principles. I believe them, and these guys believe in them,” said Peterson.

link to source
https://www.thestar.com/business/20...-speak-about-their-plans-for-the-company.html
 
#6 ·
That's even more concerning. With a progressive agenda, it's more likely that they'll do away with a conservative site like SB than try to find a sympathetic buyer.

Good to know that the sale doesn't go through until July. Gives us time to save important info. I've done a good bit of that through the years in case of a SHTF scenario in which the net goes down, but need to review what I've saved and fill in the gaps. Offline storage of things we learn here is an important prep and something we all need to do even if SB rocks along forever.
 
#14 · (Edited by Moderator)
I have been on other VS forums and when they decide to make big changes we will see a mass exodus, but the site will remain open for the next generation of new people to come in, they won't know any better, they will be used to the ads and censorship. It will be new and exciting to them.

The saddest part is, VS now owns all of your content. Everything everyone posted to help someone else they are making a profit off of.
 
#21 ·
I have been on other VS forums and when they decide to make big changes we will see a mass exodus, but the site will remain open for the next generation of new people to come in, they won't know any better, they will be used to the ads and censorship. It will be new and exciting to them.
But who knows what the new owners will do... Look back at the OP and do the math; it doesn't look good for forums.
 
#31 ·
In light of the deafening silence from the top
A thread on other forum options makes sense

I too paid money
Then learned that the forum had been previously sold

Now a second sale to an anti-Second Amendment entity makes me wanting to have some options

It would be nice to export all the members to a single place
Archived threads are dated, by definition so I see close to zero loss there
 
#29 ·
Lets be realistic. The "business model" that would lead you to pay real $ for any BB/public form (or giggle) is silly. A free service that you are going to "monetize" by selling data on users to advertisers who think their popup ads clicks is going to be profitable to them. That really sound like it is real.

Giggle, for example, is proof that if the lie is big enough that it becomes real because it is believed. WHO hear has clicked on out of their stupid thinks and PURCHASED it (took profit to the advertiser). Few/NO ONE yet business throws billions of $ at the scams every year. SB a small bit of the same drivel. (I have not been to giggle for years, will no support their marxist prog nonsense and invasion of privacy/mining)
 
#35 ·
If you knew how little input we receive from the current owners you would suspect Kev is just as informed as the rest of us.... they are VERY hands off on this forum as far as management goes.
 
#50 ·
Wow, was just thinking this AM "How can 2020 become even more of a suckfest?"
How indeed :-(

If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them
When it rains, it pours.
 
#42 ·
When this forum was founded I also bought two other survival domain names that have had some type of website on them for over a decade.

http://www.survivalforum.us/
https://www.survivalboards.com/

Suurvivalboards has been my personal blog for over a decade.

If this forum is closed, I will have another forum opened by the end of the day. Also, my youtube channel will be rebranded for the new forum.
 
#43 ·
There ya go folks... the man has a plan (like all good preppers should) :thumb:
 
#48 ·
"I tried to open both of the links that kev posted and my malwarebytes had to block a trojan, hahahah."

:upsidedown:

This site can’t provide a secure connection

url-partners.g2afse.com uses an unsupported protocol.
ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH
Due to the security certificate, I am working on it
 
#54 ·
OP...if it is on the internet it is not archival. I was a volunteer archivist for 5-1/2 years at the Internet Archive. Someone got a bug up their ass last week and I was banned. They deleted between 80,000 to 110,000 of files I had uploaded. I had been doing the same work for 5-1/2 years, nothing different.

If you want it archived, put it on M-disc. That is the only thing archival with digital until they come out with laser engraved synthetic quartz.

And take note, the Wayback Machine is not good for big saves. It seems it was designed for a few pages of saving.

Today I worked on a research project on the Wayback Machine. Worked with 8 big projects, all were photo heavy. None were saved to completion on the Wayback Machine. They varied between 10% to 60% saved, with the average about 20% - 25% saved.
 
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