verticalscope inc

Every day I'm on Stromtrooper.

$19.99 CDN/month seems awfully expensive

motohockey said:

$19.99 CDN/month seems awfully expensive

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I just looked at the premium membership and it is 19.99US a year not a month.

Yes.

Their business model is to buy existing forums usually started by enthusiasts, and commercialize them. They use free labor for day-to-day moderation and their costs are very low. For many years they seemed like an unstoppable juggernaut and cash cow for their parent publishing company. The expansion of social media has diminished/diluted their effectiveness for advertisers in recent years.

There are some really funny videos out there by disgruntled members about VS taking over sites. Usually, the community balks at first, but eventually, things smooth out and people get used to them doing their thing in the background.

And of course, they offer "premium membership" for a fee. You get more storage for messages and the monicker premium or something like that. If you are interested I suggest you ask a premium member about their experience and then compare that to what you have now.

thank you

Cal said:

I just looked at the premium membership and it is 19.99US a year not a month.

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my mistake...when I saw "recurring payment" on my paypal account I assumed monthly, not yearly

They now own ADV Rider as well..........a HUGE forum.

Well that explains a lot.

richlandrick said:

Well that explains a lot.

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yup over at the other forum a member for 13 years I was never banned, Ive had 3 in the last year and no reasons given

Cal said:

yup over at the other forum a member for 13 years I was never banned, Ive had 3 in the last year and no reasons given

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Yea, we hear stories like that every once in a while.

Personally, I just don't like the format over there and focus is simply missing, but I do hear from people asking me why I don't post over there more, so some really like it. It's just not for me.

I used these guys for hosting websites... Geez like 20 plus years ago. Unreal that they're still around. Think they used to be out of Waterloo or Toronto.

mark444 said:

They now own ADV Rider as well..........a HUGE forum.

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Oh, shoot, I was so hoping you were wrong. But nope: A new operator of ADVrider Damn, Verticalscope will ruin that site soon enough.

Cal said:

yup over at the other forum a member for 13 years I was never banned, Ive had 3 in the last year and no reasons given

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Yeah, I was an Admin at TRAT for quite a while. VerticalScope banned me for complaining about them. To be specific, I quoted a public LinkedIn post by Joe Pishgar (their community czar) and they called it "doxxing". Incompetent twits they are, may they burn in hell's flames for eternity.

OP, just install an ad blocker. You can get the benefits of their paid membership for free that way.

Verticalscope is headquartered in Toronto. They have 200+ employees in various countries.
We see very little of them.
Its major shareholder is Torstar, a Canadian company in mass media and newspapers including the Toronto Star.

Sorry for your conflict with them DriftlessRider. Luckily we have good forum members here.

Brockie said:

Verticalscope is headquartered in Toronto. They have 200+ employees in various countries.
We see very little of them.
Its major shareholder is Torstar, a Canadian company in mass media and newspapers including the Toronto Star.

Sorry for your conflict with them DriftlessRider. Luckily we have good forum members here.

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And very reasonable and conscientious moderators. Past and present.