INTERESTING SOCIOLOGICAL EFFECT IN A2K, QUA COMING CHANGE

I could be wrong but something tells me those figures are not accurate. First of all I’ve heard sites don’t make anything on the ads unless someone clicks on them, even then it’s only a few cents.

Again this is only my opinion but I wouldn’t be surprised if he breaks even some months and I’d bet he has paid more out of pocket then he has taken in.

Ya probably. There's no way accurate info on the stats behind a website will be posted for free. It may be not spot on but it does offer a very rough insight into a website you might need to research without having direct access to their analytics.

Yes, I did. I am only belatedly coming to this but it has been brought to my attention that MsOlga has been going around playing martyr about my dispute with her and making out like because I don't want to argue politics endlessly with her that I do not listen to the community about matters that affect the community.

Better late than never so to set the record straight:

1) I did not blame the proposed site changes on MsOlga. They were all planned long before our argument and I even went so far as to explicitly state as much when I said "just to be clear, the planned feature change has nothing at all to do with her and everything to do with the current ignore feature not working well for most". The reason I brought it up at all is because she claimed a right to respond to people who want to ignore you and I was merely explaining that that is actually a "right" we are taking off the table (because it's kinda, you know, obnoxious).

2) Just because I don't want to endlessly argue politics with MsOlga (even after having said all I really had to say on the subject it went on) does not mean I do not listen to the community. Hawkeye and others who butts heads with me will often say such things but anyone who knows me knows that is just not true. Able2know means more to me than it does to anyone else and I'm not stupid enough to shoot myself in the foot that way (come on, give me credit for finding more clever ways in which to shoot my own foot). Even though I don't want to argue politics with MsOlga I still paid attention to what her community feedback is. And just because I don't do all the things some individual user demands doesn't mean I don't listen to the community.

It just means I don't agree with one particular member. This insipid notion that each time I disagree with a member I "don't listen to the community" is sophomoric bullshit. It's just sour grapes MsOlga is trying to spread because she is pissed off at me (ironically the reason I didn't want to argue with her in the first place is because she so frequently got upset with those who stridently disagreed with her).

This is all ridiculous, overblown drama. There are plenty of people here who don't want to talk to me endlessly either, I don't pitch a fit and play martyr over it. I move on. I don't follow them around pestering them until they give an exasperated response. I move on. And I certainly wouldn't then take the exasperated response and play martyr over it and start spreading lies about how the site is run and what you have been blamed for to try to drum up sympathy and animosity. That's puerile schoolyard play.

All that happened is one person didn't want to talk to another person and tried their best to do it quietly for a few years and failed to succeed. It is not the end of the world. MsOlga is a perfectly nice person whom I simply do not like arguing politics with. With any luck we'll all survive.

Those numbers (for revenue and cost etc) are an order to a few orders of magnitude off. These "estimates" basically just multiply a site's alexa rank by some arbitrary variable value to come up with cost and revenue estimates based off that one number.

You can do about as well at estimating site revenue by throwing darts at a wall of numbers. Anyway, I do not know the exact numbers (able2know is not our core business and I do not manage either the advertising or the hosting right now so I don't follow it closely) but we make a couple hundred more dollars a month than the server costs and the server costs are a fraction of the HR costs. So ultimately if you guys are asking if I make big money from able2know the answer is no. Thus far able2know represents a net loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars to me.

For context, our total monthly costs for our company (inclusive of things other than a2k) is something like 30k. A2k makes less than 2k total revenue right now.

A2k has been run like a hobby and like a hobby it has cost, not made, money on the balance. If you guys need more specific numbers than that I'd have to figure out what they are for myself but my guess off historical averages is that we make something like 1.5k/month off ad revenue right now (we don't advertise very aggressively and the advertising has been untended for years resulting in atypically low revenue) and the server costs are probably between 600-1k/month.

And, quite frankly, you guys should have known that. Look:



So they are saying the site makes $35k a month but is only worth $15k. This is not a serious tool, it is a bunch of arbitrary numbers.

Much appreciated.
So then I guess this site for you is a non for profit hobby. That's cool. BTW, I hold this forum in high regard for its genuine conversations which are sometimes, more often than not, lacking in other forums....Keep up the good work in providing us people, who enjoy talking, with a venue to express ourselves

So far it's been a hobby, but it's not a non-profit (though I've proposed as much to the others in our company a couple of times the decision by consensus each time was not to classify it that way as there are few benefits to doing so other than tax-write offs for donations that we don't even collect) and if it one day makes a ton of money I am not going to feel a pang of guilt about it (just as nobody should sympathize with me for wanting to spend my own money on it).

Hmm, that is a sentence more parenthetical than not. Par for the course.

I'm just hearing about this now, but the weaponization potential seems substantial.

If I wish to post something that I know "Poster X" is going to disagree with, it sounds like I can forcefully prevent "Poster X" from rebutting anything that I say, simply by virtue of me having placed "Poster X" on ignore.

I wonder if it will be possible for conservatives to coordinate behind the scenes and effectively lock liberal posters out of participation in political discussions.

Which would then only be read by conservatives, effectively creating what is politely described as preaching to the choir, but what is more pungently described as a circle jerk. Have fun with that.

As far as I am aware,
this notion was never implemented. I 'm glad that it was not.
To my mind, it was too drastic, like use of nuclear weapons
as anti-burglary defenses; internecine carnage to an un-reasonable degree.

Not necessarily. A lot depends on how the feature is crafted when it is built into A2K, and also depends on the tactics that posters then develop for using it as a weapon.

For instance, if liberals are locked out of responding, that does not mean that moderates and independents will be targeted for lockout.

Also, partial targeting of liberals could be implemented, allowing just enough liberals into a topic to provide a decent punching bag, while keeping the majority of liberals silenced.



Also, there might be some interesting results from the temporary use of the feature.

Example: I know that "Poster Z" will rebut something that I want to say, so I put them on ignore just before I say it. A couple days later I take "Poster Z" off ignore and have a nice conversation with them. "Poster Z" never even realizes that something has been posted that they'd want to rebut if they knew about it.

It certainly has not been implemented so far.

However, if there is any potential for the landscape to change, it is always best to consider how to operate most effectively in the new environment. That way you will be prepared and will catch your enemies off guard and defeat them if the change ever comes.

I have an idea about a possible defense against these tactics. I'm going offline for an hour or so, but I'll PM it to you first.

Have u noticed the inconsistency qua number
in your syntax ?

1 poster "Z" is referred to as "them"; how many ??

Flaw in the English language. I was trying to be gender neutral without the cumbersome "he or she" wording.

In traditional grammar,
u do that by saying "he"; so I learned in school.

the grammar has changed, david. time you did too.

I don t believe u.

It just feels wrong to me though.

I'm thinking this might work best if the traditional targets of ignore are reversed. Instead of putting stupid people on ignore and speaking with the smart ones, put the smart ones on ignore and speak with the stupid ones.

That will silence the smart opposition and let the dummies flood in with their silly name-calling.

The net result of that will be that any visitors to the site will see conservatives making intelligent points and liberals offering only name-calling and childish insults.

I understand. I respect your feelings.
On some occasions, when circumstances have indicated,
I went with the logically correct: "he or she".

It is a bit jolting when a writer has a singular noun as the subject
of his sentence, e.g. General MacArthur, and within the same sentence applies plural pronouns,
giving rise to the question of who the other folks are and where thay came from.

( In some instances, it might affect the substance of the message,
qua how many people must be accommodated. )

To MY mind, it appears to be a choice
between being logically accurate,
mathematically accurate, or being politically correct.

I strive against the latter.





David