Is TAZ now (or soon to be owned) by VerticalScope?

[ThornInYourSide]

Yes. Repeatedly.

I'm guessing they may have sent it somewhere, maybe fluffed the email address, but their follow-ups were less than anything that would produce a result.

 

[KimmiKat]

Some of the other boards they converted to the Foracrap (or VSed) now has too much of a corporate feel and no longer a homey feel.

An old post, but, whilst VS definitely have the right to do whatever they want with sites they own, changes like the Fora platform can feel very forced against the wishes of the community.

The last forum conversion I was part of on a VS site to the Fora platform - a huge chunk of the admins and staff quit almost immediately and haven't returned in over a year, they just left and went to competitor sites. Particular points of contention were that the permissions given to staff and admins on the Fora platform are extremely limited, and you have to ask VS for virtually any change.

This was also after many years of decline under VS community management - the site used to be a huge player in it's niche, with often 10-20k viewers online at a time, and after 6-7 years of VS ownership all of that traffic is on competitor sites in the same niche.

All a bit of a moot point though - if TAZ is owned by VS now, then eventually it'll convert to Fora, regardless of what anyone posts here, and I don't expect anyone to speak badly about their own employers.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

So if these observation of how VS and Fora may have negatively affected other forums they control are true, is the future of TAZ as we know it, in the toilet?

 

[TLChris]

So if these observation of how VS and Fora may have negatively affected other forums they control are true, is the future of TAZ as we know it, in the toilet?

Seems a bit of a dramatization with your wording there. The community will still be here - and while yes some communities didn't enjoy the change - the leadership in place at VS now is receptive and more importantly agile enough to make changes to help all communities instead of just one.

Maintaining as many forums as they do, on one platform isn't an easy task. The Fora platform has grown leaps and bounds in the last two years alone, let alone the previous 5 years. Before the doom and gloom sayers get this train moving too far down the line, I'd encourage you to think about what you are trying to get out of the TAZ community. The community will still be here to answer questions, and offer advice on best practices. We run a pretty basic forum installation here with a few addons, that they have already baked into their platforms if you go and explore the platform.
Give it a chance before running around like Chicken Little is all is being asked.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

Seems a bit of a dramatization with your wording there.

The community will still be here to answer questions, and offer advice on best practices.

Not with the attitude you have in response to a legit question given the info being suggested by others who seem to have experienced V and Fora.
Belittling peoples questions does little to promote open communication.

Maintaining as many forums as they do, on one platform isn't an easy task.

Well I know the challenge. I alone maintain 12 XF forums around the world.

Give it a chance before running around like Chicken Little is all is being asked.

You need to work on your method of communicating encouragement.
Thanks for your input though, your technique is insightful of what's to come.

 

[KimmiKat]

I feel the same. I've encountered the "Fora" thing on AVS and another board that got VSed and it's crap. The look we have here now is far better and unique, not look like a corporate thing.

Not with the attitude you have in response to a legit question given the info being suggested by others who seem to have experienced V and Fora.
Belittling peoples questions does little to promote open communication.

Well I know the challenge. I alone maintain 12 XF forums around the world.

You need to work on your method of communicating encouragement.
Thanks for your input though, your technique is insightful of what's to come.

I don't know if VS approaches some board to buy them, or board owners who looking to exit reaching out to VS. One of the boards I'm on had VS reach out and they kindly declined. They cared for the community more then the $$ from a Canadian outfit.

 

[mysiteguy]

Seems a bit of a dramatization with your wording there. The community will still be here - and while yes some communities didn't enjoy the change - the leadership in place at VS now is receptive and more importantly agile enough to make changes to help all communities instead of just one.

Maintaining as many forums as they do, on one platform isn't an easy task. The Fora platform has grown leaps and bounds in the last two years alone, let alone the previous 5 years. Before the doom and gloom sayers get this train moving too far down the line, I'd encourage you to think about what you are trying to get out of the TAZ community. The community will still be here to answer questions, and offer advice on best practices. We run a pretty basic forum installation here with a few addons, that they have already baked into their platforms if you go and explore the platform.
Give it a chance before running around like Chicken Little is all is being asked.

Based on people's experience with Vertical Scope, people have good reason to be worried.

There are legit concerns people have with VS ownership, and no amount any of TAZ's staff smoothing things over is going to change the fact that they have a habit loading up their sites with a horrific number of ads.

I just visited one of them, on a 1Gbps connection, and it took 12 seconds to load. And now, fully 3 minutes after the initial page load, the page continues to load advertising assets in the background, and has loaded 1350+ items so far without end.

Respectfully, you seem dismissive of legitimate concerns.

 

[AdamD]

It's a shame the community as a whole can't chip in and buy the site from VS, I don't think it ever should've been sold to Threadloom, to begin with, but hey ho.

 

[KimmiKat]

Guess VS has to get more eyeballs for their ads. I did notice that about one of their other sites. Had to engage ad-blocking on their sites due to the heavy ad-load.

This site should've stayed neutral free from any corporate ownership.

I'm waiting for WebHostingTalk to get VSed.

Based on people's experience with Vertical Scope, people have good reason to be worried.

There are legit concerns people have with VS ownership, and no amount any of TAZ's staff smoothing things over is going to change the fact that they have a habit loading up their sites with a horrific number of ads.

I just visited one of them, on a 1Gbps connection, and it took 12 seconds to load. And now, fully 3 minutes after the initial page load, the page continues to load advertising assets in the background, and has loaded 1350+ items so far without end.

Respectfully, you seem dismissive of legitimate concerns.

 

[Alpha1]

I may well be ignorant or overly positive, but it seems to me that TAZ is not the average website that can be treated the same way any other community can. How TAZ will be treated (good, neutral or bad) will affect the reputation of VS much more. If TAZ would go down the drain then this would be regretted by the TAZ member base and would affect future interactions with those thousands of community admins and webmasters. It would not be a good business decision IMO.

I don't know VS so ultimately I have no clue about what will happen. Good or bad. We will find out in time.

 

[TLChris]

Respectfully, you seem dismissive of legitimate concerns.

It's not my attempt to be dismissive - and I apologize if it came across as such. I will keep that in mind as we move forward to communicate around these topics. Being one of the original charter members here at TAZ originally, so I do value being a part of this community quite a bit.

I look forward to sharing more with you all as things develop.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

It's a shame the community as a whole can't chip in and buy the site from VS, I don't think it ever should've been sold to Threadloom, to begin with, but hey ho.

Being a member here for over 15 years now, I'd be willing to be one of those who'd chip in!

 

[The Sandman]

It’s an interesting turn of events. I hate to say It, but the glory days of forums are long gone. Almost everything has changed completely sine TAZ was founded… the people who use forums, the people who run forums, the people who make forum software… have morphed into something entirely at odds with the way things once were in forumdom. For those of us who remember and pine for the good old days it’s sad… the world has moved on.

 

[\o/]

I hate to say It, but the glory days of forums are long gone.

If they were, VerticalScope would not have bought this one.

 

[Ryan Ashbrook]

It’s an interesting turn of events. I hate to say It, but the glory days of forums are long gone. Almost everything has changed completely sine TAZ was founded… the people who use forums, the people who run forums, the people who make forum software… have morphed into something entirely at odds with the way things once were in forumdom. For those of us who remember and pine for the good old days it’s sad… the world has moved on.

Respectfully, I disagree. It's not interesting - it's a corporate buyout. Forums have not changed (in the way you think). They are a part of a website - not the whole of it. Thankfully, a lot of providers in the past few years have decided that they can provide both in one single package (IPS, Woltlab, XenForo, vBulletin, and probably countless others) so that webmasters can provide a seamless experience.

 

[TrixieTang]

It’s an interesting turn of events. I hate to say It, but the glory days of forums are long gone. Almost everything has changed completely sine TAZ was founded… the people who use forums, the people who run forums, the people who make forum software… have morphed into something entirely at odds with the way things once were in forumdom. For those of us who remember and pine for the good old days it’s sad… the world has moved on.

Before I joined TAZ I was a member on a pretty large anime forum that was in its prime. I acted like an ass on that forum and went onto start my own forum that was pretty much a clone of it in every way. Times changed. People grew up. I shut down my forum in 2011. The forum I started out on lasted until 2019.

If you had come to me 6 months ago, I probably would have echoed what you said entirely. And yet, several months ago, a bunch of members from that forum started finding their way onto a Discord server that I set up. Aside from that being one of the last things I expected, it also turns out that none of them have moved on from that forum - even though it's been dead for over 2 years now, they're still the same old community and it's like nothing has changed aside from some members still being MIA. It's been a real wake up call to me, and it's got me starting plans to make a new forum for the same old members of that first community that I was an admittedly bad member of 15 years ago.

Forums aren't dead, but the days of people starting forums just to power-trip probably are. And let's be honest here... a lot of TAZ's members over the years have been that type of admin... the type who started forums not out of an actual need or vision, but because they wanted a populace to rule over. Can't say I'll miss those types at all...

Forums have not changed (in the way you think). They are a part of a website - not the whole of it.

Depends on the website.

Being a member here for over 15 years now, I'd be willing to be one of those who'd chip in!

Offer to trade a couple monkey NFTs for it.

 

[KimmiKat]

I've seen what VS did to a couple other sites, when they transition it's a total corporate thing. The VS admin-types post fancy images on how too work the new platform.

Respectfully, I disagree. It's not interesting - it's a corporate buyout. Forums have not changed (in the way you think). They are a part of a website - not the whole of it. Thankfully, a lot of providers in the past few years have decided that they can provide both in one single package (IPS, Woltlab, XenForo, vBulletin, and probably countless others) so that webmasters can provide a seamless experience.

Another board had this when switching over. This is NOT TMZ, but probably in the future.

New Forum Software Going Live Soon!

Dear Members,

Your new site will be going live soon! We are almost at the starting line and are really excited for you to experience the new community platform.

When the migration starts shortly, the site will be put into maintenance read-only mode (late tonight or early tomorrow morning) while the migration is underway until completion. We will post when the process is complete and the site is live. We look forward to your feedback and first impressions in the "Community Feedback: New Forum Software Is Live!" thread.

You will have dedicated support to help you transition to the new format.

I will be here to answer your questions and help you every step of the way.

- Admin

 

[Pete]

Of course forums have changed. The world moved considerably in the last twenty years. There *was* a time that the forum could be the centrepiece of a site and there was (allegedly) a “build it and they will come”. However true these beliefs used to be, they are most certainly less true now.

There are still some niches where the forum is the centrepiece but it’s far fewer sites than it used to be. Getting a forum going is harder than it used to be; competition for attention is that much higher now. Attention spans waver more easily because of that competition - the short snappy post is where it’s at, not the longer form content forums support better than anything else.

But change is normal. It doesn’t have to be terminal. But the wrong change mostly certainly can be.

 

[Will_Watts]

I may well be ignorant or overly positive, but it seems to me that TAZ is not the average website that can be treated the same way any other community can.

We thought that on the previous site I was part of as well...

Fora is great for VS - it creates a "reddit type" platform, makes it easier to maintain, more consistency, and fundamentally makes it easier to advertise across their whole network with standard ad placements. I would be surprised if there wasn't a plan longer term to "unify" the membership across different sites as well, to make it easier to switch between communities.

Do communities want to be transitioned to a reddit type platform where there is very little customisation, and very little say over the site? Personally, that's not the type of site I want to post on, and if I did I'd just go to reddit.

 

[sbjsbj]

Some people live under the rock. All people who posted in here are people who are 30+ years old. Those people who remember the "glory days". And they think "forums are not dead" because their generation still exist.

It is the same with music. Who of you listens to crooners from 30s? Anyone? Yet those media was the most popular one. But they did not keep up with the times and that music died with its generation. How about 40s? 50s? Same thing. Probably the 80s are now the "it will never be dead" music culture, yet in 20 years that will be dead, too.

My point is, you have to understand the "dead/alive" part. What it means when someone says "forums are dead". So like the music example, we still have generations who are nostalgic and know the old glory days. But to determine if a culture is alive or not, one has to look past the generation. Do the "younglings" also cherish that culture or not. THAT makes the difference, THAT tells if something is dead or not.

And to no surprise, the young generations don't care a bit about traditional forums. Why bother with that? They have plenty of better media around to spend their times on. You get millions of clicks and impressions on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. You get the best exposure you can get on these platforms. We did not evolve at all or good enough. When was the last time you've seen someone showing his phone saying "look at this thread, how cool is this (-insert generic content here)-?". Or do these people show their last photos, hot models on instagram, cool videos from YouTube and so on to somebody else?

Wake up.

TAZ is dead, too. If it wasn't, do you think the Sandman would have given up this "flourishing" website? Which is now handed over again?

The forum world is asleep at the wheels. Reddit took our place. We no longer matter. TAZ doesn't matter at all.

PS: Yet the paradox is that day in day out I think about my forum and how I can make it a better place. Even though the ship is sinking, the hope remains.