Atariage has been aquired by Atari.. fyi

[+arcadeshopper]

 

 

TLDR: they will own it, nothing is changing short term no forums or data are being shared with atari directly 

[+OLD CS1]

Quote

What does this mean?  Short-term, nothing is going to change.  I will continue running the entire AtariAge website, including the forums and the store.  Nothing is going to be neutered in the forums, and Atari will not have access to personal conversations, private forums and clubs, and so forth.  No content is going to be removed from the forum, and those posting content will be liable for anything they post (which was already the case).

Long-term, welcome forced integration into Big Tech platforms like Google, Microsoft, or Amazon, corporate censorship and intrusions, spying and reporting on its users, all in the name of "trust and safety."

 

I want to be wrong.  I want this post to age very, very poorly.  I want people to look at me in the future with a snarl because I said any of this is possible.  In ten years when the site is still going as strong as ever and Al has become Atari CEO, I want people to hate me for saying stupid shit like this.

[Albert]

3 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

Long-term, welcome forced integration into Big Tech platforms like Google, Microsoft, or Amazon, corporate censorship and intrusions, spying and reporting on its users, all in the name of "trust and safety."

 

I want to be wrong.  I want this post to age very, very poorly.  I want people to look at me in the future with a snarl because I said any of this is possible.  In ten years when the site is still going as strong as ever and Al has become Atari CEO, I want people to hate me for saying stupid shit like this.

There's a big difference between giant companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon in this context.  I would not have done this deal if I felt the website or forums were going to be jeopardized in any way. 

 

 ..Al

[+OLD CS1]

1 minute ago, Albert said:

There's a big difference between giant companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon in this context.  I would not have done this deal if I felt the website or forums were going to be jeopardized in any way. 

 

 ..Al

I trust you on that.  I cannot express that any more than my post in your Q&A thread.  I am, however, viscerally dubious of corpos.

[Albert]

1 minute ago, OLD CS1 said:

I trust you on that.  I cannot express that any more than my post in your Q&A thread.  I am, however, viscerally dubious of corpos.

Sure, and I can appreciate that, really.  I don't blame people for being skeptical, given Atari's previous history and what has happened with acquisitions like this in the past.  But I also did not do this lightly, and I would not have agreed to this deal if I felt any aspects of the site (and especially the forum) would be in jeopardy as a result.

 

 ..Al

[Elia Spallanzani fdt]

These events always make me think: and all the people who have contributed, even economically, to the growth of these forums, what do they get? Give them back at least the money they donated, since they wanted to donate it to a community and not to Atari.

[+OLD CS1]

40 minutes ago, Elia Spallanzani fdt said:

These events always make me think: and all the people who have contributed, even economically, to the growth of these forums, what do they get? Give them back at least the money they donated, since they wanted to donate it to a community and not to Atari.

I understand this to a point.  Consider that it has been our contributions and subscriptions (and purchases) which have kept the site alive for 20 years.  We have benefited from what we have contributed.  There is no lost value for me in this up to this point.

 

But also, Albert has put a LOT into this site.  It has been his full-time job for however long.

[+OLD CS1]

BTW, something I have not yet said is, congratulations, @Albert.  This is a huge recognition of your work.

[Albert]

5 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

BTW, something I have not yet said is, congratulations, @Albert.  This is a huge recognition of your work.

Thank you, I'm glad you've enjoyed the site all this time. 

 

 ..Al

[+OLD CS1]

Something else I want to address in my pessimism is this:

Quote

Nothing is going to be neutered in the forums, and Atari will not have access to personal conversations, private forums and clubs, and so forth

That this was stated explicitly and without prompting leads me to believe that part of this long negotiation was this very point: no, AtariAge will not become Activision or Sony in how it handles private, non-public interactions.

[Nightengale]

I don't put anything past lawyers, given enough time. 

[Albert]

29 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

Something else I want to address in my pessimism is this:

That this was stated explicitly and without prompting leads me to believe that part of this long negotiation was this very point: no, AtariAge will not become Activision or Sony in how it handles private, non-public interactions.

It is fair to say this was very much discussed, as it was very important to me to maintain the integrity of the forums.

 

 ..Al

[RXB]

 

Honestly I will never trust anything a Corporation ever says. They will lie to you without a care in the world.

Freightliner I worked for was doing business with Haliburton and I told everyone they would rip us off and screw Freightliner over.

I was told to shup up and removed from project.

2 years later it cost Freightliner over 3 million in lost funds and 1.6 million just a total rip off of funds.

And Chenny bragged 1 year later about screwing us over like it was some kind of a ethical thing.

 

Again never trust anything any corporation says it will do EVER! They are all liars and unethical.

Unless those managers are punished for this stuff, they will never be ethical.

[Opry99er]

Al, I just wanted to say thank you for all the years of moderation and facilitation.  Having been here on this forum for over a decade, I can honestly say I've never been a part of a more well-run forum.  Your care, attention to detail, and level-headedness have been infectious, and our little TI-99 community is stronger for your efforts.

[+Schmitzi]

 

Like a german saying: "Ich habe Pferde vor der Apotheke kotzen sehen"

(I've seen horses puking around in front of the pharmacy)

This happened to me myself, but I´m not a horse

 

So what if i.e. the Atari managment or just the responsible department head changes next year,

or if Atari gets acquired or whatever,

and they suddenly find out that the at least 2nd big and maybe most growing forum here is

Texas Instruments, and that Texas Instruments is not Atari ? 🤔

 

So I come back to my question that I asked more than once before,

how to export/backup this, the biggest TI99&Co related knowledge- and filebase (in a usable format) ?

Maybe a smart "crawler" can be programmed easily ?

50.000 men in the stadium, and I get the ball to the head.

 

 

[globeron]

1 hour ago, Schmitzi said:

 

So what if i.e. the Atari managment or just the responsible department head changes next year,

or if Atari gets acquired or whatever,

and they suddenly find out that the at least 2nd big and maybe most growing forum here is

Texas Instruments, and that Texas Instruments is not Atari ? 🤔

 

So I come back to my question that I asked more than once before,

how to export/backup this, the biggest TI99&Co related knowledge- and filebase (in a usable format) ?

Maybe a smart "crawler" can be programmed easily ?

 

you are very good at that to preserve the TI-99 in detail.

Also feel all the good info need to backed up before it is gone again.
 

 

 

[LASooner]

My concern is I have seen this same sort of thing happen before in some of the other forums I am or was in, and the promise of no intervention by corporate overlords was eventually overtaken by the desire to monetize every aspect of the community and it caused it to die on the vine. I hope it's a transparent transition, but I will remain wary.

[globeron]

 

https://ti99.forumotion.eu/

[+OLD CS1]

43 minutes ago, globeron said:

https://ti99.forumotion.eu/

So, what exactly are you proposing?

[+Schmitzi]

1 hour ago, globeron said:

 

https://ti99.forumotion.eu/

 

I like it, but the same question here: Who is the owner of forumotion.eu,

and what will happen with it in future ?

If we can fetch or export all data, all is possible, but uneeded work if done twice or more times...

 

(Please also keep in mind that I own the ti994a.com (from Barry Boone), the .DE,

Geneve9640.com and .de and much more domains.

I would pass some of this domains away or relink or share the ownership with or without others or whatever, for such a (guaranteed) use.)

 

And there are whtech.com, also Rich Polivka´s 99er.net, Fabrice´s ti99.com and much more well established pages/names that are hosted by hopelessly addicted users....

 

And at such a point, if so, for me it makes very much sense about a "community of heirs" (owners & admins) for this domains, and to discuss it (wherever).

For me it must not happen that someone passes away or becomes a bitch or whatever and the community slides into a status like "Game Over".

 

 

 

[InfernalKeith]

Every forum is temporary.  Every format is temporary.  Someone should have been archiving things for posterity from day one.  If someone on a Compuserve forum in 1982 said "this place will be here forever!" they'd have been laughed off the face of the earth at 300 baud.

 

The fact that this place has been this stable, for this long, is a minor miracle for which we should be grateful.  If it eventually goes the way of Yahoo Groups, Usenet, Delphi, TEXNET, and the library of Alexandria, we should be ready for that.

 

But let's also not burn the place down pre-emptively.  There's no reason to throw the guy under the bus who's kept a roof over our head for two decades and is working hard to keep it there for another two.

 

 

[+Schmitzi]

 

yeah Tiger 🤩

 

 

 

[+mizapf]

I'd suggest to defer any kind of panic until the proper time has come.

[ti99iuc]

Could be possibile to have a complete backup of this board at least?

 

About other already Active good boards, we also have:

-http://www.99er.net/phbbarchive/99er.net/99erbb/viewforumcf19.html?f=6

 

Or this:

 

- http://planet-99.net/  (forum section)

 

Both of them created by great 99ers enthusiasts

Edited September 8, 2023 by ti99iuc

[Serafini Lapo]

5 hours ago, globeron said:

 

https://ti99.forumotion.eu/

App installata.

Grazie per questo!