JiveTurkey
05-03-2008, 09:17 AM
First off, I would like to clarify a certain issue.
AmKon was created after I was banned from ATS for the sole purpose of having a place where I could bring together my old ATS buddies in the hopes of remaining in contact.
Naturally, I had to do a bit of "covert recruiting" over at ATS in order to let the initial few know where to find me.
After this initial set of invitations, I ceased sending u2us over there and just let the chips fall into place.
AmKon was NOT started because I was pissed that I got banned.
NO ONE set out on a crusade to mass recruit ATS members to AmKon via "underhanded" tactics.
I did have to resort to a bit of low key recruitment in the beginning but this was NOT my choice.
Like most everyone here that has been banned, I honestly didn't see it coming the way it did. Since I did was basically blindsided with the ban, I never thought to tell anyone my email address or other means to contact me. Why would I? I thought I'd be able to talk to them on ATS.
I certainly would have preferred being able to log into my account (SimiusDei) and let people know PUBLICLY about AmKon in a way that held to the T&C of ATS.
However, this was not possible for two main reasons.
1. I was blindsided with the ban.
2. There was no AmKon at the time, though, the idea had been in my head for over a month. (Except it was initially going to be for my podcast "show" at podomatic. Hence the name "Amerikan Konspiracy")
For these reasons, I can safely say that the statements made by Crakeur, Bll and Mark in regards to "recruitment" at ATS by myself are complete and total bullshit. They WERE NOT underhanded or shady. The means I used at ATS to let my friends know of AmKon were used out of necessity.
It had already been made VERY clear (via threats on behalf of ATS staff toward my friends in regards to their including things such as "bring back SimiusDei" in their sigs) that I was not to be allowed back. It didn't take much common sense to figure out that the only way I would be able to let a few buddies know about this place was to sign up under a bullshit name and send a few u2us.
The ONLY people I invited were people on my friends list.
I did not invite any random members, nor did I start any public threads about this forum.
For those of you who are not familiar with the story of my banning, I will sum it up for you here.
There had been several threads started in the BTS Chit Chat forum in regards to the rules of ATS and some of the shady shit that was happening over there.
Me being who I am, I chimed in my two cents in regards to the subject and made it clear that I fully believed the rules of ATS should be CLARIFIED as they were wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too open to interpretation and abuse by mods who happened to dislike a certain member.
This quickly drew the attention of Bill and, if I remember correctly, the mod known as Infinite.
While Bill initially stuck to throwing his standard high handed response to me, (you know, the ones that constantly repeat ATS' "numbers" and that happy horse shit), Infinite immediately took to a few personal shots toward me as well as an overall prickish attitude.
This little conversation went on publicly for about 2 days.
I continued to repeat my same statements that the rules needed clarification and I did not, AT ANY POINT, say the rules should be done away with. (Keep this point in mind)
However, in true ATS fashion, my words were repeatedly turned around on me and, before long, both Infinite and Bill were "quoting" me as saying things that I never said and berating me for those supposed statements.
As a result, I left the thread and took it all to a podcast in the hopes of clearing up the confusion as to what I said and what I meant.
Like all of my podcasts, I used some harsh language and spoke my mind about the whole subject. Both of which were WELL within the rules for ATS podcasts since my cast was labeled as containing adult material.
During this podcast, I made comments to the effect of Bill being pompous and how I honestly couldn't stand the way he dealt with people. (Nowhere in the T&C does it say that I have to like Bill or even that I can't say that I don't like Bill). I also REPEATED that I NEVER said the rules should be done away with and that I simply said that they should be clarified so as to knock the "interpretation" factor out. I cited, as an example, the "censor circumvention" rule and how it says NOWHERE that typing something like "s***" instead of "shit" is considered censor circumvention. I also reiterated a point that I made several times that using "s***" instead of "shit" is, in fact, CENSORING the word.
During this podcast, I also made it quite clear that my feelings about Bill were purely MY OPINION and that a lot of people at ATS probably felt the same way about me.
I did not belittle him OR the site. I simply stated MY OPINION that he was pompous.
If I remember correctly, this podcast was in the 10 to 12 minute range in length.
3 minutes (yea, I remember because of the timestamping on the posts) after the podcast was posted, Crakeur made a VERY FUCKING RUDE post about me and my podcast that he accidentally posted in my podcast thread even though it was meant for cosmic. In this post, he made statements to the effect of "this clown is bashing ATS and the rules again" and further stuff along these lines.
Keep in mind that I did not bash ATS or the rules. Also, keep in mind that he made this post only 3 minutes after the podcast went live which means he likely only had the chance to listen to a few seconds of the cast since the opening songs on my casts were almost 2 minutes long.
Again, in true ATS fashion, this post by Crakeur was quickly deleted AS WAS THE RESPONSE THAT I POSTED TO CRAKEUR'S COMMENTS ABOUT ME IN MY PODCAST THREAD.
Not only did I get berated by Crakeur (who OBVIOUSLY didn't have time to listen to my podcast) for my podcast, the fact that I was berated was completely erased AND covered up.
I immediately u2u'ed crakeur about this "episode".
TO HIS CREDIT, he apologized for the comments and, as if it mattered, let me know that Mark had already jumped his ass about it.
HOWEVER, I must say that Crakeur did not ONCE apologize for what he said about me. He apologized for his comments about me being accidentally posted in a public forum.
I guess that kinda takes away from the apology a bit eh? In all honesty, it seemed a whole lot more like damage control than an apology.
Being the pain in the ass rule breaker of ATS that I was (/sarcasm), you would think that I would have taken this issue public right? In an effort to, say, "further my cause" of bringing drama and disruption to the ATS forums....
However, as I hope Crakeur will attest to, I did NOT do this and I made it clear to Crakeur that it was not my intention to do so, NOR was it my intention to start any sort of drama on ATS.
In fact, Crakeur and I had a halfway decent little discussion after this incident.
After our discussion, we ceased communications with each other on, what I thought were, good terms.
However, Infinite decided to throw his hat back into the mix and publicly berated me in the podcast thread and then proceeded to follow me to other threads that were TOTALLY off subject and berate me there as well.
Shortly after Infinites jumping into the scenario, Bill did the same thing and ALSO proceeded to follow me to several threads making smart assed comments.
This was nothing more than baiting. Plain and simple.
After several instances of Bill's bullshit, I u2u'ed him to address the issue.
You guys remember the staff saying that any issue we have can be brought to them in confidence right?
Well, that's what I attempted to do.
After several u2u's back and forth between myself and Bill, I received one final one that said something to the effect of "And what about what you said about ME in your podcast?".
I wrote a very long reply back to Bill and when I went to send it I got that wonderful "oops, the page you are looking for is no longer here" screen.
Most of you know what that means. For those that don't, it's a sure sign that your ass just got the ban hammer.
My honest impression was, "THAT FUCKING BABY JUST BANNED ME FOR CALLING HIM POMPOUS!!!!!!!!!!!"
Later, Bill would claim he had nothing to do with my banning. I do not believe it, but that is what he said and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at this particular point in time.
Shoot ahead a couple of days and I start the AmKon forums over at freeforums.org (a great site for a free phpbb forum BTW).
If you listen to Bill and Mark, however, you will hear a different story.
You will hear how I was repeatedly warned about my language and that I was a pain in the ass who refused to conform to the rules.
Unfortunately, this is complete and total bullshit.
Yes, I did debate whether "s***" was censorship or circumvention with the mods via u2u during my first couple of months at ATS and I received a temporary ban for doing so.
However, I did not receive a single fucking warn for the following several months that I was a member.
In fact, I was getting applause, flags and stars like fucking mad.
The ONLY verbal warning (u2u warning without the actual warn) was from, if I remember correctly, Chissler in regards to the fact that it was being debated in private as to whether or not I should get a warn for calling a poster 'silly'.
That was approximately 1 to 2 months before my banning and everything was a-ok (at least as far as I knew) until the incident came up that I described above.
------------------------------------
Now, onto the issue of "who started this whole bullshit". Naturally, meaning the perceived hostility between AmKon and ATS.
First thing's first....let me clear this up real quick.
THERE IS NO HOSTILITY FROM AMKON TOWARD ATS OR IT'S MEMBERS.
NONE.
NOT ONE FUCKING BIT.
There is, however, hostility from some of the MEMBERS of AmKon toward the STAFF of ATS.
AmKon is open to EVERYONE who is willing to refrain from being a dick (and even a few who pride themselves on their ability to be a dick....DK3000, I'm lookin at you buddy. hahahaha You too Lex, Mojo, Goos, General, Myself and several others)
Now, to prove this point.
I ask you guys and girls to click on memberlist up top and look at member number 12.
You can then check out this link
http://amkon.net/forum/search.php?search_author=SimiusDei
This little incident took place before even WE knew what we planned on doing with AmKon.
Contrary to what Bill, Crakeur and others seem to want everyone to believe, Amkon was being trolled by ATS'ers before there really even was an AmKon.
Of course, Crakeur looks at this as being "tactics taken by ATS'ers because they were unhappy about AmKon's underhanded recruiting tactcis at ATS.
Unfortunately, I was the only one who had done any actual inviting at this point and I had ONLY invited my trusted friends at ATS.
Since that time, we have had several trolls from ATS as well as Djarums (who I applaud for coming in here straight and not acting high handed as hell.) and Crakeur join up here at AmKon.
If you will take the time to plunder, you will notice that NONE of these members are banned.
Not one.
Now, a bit of humility on the part of Jasn.
I changed misteroldschool's name to pole smoker shortly after he decided to take his leave of AmKon after popping on here to ask our members who exactly they were but refusing to answer any questions about himself while hiding behind a proxy.
I did this because I honestly believed this to be Bill (since he sounds a HELL of a lot like him which even Springer admitted, though, with a "but a lot of people do")
Realizing that I probably jumped the gun a bit, i apologized and changed the name back. PUBLICLY.
I even did it without laying blame on anyone else. Imagine that.
Now, let's step back for a second.
In the VERY short time that AmKon has been around.....we have been berated privately by Bill and Springer (Enjoying that audience of 85 yet John?). We have been monitored by members of the ATS staff (evidenced by several bannings of AmKon members at ATS when they broke no rules at ATS.). We have been trolled by members of ATS. We have even been joined by two staff members of ATS who were here in the hopes of "resolving" some sort of issue that they perceived.
I ask you guys and girls of AmKon, how many of you have trolled the ATS boards in the name of AmKon?
How many of you have stuck to monitoring ATS looking for "traitors" to the cause of AmKon?
How many of you are bothered even remotely that a member of Amkon wishes to maintain good status over at ATS?
I will admit, happily, that I made a post or two over at ATS here in the last few days. Not to be a dick or to troll but to satisfy the claims of the ATS staff that Amkon is out to piss in the cornflakes of the ATS'ers.
I have always lived by the belief that if someone is accusing you of something that you are not guilty of, you might as well go ahead and do it so the accusations will be justified.
Like I said, I'm a dick.
However, AmKon has been here for a few months now and I first did this only after Crakeur showed up here.
So why the hell does any member of the ATS staff feel that they have the RIGHT to blame this "hostility" that they see on AmKon and it's members??
Why did most of you guys come here in the first place?
Was it to spite ATS?
Did you feel the need to "betray" them?
Were you banned for reasons that you see as total bullshit and treated with ZERO respect by the staff of ATS? Was the true reason for your banning/departure then covered up?
Did you have friends that received this sort of treatment?
-------------------
YES, there is hostility toward ATS by some of the members of AmKon.
Or, more specifically, there is hostility toward SOME of the ATS staff on the part of SOME of the members of AmKon.
To this, I say...........WHO FUCKING CARES??
What's wrong with a bit of hostility between different net personalities?
What's wrong with someone who dedicated a HUGE AMOUNT of their time to bettering the site that they were eventually booted from in an underhanded way???
I received an email from Bill that contained a statement to the effect of us getting a better attitude if we wished to peacefully coexist with ATS.
I ask you guys this.
Are you aware of ANY conspiracy forum OTHER than ATS which views ATS with ANYTHING but disdain??
If you go to the nearly every other major conspiracy forum and even MENTION ATS in a positive light, you are ridiculed, laughed at and/or pitied by the members there who are familiar with ATS.
Yet, one of the owners of what most other forums consider a LAUGHABLE site full of nothing but sheep and run by idiots and/or some government agency feels like he has the right to give me advice on how to coexist with other conspiracy communities????
HA!
The brutal truth is, ATS IS A FUCKING JOKE amongst the more serious of the conspiracy related communities.
Regardless of what the owners of ATS would like you to believe, people do NOT feel this way because of jealousy or another bullshit like that.
The MAIN reason they feel this way is because the staff of ATS has REPEATEDLY shit on it's members when they stepped out of line with the business plan.
ATS is a fucking joke because they operate under the slogan of "Deny Ignorance" while seeing that ignorance stays at the top of google search rankings and repeatedly reminding members who step out of line of this fact.
ATS is a fucking joke because 10 fucking trolls are more valued than 1 HONEST and CONTRIBUTING member because they represent higher numbers to throw out to the possible sources of ad revenue.
ATS is a fucking joke because the members of the staff are so high on themselves that they actually have become convinced that they are BETTER than the rest of us who are sitting here behind the keyboard simply because they are goons for their owners who are making a killing of of their free labor that they constantly remind us is so fucking difficult.
But most of all, ATS is a fucking joke because the OWNERS of ATS have absolutely ZERO integrity.
Bill, Mark, Jeff, Simon and Stephen profit off of KIDS and ADULTS alike only to turn around and kick them to the curb when they raise the ire of one of the "amigos" or their bitches.
The members of the ATS staff ACTIVELY start drama on their own forum and then ban members who get caught up in it followed by engaging in a 'campaign' to cover up the REAL reasons for the bannings while tossing out subtle insults to those whose ability to defend themselves that they have taken away. They effectively DESTROY the reputations that these former members have built for themselves through hard work, research and EXCELLENTLY articulated posts for the sole purpose of maintaining their "image".
You have to look no further than John's situation to find proof of this FACT.
2 months before my banning, John was an invaluable member of ATS who brought in plenty of traffic simply because he was John Lear and he was at ATS.
Now, he never really brought ATS any revenue (the FIRST factor they consider.....not much of a community eh?) and he was basically a thorn int heir side who was "tolerated".
Hell, John had to go off site to respond to members who were asking why he was banned from ATS. He was also followed to these sites and, AGAIN, ridiculed by members of the ATS staff.
Like I said, ZERO (0) fucking integrity.
You know, John Lear is John Lear. He makes no bones about it. Go read his front page intro at livingmoon.com to get all the evidence you need.
The same goes for us here.
Amkon isn't much. We may only have 170 odd members and we don't turn a dime of profit.
But we make no bones about what we are.
We are a COMMUNITY.
We talk conspiracies and we talk bullshit.
Some of our members are junkies, some are "militant atheists" (who we love by the way), most are assholes and some of us are completely full of ourselves.
But we do not try to hide this and, in fact, we are damn proud of it.
This can be said for GLP, Conspiracy Central and the countless other conspiracy forums out there.
Sure, none of us are as big as ATS and probably never will be.
However, we have some fucking integrity and we respect what keeps us alive................OUR FUCKING MEMBERS!
We don't use people and discard them when they are no longer needed.
We don't ban people and then build a lie to save our image.
We don't start shit with our members publicly then delete the evidence and go to email trying to convince said members to "keep things between us".
Oh yea, you are also not very likely to have members of our staff throw around subtle threats of lawsuits.
In closing, I go back to the root of the whole mess.
YES there is a hostility between AmKon and ATS.
HOWEVER, that hostility is coming from YOU, the ATS STAFF, toward AmKon and our members.
If you want to solve this "problem", it is well within your power to do so.
All you have to do is quit typing in that address or clicking that bookmark.
Go take care of BUSINESS and forget this fucking site exists.
Until you decide to do that, it seems to me that the problem is all yours.
As always, you are ALL welcome to throw your 2 pennies in here.
You might catch hell or it and you might not.
Fortunately, this ship ain't flying the colors of the above network.
So if you choose to chime in, you'll just have to deal with it.
Take it easy,
J
AmKon was created after I was banned from ATS for the sole purpose of having a place where I could bring together my old ATS buddies in the hopes of remaining in contact.
Naturally, I had to do a bit of "covert recruiting" over at ATS in order to let the initial few know where to find me.
After this initial set of invitations, I ceased sending u2us over there and just let the chips fall into place.
AmKon was NOT started because I was pissed that I got banned.
NO ONE set out on a crusade to mass recruit ATS members to AmKon via "underhanded" tactics.
I did have to resort to a bit of low key recruitment in the beginning but this was NOT my choice.
Like most everyone here that has been banned, I honestly didn't see it coming the way it did. Since I did was basically blindsided with the ban, I never thought to tell anyone my email address or other means to contact me. Why would I? I thought I'd be able to talk to them on ATS.
I certainly would have preferred being able to log into my account (SimiusDei) and let people know PUBLICLY about AmKon in a way that held to the T&C of ATS.
However, this was not possible for two main reasons.
1. I was blindsided with the ban.
2. There was no AmKon at the time, though, the idea had been in my head for over a month. (Except it was initially going to be for my podcast "show" at podomatic. Hence the name "Amerikan Konspiracy")
For these reasons, I can safely say that the statements made by Crakeur, Bll and Mark in regards to "recruitment" at ATS by myself are complete and total bullshit. They WERE NOT underhanded or shady. The means I used at ATS to let my friends know of AmKon were used out of necessity.
It had already been made VERY clear (via threats on behalf of ATS staff toward my friends in regards to their including things such as "bring back SimiusDei" in their sigs) that I was not to be allowed back. It didn't take much common sense to figure out that the only way I would be able to let a few buddies know about this place was to sign up under a bullshit name and send a few u2us.
The ONLY people I invited were people on my friends list.
I did not invite any random members, nor did I start any public threads about this forum.
For those of you who are not familiar with the story of my banning, I will sum it up for you here.
There had been several threads started in the BTS Chit Chat forum in regards to the rules of ATS and some of the shady shit that was happening over there.
Me being who I am, I chimed in my two cents in regards to the subject and made it clear that I fully believed the rules of ATS should be CLARIFIED as they were wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too open to interpretation and abuse by mods who happened to dislike a certain member.
This quickly drew the attention of Bill and, if I remember correctly, the mod known as Infinite.
While Bill initially stuck to throwing his standard high handed response to me, (you know, the ones that constantly repeat ATS' "numbers" and that happy horse shit), Infinite immediately took to a few personal shots toward me as well as an overall prickish attitude.
This little conversation went on publicly for about 2 days.
I continued to repeat my same statements that the rules needed clarification and I did not, AT ANY POINT, say the rules should be done away with. (Keep this point in mind)
However, in true ATS fashion, my words were repeatedly turned around on me and, before long, both Infinite and Bill were "quoting" me as saying things that I never said and berating me for those supposed statements.
As a result, I left the thread and took it all to a podcast in the hopes of clearing up the confusion as to what I said and what I meant.
Like all of my podcasts, I used some harsh language and spoke my mind about the whole subject. Both of which were WELL within the rules for ATS podcasts since my cast was labeled as containing adult material.
During this podcast, I made comments to the effect of Bill being pompous and how I honestly couldn't stand the way he dealt with people. (Nowhere in the T&C does it say that I have to like Bill or even that I can't say that I don't like Bill). I also REPEATED that I NEVER said the rules should be done away with and that I simply said that they should be clarified so as to knock the "interpretation" factor out. I cited, as an example, the "censor circumvention" rule and how it says NOWHERE that typing something like "s***" instead of "shit" is considered censor circumvention. I also reiterated a point that I made several times that using "s***" instead of "shit" is, in fact, CENSORING the word.
During this podcast, I also made it quite clear that my feelings about Bill were purely MY OPINION and that a lot of people at ATS probably felt the same way about me.
I did not belittle him OR the site. I simply stated MY OPINION that he was pompous.
If I remember correctly, this podcast was in the 10 to 12 minute range in length.
3 minutes (yea, I remember because of the timestamping on the posts) after the podcast was posted, Crakeur made a VERY FUCKING RUDE post about me and my podcast that he accidentally posted in my podcast thread even though it was meant for cosmic. In this post, he made statements to the effect of "this clown is bashing ATS and the rules again" and further stuff along these lines.
Keep in mind that I did not bash ATS or the rules. Also, keep in mind that he made this post only 3 minutes after the podcast went live which means he likely only had the chance to listen to a few seconds of the cast since the opening songs on my casts were almost 2 minutes long.
Again, in true ATS fashion, this post by Crakeur was quickly deleted AS WAS THE RESPONSE THAT I POSTED TO CRAKEUR'S COMMENTS ABOUT ME IN MY PODCAST THREAD.
Not only did I get berated by Crakeur (who OBVIOUSLY didn't have time to listen to my podcast) for my podcast, the fact that I was berated was completely erased AND covered up.
I immediately u2u'ed crakeur about this "episode".
TO HIS CREDIT, he apologized for the comments and, as if it mattered, let me know that Mark had already jumped his ass about it.
HOWEVER, I must say that Crakeur did not ONCE apologize for what he said about me. He apologized for his comments about me being accidentally posted in a public forum.
I guess that kinda takes away from the apology a bit eh? In all honesty, it seemed a whole lot more like damage control than an apology.
Being the pain in the ass rule breaker of ATS that I was (/sarcasm), you would think that I would have taken this issue public right? In an effort to, say, "further my cause" of bringing drama and disruption to the ATS forums....
However, as I hope Crakeur will attest to, I did NOT do this and I made it clear to Crakeur that it was not my intention to do so, NOR was it my intention to start any sort of drama on ATS.
In fact, Crakeur and I had a halfway decent little discussion after this incident.
After our discussion, we ceased communications with each other on, what I thought were, good terms.
However, Infinite decided to throw his hat back into the mix and publicly berated me in the podcast thread and then proceeded to follow me to other threads that were TOTALLY off subject and berate me there as well.
Shortly after Infinites jumping into the scenario, Bill did the same thing and ALSO proceeded to follow me to several threads making smart assed comments.
This was nothing more than baiting. Plain and simple.
After several instances of Bill's bullshit, I u2u'ed him to address the issue.
You guys remember the staff saying that any issue we have can be brought to them in confidence right?
Well, that's what I attempted to do.
After several u2u's back and forth between myself and Bill, I received one final one that said something to the effect of "And what about what you said about ME in your podcast?".
I wrote a very long reply back to Bill and when I went to send it I got that wonderful "oops, the page you are looking for is no longer here" screen.
Most of you know what that means. For those that don't, it's a sure sign that your ass just got the ban hammer.
My honest impression was, "THAT FUCKING BABY JUST BANNED ME FOR CALLING HIM POMPOUS!!!!!!!!!!!"
Later, Bill would claim he had nothing to do with my banning. I do not believe it, but that is what he said and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at this particular point in time.
Shoot ahead a couple of days and I start the AmKon forums over at freeforums.org (a great site for a free phpbb forum BTW).
If you listen to Bill and Mark, however, you will hear a different story.
You will hear how I was repeatedly warned about my language and that I was a pain in the ass who refused to conform to the rules.
Unfortunately, this is complete and total bullshit.
Yes, I did debate whether "s***" was censorship or circumvention with the mods via u2u during my first couple of months at ATS and I received a temporary ban for doing so.
However, I did not receive a single fucking warn for the following several months that I was a member.
In fact, I was getting applause, flags and stars like fucking mad.
The ONLY verbal warning (u2u warning without the actual warn) was from, if I remember correctly, Chissler in regards to the fact that it was being debated in private as to whether or not I should get a warn for calling a poster 'silly'.
That was approximately 1 to 2 months before my banning and everything was a-ok (at least as far as I knew) until the incident came up that I described above.
------------------------------------
Now, onto the issue of "who started this whole bullshit". Naturally, meaning the perceived hostility between AmKon and ATS.
First thing's first....let me clear this up real quick.
THERE IS NO HOSTILITY FROM AMKON TOWARD ATS OR IT'S MEMBERS.
NONE.
NOT ONE FUCKING BIT.
There is, however, hostility from some of the MEMBERS of AmKon toward the STAFF of ATS.
AmKon is open to EVERYONE who is willing to refrain from being a dick (and even a few who pride themselves on their ability to be a dick....DK3000, I'm lookin at you buddy. hahahaha You too Lex, Mojo, Goos, General, Myself and several others)
Now, to prove this point.
I ask you guys and girls to click on memberlist up top and look at member number 12.
You can then check out this link
http://amkon.net/forum/search.php?search_author=SimiusDei
This little incident took place before even WE knew what we planned on doing with AmKon.
Contrary to what Bill, Crakeur and others seem to want everyone to believe, Amkon was being trolled by ATS'ers before there really even was an AmKon.
Of course, Crakeur looks at this as being "tactics taken by ATS'ers because they were unhappy about AmKon's underhanded recruiting tactcis at ATS.
Unfortunately, I was the only one who had done any actual inviting at this point and I had ONLY invited my trusted friends at ATS.
Since that time, we have had several trolls from ATS as well as Djarums (who I applaud for coming in here straight and not acting high handed as hell.) and Crakeur join up here at AmKon.
If you will take the time to plunder, you will notice that NONE of these members are banned.
Not one.
Now, a bit of humility on the part of Jasn.
I changed misteroldschool's name to pole smoker shortly after he decided to take his leave of AmKon after popping on here to ask our members who exactly they were but refusing to answer any questions about himself while hiding behind a proxy.
I did this because I honestly believed this to be Bill (since he sounds a HELL of a lot like him which even Springer admitted, though, with a "but a lot of people do")
Realizing that I probably jumped the gun a bit, i apologized and changed the name back. PUBLICLY.
I even did it without laying blame on anyone else. Imagine that.
Now, let's step back for a second.
In the VERY short time that AmKon has been around.....we have been berated privately by Bill and Springer (Enjoying that audience of 85 yet John?). We have been monitored by members of the ATS staff (evidenced by several bannings of AmKon members at ATS when they broke no rules at ATS.). We have been trolled by members of ATS. We have even been joined by two staff members of ATS who were here in the hopes of "resolving" some sort of issue that they perceived.
I ask you guys and girls of AmKon, how many of you have trolled the ATS boards in the name of AmKon?
How many of you have stuck to monitoring ATS looking for "traitors" to the cause of AmKon?
How many of you are bothered even remotely that a member of Amkon wishes to maintain good status over at ATS?
I will admit, happily, that I made a post or two over at ATS here in the last few days. Not to be a dick or to troll but to satisfy the claims of the ATS staff that Amkon is out to piss in the cornflakes of the ATS'ers.
I have always lived by the belief that if someone is accusing you of something that you are not guilty of, you might as well go ahead and do it so the accusations will be justified.
Like I said, I'm a dick.
However, AmKon has been here for a few months now and I first did this only after Crakeur showed up here.
So why the hell does any member of the ATS staff feel that they have the RIGHT to blame this "hostility" that they see on AmKon and it's members??
Why did most of you guys come here in the first place?
Was it to spite ATS?
Did you feel the need to "betray" them?
Were you banned for reasons that you see as total bullshit and treated with ZERO respect by the staff of ATS? Was the true reason for your banning/departure then covered up?
Did you have friends that received this sort of treatment?
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YES, there is hostility toward ATS by some of the members of AmKon.
Or, more specifically, there is hostility toward SOME of the ATS staff on the part of SOME of the members of AmKon.
To this, I say...........WHO FUCKING CARES??
What's wrong with a bit of hostility between different net personalities?
What's wrong with someone who dedicated a HUGE AMOUNT of their time to bettering the site that they were eventually booted from in an underhanded way???
I received an email from Bill that contained a statement to the effect of us getting a better attitude if we wished to peacefully coexist with ATS.
I ask you guys this.
Are you aware of ANY conspiracy forum OTHER than ATS which views ATS with ANYTHING but disdain??
If you go to the nearly every other major conspiracy forum and even MENTION ATS in a positive light, you are ridiculed, laughed at and/or pitied by the members there who are familiar with ATS.
Yet, one of the owners of what most other forums consider a LAUGHABLE site full of nothing but sheep and run by idiots and/or some government agency feels like he has the right to give me advice on how to coexist with other conspiracy communities????
HA!
The brutal truth is, ATS IS A FUCKING JOKE amongst the more serious of the conspiracy related communities.
Regardless of what the owners of ATS would like you to believe, people do NOT feel this way because of jealousy or another bullshit like that.
The MAIN reason they feel this way is because the staff of ATS has REPEATEDLY shit on it's members when they stepped out of line with the business plan.
ATS is a fucking joke because they operate under the slogan of "Deny Ignorance" while seeing that ignorance stays at the top of google search rankings and repeatedly reminding members who step out of line of this fact.
ATS is a fucking joke because 10 fucking trolls are more valued than 1 HONEST and CONTRIBUTING member because they represent higher numbers to throw out to the possible sources of ad revenue.
ATS is a fucking joke because the members of the staff are so high on themselves that they actually have become convinced that they are BETTER than the rest of us who are sitting here behind the keyboard simply because they are goons for their owners who are making a killing of of their free labor that they constantly remind us is so fucking difficult.
But most of all, ATS is a fucking joke because the OWNERS of ATS have absolutely ZERO integrity.
Bill, Mark, Jeff, Simon and Stephen profit off of KIDS and ADULTS alike only to turn around and kick them to the curb when they raise the ire of one of the "amigos" or their bitches.
The members of the ATS staff ACTIVELY start drama on their own forum and then ban members who get caught up in it followed by engaging in a 'campaign' to cover up the REAL reasons for the bannings while tossing out subtle insults to those whose ability to defend themselves that they have taken away. They effectively DESTROY the reputations that these former members have built for themselves through hard work, research and EXCELLENTLY articulated posts for the sole purpose of maintaining their "image".
You have to look no further than John's situation to find proof of this FACT.
2 months before my banning, John was an invaluable member of ATS who brought in plenty of traffic simply because he was John Lear and he was at ATS.
Now, he never really brought ATS any revenue (the FIRST factor they consider.....not much of a community eh?) and he was basically a thorn int heir side who was "tolerated".
Hell, John had to go off site to respond to members who were asking why he was banned from ATS. He was also followed to these sites and, AGAIN, ridiculed by members of the ATS staff.
Like I said, ZERO (0) fucking integrity.
You know, John Lear is John Lear. He makes no bones about it. Go read his front page intro at livingmoon.com to get all the evidence you need.
The same goes for us here.
Amkon isn't much. We may only have 170 odd members and we don't turn a dime of profit.
But we make no bones about what we are.
We are a COMMUNITY.
We talk conspiracies and we talk bullshit.
Some of our members are junkies, some are "militant atheists" (who we love by the way), most are assholes and some of us are completely full of ourselves.
But we do not try to hide this and, in fact, we are damn proud of it.
This can be said for GLP, Conspiracy Central and the countless other conspiracy forums out there.
Sure, none of us are as big as ATS and probably never will be.
However, we have some fucking integrity and we respect what keeps us alive................OUR FUCKING MEMBERS!
We don't use people and discard them when they are no longer needed.
We don't ban people and then build a lie to save our image.
We don't start shit with our members publicly then delete the evidence and go to email trying to convince said members to "keep things between us".
Oh yea, you are also not very likely to have members of our staff throw around subtle threats of lawsuits.
In closing, I go back to the root of the whole mess.
YES there is a hostility between AmKon and ATS.
HOWEVER, that hostility is coming from YOU, the ATS STAFF, toward AmKon and our members.
If you want to solve this "problem", it is well within your power to do so.
All you have to do is quit typing in that address or clicking that bookmark.
Go take care of BUSINESS and forget this fucking site exists.
Until you decide to do that, it seems to me that the problem is all yours.
As always, you are ALL welcome to throw your 2 pennies in here.
You might catch hell or it and you might not.
Fortunately, this ship ain't flying the colors of the above network.
So if you choose to chime in, you'll just have to deal with it.
Take it easy,
J