[J.W.]

Thank you so much Ernie for all of your hard work and your dedication to this community. I wish you all the best of health and hope you enjoy your well deserved time with your family. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

That being said, VerticalScope will not benefit from my browsing. VerticalScope has tried to buy several of the forums on which I admin and moderate and, on those where I am just a member, they have, almost without exception, become ad-farms that have nothing to do with the original community. If Ernie was able to sell WUS for a great deal of money, I applaud him and respect his decision to profit from the venture and I wish him the best in all of his future ventures. I hope one day to meet Ernie in person so that I can thank him for all of his advice, counsel, and generosity. VerticalScope, however, has no interest in watches or horology and will not benefit from my web traffic. I will also encourage everyone I know to avoid WUS if it has been acquired by VerticalScope.

The ONLY good thing about VerticalScope is that, every time they buyout a forum, another one pops up and generates more traffic than the one they purchased. I feel confident that this post will be deleted but I'll pop on here from time to time to check the status. Several of you know my other accounts... and no, VerticalScope, none of them are through the same IP address. Nice try. PM my other accounts if this has all come to pass.

J.W.

 

[GinGinD]

I feel confident that this post will be deleted

Not by me. I only delete posts for rules violations and I don't see one here. Offering your opinion doesn't break any rules provided it's offered with civility (as yours was).

Jeannie

 

[maique]

Thank you so much for all the work through the years, and hope you have a great time moving forward. All the best.

 

[Deledda]

Ernie,

Thank you. Enjoy the family time.

 

[Reno]

O_O wow. I completely missed this news.

Ernie, I just wanted to say, WUS was my first watch forum ever.

Thanks to you and your fantastic forum, I've shared my passion with many other people all around the world, and for this, you have all my gratitude

I wish you the best for the future.

 

[WatchSeekr]

Unless I missed something I saw responses to every issue raised but this one.

Regarding your personal info. We do not sell your email addresses or your information. Canada particularly has strict laws in regards to this and even if it did not we have never been in the business of selling contact info. Sorry if this was missed.

I just googled 'verticalscope problems' and 'verticalscope sucks' and to be honest i was shocked by what i found, lets just say its not good.

I have no personal opinion or personal experience so i can only go by what i read, i can only encourage others to do the same and form their own opinions and i guess the proof will be in how this place goes in the future.

Once again welcome to our new owners, i hope you do this place justice, i will hold off on my opinions until they have had enough time to prove themselves either way, but i am worried to be honest at what ive just found on the net.

There are three sides to every story and clearly you can google any company looking for bad reviews online and you will find something you don't like. Yelp is probably the worst when it comes to this where a local business has bad reviews showing before there are good reviews. I am guilty of this, I look for the bad reviews first to see what is so bad and if I should eat there because the drama is always more interesting.
There was a time when the company was newer and we where still learning from our mistakes. This is before my time with VS and my time here has been spent primarily supporting communities and the mod team to help make them better. I have not removed or edited anything posted here, have not banned or deleted any accounts and have been on here to answer everyone's questions to the best of my ability.

 

[fliegerchrono]

Thank you Ernie! Enjoy your spare time and keep up the good work at school.

 

[Smaug]

Best of luck in your retirement, Ernie. I guess you will still work the day job? (you didn't say)

I'm skeptical that things can stay the same when owned commercially vs. privately. Timezone sure changed when it was sold to a company. Lots of the current membership here may be the result of the change in policies at TZ over the years.

 

[Francois Boucher]

Thank you for everything, Ernie. Goodbye, and Good Luck!

 

[Francois Boucher]

…as for me, I'm off to somewhere else… I can't stand the kind of tasteless, flavorless, insipid promotional crap that moneygrubbing outfits like VerticalCorpse serve every day…

 

[rtrnow]

Thank you Ernie for the wonderful site and all your hard work in making this the world's best watch forum!
WUS got me started in the crazy obsession/hobby of mine, it is by far the greatest forum for someone to learn more about watches and the best place to make your purchases. Thanks too to all the mods for their tireless work and assistance.
I would like to welcome the new owners and based on their statement, it sounds as though they know a good thing when they have it.

Enjoy your family time Ernie, you certainly deserve it.

 

[Ipromise]

Ernie, thank you so much for giving us such an awesome community to talk about what we love so much. Take a well deserved break!

 

[lexvil]

Posts have been deleted, perhaps you should look into who did so ?

Regarding your personal info. We do not sell your email addresses or your information. Canada particularly has strict laws in regards to this and even if it did not we have never been in the business of selling contact info. Sorry if this was missed.

There are three sides to every story and clearly you can google any company looking for bad reviews online and you will find something you don't like. Yelp is probably the worst when it comes to this where a local business has bad reviews showing before there are good reviews. I am guilty of this, I look for the bad reviews first to see what is so bad and if I should eat there because the drama is always more interesting.
There was a time when the company was newer and we where still learning from our mistakes. This is before my time with VS and my time here has been spent primarily supporting communities and the mod team to help make them better. I have not removed or edited anything posted here, have not banned or deleted any accounts and have been on here to answer everyone's questions to the best of my ability.

 

[DexDegeaut]

Posts have been deleted, perhaps you should look into who did so 

 

[GinGinD]

Posts have been deleted, perhaps you should look into who did so 

Not necessary. Those actions have been documented already per our normal procedures. Posts are deleted when they violate our rules. The posts and the actions taken are reported. This has always been our process and it hasn't changed. Further, all posts in this thread, deleted and otherwise, are visible to admin, along with the reason for the deletion if applicable and who did the deleting. Any further questions can be directed to admin off forum.

Jeannie

 

[DexDegeaut]

Another good enthusiast forum that has been purchased by evil VerticalScope from Toronto.. Like many good car and motorcycle forums in the past, they will introduce lots of advertising, change rules for current advertisers and just profit from member content. And no, they don't care about your stupid watches or the people on these forums. You're just a product that generates content so they can make money with advertising.

With a large forum like this, I am sure they paid good money for it and the founder made a good profit. It is always a story about how the previous owner doesn't have the time anymore, VerticalScope is the right fit, nothing is going to change, all about the community and blah, blah, blah. They never mention anything about the price that was paid for all the members and content.

I encourage you to search for VerticalScope / AutoGuide (Verticalscope sucks) and forum buyouts and make up your own mind. The moderators are going to be unpaid staff for VerticalScope as they will be doing all the work without any pay. The adminsitrator is a paid office employee and often has no experience in managing forums and doesn't know anything about the subject of the forum. And they will not stick around as they will be replaced by another faceless corporate employee. They don't activily participates and only control the moderators and forward issues to tech support.

You can say goodbye to Tapatalk because they will force to use their own app so they can control you even more and push more advertising. Also expect lots of tracking cookies, viglinks, links you posted that direct to their own advertisers website and even spam. Your email address and user profile has been sold so make up your own mind. Verticalscope now owns all your valuable reviews, pictures and other content. And they can do with it whatever they want.

Goodbye WUS, it was nice to know you for the short time I was here. I am not for sale.

This will be the new terms of service in case you're wondering: VerticalScope - Driven by Enthusiasts

VerticalScope : Driven by Enthusiasts

I wouldn't worry too much about the ads. If you choose to stick around, there are plenty of browser plugins available that can block the more intrusive ads, like AdBlock Plus.

I'm not expecting much from VS, as I've seen blogs get purchased by large companies not interested in the subject matter, only in it for the advertising $$$$. The process is always the same... The best and most contributing members leave, "sponsored content" takes the place of traditional ads (thus negating aforementioned browser plugins), and eventually you're left with a lifeless "community" that has had the soul sucked out of it.

This is nothing against VerticalScope in particular, it happens whenever any blog gets bought out.

Ernie did what was right for himself and his family, and I don't blame him. He probably grossed 7 figures for this site. I'd sell too if I was in his shoes.

I understand many of you are upset, but let's not be an angry mob here. The new owners are going to do whatever they want, regardless of how much we may kick and scream.

Let's leave gracefully. There are still forums out there that are run by actual enthusiasts.

 

[Cobia]

Regarding your personal info. We do not sell your email addresses or your information. Canada particularly has strict laws in regards to this and even if it did not we have never been in the business of selling contact info. Sorry if this was missed.

There are three sides to every story and clearly you can google any company looking for bad reviews online and you will find something you don't like. Yelp is probably the worst when it comes to this where a local business has bad reviews showing before there are good reviews. I am guilty of this, I look for the bad reviews first to see what is so bad and if I should eat there because the drama is always more interesting.
There was a time when the company was newer and we where still learning from our mistakes. This is before my time with VS and my time here has been spent primarily supporting communities and the mod team to help make them better. I have not removed or edited anything posted here, have not banned or deleted any accounts and have been on here to answer everyone's questions to the best of my ability.

Thankyou for your reply, i totally agree, there are 3 sides to everything and its nice to see you here answering peoples questions and doubts, as i said the proof will be in how this place is handled over the next year or two, i'm more than happy to give the new owners a chance and see how it goes, i'm lucky to be on such a great site and i dont take it for granted, but i hope you understand when people are passionate about something they get worried about change, i think thats pretty normal.
Thankyou again for answering the many questions WUS members have regarding our new ownership.
cheers

 

[trekDS]

Posts have been deleted, perhaps you should look into who did so 

You can't call something a community if its leadership isn't accountable to it. Even senior management have KPI's in my workplace. If we were regularly losing good workers to other places it would soon be addressed. This might be looked at under VS. Losing the people who post good content regularly isn't a sustainable message board business model. Without these posters there won't be a business. I don't know about ideas like elected moderators, but some review is clearly required. Perhaps this is the dawning of a new era Lex!

 

[Nice Try11]

Thank you Ernie! welcome WatchSeekr!

 

[balzebub]

Kind of sad, but I guess it makes commercial sense. Thanks to WUS and it's founder, I have been severely poisoned by the watch bug and this forum has enabled me to learn so much about the world of watches, make informed purchase decisions and come to realise that the WIS community really is a small one. I certainly hope the new forum owners/company will keep things simple the way it is now.

Here's wishing Ernie all the best!