Maidenfans For Sale

Glad to hear you have offers.  So long as the site stays up.  Perfectly happy to be a consumer rather than an owner.  In the meantime, are you still soliciting donations? 
 
Damn I saw this late. Anywho, Like Perun I currently can't contribute to ownership or donation and also feel guilty. However, The group ownership CAN work. Even if someone grows bored of visiting and posting, like LC stated, it's a business and should be seen as such for those going into it, thus even if they grow personally bored, they still have the responsibility to 'run' it. I don't visit nearly as much as I used to and I do see a day where like many old "consistent" users, visit not at all or once a year, but having a financial stake in the site would go beyond that.
 
Of course it can work. The question is if it will work. I think it would have the best chance of working if some legal structure, like an LLC existed. Something that specifies exactly how much each owner owns. Something that specifies a complete hierarchy of owners, so everyone knows who has the final decision - and who it falls to next, should that person disappear.

Remember, people disappear from the internet all the time. They move on with their lives. That's the real pitfall to watch out for. The group should account for that possibility in their structure, so they're not crippled if someone important disappears.

And if you're part of a prospective group, don't say to yourself: "I won't be the one to disappear." You don't know what the future holds. As little as 3 years ago, if you had told me that Mav would ever leave this site, I'd have laughed in your face. (Well, that's partially because I'm a jackass like that sometimes. But you get my point.)

I mentioned one person having power of final decision. I think this is important. All groups eventually have disagreements, and someone needs power to take action when an impasse is reached.

I'm not the least bit interested in being an owner myself, so all I can say is: good luck fellas, you may need it.
 
Well, if we did that, it'd be run as a company.  Which means someone would be the Chief Executive Officer, who makes the final decisions.  That person might be removable at some point, but they'd get a chance to make things the way they want.

Sadly, I can't see it working unless the website turns a profit.
 
cornfedhick said:
In the meantime, are you still soliciting donations? 
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Based on other posts in the other topic, I assume the answer is yes.  So, you now have my 10 bucks, I guess for February. 
 
cornfedhick said:
Based on other posts in the other topic, I assume the answer is yes.  So, you now have my 10 bucks, I guess for February. 
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Sorry I missed your post. Yes I am still accepting donations as until I can sell the site I still have to pay the bills.
And thanks :)
 
my 2 cents:

The site will have to turn a profit, and somebody (as in a single person) has to be in charge.  I forsee scandal and misery without a head honcho. 

I will be very sad if the site goes under and I will probably cry if IMC disappears.  :(


Hypothetical question:  If I buy it all, and I have zero knowledge of running a web-site, and zero programming knowledge, and zero business knowledge, would it be possible to keep it going?  And make some money along the way?  :nuts:
 
maidenmig said:
Hypothetical question:  If I buy it all, and I have zero knowledge of running a web-site, and zero programming knowledge, and zero business knowledge, would it be possible to keep it going?  And make some money along the way?   :nuts:
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You could still use one of the board members (or RW if he will) as admin and you wouldn't have to worry about that. Make some money along the way? An easy way to do that is by putting up a few ads - Perhaps only for guets?
 
Yax, it's not that easy to make money. Not even close. If it were, then RW would have done it. In fact, he did - that's why you have Google ads here.

maidenmig:
If you have zero tech knowledge, then you need a partner with some. And an admin friend on the board here isn't enough. You need to be able to talk to the hosting provider, and make sense of what they say. You need to be able to put the site back up if it crashes. There's a lot to running a site - it takes a LOT of time and a fair bit of knowledge.

As a favor to the rest of us, please don't even think of buying this site without a real partner to handle the tech side.
 
Because the site is more than the forum. That alone is sufficient, but I bet if I bothered to look more I could find even more reasons why not. A free host will not give enough support for a site this large. Remember, you get what you pay for.
 
I'm not even sure you can "transfer" the board. Ergo, those free forum hosts don't have import/export dB functions.

Atleast on Forumer, there wasn't. We wanted to transfer a mid-sized forum that goes well to a normal host...yeah right.
 
I understood that, Big G. Probably more people, even if they don't express it.

We'll see who'll come up with a better solution.
 
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