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ResetEra Ownership Update

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A Strong Latte

A Strong Latte

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,270
Tsar Bombadil said:
There are a lot of distractions in this thread, for better or worse. I think the heart of the matter is that the community needs to, collectively, decide whether or not it is worth it to organize and move to a different domain rather than accept corporate ownership. It seems to me that this should be considered reasonably and neutrally. In the interest of that and hearing what others have to say about that, I will write down what I feel the advantages and disadvantages of each approach are, in good faith.

Option 1. Stay on resetera.com, take MOBA Network at their word on not changing this place too much, come back to the matter if they make changes that cross the line.

Pros:
  • We're here already. Can kick back, resume posting about video games, snack foods, billiards, etc. This is pretty neat.
  • They have resources a community-owned forum won't. We don't know what they will spend on this place, but there certainly is some chance that more money will be put into the site that the community could ever produce by itself as it is now. This is, however, mitigated by the fact that resetera is massively profitable on its own. You can make a lot of Website for 700k/year if you put that money back into development and that *doesn't* require MOBA network.
  • They have access to traffic we don't currently, and some of those users will sincerely be cool, and it'd be cool if those users signed up. While we've all seen the linked examples showing the worst that their forum network has to offer, it'd be overly pessimistic not to acknowledge that some of the people on those "sister sites" would genuinely be welcome contributors to this site. If anyone from one of those sites is here already, welcome!
Cons:
  • There may never again be as big an "inciting incident" as the sale of the site. Right now, they are watching carefully. They know that the slightest misstep could have users scrambling for another website. Right now, and only right now, they have to be extremely careful. This is where their assurances that they aren't going to make big changes come from - they don't want a revolt. Instead, if individual small changes are made, then some people will be mad, and some people will leave, but it might well never feel big enough to rouse a large portion of the community to move somewhere else. In some sense this is our biggest chance to make any sort of move and not doing so is squandering it. The first change I expect is them cracking down severely on anyone trying to openly organize another site. This period where they watch and wait will end soon enough.
  • Corporate control is control. They can do whatever they want with the site. They will act with motive towards profit rather than what the community wants. Whole books can be written on the evils that have been wrought through profit-seeking and I trust I don't need to say more than that. They have promised no big changes, but there is nothing at all holding them to that. They didn't buy the site not to make it grow in profit. They are smart enough not to come in hot making a bunch of changes right off the bat, because people will leave en masse in an organized fashion. Instead, slowly they'll make changes over time. Some will be good and some will be bad, but overall, it will not be up to the community what happens.
  • Potential for data harvesting, even more aggressive advertising, people wandering over from "sister sites" and spouting hate speech. These have been well-discussed throughout the thread and are serious concerns.

Option 2. Organize the community, and form a new site, and do it right this time. No individual is in charge.

Pros:
  • Community ownership structure. Decisions about the site can be made purely on the basis of what is right for the community, and without any sort of compromising profit motive. It can be run as a non-profit explicitly with a board and bylaws that prevent any one person from taking control. This is what resetera ought to have been from the start and it is a real shame that it was not set up that way. The community has the opportunity to learn this lesson for good if they start their own site. This is just.....how things ought to be. The forums earn money which is used to improve the forums. Rent-seeking external players won't be able to pull cash out of it - all the money can go back to the site.
  • Control over monetization methods. Even a community-owned site needs money to run, but it doesn't need to be maximally profitable to run, and we don't have to abide by any sort of intrusive advertising if we don't want to.
  • An organization devoted to acting on the community's behalf will mean that the community will never again be without a strong advocate in any business dealings this place has. There's no owner's interests vs community interests if the owner of the site is an organization that is bound contractually to act in the interests of the community.
  • Honestly, it's very funny to imagine MOBA Network paying $4.5 million for some web hosting space and a domain name. The idea that a company can "own" a community is ludicrous and dark and I personally find it very satisfying when a community successfully demonstrates otherwise.

Cons
  • It is work to set up a new site. Lots of decisions to make, organizing to do. I won't pretend this is trivial, it is not at all, but if any community can manage to spread this work out, it's this one. Resetera has the numbers and the resources to make all of this happen.
  • Like any transition (neogaf -> resetera included), some people won't make the jump. They won't feel like moving. They have inertia in coming to this site but won't bother with a new one. This is a real loss and something to consider. If I were more convinced of MOBA Networks good intentions this would be the basis of an argument for staying, but I am afraid I am not, and so I'm forced to compare them with people who will leave in frustration over a MOBA Network decision.
  • Lose out on four years of posts or at least, break up the archive. The posts will still be here to read but there is a loss of continuity in long-running threads.

I realize this is all a little out of nowhere, so before I go on to synthesize what I think the correct course of action is, I want to give a bit of my background. I have been posting on traditional community web forums for over twenty years at this point, the majority of my life. I am deeply invested in their success as a medium and want them to thrive. They are so much better than social media services are and I don't want to see the ecosystem get smaller.

Twice in my life, I've had a forum I posted on become "uninhabitable". This was an earlier poster's wording and I thought it was well-put. The first time began much like this. The owner of what was a community site had sold it to a corporation, in this case, an online gaming news site. They made promises to not change anything, and the admins, not wanting to disrupt the owner's deal, encouraged us to wait and see how it turns out. The changes came slowly over time. We were limited in what topics we could discuss, limited in what games we could criticize, etc. It got pretty bad, but there was never any breaking point. Our time to organize was when the sale was announced, not the fifth time they banned a long-time community member for criticizing their corporate decrees. How did this one end? AOL acquired the gaming news site, and promptly deleted the forum without a second thought. They bought it for the articles. Years and years of posts, gone forever, with no backup. Some parts of the community managed to re-organize on another site, but it would have been a lot more successful if we had done so right away instead of waiting for everyone to scatter into the internet wind.

The second time was much like neogaf. In 2020, the owner of a Something Awful proved to be of....dubious moral character. (long story) The site was uninhabitable while he was in charge. Instead of folding and let this happen, I struck back. The community made it very clear that he was unwelcome, and used our leverage to force him to sell at a low price, preserving twenty years of internet history and our community. I am the user who stepped up and made sure that ended without a corporate acquisition or opportunistic cash-grab. I put every dollar the site makes back into it, and I see. So I hope you all can imagine why, as the owner of Something Awful, I am interested in seeing web forums as a medium succeed. I honestly came here to observe one of the few old-style forums that is as large as ours, and I found myself upset reading this thread. It truly is a missed opportunity that this place wasn't started by someone who would truly put the community first, in ownership structure as well as monetization. 700k/year is an insane amount of money for a web forum and could have been doing so much good. Surely your community has members who, like me, are able and willing to set up a business that puts the community first and always will. If you believe in your heart of hearts that you are one of those people, who is selfless in that way, now is the time to come forward and show some leadership. Your people need you.

In my most humble opinion, I think the pros of self-ownership outweigh the negatives. Right now, and only right now, the users of this site can organize and make sure this community stays intact and in control of its destiny. If MOBA Network believes they have something to offer, let them come to the community, on a site run by the community, and pitch it to the users. Let the people decide and not just the designated person at the top. This is a position of strength from which the community has grounds to make demands and potentially work out a mutually beneficial arrangement, unlike meagerly asking for concessions on a site they already own. I made this post in hopes that others can look at my list of pros and cons, and decide for themselves. I realize that not everyone is going to draw the same conclusions but my hope is that we can have this conversation, rather than getting sidetracked. It's the most important thing by far and, in my opinion, what ought to be done needs to be done right away.
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This is a great post, and what you did for SA was pretty awesome. I was trying to say something like this earlier but I'm not as eloquent or have experience doing something like this, but I agree with your point 100%.

Corp ownership is pretty much bad news, and becoming community owned/independant as soon as possible is the best thing for the site.

The community needs to return to being independent and as soon as possible. And once the place gets going it would be self sufficient relatively fast.

If the staff think this is a power grab or something it's not, there's nothing stopping you guys from being the leaders.
 
XR.

XR.

Member
Nov 22, 2018
6,630
Tsar Bombadil said:
The community will act accordingly if they mess up and do something egregious, but if they're smart they won't do that. They'll change things slowly. When my old site was bought out, none of the actions of the acquiring company seemed bad enough to revolt over on their own. It was only looking back on it that it was obvious we should have left. Right now the community knows that the site has changed hands and is waiting to see what everyone else does. It will be very difficult to conjure that sort of willingness to migrate without an inciting event, and the site changing hands is one of the biggest ones. If you wait for things to change, you lose out on the huge organizing opportunity that is "the site is now corporately owned, what should we do?". It's like the frog being boiled, you won't notice how the changes they are making are affecting the community until its too late. I think leaving pre-emptively is the way to go, and that's something I say having been a part of a community that made the wrong choice in that very situation before.

Also I expect that discussing leaving for an offsite will be one of the first things cracked down on. Right now they know they have to watch their behavior or trigger a mass exodus. This will not always be true, especially if it's for "understandable" but inconvenient things, like organizing another forum.

Self ownership is not remotely a pipe dream in this case. All it takes is the community coming together and organizing it. Something awful's hosting costs about $1600 a month at this point, and could easily be lower. If you get even a fraction of that 700k on your own, the money is there, capitalistic world or not. All you have to do is organize.
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The amount of money isn't necessarily the crux of the problem, it's coming together and establishing responsibilities so you can ensure long term functionality.

"All it takes is the community coming together and organizing it" is easier said than done, as you'll have a tough time even convincing members to jump ship when nothing has happened at this point. More importantly, you'd have to convince the staff in order to communicate with the whole site in the first place, and I think they've already shared their thoughts on the matter.

Unless the majority is onboard, you're only splitting the community in half for no good reason.
 
NotVeryFriendly

NotVeryFriendly

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,683
Tsar Bombadil said:
The community will act accordingly if they mess up and do something egregious, but if they're smart they won't do that. They'll change things slowly. When my old site was bought out, none of the actions of the acquiring company seemed bad enough to revolt over on their own. It was only looking back on it that it was obvious we should have left. Right now the community knows that the site has changed hands and is waiting to see what everyone else does. It will be very difficult to conjure that sort of willingness to migrate without an inciting event, and the site changing hands is one of the biggest ones. If you wait for things to change, you lose out on the huge organizing opportunity that is "the site is now corporately owned, what should we do?". It's like the frog being boiled, you won't notice how the changes they are making are affecting the community until its too late. I think leaving pre-emptively is the way to go, and that's something I say having been a part of a community that made the wrong choice in that very situation before.

Also I expect that discussing leaving for an offsite will be one of the first things cracked down on. Right now they know they have to watch their behavior or trigger a mass exodus. This will not always be true, especially if it's for "understandable" but inconvenient things, like organizing another forum.

Self ownership is not remotely a pipe dream in this case. All it takes is the community coming together and organizing it. Something awful's hosting costs about $1600 a month at this point, and could easily be lower. If you get even a fraction of that 700k on your own, the money is there, capitalistic world or not. All you have to do is organize.
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I completely agree with this. There's good reason, if it's going to happen, that it should happen now rather than later. I do think there is one million reasons why anybody with connections to the site's previously ownership might not want it to happen pre-31st December 2021, but as you say there is definitely going to be a slow-boil effect on the changes even if the underlined is something which may happen much sooner.
 

Deleted member 13328

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
5,247
Nepenthe said:
How dare you, that's my playground insult.
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heman-jet-ski-bye.gif
 
Royalan

Royalan

I can say DEI; you can't.
Moderator
Oct 24, 2017
12,130
Y'all.

People have moved on.

As someone who has been a part of multiple site migrations/abandonments, when it's happening you know it. It's a crescendo, a tidal wave.

It's not someone poking in every few hours when the thread has devolved into jokes about post signatures and member numbers with a desperate plea to "stay focused guys!"

If you have concerns and questions, we want to know. We'll continue to do our best to respond, especially if you possess the talent to raise those concerns without insulting us.

But...can the thread just be about that? And not attempts to stoke a panic that just isn't getting stoked? Not after a solid week, and nearly 150 pages.

It's just not fetch.
 

Lothar

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,551
It doesn't have to be a tidal wave. It could be a calm decision made by everyone of not liking being sold to an unknown buyer and that the option of the community being in charge might be preferable.

This is a good sentence.
"The idea that a company can "own" a community is ludicrous and dark and I personally find it very satisfying when a community successfully demonstrates otherwise."

Was the owner of Something Awful banned? That was great advice
 
Dave.

Dave.

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,186
brawndolicious said:
Yes, I meant just creating a new site from scratch similar to how resetera was started a few days (maybe a week?) after GAF exploded. The hardest part of that seemed to be getting everything organized as far as letting people know where the new place is and enacting a new set of policies and all that. There was a period where we were all kind of displaced refugees.

The only reason to do this is to change how control of the forum works. Decide what to do with revenue, have a standard (beyond profitability) for handing discussion around companies like Blizzard or CDPR, and just generally not having to worry about what the corporate overlords will do next to try to squeeze more juice out of the site.

I think anyone would agree that these are good reasons but the question is if they are worth the potential risk of fracturing the community and whether it is even possible for the momentum be built up right now. I'm just saying that if you want to do it, organizing it while the whole community is available might be the best chance to create such an "ideal" forum.




I'm sure there are multiple mutinees but this way is a little bit more democratic and planned out. Like I'm literally imagining a thread at the top of "Etcetera" where everything is discussed openly.
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Thank you for trying.
 

Deleted member 57578

User requested account closure
Banned
Jun 7, 2019
283
I cannot fucking believe this site got set up in such a way that one dude could take the money and run. And now we got these sorry ass admins providing cover and trying to keep it light-hearted.

Nepenthe said:
.... So basically you're asking us if you can publicly plan a migration to a new forum while on the very forum you're trying to migrate away from?....

....

No?
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pPdNZ3c.jpeg
 
Sheldon

Sheldon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,357
Ruhrgebiet, Germany
Rochellepaws posted these two questions back on page 80. Nepenthe called them fair.

rochellepaws said:
1)There's a general perception that that site was owned by several stakeholders, what was the timeline of ownership and how did he became the solo owner. Who were the other stakeholders, what offers were made to them and for what reason?

2) Why did he choose to sell it to corporations as opposed to seeking a successor within the community? His initial introduction message to us was "Everything we do begins and ends with the community.", how does selling to an investor group achieve this?
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I believe they're still fair. They would require The Former to come back or staff to relay his message.
 
Ryu

Ryu

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,316
What people here seem to want is a decentralized forum. A decentralized ownership. A forum build on crypt-… ahh well yeah joke aside, I see myself out.
 

Gyro Zeppeli

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,289
Ryu said:
What people here seem to want is a decentralized forum. A decentralized ownership. A forum build on crypt-… ahh well yeah joke aside, I see myself out.
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As much money as this forum has taken in over the years and a nonprofit system set in place from the start, that's all people could ask for. Or couldn't it have changed from an LLC to nonprofit?
 
construct

construct

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Jun 5, 2020
8,096
東京
i don't want resetera on the blockchain for the decentralization

i want resetera on the blockchain to destroy earth
 
Rover

Rover

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,442
Tsar Bombadil said:
There are a lot of distractions in this thread, for better or worse. I think the heart of the matter is that the community needs to, collectively, decide whether or not it is worth it to organize and move to a different domain rather than accept corporate ownership. It seems to me that this should be considered reasonably and neutrally. In the interest of that and hearing what others have to say about that, I will write down what I feel the advantages and disadvantages of each approach are, in good faith.

Option 1. Stay on resetera.com, take MOBA Network at their word on not changing this place too much, come back to the matter if they make changes that cross the line.

Pros:
  • We're here already. Can kick back, resume posting about video games, snack foods, billiards, etc. This is pretty neat.
  • They have resources a community-owned forum won't. We don't know what they will spend on this place, but there certainly is some chance that more money will be put into the site that the community could ever produce by itself as it is now. This is, however, mitigated by the fact that resetera is massively profitable on its own. You can make a lot of Website for 700k/year if you put that money back into development and that *doesn't* require MOBA network.
  • They have access to traffic we don't currently, and some of those users will sincerely be cool, and it'd be cool if those users signed up. While we've all seen the linked examples showing the worst that their forum network has to offer, it'd be overly pessimistic not to acknowledge that some of the people on those "sister sites" would genuinely be welcome contributors to this site. If anyone from one of those sites is here already, welcome!
Cons:
  • There may never again be as big an "inciting incident" as the sale of the site. Right now, they are watching carefully. They know that the slightest misstep could have users scrambling for another website. Right now, and only right now, they have to be extremely careful. This is where their assurances that they aren't going to make big changes come from - they don't want a revolt. Instead, if individual small changes are made, then some people will be mad, and some people will leave, but it might well never feel big enough to rouse a large portion of the community to move somewhere else. In some sense this is our biggest chance to make any sort of move and not doing so is squandering it. The first change I expect is them cracking down severely on anyone trying to openly organize another site. This period where they watch and wait will end soon enough.
  • Corporate control is control. They can do whatever they want with the site. They will act with motive towards profit rather than what the community wants. Whole books can be written on the evils that have been wrought through profit-seeking and I trust I don't need to say more than that. They have promised no big changes, but there is nothing at all holding them to that. They didn't buy the site not to make it grow in profit. They are smart enough not to come in hot making a bunch of changes right off the bat, because people will leave en masse in an organized fashion. Instead, slowly they'll make changes over time. Some will be good and some will be bad, but overall, it will not be up to the community what happens.
  • Potential for data harvesting, even more aggressive advertising, people wandering over from "sister sites" and spouting hate speech. These have been well-discussed throughout the thread and are serious concerns.

Option 2. Organize the community, and form a new site, and do it right this time. No individual is in charge.

Pros:
  • Community ownership structure. Decisions about the site can be made purely on the basis of what is right for the community, and without any sort of compromising profit motive. It can be run as a non-profit explicitly with a board and bylaws that prevent any one person from taking control. This is what resetera ought to have been from the start and it is a real shame that it was not set up that way. The community has the opportunity to learn this lesson for good if they start their own site. This is just.....how things ought to be. The forums earn money which is used to improve the forums. Rent-seeking external players won't be able to pull cash out of it - all the money can go back to the site.
  • Control over monetization methods. Even a community-owned site needs money to run, but it doesn't need to be maximally profitable to run, and we don't have to abide by any sort of intrusive advertising if we don't want to.
  • An organization devoted to acting on the community's behalf will mean that the community will never again be without a strong advocate in any business dealings this place has. There's no owner's interests vs community interests if the owner of the site is an organization that is bound contractually to act in the interests of the community.
  • Honestly, it's very funny to imagine MOBA Network paying $4.5 million for some web hosting space and a domain name. The idea that a company can "own" a community is ludicrous and dark and I personally find it very satisfying when a community successfully demonstrates otherwise.

Cons
  • It is work to set up a new site. Lots of decisions to make, organizing to do. I won't pretend this is trivial, it is not at all, but if any community can manage to spread this work out, it's this one. Resetera has the numbers and the resources to make all of this happen.
  • Like any transition (neogaf -> resetera included), some people won't make the jump. They won't feel like moving. They have inertia in coming to this site but won't bother with a new one. This is a real loss and something to consider. If I were more convinced of MOBA Networks good intentions this would be the basis of an argument for staying, but I am afraid I am not, and so I'm forced to compare them with people who will leave in frustration over a MOBA Network decision.
  • Lose out on four years of posts or at least, break up the archive. The posts will still be here to read but there is a loss of continuity in long-running threads.

I realize this is all a little out of nowhere, so before I go on to synthesize what I think the correct course of action is, I want to give a bit of my background. I have been posting on traditional community web forums for over twenty years at this point, the majority of my life. I am deeply invested in their success as a medium and want them to thrive. They are so much better than social media services are and I don't want to see the ecosystem get smaller.

Twice in my life, I've had a forum I posted on become "uninhabitable". This was an earlier poster's wording and I thought it was well-put. The first time began much like this. The owner of what was a community site had sold it to a corporation, in this case, an online gaming news site. They made promises to not change anything, and the admins, not wanting to disrupt the owner's deal, encouraged us to wait and see how it turns out. The changes came slowly over time. We were limited in what topics we could discuss, limited in what games we could criticize, etc. It got pretty bad, but there was never any breaking point. Our time to organize was when the sale was announced, not the fifth time they banned a long-time community member for criticizing their corporate decrees. How did this one end? AOL acquired the gaming news site, and promptly deleted the forum without a second thought. They bought it for the articles. Years and years of posts, gone forever, with no backup. Some parts of the community managed to re-organize on another site, but it would have been a lot more successful if we had done so right away instead of waiting for everyone to scatter into the internet wind.

The second time was much like neogaf. In 2020, the owner of a Something Awful proved to be of....dubious moral character. (long story) The site was uninhabitable while he was in charge. Instead of folding and let this happen, I struck back. The community made it very clear that he was unwelcome, and used our leverage to force him to sell at a low price, preserving twenty years of internet history and our community. I am the user who stepped up and made sure that ended without a corporate acquisition or opportunistic cash-grab. I put every dollar the site makes back into it, and I see. So I hope you all can imagine why, as the owner of Something Awful, I am interested in seeing web forums as a medium succeed. I honestly came here to observe one of the few old-style forums that is as large as ours, and I found myself upset reading this thread. It truly is a missed opportunity that this place wasn't started by someone who would truly put the community first, in ownership structure as well as monetization. 700k/year is an insane amount of money for a web forum and could have been doing so much good. Surely your community has members who, like me, are able and willing to set up a business that puts the community first and always will. If you believe in your heart of hearts that you are one of those people, who is selfless in that way, now is the time to come forward and show some leadership. Your people need you.

In my most humble opinion, I think the pros of self-ownership outweigh the negatives. Right now, and only right now, the users of this site can organize and make sure this community stays intact and in control of its destiny. If MOBA Network believes they have something to offer, let them come to the community, on a site run by the community, and pitch it to the users. Let the people decide and not just the designated person at the top. This is a position of strength from which the community has grounds to make demands and potentially work out a mutually beneficial arrangement, unlike meagerly asking for concessions on a site they already own. I made this post in hopes that others can look at my list of pros and cons, and decide for themselves. I realize that not everyone is going to draw the same conclusions but my hope is that we can have this conversation, rather than getting sidetracked. It's the most important thing by far and, in my opinion, what ought to be done needs to be done right away.
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Can site staff clarify if this post will be left intact after banning them?
 
breakfuss

breakfuss

Prophet of Truth
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,538
Rover said:
Can site staff clarify if this post will be left intact after banning them?
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sabu.png

You serious? Pretty clear a few of the mods can be petty af so I don't know why it comes as a shock this person got sniped for promoting some otherworldly utopian, "inclusive" wonderland shit. Imagine walking into Target and telling fools standing in line to come peep the deals on Purina cat chow at Wal-Mart. Breh wrote a whole very heartfelt, eloquent 95,000-word manifesto and his ass still got banned immediately lmfao. And truthfully I see where he was coming from but I'm against another exodus. Yes, I want more transparency. More staff engagement and accountability, as evidenced by my prior posts. But I do not like how it went down last time with GAF. No more splintering communities, please.
 

Lothar

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,551
breakfuss said:
sabu.png

You serious? Pretty clear a few of the mods can be petty af so I don't know why it comes as a shock this person got sniped for promoting some otherworldly utopian, "inclusive" wonderland shit. Imagine walking into Target and telling fools standing in line to come peep the deals on Purina cat chow at Wal-Mart. Breh wrote a whole very heartfelt, eloquent 95,000-word manifesto and his ass still got banned immediately lmfao. And truthfully I see where he was coming from but I'm against another exodus. Yes, I want more transparency. More staff engagement and accountability, as evidenced by my prior posts. But I do not like how it went down last time with GAF. No more splintering communities, please.
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More like if Target got sold to a new company leaving everyone confused as to what was going to happen and then the owner of Wal Mart stopped by to give friendly advice and got kicked out. That's bizarre. Even if you don't want another exodus, it's an important discussion for everyone to have when the community was just sold
 
Rover

Rover

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,442
breakfuss said:
sabu.png

You serious? Pretty clear a few of the mods can be petty af so I don't know why it comes as a shock this person got sniped for promoting some otherworldly utopian, "inclusive" wonderland shit. Imagine walking into Target and telling fools standing in line to come peep the deals on Purina cat chow at Wal-Mart. Breh wrote a whole very heartfelt, eloquent 95,000-word manifesto and his ass still got banned immediately lmfao. And truthfully I see where he was coming from but I'm against another exodus. Yes, I want more transparency. More staff engagement and accountability, as evidenced by my prior posts. But I do not like how it went down last time with GAF. No more splintering communities, please.
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The poster claimed they are the current owner of SomethingAwful's forums, after it went through a collapse last year and changed ownership. That's more hindsight than we have right now about the current situation, and I thought the post was good and worth considering.
 
Nell

Nell

Member
Oct 27, 2017
462
I think a forum set up as a non-profit is a great idea, or even if it was for profit and regular giveaways from profits generated, would be a lot of fun!
 
Cenauru

Cenauru

Dragon Girl Supremacy
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,113
Oh wow, I don't check in with this thread for a single day and another fun de-rail happens

I thought I was special with my number being 2746, but there's too many cooler people here stealing my thunder >:(
 
duckroll

duckroll

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,536
Singapore
Lothar said:
It doesn't have to be a tidal wave. It could be a calm decision made by everyone of not liking being sold to an unknown buyer and that the option of the community being in charge might be preferable.
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No, it can't. That's not how social dynamics work at all. Social groups generally default to status quo and comfort. If the majority of people here cared about not being sold to an unknown buyer and wanted to be in charge, there would be more of a reaction. The fact that everything else is going on per normal on the forum and a small number of users are posting vocally and frequently in this one thread shows that there is no "everyone" here. So unless the minority can rile up the majority and successfully convince them this is something to care about, why would anyone who is happily posting about other stuff care about making this "calm decision?"

It doesn't make sense psychologically. That's why it takes a tidal wave to move.
 
SABO.

SABO.

Member
Nov 6, 2017
5,872
well done owner. very well played and a decision that will ultimately be beneficial to this community and its future success.

from memory, Era barely got by with the advertising dollars and I expect that has remained true throughout the years.

criDikal said:
Can someone explain to me why a decentralized/community driven forum is preferred over a forum with financial backing?
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my assumption is teenagers who haven't experienced how the real world works yet
 
Niosai

Niosai

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,944
I'm user 20345. Interesting. I'm pretty sure I registered the moment the forum was announced to the public, so that's a huge number of people in a really short period of time.
 
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