[csurfleet]

One option that might be worth considering if you want to add a subscription is to offer subscribers something for their money.  Like perhaps, if csurfleet were amenable to the idea, access to a training diary. 

Unfortunately the training tool I'm creating I'm intending to be a paid service (around £15 a year). I'm up for chipping in some cash towards the collective though for the great content on the forums (already voted), and, when the training site gets off the ground I'll be up for paying for ads on the site.

Getting more targeted ads is probably a good thing once the site changes hands, but do you think some of the already established companies (beastmaker, depot, works etc) would be up for stumping up say 2-3 years of ad payments up-front to help the co-op make the purchace?

[BenF]

This may be a dumb question, but are there any possible liabilities for people who put money into this kind of website?  I mean, if people invest/buy/subscribe, could they be liable for making further payments/costs at a later date?  And by this I of course mean compulsary costs, not simply further voluntary investment to keep it going.

Sorry if this seems a daft question, but its probably one worth answering up front, just so people are clear on this.  One thing that crossed my mind was could owners be sued by someone?  I imagine a lot of us are willing to put money in, but presume that its simply a case of putting a bit of money into a really cool website, run by people/friends with similar interests, that we use for taking the p*ss, sharing info, photos etc, without considering that we'd then become part of something that includes potential liabilities.  Or am I just being paranoid?

[fatdoc]

Falling Down.

With the new PM window I think I just sent you one..

[slackline]

the potential for a PeakBouldering website has been discussed for ages, this may be the perfect opportunity for this to start and run alongside UKB via the collective.....

I believe there is already something in the pipeline on this front, although its not been announced yet, and its not me doing it so I'm in no place to formally announce it.

This may be a dumb question, but are there any possible liabilities for people who put money into this kind of website?  I mean, if people invest/buy/subscribe, could they be liable for making further payments/costs at a later date?  And by this I of course mean compulsary costs, not simply further voluntary investment to keep it going.

The only responsibility I can envisage if the the ads/banners didn't cover server costs and people didn't want to see the site disappear then they'd have to stump up more cash (again voluntarily).

Sorry if this seems a daft question, but its probably one worth answering up front, just so people are clear on this.  One thing that crossed my mind was could owners be sued by someone?  I imagine a lot of us are willing to put money in, but presume that its simply a case of putting a bit of money into a really cool website, run by people/friends with similar interests, that we use for taking the p*ss, sharing info, photos etc, without considering that we'd then become part of something that includes potential liabilities.  Or am I just being paranoid?

As long as there is none of the obvious dubious content posted that can get you in trouble with the law/ISPs I don't see how anyone could be liable for anything.

One option that might be worth considering if you want to add a subscription is to offer subscribers something for their money.  Like perhaps, if csurfleet were amenable to the idea, access to a training diary. 

Unfortunately the training tool I'm creating I'm intending to be a paid service (around £15 a year). I'm up for chipping in some cash towards the collective though for the great content on the forums (already voted), and, when the training site gets off the ground I'll be up for paying for ads on the site.

Fair-do's it was one simple example off the top of my head that I thought of.  As you propose having UKB as a conduit via banners would benefit both parties.

Getting more targeted ads is probably a good thing once the site changes hands, but do you think some of the already established companies (beastmaker, depot, works etc) would be up for stumping up say 2-3 years of ad payments up-front to help the co-op make the purchace?

Once the change of ownership has been sorted I think this has some potential, there are tons of bouldering walls out there get mentioned here BoulderUK, Broughton, places in Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol.  Yet as far as I'm aware its only the Works who have any form of association with UKB (despite good word of mouth advertising for the others).  Perhaps these could be approached to see if they wanted to take out some banner advertising on the UK's premier bouldering forums?

[butters]

I wouldn't have a problem with the co-op model that is being floated about - anything up to £100 is manageable by myself but if it goes above that then I would have to do some serious thinking as I wouldn't expect to see any of this back and while I am not living on bread and beans I am nowhere near the champagne and caviar level of dining either.

Re: subs - the vwt4forum runs a variation on this where anyone can register and post as much as they want but certain areas of the forum (mainly the tech stuff such as engine, electrical etc.) are only accessible via a £10 per year subscription. I am only throwing this in as a discussion point really as I am not going to pay a tenner for info that I can find via Google with enough time and from the few people that I have spoken to re: this it is not universally popular. I suspect that their number of registered posters dwarfs that of UKB though so their hosting costs will be a lot higher.

[Bubba]

The only problem I can see with having a shit load of people in a co-op is the inevitable disagreements that would take place over policy, moderation, etc, etc. Surely everyone who stumps up cash would be entitled to be a mod, etc, etc.

I think a smaller pool of people who were willing to put up a larger investment each might be less hassle in the end. Regarding return on investement, adverts properly done (i've never pursued banners, but it could be done without ruining the site) could generate a modest amount of income, but I reckon merchandise would work better. I've never really had time/capital to get the t-shirts up and running properly but they do make money, and this could be expanded with the right effort into a small online business - beanies, branded pads, etc, etc. Just my two-penneth...

Subscriptions are tricker (though the latest version of the forum software does have this facility built in). It has to be very good content for people to pay for it - how many of you are planning on paying for Murdoch's news service for example?

[Krank]

how many of you are planning on paying for Murdoch's news service for example?

If he has got a section for training and becoming a beast, im in

[nik at work]

I see what you mean about too many people Bubba, but I think the trouble is with a smaller co-op the cash stump up per individual is larger and the return is still going to be essentially very little/nothing without major changes to the site, which would almost certainly be negative. We don't need a business angel more a community angel.
I guess if we manage to go down the co-op route then rather than all involved moderating all the time there would have to be some way of having a small designated team. This could be voted for, done on a cyclical basis, nominations or any number of other ways. I for one would be happy to help out as a mod etc but would equally be happy to pay my money and just use the site as I currently do. I think you're right that people have to know exactly what they are getting for their stumped up cash.

[slackline]

I was thinking about the possibility of getting a more permanent shop up and running, but saw the main drawback being space/storage, particularly for larger, bulkier things like mats, and er, well mats.

Branded stuff that people could buy would be ok, as long as there was regular revision of designs (or built in redundency to things like mugs which shatter after a year  ).

Very good point on the admin/moderation front.  I'd be happy to keep my nose out of everything but the tech side of things (assuming my assistance in this area would be needed/welcome).  Perhaps keep the current mods (yourself as honory if you still want to hang out here, dave and dobbin, [anyone else]?).

[Jaspersharpe]

As long as everything is agreed from the outset I can't see it being a problem. What everyone wants is to keep things as similar to how they are as possible. Just cos you chuck a few quid in it doesn't necessarily mean you want to control things.

[Duma]

So TT's poll has been up 4 1/2 hrs and we've got £2900 from the three top options - and thats a lot less if you want everyone to donate the same (most votes for £50 - if you chose that level you'd get a total of £1600) now I know it hasn't been up for long but it's likely that those to whom the site's worth most will see it and vote pretty quick, so I'd expect the running total to be moving pretty slowly by tommorrow - ie we ain't gonna be very close to £10k. Is it not possible to stipulate that a higher donation doesn't get you more say in the site? Eg I can afford and would be willing to pay £200 plus, but don't have the knowledge/inclination/status to do any business/modding/tech stuff, but neither would I expect any greater say than someone who put up £50. (I am assuming that donations are made on the basis that the site continues pretty much as is except for perhaps a few banner ads.) This could greatly increase the pot without the political/organisational issues that people are worried about.

edit: What jasper said, but in more words. I type too slow.

[mr__j5]

With regards to too many co-op members maybe wanting to stick thier oar in:

I'm a total lurker here, but just enjoy reading the forums every day. I'd stick in £50 to help keep the place running, but would have no intention of trying to meddle with how it is ran. Hopefully, there are many others like me too.

[dobbin]

Adam makes an interesting point on the other thread. He is pointing out that at no stage have we verified the quoted price of £11k. We've been to somewhere on the interweb, but would you usually take the first and only quote you got?

So, then I mentioned it to Ben Moon (as I had to see him about something else), and in principle he would be keen, but like me - is struggling to understand what you get for your money? i mean is it the community? or the hit rate? whats the conversion factor?

I know Dylog took an advert out on UKC and that it cost a hundred quid for a month or something - the exact figures arent the point here, the point is that its nowhere near the required spend to meet the quoted value of the site (or get close).

The other thing, and hear me out - its not necessarily what I think should happen, but we should follow all logical avenues - if the cost is for the community - what would stop us just starting a new community? I mean, if we cant afford this one - why not start afresh? Of course, theres the value of the information in the forums and thats been posted, but is that really worth £11k? if the people moved then the pertinent questions could be asked and answered again.... obviously, this would be a pain in the arse but is it £11ks worth of pain in the arse? Just thinking outloud, dont think this as an attack!

Finally, this would affect some others more than me, but would the world stop spinning if UKB ceased to exist? course not. I think it would be a great shame, but there you go. Just a thought.

[Serpico]

but would the world stop spinning if UKB ceased to exist? 

Probably not, but is that a risk you want to take?

[GCW]

Spinning would continue, but Brimstone would rain down upon the Earth.

[slackline]

Adam makes an interesting point on the other thread. He is pointing out that at no stage have we verified the quoted price of £11k. We've been to somewhere on the interweb, but would you usually take the first and only quote you got?

Bubba did conceded in his original post that he'd only taken one quote from a site and it may not be a true reflection of the avlue.  Others have since run with that and assumed thats the asking price, and Bubba has given further hints as to what he's after.

So, then I mentioned it to Ben Moon (as I had to see him about something else), and in principle he would be keen, but like me - is struggling to understand what you get for your money? i mean is it the community? or the hit rate? whats the conversion factor?

This is pretty much what I was getting at when I first posted that the information should be better organised (with expansion of the wiki) so that there is more of a brand/product to be selling, precisely because if the forums were sold to some company who annexed it to their site and started heavily moderating the banter here....

The other thing, and hear me out - its not necessarily what I think should happen, but we should follow all logical avenues - if the cost is for the community - what would stop us just starting a new community? I mean, if we cant afford this one - why not start afresh? Of course, theres the value of the information in the forums and thats been posted, but is that really worth £11k? if the people moved then the pertinent questions could be asked and answered again.... obviously, this would be a pain in the arse but is it £11ks worth of pain in the arse? Just thinking outloud, dont think this as an attack!

  I'd hate to see this happen and think everything possible should be done to prevent this, but it shouldn't be a pain in the arse to achieve.

Finally, this would affect some others more than me, but would the world stop spinning if UKB ceased to exist? course not. I think it would be a great shame, but there you go. Just a thought.

  I'd have to actually get on and do some proper work

[dave]

The other thing, and hear me out - its not necessarily what I think should happen, but we should follow all logical avenues - if the cost is for the community - what would stop us just starting a new community? I mean, if we cant afford this one - why not start afresh? Of course, theres the value of the information in the forums and thats been posted, but is that really worth £11k? if the people moved then the pertinent questions could be asked and answered again.... obviously, this would be a pain in the arse but is it £11ks worth of pain in the arse? Just thinking outloud, dont think this as an attack!

Finally, this would affect some others more than me, but would the world stop spinning if UKB ceased to exist? course not. I think it would be a great shame, but there you go. Just a thought.

I don't really see this as being an eventuality here. Bubba isn't on about winding the site up, he's just looking at what assets he's got that might raise some needed funds. A bit like me selling my old plastic boots. If no-one wanted them I wouldn't have just thrown them in the bin. But I agree theortically another forum would emerge to fill the void, but that's not really what's on the cards here.

[Bubba]

Adam makes an interesting point on the other thread. He is pointing out that at no stage have we verified the quoted price of £11k. We've been to somewhere on the interweb, but would you usually take the first and only quote you got?

You're right of course and really it's something that's pretty impossible to verify with any accuracy. I've seen some sites quote lower and some higher (a ridiculous $130k or something) - that's why I've said that the $21k figure is only guestimate and that I wouldn't expect that price anyway. I'm just putting forward a price that I feel that the site is worth given the amount of traffic, the amount of regular users, the fact that it's one of the few succesful bouldering forums on the web and the fact that it gets very high google results. Type bouldering forum into Google and have a look at some of the suggestions. There's not a lot that compares that i've found.

So, then I mentioned it to Ben Moon (as I had to see him about something else), and in principle he would be keen, but like me - is struggling to understand what you get for your money? i mean is it the community? or the hit rate? whats the conversion factor?

Hit rate? Well the users online is there for all to see - as forums go it's fairly busy, but obviously it's no ukclimbing.  I'd have to put in place some tracking code or analyze the logs to get exact hits per month/unique visitors, etc.

Conversion rate from what? That's advertising speak and there's no figures because there's no ads on here apart from the pay per click which is not really relevant to those sorts of figures, nor is there anything to buy. There's nothing to convert visitors to or from.  I've never promoted the site via adwords or anything, it's slowly built by word of mouth. 

What do you get for your money? I guess in a nutshell it's time. Nine years of community development. That's worth a lot imho. But apart from that, the domain names, a busy forum, a thriving community and the potential for somebody to make money from it. I don't think it's for everyone but some people/companies will see it as an oppurtunity. Why do you think Rock 'n Run, etc fund ukclimbing.com? Because it pulls people into their sites where they then make sales. I very much doubt ukc pays for itself with advertising because their server costs must be horrendous - their adverts will recoup some money but I suspect the place is run at a loss in order to feed it's parent organisations.

The co-op model I guess would be buying it in order to keep the community as it is now rather than to make money. It's a feelgood factor thing rather than an investment I suppose. That said, there's no reason why those more web-savvy couldn't turn the place around to make a slow but steady profit.

The other thing, and hear me out - its not necessarily what I think should happen, but we should follow all logical avenues - if the cost is for the community - what would stop us just starting a new community? I mean, if we cant afford this one - why not start afresh?

There's nothing to stop you starting afresh just as there's been nothing stopping anyone creating a rival forum over the last ten years. Why hasn't that happened already? Who knows but I suspect it's because there's only so much room for "niche" forums and also the fact that building a succesfull community is hard work and takes a long long time. How many succesful, busy forums are there compared to half used ones with a smattering of posts? Unless you're prepared to spend a lot of money on advertising the forum (adwords are expensive for little return in my experience on other sites), then be prepared for a long wait until a new forum becomes a success. And anyway, this place won't go away - if it's not sold now then it'll just carry on until it catches the eye of somebody who wants it. Obviously I want a quick sale but it doesn't mean that I'll get one!

Finally, this would affect some others more than me, but would the world stop spinning if UKB ceased to exist? course not. I think it would be a great shame, but there you go. Just a thought.

No of course it wouldn't be the end of the world, just like it wouldn't be the end of the world if half the sites on the web weren't there. But like I say, it's not going to cease to exist, it's just up for sale which means it may change in the future when it's under different ownership. Hopefully the new owners would see the value in keeping the community as it is and so wouldn't change that much.

[Jaspersharpe]

Adam makes an interesting point on the other thread. He is pointing out that at no stage have we verified the quoted price of £11k. We've been to somewhere on the interweb, but would you usually take the first and only quote you got?

The simple answer (as with everything) is that it is worth as much as someone is willing to pay and Bubba is willing to accept.

Those website value calculators are a bunch of arse, the top five from Google produced values for this site as:

$111
$7,884
$1,003
$2,205.33 (very specific!)
and
$34,251.60

 

[Iesu]

With regards to too many co-op members maybe wanting to stick thier oar in:

I'm a total lurker here, but just enjoy reading the forums every day. I'd stick in £50 to help keep the place running, but would have no intention of trying to meddle with how it is ran. Hopefully, there are many others like me too.

I second the motion. co-op = good management model in my "faux hippy, choad eating....etc" mind

[GCW]

If I put money in I'd consider it as a donation, not an investment.

[Krank]

 

[tomtom]

OK,
So far summarising...

Bubba would like £7-10k for the site..

Other valuations (Jaspers searching) put it quiet a bit below that (c.£1-2k)

From the straw poll, we could probably raise about £2-2.5k from donations..

This would be run by some sort of club/co-operative (which seems to be the favoured option) in a not for profit way - server costs etc.. paid for by banner ads.

Anunal or > 100 posts subscription is favoured by some - but going on the poll and other posts is not the majority.

Given the shortfall between what Bubba would like and what we can raise (which could of course go up - or down) I see there being two ways forward... (forgive the management speak)
1. We try and get some sort of sponsorship deal tied up to make up the difference to a degree. Dobbin, you mentioned talking to Ben Moon - what about GraemeA? The Works fancy chipping in for some advertising? Exclusive deal would cost more of course!
2. We become the lower cost fall back. If no-one wants to pay £7-10k then we can be the safety net with a lower ammount....

Thats my reading of the situation anyway. I'm away tomorrow and thurs so out of contact, but if you need some sort of pledge while I'm away, I'm happy to lob in £100...
Tom

[Fatboy]

I'd be willing to throw in a donation and wouldn't expect any return, moderator status or otherwise (although I nearly clicked on the 'sh*t cool hoodie to show UKB Saviour status' option)!!
Saying that, if you did want people to fulfill other duties as part of the buyout I would be more than happy to help where I can!
I wouldn't be a top poster but do view the site umpteen times a days.

[andy popp]

Another view that the subs route is wrong. Following the 'free-conomics' principle, the site should remain free to join and post to. We larger donors just accept a certain level of free-riding. As several people have pointed out, larger donations would be essentially altruistic rather than financially motivated. However...

If it is purchased as a collective it does need to be done properly and with people having the same (or similar) expectations.

Nik is absolutely spot on here. A lack of clarity up front about rights and responsibilities WILL lead to problems, no question. I have as little time for bureaucracy as the next man but some sort of consitution for any proposed co-op would need to be established (remember; never trust a hippy!). This is where larger donors come in. Meritocracies are all very well but, despite, their altruistic motivations, there is no reason large donors should not have some privileges. So it is they that, democratically, get to have a say in the running and evolution of the site, who choose office holders and form the body from which office holders are drawn. Sorry for sounding all proper but this will only work if it is done in a very clear sighted and careful manner - this applie to not for profit as much as it does to for profit organizations.