Forum Migration - Community Proposal

[chrisw]

Following on to this posting:

Someone -> It was me, I did send you a link to this thread, cos HGM mentioned a potential sell of domain+DB and you made some kind of offer to the community in the past. I do not expect you to fix all the issues (people) going on in here, like Chris said, a small motivated team could get things done, or alike, other forums died, maybe this is just the destiny of TC, to die a slow and steady degeneration death people mentioned already that the hot stuff happens in the Discord channels meanwhile...so the next gen of computer chess enthusiasts might have no need for any forum, they already have what they need, or alike, would be nice to have an archive of TC for sentimental reasons though.
Srdja

It does appear that Quentin wishes to divest himself of the forum. If the forum is to continue it would need to be a "community forum", owned and run by "the community". Does such a capable and willing community exist? Let's see ...

Requirement is for a small offline group to organise the transfer and support the new forum. Group needs:
1. Some "legitimacy" to operate on behalf of the community.
2. Some technical capability to either generate an entirely new forum, or to migrate the talkchess forum software (in part or whole) into a new location.
3. Some business skills to "negotiate".
4. Possibly some crowdfunding capability.

Individuals in the group need to show a) a track record of relevant skill, b) a positive attitude to continuing the forum, c) ability to cooperate.

If you fit the bill and wish to participate, please indicate, either here, or by PM to me, or to Ed. And we'll take it from there. Thanks, have a nice day.

[smatovic]

2. Some technical capability to either generate an entirely new forum, or to migrate the talkchess forum software (in part or whole) into a new location.

I can offer webprogramming+DB+Linux sysadmin.

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Srdja

[chrisw]

2. Some technical capability to either generate an entirely new forum, or to migrate the talkchess forum software (in part or whole) into a new location.

I can offer webprogramming+DB+Linux sysadmin.

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Srdja

Great, thanks.
We have in mind to offer Quentin a deal which gets him some funds (which he apparently wants), while at the same time cementing the forum with a legal status as a "community asset", to do this, we are going to propose a community crowdfunding, so we are going to need someone to organise a crowdfund payment system. Anyone with experience of how this can be done?

[smatovic]

[...]we are going to propose a community crowdfunding, so we are going to need someone to organise a crowdfund payment system. Anyone with experience of how this can be done?

I used myself PayPal to ask for donations for my projects, others use things like Kickstarter or Patreon, I am not into these.

https://www.paypal.com/
https://www.kickstarter.com/
https://www.patreon.com/

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Srdja

[Peter Berger]

to do this, we are going to propose a community crowdfunding, so we are going to need someone to organise a crowdfund payment system. Anyone with experience of how this can be done?

I have some experience, you don’t want to do this at all.
Crowdfunding usually works very badly but for one exception: some people who just pay it all. So from most people you won’t get a single dime – and then a few people may decide to support you more or less unconditionally.
So if you set this thing up with an unreasonable condition, you have to go with it ( else this very quickly also becomes a legal issue).
Offer something else: let people pay for the funds for general support for the potential new talkchess.com to a trustworthy member of your team – preferrably someone, people have already done business with. Ed Schröder comes to mind – he has sent me chessprograms in the past and took my money in response, both in a reliable way, so I assume he can be trusted in general – businesswise.
I also don’t think he’d do bad things with my money, so I wouldn’t feel the need to negotiate this in detail.
There may well be some members here who are willing to support the future of talkchess.com and who can afford it. You don’t want to crowdfund money just to give it away in this case.

[chrisw]

Sorry if it wasn’t made clear. The idea of the crowdfunding is not to pay for a new board expenses but to pay off Quentin (who is supposedly willing to divest the forum in exchange for funds). Since it’s impossible really to set a figure to this, some form of crowdfunding is way to go, it would then represent the degree of gratitude participants felt for the prior CCC service and handover goodwill. Plus it puts the new forum out of the hands of any individual or commercial entity and into a tbc. Board of the CCC which would be the intermediary for the funds. Ed’s bank a/c would be one way or a special PayPal a/c the other. To be consulted on.
Does that satisfy you?

[Rebel]

Thanks for the trust me but I don't think one owner is a good idea. I propose 3 elected owners and their only responsibility is to pay the yearly bill. If one leaves for whatever reason a new third will be elected by the community. In other words, stability of the forum. Either they pay the yearly bill from their own pocket or ask the forum members to donate. Nowadays hosting a forum is cheap, money should not be a problem.

[hgm]

I don't know if this is legally possible. You get a domain name through a contract with the hosting company, and it is questionable whether they will accept a group as their customer. Imagine the situation they would be in if they get conflicting orders from the people that signed the contract. How should they resolve that? They won't want such a hassle, and only sign a standard contract with a single person or a legal entity. Legally that will be the owner. And everything else would depend on legally binding agreements of that owner with the rest of us.

[smatovic]

Yes, there must be a legal entity registered to the domain (owner), a natural or juristic person (group of persons via legal registered society f.i.).

https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/doma ... explained/

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Srdja

[chrisw]

I don't know if this is legally possible. You get a domain name through a contract with the hosting company, and it is questionable whether they will accept a group as their customer. Imagine the situation they would be in if they get conflicting orders from the people that signed the contract. How should they resolve that? They won't want such a hassle, and only sign a standard contract with a single person or a legal entity. Legally that will be the owner. And everything else would depend on legally binding agreements of that owner with the rest of us.

You just made all that up, didn’t you!?