Clarification and Revised Plan of Action for hand-off
Dear members,
It’s growing rapidly evident that we will not flock under one proposal anytime soon.
I also think that the hand off can’t be handled in a democratic way… not without a lot of chaos. We had initially thought of placing the network on the empty floor and see who would step up to take it… without really thinking it completely through. For that we apologize.
However, It so happens that Dave, Graham, Danny and I actually own the domain name, website and IP that is the Network. The members’ posts are owned by the individual bloggers and the feeds are put on the site through the agreement we made when each member joined. The usual Caveats have always applied and still do.
We now realize that maybe we should act less like colleagues now and more like owners in this issue. So allow me to present a few clarifications and the plan we must have decided upon to go forward.
This morning’s announcement was our notice to members that we were stepping down from administering the RPGBN board. However, we now feel that the network needs to be handled carefully and given to people who will convince us that they will care for it and make it grow in a way that fits with our personal values.
The current chaotic approach does not work for us and we apologized if we engineered it. A lot was still achieved today that can be useful.
From this moment forward we announce that we will choose the new owners of the network. In this perspective, we ask you to send us your proposal, including Hosting schema, and an overview of your policies (like Berin and Chris did) to keep the Network alive and growing. Convince us of the value of your proposal and we will ’sell’ it to you for the big sum of 0 dollars through a gentleman’s agreement (we’re not interested in any contracts or any stuff like that, a simple ‘it’s yours email will have to suffice).
The new owner will get to decide how the network shall be governed.
We want the proposal before Oct 27th. We’ll respond before October 31st.
Our decision will be final and without appeal.
Please send your proposal or questions to rpgbloggers@critical-hits.com.
Please note that if we do not get a proposal that we like or if things become too nitpicky, uncivil or generally unpleasant, we reserve the right to close the network.
Thanks
Philippe-Antoine Ménard on behalf of the owners of the RPGB Network.
Comments
4 Responses to “Clarification and Revised Plan of Action for hand-off”
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you guys did a great job, hate to see this close or be passed. in either case i will no longer be a member.
I’d rather pay a yearly membership fee and keep you guys as owners then see what someone else will do with this.
This seems an eminently sensible way to handle things. I wish you all the best of luck, and I hope the network continues.
Phil,
I really appreciate all you guys have done. It’s pretty monumental, really. I get hours of entertainment out of it. Thank you!
But, like I said in response to Dave’s post, when you say stuff like, “if we do not get a proposal that we like or if things become too nitpicky, uncivil or generally unpleasant, we reserve the right to close the network”, you’re coming across as playing politics.
The process is going to be tough. The network is going to change when someone else takes it over. I don’t know you guys have the luxury of assuming that those those things won’t happen. You’ve resigned your posts.
As great guys, I know you’ll hand over everything, and do your utmost to see the RPGBN continue. But don’t plant obstacles to the process before it even gets going.
The RPGBN is too good an idea to just close up shop. If you guys need to get out of it quickly, I can see appointing interim leadership based on submitted proposals, but it’d be great if that interim leadership was tasked with establishing an owner-independent system for the network.
Hugs all around for a lot of great work. Our next task as a community is to see that it continues to exist.
Can you list the assets in question. In particular, I would like to know what domains are included. “rpgbloggers.com” obviously. But I seem to remember that there may have been other domains registered at some point.