[nearly original] An update on what I know from my end

[methods]

I dont think Justin will want anything to do with this if it starts off on shaky legal ground...


Ok - I am going to go chug an energy drink!!!
You guys ever see me after drinking a 2X ROCKSTAR energy drink???

(cracks fingers)

-methods

 

[neptronix]

I dont think Justin will want anything to do with this if it starts off on shaky legal ground...


Ok - I am going to go chug an energy drink!!!
You guys ever see me after drinking a 2X ROCKSTAR energy drink???

(cracks fingers)

-methods

LOL... yeah, that's just exactly what you need right now :lol:

 

[methods]

IIRC you are the one who was doing the massive name calling. I do not mean to sound negative, but your comments here are hypocritical..........

Yes - I was.
It was a tactic to regain control of our forum
I demonized Trevor by associating him with Andy

And guess who is at the negotiating table now???
Before it was not even an option

I did evil for the greater good
I used a personal attack to achieve a position

Now I call it for what it was
An inappropriate personal attack

So how am I a hypocrite?

Also.... at the time we were fired up and we did not have Trevors full story
More has been revealed
He is not == Andy who is a vampire

-methods

 

[recumpence]

Thank you for not feeling personally attacked. I did not want it to seem that way. However, it just looks like you are playing both sides of the same coin. That is why I said we need to get all the facts before we start name calling.

It does look bad from this end.......

IIRC you are the one who was doing the massive name calling. I do not mean to sound negative, but your comments here are hypocritical..........

Yes - I was.
It was a tactic to regain control of our forum
I demonized Trevor by associating him with Andy

And guess who is at the negotiating table now???
Before it was not even an option

I did evil for the greater good
I used a personal attack to achieve a position

Now I call it for what it was
An inappropriate personal attack

So how am I a hypocrite?

Also.... at the time we were fired up and we did not have Trevors full story
More has been revealed
He is not == Andy who is a vampire

-methods

 

[Gordo]

IIRC you are the one who was doing the massive name calling. I do not mean to sound negative, but your comments here are hypocritical..........

Yes - I was.
It was a tactic to regain control of our forum
I demonized Trevor by associating him with Andy

And guess who is at the negotiating table now???
Before it was not even an option

I did evil for the greater good
I used a personal attack to achieve a position

Now I call it for what it was
An inappropriate personal attack

So how am I a hypocrite?

Also.... at the time we were fired up and we did not have Trevors full story
More has been revealed
He is not == Andy who is a vampire

-methods

So my guess was correct? Andy put this together for a commission? So what? Trevor is a lot dumber than I thought, to not do his due diligence. Man, have I got a deal for this guy!

 

[TPA]

I agree that the easiest solution is to move on.

However, there is a way to keep it here that would be hard to swallow. Please, Don't kill the messenger for what I suggest, but it is an option to add to the list of options.

The mods could find a finance company to borrow the funds to purchase the forum as a separate independent entity (if that is possible).
We would have to choke down seeing adds for a while until the loan is paid. The more ads, the sooner they go away.
Donations make the adds go away faster.
In the end ES will be free, there will never be an ad or an individual owner again.
No one will profit from the ads, all revenues go to pay the loan as quickly as possible to obtain ownership for ourselves.

Sorry, I felt that it should be suggested, and like I said, moving is easier.

 

[justin_le]

Hey guys, I know the suspense and anger levels and all of that are pretty intense right now but I really want to re-itterate that the plan was to have today as an opportunity to hash out with Trevor possibilities that would enable us to keep the ES site as it presently sits and in our hands, and not need to have to completely abandon this ship and everything that went into building it.

I completely understand the sentiments being expressed here but I would plead that for the next 12 hours if we could at least hold tight and give this a chance before calling it a game over. If there is a reasonable to save what we have here it would be worthwhile and in most of our best interests. 12 hours guys, it's not that long.

I respect what Methods etc. have done to this point, but i don't want another master.
I am leary of whoever gives this guy the thousands of dollars he needs to buy the site back. The idea of everyone chipping in has not even been discussed on any of these threads by the negotiators.

This has been discussed plenty behind the scenes, but naturally Trevor has indicated he'd much prefer to work something out financially with one or a few people rather than with a massive collection pool, which gets complicated even more by the NDA. I can absolutely assure you that if I am one of the paying parties I would as first course of action put an option up to have the payment amount returned via a collection pool so that that legal ownership (if there is such a thing) is very much distributed.

-Justin

 

[methods]

Not a threat Patrick, just addressing Dave's concern that they might try to sue in the event we move our personal content to a new board. Just making it known we have plenty of effective defense from this happening. It would be like pulling the pin on a grenade and sitting on it for them.

I know - I just want to make very sure this does not turn hostile like it did in the Open Letter thread while we were asleep. People were making statements that were totally out of line. Most of them were deleted before anyone saw them.

-methods

 

[Green Machine]

I was up in the middle of the night that night deleting till like 5am knowing other mods were asleep.

On Methods behalf i can testify that he never faltered, and was the only moderator on the mod forums to be vehemently and openly against the buy out from the very beginning. He was downright angry and nasty right out of the gates.

I have a lot of respect of how he turned the tides. Also for the user who pulled up the Andy the Airsstreamer dirt. That was critical to this whole movement.

Andy owes Trevor a few drinks when this is all over.

And i say it again...the sad fact is the only winner in this whole thing is knightmb who is a true villain. We should be pressuring him to refund some $$$$$.

 

[sabb]

At some price Trevor will sell but we may not be able to afford that.
In that case we need a FORK that doesn't come with a battle that distracts us from the fun of ebikes.
So whoever is negotiating needs a fallback in that case bigmoose's idea is not so bad for us and trevor can make money of whatever traffic is there.

regardless where ever the tech advice goes is where i will reading.

Stephen

 

[GGoodrum]

Justin, the problem, in my mind, is that if Trevor gets even one red cent from anybody but knightmb, it legitimizes the sale of our IP in the first place. I would much prefer to donate to a legal fund for Trevor, to go after knightmb and get all his money back.

I really hope this negotiation can just end, and we put out efforts into organizing a new forum.

-- Gary

 

[Kin]

Hey, everyone, thanks for working on this. I know there are some aggressive feelings, understood seeing as other people have put **a lot** here. I'm grateful for the effort everyone has put towards fixing this situation, but the ideal situation I think would be for Trevor to look into the terms of his payment [looking for misrepresentation from Mtbknight]. Then this could be put behind us. Besides, he seems like a misguided but honestly reasonably O-K guy.

 

[ptd]

and yet, knightmb STILL has admin status. WTF? if he left trevor out to dry, wouldn't trevor protect himself by removing a potential backdoor threat?

 

[methods]

Trevor still depends on knightMB for the technical stuff.... He still holds the absolute power to throw switches.

-methods

 

[neptronix]

I have a lot of respect of how he turned the tides. Also for the user who pulled up the Andy the Airsstreamer dirt. That was critical to this whole movement.

Oh, you mean me? it was just a matter of googling really ( and some tips from a member who would wish to remain unnamed at this time ).

Frankly i am impressed with how strong this community is tho. Only here will you see a group of people collectively put their tin foil hats on about a big money deal instead of ooh and ahh over the new mobile app, and other various "improvements" ( as if corporate ownership doesn't have any downsides ).

It is not just a handful of people that put this deal back to the negotiating table, it is all of you!

Anyway, Justin i think you have a great idea.

BUT... I am not for giving this guy a dime.

Once you guys come to a figure, what do you think of having a public vote on whether WE as a community collectively pay this guy out or bail?

 

[John in CR]

So here is the big question, fellow members; would you rather buy your site back or move on?

I'm sorry but I have just as big a problem buying back something that wasn't for sale as Luke is for his valuable contributions being ad bait for someone else's profit.

Also, while I trust Justin and others explicitly, that type of resolution does not protect us in all future events. I don't know the appropriate legal structure required, but reading posts of some of the members very experienced in online businesses it seems that a secure structure can be cheap and easy. Server space and bandwidth is cheap enough that there's no reason something better can't be easily started and funded going forward without anyone going out of pocket now for more than most of us are comfortable. Our community has real horsepower across virtually all disciplines and there seems to be plenty of willingness to come together and put what's needed now to good use.

That's my 2 centavos anyway,

John

 

[flathill]

How do we find out how much Trevor really paid? We can't but we still have the upper hand because we are what he paid for. If we put a dollar amount on ourselves we lose. You can either make money or sense. Hopefully Trevor will come to his senses.

 

[ptd]

Trevor still depends on knightMB for the technical stuff.... He still holds the absolute power to throw switches.

-methods

well then knight is still on the scene, and trevor isn't left hangin, is he? it's beginning to sound like a stall tactic, and maybe you're just being led along, to lead us along. and just because there's an nda, doesn't mean that he can't throw a number out there, unless it's so high that it obviously won't get any consideration. sounds like the move is the answer. we get our own charter, and don't have to pay off a corporate entity.

 

[neptronix]

The only downside of moving on that i can think of is having to reconstruct everything. We have people who have mirrored the site, but there is no easy way just to pack up our posts and port them to another site.

I've been on the phone with mwkeefer ( Mike ) and he has some good ideas, like turning the site into a 501.3c. I have not talked to Luke or anyone else at this time, and i do not know what everyone else has up their sleeve.

I have a little vote going on on Facebook ES right now. I'll start one here if the negotiators are even open to the idea of walking away from the agreed price.

 

[recumpence]

The problem with ANYONE having complete control is not related to their personal integrity. I, for one, completely trust Justin, and I mean COMPLETELY. However, if one person has control, eventually he will pass away or have to sell the entity for some serious life reasons. Then what will the new owner do? This is how bad dictators come into power, first a benevolent man changes the country and is elected as dictator for life. He may do a good job, but, eventually, he must be succeeded. When that occurs, problems arise.

This should be a public forum with a board of directors. That board could collectively go bad, but that is much less likely than one person getting greedy or otherwise difficult to deal with once the site changes hands once or twice.

How this would be accomplished, I do not know. But, I think it is the best course of action for the long term.

Matt

 

[kevo]

+1 Yep

 

[ptd]

the problem with people, is that their intentions can change. what we need is an irrevocable charter.

 

[bigmoose]

Agree with matt and mwkeefer. Should be a 501(c)3 structure. Then our donations are tax deductible! We can even sponsor grants for college and such if we make some $ somehow... taint' that a loaded statement!

We should be figuring out how to bring some content with us in an "appropriate way." This will take someone with some good IT knowledge. I don't have it.

 

[Gordo]

Then start the discussion bro.
We are not your masters, you are your master.... and you know Justin would never lord over you so dont even think about inferring that.
-methods

METHODS; Many of us have asked the question "Why do we owe Trevor anything?" Please answer this question. I am sure, I have made many financial decisions far worse than this one. I have never felt anyone owed me for my mistakes. Life does not work this way.

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

Agree with matt and mwkeefer. Should be a 501(c)3 structure. Then our donations are tax deductible! We can even sponsor grants for college and such if we make some $ somehow... taint' that a loaded statement!

not loaded at all.
investing in the future via school grant would be the greatest achievement to ever come out of here.
it's a little premature but definitely an idea that should not be lost in transition.