Whatever happens, I just hope we don’t all lose touch with one another. I think some very tight friendships have been formed here, and we’d all be the poorer if the good ship Dope were cast adrift.
Someone up-thread mentioned “backing up” posts, so they could be transferred over?
I think you mean one’s own personal threads/posts?
How would I do that?
Thanks
Quasi
Heh. Herding cats on meth would be easier. 
In all seriousness, a more realistic option would be if a small group of like-minded dopers with deep pockets got together and made an offer to Atalaya through the proper avenues. That is much more plausible, and if the new management is looking for quick cash there is a possibility that they would accept.
If they pulled the plug precipitously most of us would just congregate at one or another of the splinter boards. Maybe Giraffe’s, maybe Domeboro, but in any case it really wouldn’t be such a big deal.
If there isn’t model that’s going to make money for the new owners why would any of us invest in it?
That’s the big question. Some of us think that the model could make money. If I were to buy this place the first thing I would do is hire experts who specialize in this sort of thing.
No, scratch that. *Before *I invested in this place I would hire experts to tell me if this place is capable of making money, and how, and how much (ROI). I’m guessing Atalaya will be doing the exact same thing (assessing the value of its assets/liabilities and whether they have more value in keeping and developing or disposing of).
:)Well, if y’all need a “poster-child”, I know where you can get one, and it won’t cost you a cent! I even have the “sad eyes” required! 
I know this might get me in “deep shit” with the mods/admins, but I wrote about this on my blog.
Sorry, but they’re gonna have to tear y’all away from me, with me leaving ridges in the pavement!
You (and me) didn’t come all this way, through all those years, just to have it wiped away like so much chalk on a blackboard.
In the words of Richard Dreyfuss (Close Encounters…): “This means something, dammit!”
Quasi
Probably the same reason we “invest” in porn, comic books and setting up trainwreck websites - for the fun of it. As mentioned earlier in the thread most message boards are set up and run as hobbies so there’s no reason this one couldn’t if some Dopers decided to splurge on it.
The problem is that the messageboard is integrated with the Straight Dope brand, and the Straight Dope Brand is integrated with Creative Loafing’s print business.
I honestly don’t believe the “Cecil” concept could be made to work as a standalone entity, independent of a print stream, and let’s face it, without the “Straight Dope” affilliation, this board becomes like any one of a number of other “general discussion” messageboards on the internet, albeit with a fairly lively and quirky membership base.
So, to buy the SDMB, you’d have to buy Creative Loafing, and I can’t see Atalaya letting it go for less than they paid for it (at least not at the moment).
And as fond as we all are of this place, I don’t think it’s worth over USD$5 Million. It’d require a major re-invention to have any hope of becoming “profitable” in any sense beyond “paying for its upkeep and maybe a bit left over for the Christmas Do for the IT staff”, and I just can’t see that being practical unless CL (or whoever ends up with their assets) have some major plans for a re-launch or re-positioning of the “Cecil” brand.
Somehow, I think they have bigger fish to fry at the moment…
I think she mostly forgotten after filming Queen of the Damned.
(Ahah, apparently she died…which would explain her disappearance. :o )
Because the SDMB does so much charitable stuff (I don’t need to “cite” all of them do I?:)), is there a way we could incorporate as a “non-profit” organization ( I forgot the numerical code assigned to that, sorry!)?
Q
I agree that the message board and Cecil/SD are tied together, but I disagree that one could not buy that entity and separate it from CL. There are existing contracts in place between SD and many newspapers for syndication (including the CL papers); there is no reason those contracts (including the CL ones) couldn’t be kept in place if the right deal was made, and then operate independently of CL.
Obviously we don’t know what those contracts are worth precisely, but I can’t imagine they’d be worth much (as a tiny portion of a crippled company).
Remember, Eason’s biggest argument was that Atalaya would carve up the company and sell its pieces to regain some of its loan (not at all uncommon for VC’s to do in these types of circumstances). They have said they will not, but I would be very surprised if they don’t get rid of some extraneous assets (not directly tied to the core business) in order to recoup some of the losses.
That’s a valid and worthwhile point, but I think it still ties into my earlier thoughts about the longer-term viability of the Cecil brand- what’s the market, in an instant-access-to-information Digital Age, for a print column in which an editor and a research team answer questions and are a bit sarcastic about it in the process?
Also, the way the media in the US appears to be at the moment, I suspect that more than a few struggling papers might look at contract renegotiations as an excuse to take another expense off the bottom line.
Both these points are also true and well worth noting.
But I can’t see someone (or a small group of someones) buying the Straight Dope brand with a view to raking in those small green bits of paper with dead US presidents on them. It’d be a purely “community” exercise and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m just not sure how it would work in the long term.
What I can see is an existing mainstream media outlet- the US equivalent of Fairfax Media here in Australia, for example- buying the idea for next to nothing and saying “This shit is ours now, bitches!” and running it as an integrated sidebar, if you will, to their “regular” media business.
At any rate, only time will tell how this whole thing pans out.
I can think of a nearly exact parallel of a site with snarky information and a large fanbase that was taken over by big media.
Unfortunately, the example is jumptheshark.com.
I don’t recall declaring a media buyout of the Straight Dope brand to be an improvement to the current state of affairs here, you know. 
Okay:)
Y’all are going into “business-speak”, and I can’t keep up with you, so let’s just say that the “little guy” has been heard from, and better minds than mine are at work here.
I KNOW there’s a solution out there somewhere, so I’m gonna keep the faith, and y’all have at it!
Quasi out!
Too true. I would go so far as to say some struggling papers might look at eliminating Cecil’s column altogether to save some costs.
Also good points. I still think there may well be some value in the membership database here; we’ve got some smart, affluent people who have in the past expressed their devotion to this place and their willingness to open their wallets. Someone who is able to take it on and turn it around might have a good little business on their hands.
Still, you’re right - it’s much more likely that a media conglomerate will gobble this place up and spit it out.