Just a thought ……. why cant we do a kickstarter for every thing dope related so we the users own it ? I mean if employes can buy their company ….
That way we can drag cecil back and he can finish the 3 millon unanswered questions on the web site and not have to worry about the papers if we deicide ?
Because you can’t buy what isn’t for sale?
well if we can talk them into selling … from what im told is the Chicago reader was sold and the new owners didn’t want us
When Sun Times Media sold the Chicago Reader, it kept the SDMB. The question is, did the new owners not want it, or did Sun Times Media decide it was more valuable to keep than to sell?
If it’s the former, we might be able to afford it. If it’s the latter, the asking price might be pretty steep.
And we Dopers are a notoriously stingy group.
Also, even if we could finance buying the Board, how much would Cecil extort from us – errr – be willing to accept to return?
How would this kick starter work? If you reach your projected goal and it isn’t enough(or the board just isn’t for sale) will you return the money? If you somehow reach your goal and and you somehow acquire the SDMB, who actually owns it, and who actually runs it?
Raise enough money to pay the Chicago Reader to continue publishing the column as sponsored content.
well from what I know kickstarter dosent take the money until the campaign is fully funded … ie if it “fails” no ones out anything but a few clicks ……
If you raise the amount stated in the kickstarter and the owners still decide not to sell, what then?
And again, if they do decide to sell, what then?
well we throw cecil ed and tuba in a black van and drive them around until we convince them to run this asylum with the usual help that they currently have …… so not much would change (other than we get some legit ads instead of the suspect ones we get now ) but since it would be all online I don’t think it would be hard to move the operation
Wed have to give the backers incentives depending on how much they pledge… like life time subs ect ……… (well that’s what the game companies do anyways )
See: Asylum, Lunatics Running
Someone would need to negotiate with the owners about likely selling prices up front. It might be worth doing. But of course there are also maintenance costs for a website. They aren’t very large, but they aren’t nothing. Someone would have to pay to keep it hosted, etc. We might even need to pay an administrator.
As Cecil said:
What format new online content might take has not yet been determined.
Certainly this site could use support of every kind on all sides. We hope you consider continuing to support The Straight Dope with your attention, your postings, your subscriptions, your involvement. We will no doubt be asking more of you in future.
Well, I’m gonna start my own Straight Dope! With blackjack! And hookers!
Please, Mr. Smapti, will there be blow as well?
That doesn’t really answer the question. Suppose you decide to launch a KS campaign and set a goal of $100,000 to buy the rights to the Straight Dope. Now say your campaign is successful and you collect the money. You go to Sun-Times Media, show them your sack full of money - and they tell you the price is $200,000.
What do you do now? Pocket the money? Give it back?
What happens if Sun-Times Media says they aren’t interested in selling the rights?
What happens if they’re willing to sell for $100,000 and your KS campaign ends up collecting $200,000? What happens to the leftover money?
And these are all just issues involving the sale. What happens afterwards if you are successful in buying the Straight Dope? What exactly do you have? An archive of newspaper columns? The right to publish new Straight Dope books?
Who exactly is going to own The Straight Dope if this deal goes through? You?
Do you have any idea what’s involved in running a newspaper column? How much does it cost? How do you find newspapers that will carry the column? How do you distribute the column to the papers that carry it? I’m assuming The Chicago Reader and Sun-Time Media knows these things but we don’t.
Ed Zotti’s 67 years old. Do you know if he has any interest in signing back up to work on the column again? How much he gets paid?
If you want to be serious about this, you need to start contacting people and getting answers to these questions. When you have some commitments from people, then you can consider looking for financing.
How much could a few coffee cups possibly cost?
Kickstarter is unlikely to approve this plan. They fund art projects; they don’t do venture capital, even non-profit venture capital.
I trust there is some Crowd Muppeting website that would go along with this.
This one is easy: pocket the money.
In fact, forget the dope! Wait, actually, keep the dope.
Is this true? I looked up ‘kickstarter to buy a business’ and found this article, that may not be exactly on point but has some elements of this plan.
Roadside America employees launch Kickstarter campaign to buy display
The owner of Roadside America decided to retire and put up his business for sale. Three employees of the company decided they wanted to buy the display, which is part of the business assets. The three employees started a Kickstarter campaign with an all or nothing outcome.
I would guess one could make the argument to Kickstarter that a message board is the equivalent of a display in the list of business assets of a business.
Just curious … does Sun-Times Inc own any other newspapers? …