Advice about purchasing a forum..

[Mateja]

hi, as you can tell im new here, forgive me if this post is in the wrong forum, it seems to fit into this forum better than any other on this community.

anyway, im currently a member at a certain forum that has a lot of members and is quite successful and popular, the forum always seems to have a problem with its stability as far as its server is concerned, it was down on friday when i checked, and its still down now. The webmaster has, in the past, said that he doesnt have any time to maintain the forums like he used to, something about a social life.

so my question is, is it appropriate to ask him if he is willing to sell his site, and also how much should i consider offering?

the forum has approx. 10,000 members (database since '98 tho), i'd estimate at about 300 regular posters daily, it has well over 1 million posts, it also has professionally designed logos and also its own cafepress shop. I dont currently have stats about how much it makes through its adverts (google). The site is a .com, a good one at that, the domain has 6 months left running..


my reason for buying isnt as much about making big money, but more about having a place to talk about my interests without the server being down every other week. Im even happy to keep the current webmaster as the leader of the forum, i will just be providing some stability to the forum.


so is it ok to offer? if so how much?

 

[SirSpider]

Sure it's OK to offer. The owner can say one of two things, "Yes - or - No." But, if you don't ask, you don't stand a chance of getting a "Yes."

Price? If the owner is interested in selling - let him/her start the negotiations. :talk:

 

[Cindy]

Sure! Go for it. But if the owner isn't interested in giving up his forum, then I suggest you offer a sponsorship to help cover server costs.

 

[SlashRoot.Com]

Mateja

Welcome to NP!

If you could you PM me with specifics on forum, I will be glad to help you come up with a few workable proposals.

We use our own servers, hosted in a dedicated rack at a top notch data center. Our ping times are usually around 30-40ms from most places on the net. We use our hosting resources primarily for our own internal hosting needs, but we have a ton of spare capacity.

We are not into bulk hosting business where people often oversell the capacity by offering a zillion GB bandwidth, a trillon MB webspace for five cents a month. So I am not trying to sell you any super duper hosting package (gimmick) for an unbelievable low price.

If that forum is not very stable, it is either on a overpolulated server farm, or being hosted off a shoe-string data pipe. I would seriously doubt if this is a hardware issue. The good news is, it is not that difficult to remedy such bottlenecks.

I have a feeling the webmaster would be open to a fair proposal -if not for outright sale, then for accepting a helping hand in getting the forum on a more stable platform. It certainly does not serve the owner/webmaster if it just fades off in lala land.

If you wish to explore this further, PM me.

best regards,

SlashRoot.Com

 

[Mateja]

thanks for the welcome and feedback.

i cant really give you any forum specifics at the current time as the site is STILL down, im not sure what is wrong with the server, all i can say is that their hosts' site is also down at the moment and have been since the forums went down..

ill definitely consider hosting with you aswell, i might already have my hosting sorted via a friend of a friend that offered me some hosting a few months ago, so i need to see if the offer is still open.

SlashRoot, I'll PM you with some specifics as soon as i can get them.

thanks

 

[Mateja]

note to Slashroot to check his PM's..

note to anyone who's reading, the site was online for about 6 hours today before going back down again, so its been online for 6 hours all week >_<

 

[SlashRoot.Com]

Originally posted by Mateja
note to Slashroot to check his PM's..

note to anyone who's reading, the site was online for about 6 hours today before going back down again, so its been online for 6 hours all week >_<

Thanks for the details

I will respond back to you by late this evening. Gotta run to take care of a few things...