GRB Transition of Ownership

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TheoSqua
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GRB Transition of Ownership

Post by TheoSqua »

I went into the archives and looked at Michael's post when he announced that he was transitioning ownership of GRB for ideas on making this post a bit more clever, but looking at how Michael and Kyle did it then, there's no way i'm going to top that.

So I just wanted to let everyone know that Kyle has agreed to transition ownership of the site over to the current active mods (Radbird, Heyzeus, CardsofSTL, and myself).

There are still a lot of details to be hashed out by us mods on what this is going to look like, but here's what we know so far:
  • I will be taking over hosting and administration/development of GRB.
  • Us four mods will be splitting hosting costs and share in decision making of the site long-term as equal co-owners.
  • We plan on modernizing GRB's tech stack in some way.
  • We plan on making our moderation and forum guidelines a bit more streamlined and easier to find.
I want to thank Kyle for all of his help in keeping GRB alive and well for the last 3 and a half years. It was a significant commitment and there's a lot of seeds he started in the background that gives us the potential to improve GRB relatively quickly. Without his time and dedication over his ownership of the site we wouldn't have a still-active community. Thanks again Kyle!

When Planet messaged me on CardsTalk in 2006 and told me to join this site, I was still living in my parents basement and wasn't old enough to drink. Since then my life has changed in so many ways while being a part of this community. I moved out on my own while posting here. I got my first real job. I got married, I bought a house, got more jobs, bought cars, and had children, all while coming here basically every day. An example of that was In 2016. My wife was pregnant with our second child and we found out she was going to be born with a couple of serious medical conditions. I was personally freaking out and was convinced everything was going to end horribly. I didn't know any of these doctors telling us all of the different options, and googling anything involved didn't help. I remembered that one of our active posters on the site was a pediatrician, and I emailed him a poorly worded brain dump of what was happening. His response was well thought out, informative and, more importantly, an optimistic voice during what was one of the hardest moments of my life. I wouldn't have had that without this community. To say the discourse here has had a hand in shaping who I am today is an understatement.

I guess that's all just a long-winded way of saying that GRB has been more important to me than I ever thought an online baseball community could be and I personally feel privileged by the opportunity to help run this site in any capacity. I look forward to helping it stay alive for as long as we can as well as trying to improve the site to the best of our abilities.

Expect to see the Site Support & Suggestions section of the site to get a lot more active in the coming weeks. We want to make sure that everyone here has an opportunity to give us input on what comes next.

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dmarx114
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Re: GRB Transition of Ownership

Post by dmarx114 »

Thanks mods for keeping the site going! It is MUCH appreciated!

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Jocephus
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Re: GRB Transition of Ownership

Post by Jocephus »

huh, we'll i'll be. thanks for keeping the site alive.

may i ask, did kyle suggest he wasn't game for keeping it any longer? or was it proactive on the mods side? matter of fact, when was last time kyle was here? my memory of him is that he was youngish lad and from the dakota of the north.

and as an aside, how much does a site like this cost? i don't need an actual number but since it's mostly text based i wouldn't think much but i dont know anything. i just remember thinking i was open to taking over when michael was going to shut it down 'cause i didn't want to lose the place but didn't know how much effort it entailed.

another random question, can this be explained? "Most users ever online was 1057 on Sun Jan 19, 2020 4:41 pm". how the hell did that day set the record? is that some bot attack?

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IMADreamer
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Re: GRB Transition of Ownership

Post by IMADreamer »

Thanks for what you guys do.

Fat Strat
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Re: GRB Transition of Ownership

Post by Fat Strat »

Sounds good. Thanks mods!

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heyzeus
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Re: GRB Transition of Ownership

Post by heyzeus »

Jocephus wrote:huh, we'll i'll be. thanks for keeping the site alive.

may i ask, did kyle suggest he wasn't game for keeping it any longer? or was it proactive on the mods side? matter of fact, when was last time kyle was here? my memory of him is that he was youngish lad and from the dakota of the north.

and as an aside, how much does a site like this cost? i don't need an actual number but since it's mostly text based i wouldn't think much but i dont know anything. i just remember thinking i was open to taking over when michael was going to shut it down 'cause i didn't want to lose the place but didn't know how much effort it entailed.

another random question, can this be explained? "Most users ever online was 1057 on Sun Jan 19, 2020 4:41 pm". how the hell did that day set the record? is that some bot attack?
Hey Joce, thanks for your questions. I'm happy to let the other modpeople chime in with more info.

1. Kyle is a hero in my book, as he stepped in with his time, knowledge, and with his pocketbook back in 2016 to keep GRB hosted and running. The mod team has been in touch with Kyle periodically about how to update the site to either a more current version of phpbb, or a different platform, and whenever the site was down for whatever reason. Recently Kyle asked the mods if we wanted to take over the site, because for various reasons he hasn't been able to be around much, and he acknowledged that the administration of the site should really be in the hands of people that are here every day and can respond quickly to issues. Again, we are very grateful for Kyle's leadership during this time.

2. Hosting the site costs about $110/month. We're going to explore some different options that would bring new features to GRB, but I don't think the costs will change significantly unless we were to allow ads. To be clear, we're not going to do that if it means a disruption of the experience we all want here. The mods aren't going to make major changes without running things by y'all first, don't worry.

3. That January 2019 spike probably was bot related, but that's a guess. Another reason to move to either newer versions of phpbb or another platform is protection from bots.

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thrill
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Re: GRB Transition of Ownership

Post by thrill »

I would be happy to make a yearly donation to help support the site and remove the cost burden from mods, who already donate their time and sanity to keeping this place relatively chill.

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Joe Shlabotnik
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Re: GRB Transition of Ownership

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

I'm with thrill. Set up a GoFundMe or a mply request what you need with an address to send checks, I'd be all over it.

This place is the best. THANK YOU.

Even that rogue moderator...

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Fat_Bulldog
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Re: GRB Transition of Ownership

Post by Fat_Bulldog »

Thank you!

I am happy to pay a fee to keep this site alive.

Michael
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Re: GRB Transition of Ownership

Post by Michael »

A BIG thank you to Kyle for keeping the site running! I'm also grateful he's left the board in very capable hands!

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