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And then this happened

Mike Greene said:
Both Mario and Andre know that I definitely want them here, so hopefully that will happen.

I'm reluctant to make a banner announcement, though. My thinking is that this thread will be seen by most people who have already been following the recent drama. But for people who haven't been following, I'm not sure how helpful it would be to bring it all up again to a new audience. For that matter, I don't think most people really care who actually owns the forum, as long as the forum does what it's supposed to.

With that said, honestly, I haven't thought that much about it. Maybe a bigger announcement should be made, but the sale still won't be official for a while (maybe a week or two?), so I won't be doing anything beyond this until then anyway.
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Being a newbie and not the most frequent visitor here I missed whatever happened but congrats on the new paygrade and I hope you do well. Love your libraries I use them frequently. Anxiously waiting for the men... samples I mean.

And where do we get these cookies???

I would mention yourself as the new owner in the news section but I would keep the reasons for it whatever happened here out of it. Just do a sports-like thing interview where you say your glad to be here and the lessons you learned in batting practice in high school were really really helpful and you couldn't have done it without the help of little ole Mrs. Greely your elementary reading teacher (or something like that). And then offer the cookies...

Good luck!

Rich
 
Hopefully this has worked well for everyone. As a new member, and yes, having been a moderator at Northern Sounds, I thought it best to stay as far away from everything as possible. The Owner and mods were very gracious to allow me to join here.
One thing that has become abundantly clear to me is that the members of this forum are unmatched in terms of self moderation. Even when things get tense, things get worked out. That's really not that common. This is a fine place that has been built here. So, Kudos all around!
And for once in my life, I will not end a post with strategic useage of emoticons.
 
Very rarely do I make comments... I'm probably just a lazy typer! I'll try to be a bit more proactive in the future :)

I just wanted to say even though all this craziness has happened. I truely believe Frederick is a kind and honest person, and any of his past mistakes were just an unfortunate miscalculation of his passion to expand on his dream for VI-Control.

What ever the case is I wish Fredrick well. VI-Control is a special place as there really is nothing else like it out there.

It has helped a lot of people including developers get a driving start in their chosen field.

Even though I have never had a proper chat with Mike, I guess like a number of us we have gotten to know him though his wonderful posts. I feel he will do a great job running this forum and as a member and developer I will happily support his vision.

Good Luck Mate!
 
At this point, anything Fred says spurs conversation and accusations, so maybe he just wants to avoid all drama and return back later.

Congrats Mike and lets hope this is best for Fred, you and VI C as well.
 
Sounds like a great move, if it goes through. Will hold the official congrats till later, but 100% you `ve got my support, Mike!
 
Good luck Mike! Frederick could not have chosen a more suitable person to lead VI-Control. And thank you Frederick! We are all indebted to you for creating VI-Control and spending all these years developing it into what it is today.

Best wishes to both of you,
/Hans
 
thereus said:
I can't help but feel a little concerned that Fred may, given his noted business sense, have been rather bounced into something that might not be good for him. Mike might be celebrating picking up a fire sale bargain, and 'cementing the deal before contracts are signed' by announcing it here himself but where does that leave Fred? I would like to know that he is ok before I cheer.
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thereus said:
At this point, the forum is still his, so it makes sense for him to announce his decision. This one-sided announcement has the whiff of strong arm tactics, to be honest. If the deal is not finalised, then announcing that it is is a very naughty tactic to bounce him into accepting before he is 100% ready. I've seen it 100 times.

Mike, did Fred agree to your announcement? Has he had proper time to seek and consider other offers? Is he as sure as you are that the deal is complete? Does he still have the right to change his mind?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, we should all back off and give him more space to work out what is best instead of seeing it as a foregone conclusion, Mike included.

I'm not saying anything is actually wrong, just that it would be nice to have Fred confirm that there isn't. He was in a bad place and people in a bad place can sometimes get treated unfairly. Let's just be sure that that is not the case here and then then I will be happy to congratulate Mike along with everyone else. There is nothing worse than premature congratulations.
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This is a valid question. In fact, I think it's touching that people would be concerned for Frederick in this way. And no, I'm not at all offended, since most people don't really know me, so I'll be the first to admit that it's completely possible that a guy in my position could be taking advantage of Frederick when he's in a vulnerable position. (And of course, the people who do know me are probably saying, "Run, Frederick, Run!!!" :grin: )

Here's how things went down. 2 or 3 weeks ago, when drama started to escalate, I made an offer to buy the forum. Frederick is a friend and I assure you, it wasn't a fire-sale price. My intention was to offer a way to reset things, but still make economic sense for both Frederick and me. FWIW, several other people made offers as well at that time.

A few days later, he turned all the offers down. I was both disappointed and relieved. Disappointed because I disagree pretty strongly with a few of his decisions, and cocky bastard that I am, I would love to take over and do everything my way. But also relieved, because this forum isn't nearly as profitable as some of the estimates posted, and the last thing I need right now is to get dragged into another "job." Plus ... I hadn't yet told my wife about any of this. :grin:

Then on Tuesday of this last week, he called and wanted to discuss selling after all, for the reasons explained in my opening post. We decided to take a day or two so we could both think about it (and so I could tell my wife!) We talked very briefly on Thursday, then a long conversation on Friday morning (two days ago) to agree to the deal and discuss how to move forward. (As an aside, I did tell my wife on Wednesday that I was thinking about buying the forum, but I didn't tell her the amount. She didn't ask, so I didn't offer. When I called her on Friday to tell her we made the deal, I told her how much and ... well, there's a story for another time. :grin: )

During this Friday conversation, we discussed the immediate game plan. Signing contracts and sending a check won't be quick, so although I agree completely that under ideal circumstances, this announcement should have waited until the ink was dry, we both felt it was more important to stop the bleeding ASAP. Members were defecting and advertisers were talking about leaving as well, so there was some urgency to this.

So we decided that I would first tell the developers what was going on, then I would draw up a draft of a contract and start that ball rolling, and finally, I would make an announcement here. I have to emphasize, this was our plan, not just my plan. I thought I could do all that on Friday, but I didn't finish the post here until Saturday morning.

To be clear, until contracts are signed and payment made, Frederick is still the legal owner of this forum and he's not obligated to do anything. If he decides to change his mind, I would be disappointed and annoyed about how much time I've just wasted, but I would accept that. I don't think there's anything I could do even if I didn't want to accept it. We have a handshake-over-the-phone deal, but Frederick is my friend, so the last thing I would want to do is take his baby if he's had a change of heart. In fact, I think it's largely because of the respect we have for each other that he accepted my offer in the first place.

One other thing I should add is that I may have given an impression that Frederick is worse at business than he really is. He's actually a very bright guy, and many of the things that I would consider to be "business mistakes" are my opinions. It could be me who's wrong on some of these things, so I regret that I may have overstated some things in the opening post. Frederick is no dummy, plus he does have counsel, so he wouldn't accept a bad offer.

I hope that helps explain things.
 
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