Open Discussion State of BL 2011 (Ownership, Finances, Direction)

TheLoveBandit

Indefinite break from BL - contact other admin
Joined
Feb 22, 2000
Messages
38,986
Friends, members, lurkers, and staff, here is the state of BL as of 2011:

Due to member donations and partnerships on research studies, the site was able to meet it's debt for 2010 by late January. Then our focus turned to a new contract for 2011 with our host, and for us a new management. We extend our thanks and appreciation to johnboy for all he's done for the site over the years and wish him well in his future endeavors with Enlighten and PillReports.com (for now we continue to host their discussion forums for them).

Ownership
As we enter 2011, we are moving the site under new management, which to a large degree is no real change for site operations or user experience. The principals behind the new ownership are Sebastians_Ghost and TheLoveBandit. Our intent is that the site continues to be governed by the admin team who make the policies and manage site evolution, while these two principals tend to the off-line or behind-the-scenes work of keeping the site afloat such as handling donations, server payments, hardware or software upgrades (with the engineers), public relations with research and the harm reduction community globally. The point here is that all your day to day concerns with staff or forum functionality should continue to be directed as it always has been, to your mods and sr. staff, with the admin holding the collective responsibility for these areas. Meanwhile, concerns over who is legally responsible for the site and charged with the handling of monies is in the hands of these two principles under the advisement of a larger team. This board of advisers will be comprised of the principals, the admin group, and the engineers for now. We'll take a moment here to also point out chr1.5 and thank him for agreeing to comeback on staff as an engineer to work with hoptis on the technical side of things. Those wondering who he is, and if he can be trusted, ought take a look in the "Thank You Staff" of BoBL for his background ;)

Financial
We are keeping our servers in the Netherlands under a new contract which has provided us improved hardware and lower billing. Under the new arrangement we owe our host 1050 euro per quarter. Between the Inflexxion survey and our member donations, we managed to pay not only for Q1 of 2011, but also Q2 while having a little in the bank to be ready for Q3 when the time comes. Our donation bar and web page have been updated accordingly.

Going forward, we've stripped out the donation methods tied to johnboy and enlighten, and are working to implement new payment systems. We hope to have these available to you soon, and you'll see this thread updated when these become available. We are fortunate to have the luxury of some time in getting this addressed.

While we hope to have member donations available again soon, we would like to share that we have secured a contract with Inflexxion to run several more surveys over the course of the year for set amounts which will help with our hosting needs. As mentioned in the earlier version of the SUPPORT donations thread, we'd rather not specify how much they give so as to not influence our negotiations for other research opportunities. Every bit of money helps, but we also will remain loyal to our membership by not selling out, and remaining sensitive to the frequency of survey's being run (we wouldn't want to fatigue the members in this way).

As donation methods become available, you can access them on our DONATIONS page

So What's the Big Picture?
Someone was wise enough to ask

What exactly is the goal for Bluelight?

Are we trying to maintain and enhance the current system we have, a discussion community based around HR?

Are we going the "legitimate" (non-profit?) HR route, where we publish HR material online and perhaps even IRL, among other things?

To answer the question, we say "both."

You could read back to the the FAQ on what we are, and that's still the main goal - building unbiased information about drug use and sharing it with the worldwide community. We're seeing two branches where this can be addressed - one is supporting research that can lead to recognizable facts about drug use beyond bias. The other is to continue the current system of a discussion community, but enabling it to act on the ideas that have been raised.

Legal policy is not the agenda, never has been and shouldn't be now either. We want to be the best we can at gathering this information, getting it into a factual context, and getting it available to everyone. Becoming legitimate, this will help our goals so we can seek to be cited in research work (this draws more our way, both researchers AND people wanting the facts) and can be done also by providing a reference point for people wanting the anecdotal the published or both.


Other
We'd like to thank you all once again for your past support for the site in terms of research participation, monetary donations, and general site content with the support you all provide for one another in our many forums. We look forward to the change in management which should energize the site with direction and purpose, creating opportunities for learning, sharing, and bonding with many more members while keeping our home the cozy community that so many of us have grown to love. We'll keep you updated with our financial situation, our plans for growth, as well as where you fit into all we've got going on. Thank you, and we'll see you for a long time to come! <3 :D
 
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This SUPPORT thread is intended to be for discussion over the course of the year for any of the material referenced above. For those with donation ideas, please give a read to last year's thread (Donations Discussion thread) to see if it has been suggested, and what response it garnered then.


We will continue to give public ANNOUNCEMENT on plans for our upgrades as we get closer to realizing them. For now, we're still completing the pruning process of the database in preparation for this endeavor (Spring Cleaning 2010 and 2011 - down under style).

Any updates to our financial situation will be mentioned here, and we intend to keep a public ledger of expenses for the sake of transparency on our DONATIONS page along with monthly updates on the donation bar progress towards our needs. This will keep our members informed of what we intend to spend money on, as well as how much more may be needed from donations and survey compensation.

Lastly, SG and I are struggling for proper titles. He has none for now, while I'm still acting as an admin to a large degree (and will do so for the foreseeable future). Any suggestions are welcome ;)
 
Bluelight should get someone to manufacture old EZ Test Extreme style reagent test kits and sell them to raise funds for the site.
 
Lastly, SG and I are struggling for proper titles. He has none for now, while I'm still acting as an admin to a large degree (and will do so for the foreseeable future). Any suggestions are welcome
Assuming you want to be taken seriously (though that may be a bit of a stretch ;)), I think Director would be nice. On the staff contact sheet you could then have Director of...and list each of your individual areas of responsibility (assuming they are divided). I understand that you'll probably be working together closely but this better defines who to first refer to for what even if there is overlap. Furthermore it provides room for growth if you want to add someone at that echelon with more limited specific duties without giving them an all inclusive Overlord-type title.

Director of producing nudie paraphenalia for example :)
 
Thanks for all your hard work behind the scenes TLB :) I'm really glad to see this update, and also to see how much better we are doing now.

Sincere thanks for everything you do mate :)

CB :)
 
So what happened with AlertPay? Did they use the same BS excuse as PayPal?
 
Assuming you want to be taken seriously (though that may be a bit of a stretch ;)), I think Director would be nice. On the staff contact sheet you could then have Director of...and list each of your individual areas of responsibility (assuming they are divided). I understand that you'll probably be working together closely but this better defines who to first refer to for what even if there is overlap. Furthermore it provides room for growth if you want to add someone at that echelon with more limited specific duties without giving them an all inclusive Overlord-type title.

Director of producing nudie paraphenalia for example :)

Not sure why reading that made me think of what I'm about to propose, but it did. :? How about adding a liaison position? For staff from other forums, sites, etc. It may do well to create inter-community cooperation and speed up the information flow. Just a thought. 8)
 
TLB, you're awesome. Thank you for your continued support of our growing community!

I also approve of the idea of a "Director" position for each handling that is done for Bluelight. Something almost like having a president, vice president, treasurer and secretary. Each director handles different portions of the overall management.
 
I also think the term director would be a solid choice. Director of Operations has a nice ring to it. Director of Finance for the financial person. just bouncing ideas off of ama and others.
Thanks for the update.
 
I'm glad to see this information out here :); it used to bug the hell out of me that it wasn't clear who actually owned Bluelight.

Maybe you guys should be 'Owners' - it seems to carry a clearer statement of responsibility than 'Director' - with the latter, I'd be wondering whether a Director was higher than an Admin, or not.

Good news about the funding, reminds me I should donate.
 
Titles

Although I'm enjoying the lack of a title for the time being (minimalism can be so mysteriously sexy, can't it?) I think TLB and I may have had a breakthrough tonight talking on the phone. What do people think of this:


TheLoveBandit
Co-owner
Director of Ones



Sebastians_Ghost
Co-owner
Director of Zeros



In this way, both TLB and I convey our principal ownership in the organization as well as the duality and reciprocal nature of our roles. He is facing inwards, overseeing internal politics/tech issues/human resources, whereas I am facing outwards overseeing financials/PR/research. I also like the geeky binary reference, which is certainly an intrinsic part of the Bluelight culture. (It also keeps us from sounding too pretentious or too big for our britches!) ;)

These roles and descriptions would not be exclusive or inclusive by any means. As a matter of fact, I think he would agree that he and I work particularly well on things together (a welcome benefit) and enjoy getting input on important matters from each other. However, some things such as Admin and Moderator oversight would be best left to him, and legal issues would tend more to be more my cup of tea. Furthermore, I know that he also wants to be involved with research, and that I may at some point have input regarding tweaks or upgrades to our software. As you can see, we definitely see the importance of remaining flexible, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that STUFF GETS DONE. :)

Anyway, please let us know what you think, and thanks as always for everyone's hard work!

Best,

SG
 
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I really like the sound of Co-owner + binary director idea. Someone mentioned "director" alone may lead the Bler to wonder whether or not it's higher than moderator, but a title like that certainly displays both ownership and the fact that you generally have different responsibilities but are working together perfectly as a team. Just an opinion :)
 
Proprietor instead of owner perhaps. Maybe not.

Grand Poobah is straight out because whether taken from The Mikado or The Flinstones it would seem like you don't take titles very seriously. Boss is simple and authority laden. Boss and then Grand Poobah would seem like yes we are the law but we are not taking ourselves all that seriously.
 
TheLoveBandit
Co-owner
Director of Ones



Sebastians_Ghost
Co-owner
Director of Zeros

i love those titles, i say go for it. i also love mysteriously sexy, though.

but in all seriousness, us BL'ers are just a bunch of druggie nerds, so the binary reference is perfect, and demonstrates the partnership you guys have goin'. also, co-owner is clear as a bell as far as distinguishing your roles from regular admins, etc.

anyway, these are by far my favorite titles suggested, and you guys came up with them "all by yourselves"!! brilliant.
 
Although I'm enjoying the lack of a title for the time being (minimalism can be so mysteriously sexy, can't it?) I think TLB and I may have had a breakthrough tonight talking on the phone. What do people think of this:


TheLoveBandit
Co-owner
Director of Ones



Sebastians_Ghost
Co-owner
Director of Zeros



In this way, both TLB and I convey our principal ownership in the organization as well as the duality and reciprocal nature of our roles. He is facing inwards, overseeing internal politics/tech issues/human resources, whereas I am facing outwards overseeing financials/PR/research. I also like the geeky binary reference, which is certainly an intrinsic part of the Bluelight culture. (It also keeps us from sounding too pretentious or too big for our britches!) ;)

These roles and descriptions would not be exclusive or inclusive by any means. As a matter of fact, I think he would agree that he and I work particularly well on things together (a welcome benefit) and enjoy getting input on important matters from each other. However, some things such as Admin and Moderator oversight would be best left to him, and legal issues would tend more to be more my cup of tea. Furthermore, I know that he also wants to be involved with research, and that I may at some point have input regarding tweaks or upgrades to our software. As you can see, we definitely see the importance of remaining flexible, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that STUFF GETS DONE. :)

Anyway, please let us know what you think, and thanks as always for everyone's hard work!

Best,

SG


I think these titles are more than apt.

I'm glad to hear you two do work ell together, it's important that you both have defined roles and know what each others strengths & weaknesses are in terms of running the site.

SG, all you do goes largely unnoticed working behind the scenes so thanks for all that you do do.

TLB - thanks for the update and thank you also.
 
I would be glad to make an (unfortunately small) donation to help keep this site running.
I am almost ballsy enough to think of Paypal. Is law enforcement really interested in me and my happy "flutters" with the poppy?
 
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