Bill. Not sure why you think the sale is not about money. There is a separate thread on S2G where Paul offered the site up for sale back in March and he stated he would prefer it be sold to a member, but that he would take the sale to another venue if a member buyer could not be found. He is selling the domain, not the site and he did mention that he would prefer that the website be preserved insofar as the forum and content, but also mentioned that the site could be commercialized or maybe even go a different direction. From these, I gather that the sale is paramount to preserving data since clearly if the site is sold to a purely commercial buyer (and not a member), all control to the site is lost to a non-enthusiast and therefore, it would be naive to expect that someone who pays for an established domain would not expect it to turn a profit. That he would consider selling it in that manner in the face of all the members now chiming in offering to subsidize the site tells me that there are financial considerations beyond the ongoing operational expenses (read sale amount).
I've nothing against this, since as you guys know, I have operated the Wikiboombox site for over a year now and understand well the monetary burden as well as the amount of work needed to keep it operational. Free information is great, but in this life, nothing is free and somebody has paid for the hosting fees, domain registration, not to mention the labor investment by myself and Reli and all other contributors. Anyhow back to S2g.....
Unless someone knows something different, it sounds like it will take more than just the willingness to take over S2G and it's operational expenses to keep it up and ownership transferred to you. The domain has been up for like 15 years or so? and Paul did a remarkable job building up the site and name recognition. There is value to it, at least there is as long as it is up and running. Once it shuts down, the value drops precipitously since it's all about visitors and that drops to nothing once it shuts down.
I hope Paul gets everything he can for it. He deserves it for all his hard work, time and money investment all these years.
Norm on FB post it was mentioned about issue of the work involved then I read post on s2g about the sale and cost. Sadly I haven't kept up with s2g because it seemed to be to much drama. If the site does die it will stink because most of us got our start there. Oh and again Norm how the heck do find time and energy to type all this? Lol. Just Kidding!!!! 😜
Bad Boy Bill