Should guilt be felt when selling a website?

Ye' old general discussion board. Basically, for everything that isn't covered elsewhere. Come here to shoot the breeze, shoot your mouth off, or whatever suits your fancy.
This forum is not for asking programming related questions.

Moderator: General Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
waradmin
Forum Contributor
Posts: 240
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2005 2:57 pm

Should guilt be felt when selling a website?

Post by waradmin »

I ask the question (read title if you didnt catch it) because I was the main admin of the myOpenSpace.net website. Over the 2 or 3 weeks we were online, we got about 300 members and some of them were loyal.

When it reached about week 2 or 2 1/2, i started to get sick of the site. People on there were asking question after question, kept asking for new features, and when I started to develop them would daily ask when I will be done, yet providing no actual help. I ran out of time, it was affecting my social life, and my money as well.

Then it came down to nobody wanting to donate for more bandwidth or new servers etc, so I decided to list the site on eBay and sell it off 100%.

The person who purchased it, 'Chris', is in the Adult industry. He was looking for a social networking site for his community, and we finalized the deal. Now there are porn ads all over the site, but I did delete the old database so all old members are nolonger automaticly a member of this new 'adult' site.

But during the last few days, i told members I would be leaving the site, and that changes were going to be made. People didnt understand, they complained and called me a sellout, assclown, what have you.

That brings me to this question, do I actualy have to feel bad for selling a site that these people were a member of? I kind of do feel bad, but should I? Is there something different I should have done? I did provide email notices, blog entries etc alerting members but in the end, i just recieved tons of hate email.

Should i have done something different, or, what would you have done? You lose interest in a project, time and money have dried up, what decision would you make?

-steve
User avatar
feyd
Neighborhood Spidermoddy
Posts: 31559
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:24 pm
Location: Bothell, Washington, USA

Post by feyd »

If they contributed something, I may feel a bit bad, but you have to weigh it as a business decision. You didn't have the time nor resources to continue running it. Something you could do however, is open source your code. That way others may benefit from your work, and you can get a bit of karma back from that.

Sure, the users contributed their content, but that just eats resources (overall).
Roja
Tutorials Group
Posts: 2692
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2004 10:30 pm

Post by Roja »

The scenario definitely matters here.

Selling a site? *No*, I do not feel guilt.

Selling a site with a membership? I might.

Selling a site with membership to an interest completely unlike the management before? Yes, I would.

The adult industry is an extremely sensitive subject. Some people do not want to be involved, exposed to, or have interaction with it.

By building a community that had nothing to do with that industry, and then forcing them into that situation, I would have some reason to feel guilt.

Personally, *IF* I had the sole copyright on the entire code (no contributors), and I was tired of working on it, I would have:

- Registered a new domain
- Copied the code to that new domain
- Put the sale together on that new domain and code (non-exclusive on the code)
- Informed users of the original site that it would be shutdown in 30 days (make that date correlate with the sale)
- Opensource the code so users can start an alternative
- Shut down the original site

The users arent confronted with the adult industry, the sale contains the code, the users can continue the community you helped build, and its all good. No guilt, no problems.

But guilt is a personal moral decision, and its your decision to make on it.
User avatar
onion2k
Jedi Mod
Posts: 5263
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:03 pm
Location: usrlab.com

Re: Should guilt be felt when selling a website?

Post by onion2k »

I just had a quick look at the old thread in the Volunteer forum where you asked for assistance in creating the site. In one of your posts there you stated that the code was to be GNU/GPL. If you accepted any code from the people who offered to help then you might want to get in touch with the person who bought the site and inform him that he's now violating the GPL by not offering the open source sections of the code for download.

Quite frankly, anyone who asks for help in the volunteer folder here and then goes on to sell the work people have done has a duty to pass on some of the proceeds. It wasn't your work to sell. Your credibility has taken a nose dive in my opinion. I certainly won't be getting involved in any of your future projects if this is the way you treat the people you work with.
User avatar
waradmin
Forum Contributor
Posts: 240
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2005 2:57 pm

Post by waradmin »

First off, the original system in development was set to be Open Source with GNU/GPL but we decided we would hold off and adopted a different system not developed by the public.

The site did have membership (like I said around 300 people) but like I said in my post, I did delete the database so everyone associated with the old site, was removed.

I made no profit from running the site besides the final sale, I also did not take any help on the site (except for 1 line of code). So I think what I did was fair. I would have given 30 days notice but the site wasnt even online for that long.

-steve
User avatar
jayshields
DevNet Resident
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Aug 22, 2005 12:11 pm
Location: Leeds/Manchester, England

Post by jayshields »

Sorry to drag the topic slightly off-topic, but can I be as cheeky to ask how much you sold it for?
Roja
Tutorials Group
Posts: 2692
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2004 10:30 pm

Post by Roja »

It sounds like a viable market niche, with a crowd that wants it.

I'll happily lend my support, time, and effort to building a new (Free software) OpenSpace software package. Anyone else that is interested, pm me.
User avatar
waradmin
Forum Contributor
Posts: 240
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2005 2:57 pm

Post by waradmin »

I didnt sell it for much. I guess the profit wasnt bad being as the website was only online for a few weeks but I listed it with bidding starting at $199.99 and buy it now set at $499.99

Chris, the new owner did a buy it now, so I made $499.99 off of it. A good chunk of money that I will put twards my new laptop.
User avatar
s.dot
Tranquility In Moderation
Posts: 5001
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2005 7:18 pm
Location: Indiana

Post by s.dot »

i've developed my own community website ShowMyPro (shameless plug) and it's what motivated me to learn PHP/SQL/HTML/CSS & a little bit of JavaScript (i knew nothing when I started). I wish it would be a little bit bigger, but I'm looking into doing a little bit of advertising soon so hopefully it will be. I don't know if it's just because i'm partial to ShowMyPro, or partial to the time/effort I put into it, or partial to it because it's my work.... but I don't think I'd sell it for a million dollars.
Set Search Time - A google chrome extension. When you search only results from the past year (or set time period) are displayed. Helps tremendously when using new technologies to avoid outdated results.
User avatar
waradmin
Forum Contributor
Posts: 240
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2005 2:57 pm

Post by waradmin »

What about for $580 million like myspace did? And you have 3000+ members, and probably more time than I do. Also you have ads. I didnt have ads, thus no revenue, which makes a big difference.
Post Reply