Important News!!

Good question.

I'm closing it for two reasons - firstly, I think the site is going to disappear without warning when the owner/s realise they are not going to raise the money they hoped for, and then who knows where our data will end up? It sounds to me, from the amount of money they are trying to raise (given how little it would actually cost to keep the site going) that there is a desperation for funds outside of what the site needs - this may mean that the site, and all it contains, will be available to the highest bidder once the site folds. I have considered potentially buying the site myself, I have an idea or two on how it could be self-sufficient, and I think it will go for small money once they run out of funds. Secondly, I have been permanently banned from the forum I most frequently posted in on here, so not much point staying. There was a glorious week there where the site was modded relatively fairly, but, as I suspected, it couldn't last. Too many egos, and too many mods who's entire lives are this site.

I know nothing of these things, I'm a numbers guy not a techie, so take this with a pinch of salt (you sound like you know what you're talking about unlike me) but a quick convo with one of my staff who does know these things reckoned that he could reverse the site out of Vanilla (I'm paraphrasing here so am almost certainly not describing this well - I have no idea what Vanilla is outside of a flavour!) and put it back into some forum software, host it locally, and do everything else required to get it back running properly at a cost for the first year, including his time (I already have him on payroll) of less than €20k. He said it would probably cost much less (for hosting, maintenance etc.) in subsequent years.
If those costs are correct (and he's going to look further at it - this was a quick conversation I surprised him with), I believe I could have the site self sufficient at the very least. So if it does go bang, and the numbers work, I'll put in a bid for what's left.

I already have a staff of people who know what they're doing. For this project, the only additional costs to me would be a few extra hours to a tech guy, and some time for marketing, sales etc. and then the hosting and software costs (which I'm told are low). I already have these people working on other projects, it wouldn't be a new business, just a side project. It sounds from what was posted at the start of this thread that the person or people currently running it (badly) are on a fulltime salary - this site, certainly in its current from, can't support that. It's a hobby, not a business.