User: Admin...

[Kaytee]

well said Jtee. It has nothing to do with Sanjay, and Sanjay you need to relax a bit. No one is saying anything bad about what you did. You did nothing that I am aware of. You bought a forum, and probably want to make it more successful. As do we. It has nothing to do with the forums, the forums being sold, or even the moderation thing. if you want us to resign, then say it, since every time we say something you assume it means we do not want to moderate. I'm fairly confidnet to say that we all enjoy what we are doing or we wouldn't do it. And to say that this does not take a few hours a week, it does!!! We have had many out breaks of trolls and we have to make sure it stays mellow. It has nothing to do with any of that though. It only has to do with that Tom did not tell us ANYTHING. usually he is quick to solve problems for us or help us in any way he can. Any time we have a concern, he answers the problem, but now he is just gone. For whatever reason. Hec maybe he is out of town for the holididays still. I don't know.
That is the whole point of this thread! Again it has nothing to do with you or that you bought this forum.

 

[sanjay]

Sorry for getting worked up in my post. I appreciate what you guys do as moderators because I realize how many little things it takes to make a forum as good as this one.

Can we start again?

 

[Kaytee]

absolutely! As I said this has nothing to do with you. As of now it seems that you care about your forums and you have done nothing to bother any of us. Of course I am speaking for myself there, but.....
I am sure we will all be just fine and this forum is going to continue to grow as it is pretty new as of now.

 

[fallon]

Sorry for getting worked up in my post. I appreciate what you guys do as moderators because I realize how many little things it takes to make a forum as good as this one.

Can we start again?

I think that would be a good idea

 

[jtee]

Since Tom is not able, or not willing, to speak for himself, I feel no hesitation to speculate as to what happened. Tom can correct me if I am wrong. And if I owe him an apology later on, I give it to him at some future date.

Sanjay probably is a savvy business person always on the lookout for good Internet business opportunities. He monitors domains\forums that are coming up for renewal and makes last minute offers to take over forums like ParentingForums.org for a few 100. Sanjay contacted Tom and made an offer. Tom probably wasn't looking for a buyer when he was contacted by Sanjay, for whatever reason, the offer allowed Tom to cut his looses (and responsibility). Tom most likely only had a couple days decide to take the deal, or continue on as owner.

This kind of transaction is somewhat similar to people who have property\land\house\etc they can't afford to keep, someone offers them a modest amount of $$$ to take it off there hands. The seller loose their investment they have made, but take the deal because they are faced with the problem of growing deeper in debt and continued stress\responsibility.

If that is how it went down, I'm cool with it because it's just business, not personal. By not contacting us, Tom didn't explore his options even remotely. I would have offered to invested a few thousand of my money if Tom had even commented was considering selling or feeling a financial strain. I highly suspect that Sanjay was able to get this domain for very little money. Hell, if Tom signed it over for $0.00, I'd be OK with if he bothered to say something on his own behalf rather than hand over the keys to front door and then disappear out the back. It's not a matter of justifying himself to us (or anyone), it is a matter of being a stand-up man and stating he made a decision.

Of course if Tom is currently in a hospital in a coma or something along those lines, then well, his silence on the matter is understandable. If he simply out of town visiting friends\family, I think he could have found the time, and a way, to post a message or send an email.

The only other possibility I can come up with would be depression. I don't know if he suffers from it, but I know it is a very debilitating\paralyzing problem, so if that is a factor, maybe it is best for him not concern himself with the forum any further for health reasons.

 

[sanjay]

I am trying to be patient with you, but you frustrate me with your needless public speculation. It is a holiday and Tom is probably with his family relaxing. The only cause for drama is you and your inane ramblings. Maybe he will never show up to post- what then? Do we have to keep reading about your guesses? Even if you do apologize to Tom, what does that do for me and the fact that you keep characterizing me as some sort of shady domain hustler? I do not appreciate it.

I do not even know how to look up renewals for domain names and I don't think anyone would sell such a nice forum for a few bucks. It is none of your business what I paid, but suffice it to say that it was over a few thousand dollars.

I am the owner now and you have to decide if you can live with this fact even if Tom never comes back. I have emailed him begging him to post so that you can move on.

I would prefer to have discussions about this forum and how to make it better and what features we can add.

Since Tom is not able, or not willing, to speak for himself, I feel no hesitation to speculate as to what happened. Tom can correct me if I am wrong. And if I owe him an apology later on, I give it to him at some future date.

Sanjay probably is a savvy business person always on the lookout for good Internet business opportunities. He monitors domainsforums that are coming up for renewal and makes last minute offers to take over forums like ParentingForums.org for a few 100. Sanjay contacted Tom and made an offer. Tom probably wasn't looking for a buyer when he was contacted by Sanjay, for whatever reason, the offer allowed Tom to cut his looses (and responsibility). Tom most likely only had a couple days decide to take the deal, or continue on as owner.

This kind of transaction is somewhat similar to people who have propertylandhouseetc they can't afford to keep, someone offers them a modest amount of $$$ to take it off there hands. The seller loose their investment they have made, but take the deal because they are faced with the problem of growing deeper in debt and continued stressresponsibility.

If that is how it went down, I'm cool with it because it's just business, not personal. By not contacting us, Tom didn't explore his options even remotely. I would have offered to invested a few thousand of my money if Tom had even commented was considering selling or feeling a financial strain. I highly suspect that Sanjay was able to get this domain for very little money. Hell, if Tom signed it over for $0.00, I'd be OK with if he bothered to say something on his own behalf rather than hand over the keys to front door and then disappear out the back. It's not a matter of justifying himself to us (or anyone), it is a matter of being a stand-up man and stating he made a decision.

Of course if Tom is currently in a hospital in a coma or something along those lines, then well, his silence on the matter is understandable. If he simply out of town visiting friendsfamily, I think he could have found the time, and a way, to post a message or send an email.

The only other possibility I can come up with would be depression. I don't know if he suffers from it, but I know it is a very debilitatingparalyzing problem, so if that is a factor, maybe it is best for him not concern himself with the forum any further for health reasons.

 

[Kaytee]

Jtee-I don't know what Tom's reasons are and frankly it doesn't really matter anymore. I think we should just move on and continue to support Parenting forums.org thats about all we can do.
I did not start helping this board because of Tom, but what Tom started. I like the way this board is done, I enjoy being on it and enjoy the people on it! Yes even Fooser who we have all grown to like. lol
I say we just move on

 

[jtee]

You're OK with it if he disappears without any further explanation?

 

[Kaytee]

I have to admit that it bothers me some that he hasn't said anything, sure. But the forum is still going strong. He has been MIA lately anyways with work and the baby. I talked to him about 2 weeks ago and that was the last time. I guess, I just feel we can't let the reasons behind it get to us. Again the forum is still here, so we can either dwell on the fact that Tom is not the owner or we can get together with Sanjay and keep the forum growing. yk?

 

[fallon]

You're OK with it if he disappears without any further explanation?

jtee I think what she's saying is the board is what's important, not why Tom sold it or what he's doing now...That's his business not ours

 

[fallon]

we did it again

 

[Kaytee]

exactly. Why dwell on it, we need to still do our best to keep this board growing. And it sure is, geez remember just a few months ago we had like 4 regulars.

 

[sanjay]

So I think I have an explanation (somewhat). When we moved the forums we did not move the email for Tom@parentingforums.org This means he has not received any messages (including mine) that were sent to that address.

I just checked the emails I had from Tom regarding the sale and he had asked me to contact him on his personal email since he would be traveling and on his blackberry. I just sent him a message on that email.

 

[Kaytee]

I have only tried once on pm, but.....thanks for letting us know Sanjay

 

[jtee]

My issue is not with Sanjay and his business dealings with Tom, nor $$$ details of their transaction. I agree it appears that Sanjay has the resources to do things Tom couldn't afford to do, so I am in full support of that. My issue is that if a person(Tom) has a domain\forum and has volunteers that donate their time 7 days a week to maintain it, there is a basic level of professional courtesy involved when the domain changes hands; if owner can't afford to pay people, then at the very least they should be treated professionally and with respect. You shouldn't consider my comments directed at Sanjay or other mods\admins, you should read them as comments publicly directed at Tom. I know what I am doing here, and it has to do with the dynamics involved with effective on-line communication. He needs hear semi-publicly that how this handoff has been handled up to this point wasn't professional because I was keeping a close eye on things; I quickly noticed that ParentingForums.org had been moved to another web hosting site (dreamhost.com), and the domain was transferred into Sanjay's name. We should have been informed in advance that this was going to happen, that is being professional. Such things should never go unnoticed for reasons I have stated in a previous post. You should consider learning how to detect such changes, I think you have the potential\aptitude to do this professionally and get paid for your good work.

 

[sanjay]

I finally got a hold of Tom and he will be posting soon. He was waiting to hear from me if I was OK with him discussing the transaction, I was but I kept emailing him at the no longer functioning parentingforums email.

 

[Kaytee]

again, to me it's not a big deal. but it will be nice to hear from Tom regardless

 

[fallon]

thanks for keeping us up to date sanjay

 

[jtee]

I understand, and accept, that my perspective on this is very different than everyone's else. I do think such things need to be handled professionally and attention to these kind of details makes a difference in the level of success, even when it is not a popular decision.

 

[Tom1]

Hi all. Wow ... so sorry that the way this happened caused confusion and frustration.

Sanjay hit the nail on the head with regards to why I have not responded ... I no longer had access to the @parentingforums.org email causing miscommunication between him and myself. I am completely inexperienced in this kind of thing and took his "lack of response" as an indication that he didn't want me back here posting anything ... I felt responsibility to explain but I also had made a deal with Sanjay and felt obligated to respect his wishes (as I understood them). The transition happened quickly over a few days and the entire situation was magnified by the holidays and traveling as speculated.

So, again I apologize and I doubt I'll address every point that has been brought up in the thread but I'll mainly try to give the explanation I had hoped to initially.

jtee is right that I was not pursuing a buyer for the forums. Sanjay emailed via the contact us form and we talked a bit about his forum network idea and the possibility of parentingforums.org being part of it. As you know, lately I have not had the time nor resources to devote to the forum. This weighed heavily on me but I did not want to shut down the forum since it was active and growing despite me (and therefore I hope doing some good). I had anticipated my increased workload would be temporary but nothing seems to be letting up and (when I'm honest with myself) I see no end in sight. So Sanjay's offer was starting to make sense and him being a successful forum developer gave me confidence that the forum would be in good hands. It keeps the forum alive and growing and potentially makes it part of something new & cool with the Crowdgather project.

There has already been a lot of understanding expressed in this thread and I am extremely grateful for that. Sorry for the rocky transition.