Guys, I wish there was some way to recover the dozen or so hours spent over the last 2 days writing long posts that then become obsolete by the time they are ready to send! I'm sure I'm not the only one who is in that boat. A serious whirlwind of activity that has gone down, and thanks to the core (methods et. al) who have been at work nonstop both behind the scenes and on the front lines here instigating actions and keeping the rest of us up to date. What a crazy testament this has been to the integrity of this community and its firm belief in what it stands for.
Asides from a few posts early on the open letter, I wasn't exactly planning to become involved in the negotiations. I'm not an ES mod nor have I had any role at all in the shape, running, or operation of this site. But I do have a massively vested interest in almost everything that goes down here, and by the end of this evening have now had a chance to talk extensively with most of the people involved. Asides from Luke, Methods, Greenwheels, and Fetcher, that also includes Trevor, who has been by and large very forthcoming.
Trevor as we know purchased the ES site from KnightMB several months ago, without a) having ever met him face to face, or b) having discussed or shared this info with others. The amount that he paid is protected from disclosure by an NDA as is usual for these types of sales, but you can be sure that it is a large sum of money based on the valuations you would get for an ad and membership supported forum of this size.
Whether he did this out of Naivety, sensing business opportunity, a bona fide desire to improve the forum experience for new people getting into ebikes, or some combination of those, it's very clear that he had no idea AT ALL what he was actually getting into. At the time of the public letter post he thought that most of the moderators were at least tentatively onboard (they had known about it for several weeks) and that KnightMB was at his side for sure, to ensure a smooth transaction to a monetized style of self supporting and potentially profitable website.
When the nature of the open letter posts started to get difficult KnightMB vanished from the scene. Trevor sent increasingly frantic emails pleading for support that went unanswered. It's quite probable that that is part of why Trevor appeared to be evading key sticky points early on, since he was waiting or counting on something from KnightMB. This silence didn't help at all with the overall reception and once Andy popped up then we all know how quickly things went down after that.
Asides from a few posts early on the open letter, I wasn't exactly planning to become involved in the negotiations. I'm not an ES mod nor have I had any role at all in the shape, running, or operation of this site. But I do have a massively vested interest in almost everything that goes down here, and by the end of this evening have now had a chance to talk extensively with most of the people involved. Asides from Luke, Methods, Greenwheels, and Fetcher, that also includes Trevor, who has been by and large very forthcoming.
Trevor as we know purchased the ES site from KnightMB several months ago, without a) having ever met him face to face, or b) having discussed or shared this info with others. The amount that he paid is protected from disclosure by an NDA as is usual for these types of sales, but you can be sure that it is a large sum of money based on the valuations you would get for an ad and membership supported forum of this size.
Whether he did this out of Naivety, sensing business opportunity, a bona fide desire to improve the forum experience for new people getting into ebikes, or some combination of those, it's very clear that he had no idea AT ALL what he was actually getting into. At the time of the public letter post he thought that most of the moderators were at least tentatively onboard (they had known about it for several weeks) and that KnightMB was at his side for sure, to ensure a smooth transaction to a monetized style of self supporting and potentially profitable website.
When the nature of the open letter posts started to get difficult KnightMB vanished from the scene. Trevor sent increasingly frantic emails pleading for support that went unanswered. It's quite probable that that is part of why Trevor appeared to be evading key sticky points early on, since he was waiting or counting on something from KnightMB. This silence didn't help at all with the overall reception and once Andy popped up then we all know how quickly things went down after that.