The Rebel Faction

Biff you don't seem to understand intellectual property at all. I'm not trying to be mean, but you're pretty much blatantly wrong

The legal issue is still very real.

No. They aren't really.

Until Bob, who despite the contributions of others, still owns the legal rights to the Portal, gets the idea that it'd be really neat to charge people a five dollar registration fee to acess the portal. This incurs not just financial responsibility for the domain, but also grants the owner a near-impossible-to-dispute claim to any profits. Maybe the Admins gripe and get a small piece of the cake, but this says nothing of the members...

Bob owns the web space and domain. That's all he owns. He can put on whatever content he wants, so long as it is legal. Why would anyone charge an access fee? At this point, the rational people immediately cut Bob out of the picture and either move to dissolve the ring and found their own or they simply move to dissolve.

And that's just one more example of a legal conflict.

There isn't anything legal about the conflict. One person is being a dick with thier webspace.

1. The Portal must have a ToU which protects the rights of each board and its members. This can be supplementary to each boards own ToU but serves to protect against Incorporation.
2. It can't be a webring. Believe it or not, that incorporates us. Especially with a wide-distribution of funds going to pay for the thing. You may not believe it, but this will remove a certian amount of independant idenity. This is not a 3rd party showcase, it is a Portal (a term I did not chose to use).

You have no idea how legal incorporation works. You can't legally incorporate anything without filing in a valid state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_%28business%29
All of your legal concerns are bunk.

It seems I have.

A little brutal, perhaps. This is all I was asking for in the start, mind you. Seemingly confident in what's posted above I'll fall silent now.

I still contend that there is an issue here. As I have no legal training I won't go on defending a hopeless point. It would help if someone with those skills, however, were to examin the potential pitfalls. If a good-for-nothing like me can see a flaw, and others appear to have at least partially understood what I was getting at; then it is probably good indication that anaylisis is required. Perhaps not.

Carry on.

Indeed.

I think it is important to keep in mind that most of these communities formed because of "splits" from other forums. I think it's also important to note the name stamped on the proposal; Unity. There seems to be a conflict there, even if it manifests as a Portal.

And to what purpose? We all we know that we exist. How do we improve our chances of pulling in new mebers with one page, when as it is we stand a much greater chance with 5? I mean, yeah, it'll be certianly condusive to member exchange... but could that become a conflict later on?

I'm probably wrong, hell, I often am. Even if I'm defending a hopeless point...

I'll shaddup now.

I think that each forum hosting an 'affiliation page,' or call it whatever you like, so that there isn't just ONE page with links and the information, but 5++ is the best idea. That way a lurker can find a place to go through that many different places, instead of just one place.

The board admins who wish to participate would make their link button available and write up a blurb of description. Well, as long as the description didn't say "We're so much better than X site, because we don't suck!" We're all adults (mostly) so I'm sure there shouldn't be any problem making it work.

http://swf-agglomeration.net/sigs/affiliations.jpg mocked this up real quick. The lime green outside bit is just for fun.