MetaFilter: Grand Royal experiment

January 14, 2004 7:30 AM

What if everyone ponied up, say, five bucks to a PayPal account? That's $70K. We make that our max bid, and if we lose, we either get it back or make a donation to a music charity.

While the MetaFilter: Grand Royal experiment sounds noble, it would likely have to be conducted "off-site, yet in spirit". (Unless Matt's anxious for another burgeoning project to worry over...)

So how do we bell this cat, and how many brave mice want to participate?
posted by Smart Dalek to Etiquette/Policy at 7:30 AM (10 comments total)

I'm betting either Moby, the guy who played Frodo, or one of the majors outbids, but I'm in for $10.
posted by hackly_fracture at 8:10 AM on January 14, 2004

make the address and post it. I'd post your contact info too, however, so we know where to find you if you steal our cash.
posted by angry modem at 8:18 AM on January 14, 2004

Will it be as wildy successful as this?
posted by boost ventilator at 8:21 AM on January 14, 2004

I think it's better to find out who'd interested in taking part in the co-op effort first, and moving on from there. Throwing up a a tipping jar in the spirit of Star Wars Kid's iPod is one thing, but I'd feel more comfortable
if one of the elder MeFites oversaw the do-ray-mi...
posted by Smart Dalek at 9:05 AM on January 14, 2004

This is complicated. Ownership of these assets, particularly the IP and the contracts, by a loose conglomerate of MeFites is a recipe for disaster. I don't mean to be a downer, but this is a bad idea. (Assuming, of course, that we could put together the money to even make the bid deposit, much less put in a reasonable bid. Unlikely.) We would be much better served by forming an LLP or closed corporation and having that organization purchase the assets. Interested MeFites could buy into the organization.

Too little time for that, of course, if the assets actually sell by the end of the auction.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:20 AM on January 14, 2004

I don't mean to be a downer, but this is a bad idea.

Agreed.

Spoken like a true law student. ;-)
posted by anathema at 9:51 AM on January 14, 2004

i'd be up for it tho! I wanna be a musiclabelmogul (for a hundred bucks worth).
posted by dabitch at 12:36 PM on January 14, 2004

There are nothing like 17000 active members. This has been repeated so often I dunno why people still believe it.

How many there are, I don't know, but it's got to be a fairly small percentage of the nearly 18K that have registered. I'd guess not far off 1000, but that could be wildly inaccurate.

Still, you're gonna need a lot more than $5 per person.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:16 PM on January 14, 2004

There are nothing like 17000 active members. This has been repeated so often I dunno why people still believe it.

The same reason that people still believe that clearing out unused accounts would allow new sign ups are that there's a one-to-one relationship between user numbers and number of users.

I heard from a very reliable source that there's about 3,000 "active" members, with active meaning that they've logged in in the last year. Some of them are no doubt duplicates.

If "active" making an average of one comment per day, there's probably fewer than 200.
posted by timeistight at 3:57 PM on January 14, 2004

Well, in that case, you'd need $100 a person for a low bid.
posted by rich at 12:26 PM on January 16, 2004