Thread: *********** Big Announcement! ***********

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to let everyone know that beginning next week the site and forum will be under new ownership. As many of you know I'm not around much here at all anymore due to other demanding commitments. I was approached by a party interested in buying the site just a few weeks ago, and then I listed it on an online listing to see what other offers were out there. After a couple weeks of negotiation involving 5 or so other parties, a price was reached that I couldn't refuse from a party who has experience managing communities larger than this, and who appears very interested in helping this community to grow.

By far the majority of the management of the forum has been conducted by our volunteer staff for quite some time now, and the new owner is interested in seeing that continue, so I believe things will pretty well remain as they always have. Inevitably there will be eventual changes, but the core of this place's atmosphere is the community itself. The community and the wonderful staff we have are what makes this place great, and the new owner is obviously interested in ensuring the forum remains an enjoyable experience for its users. To that end, of course the forum will continue to remain a free service for all.

I'm thrilled to have been at the helm of this site for such a long time. It began simply as a class project that I decided to put up on my domain in February of 2001 (one of the versions of the original site can be seen at http://www.dreamviews.com/old_site). A couple years later, since I was no longer able to keep up with the emails I received, I added a message board hoping members could simply interact with each other (you can see a screen shot of it when it was a couple days old at http://www.dreamviews.com/images_other/past_forum.gif). Many months later when I returned to check on things, I was completely surprised to see a community was actually starting to grow all on its own. Things have greatly changed since then of course, and this place has expanded quite a bit. There are many more opportunities for growth though--our main site can offer so much more content than it currently does--and I believe the new owner is the right person to ensure that takes place.

I've got a lot of great memories running this place (such as http://www.dreamviews.com/images_other/big_bunny.jpg and of course http://www.dreamviews.com/images_other/hah...hat_werburn.jpg) and I'm really going to miss it... I haven't had the time to interact with members on the board now for quite sometime and I really regret that...we've been fortunate to have a seemingly endless stream of awesome people sign up here. I really wish I could have stuck around until the 1 millionth post, but I'm just too busy and I really need the money for school so it is definitely time to move on. I'm very confident this place will remain enjoyable for members for many years to come. There have been a few rocky times in our past, but our great staff here have always helped us through and assisted in forging a very warm community that has fostered the development of many great friendships. I thank them immensely for their assistance over the years, and their continued presence leaves little to be concerned about for the community's future.

Your new owner, asher, will be introducing himself to the community sometime tomorrow. Please welcome him aboard and help him feel at home here. A discussion thread has been opened in the feedback forum at http://www.dreamviews.com/forum/inde...howtopic=44949 for any questions or comments. I would suggest everyone hold off until asher makes his introduction though, since in doing so he may very well answer some of your questions.


Thanks for everything everyone!

Ryan