# State of BL 2011 (Ownership, Finances, Direction)



## TheLoveBandit

Friends, members, lurkers, and staff, here is the state of BL as of 2011:

Due to member donations and partnerships on research studies, the site was able to meet it's debt for 2010 by late January. Then our focus turned to a new contract for 2011 with our host, and for us a new management. We extend our thanks and appreciation to johnboy for all he's done for the site over the years and wish him well in his future endeavors with Enlighten and PillReports.com (for now we continue to host their discussion forums for them).

*Ownership*
As we enter 2011, we are moving the site under new management, which to a large degree is no real change for site operations or user experience. The principals behind the new ownership are Sebastians_Ghost and TheLoveBandit. Our intent is that the site continues to be governed by the admin team who make the policies and manage site evolution, while these two principals tend to the off-line or behind-the-scenes work of keeping the site afloat such as handling donations, server payments, hardware or software upgrades (with the engineers), public relations with research and the harm reduction community globally. The point here is that all your day to day concerns with staff or forum functionality should continue to be directed as it always has been, to your mods and sr. staff, with the admin holding the collective responsibility for these areas.  Meanwhile, concerns over who is legally responsible for the site and charged with the handling of monies is in the hands of these two principles under the advisement of a larger team.  This board of advisers will be comprised of the principals, the admin group, and the engineers for now.  We'll take a moment here to also point out chr1.5 and thank him for agreeing to comeback on staff as an engineer to work with hoptis on the technical side of things.  Those wondering who he is, and if he can be trusted, ought take a look in the "Thank You Staff" of BoBL for his background 

*Financial*
We are keeping our servers in the Netherlands under a new contract which has provided us improved hardware and lower billing.  Under the new arrangement we owe our host 1050 euro per quarter.  Between the Inflexxion survey and our member donations, we managed to pay not only for Q1 of 2011, but also Q2 while having a little in the bank to be ready for Q3 when the time comes.  Our donation bar and web page have been updated accordingly.

Going forward, we've stripped out the donation methods tied to johnboy and enlighten, and are working to implement new payment systems.  We hope to have these available to you soon, and you'll see this thread updated when these become available.  We are fortunate to have the luxury of some time in getting this addressed.

While we hope to have member donations available again soon, we would like to share that we have secured a contract with Inflexxion to run several more surveys over the course of the year for set amounts which will help with our hosting needs.  As mentioned in the earlier version of the SUPPORT donations thread, we'd rather not specify how much they give so as to not influence our negotiations for other research opportunities.  Every bit of money helps, but we also will remain loyal to our membership by not selling out, and remaining sensitive to the frequency of survey's being run (we wouldn't want to fatigue the members in this way).

*So What's the Big Picture?*
Someone was wise enough to ask



> What exactly is the goal for Bluelight?
> 
> Are we trying to maintain and enhance the current system we have, a discussion community based around HR?
> 
> Are we going the "legitimate" (non-profit?) HR route, where we publish HR material online and perhaps even IRL, among other things?



To answer the question, we say "both."  

You could read back to the the FAQ on what we are, and that's still the main goal - building unbiased information about drug use and sharing it with the worldwide community.  We're seeing two branches where this can be addressed - one is supporting research that can lead to recognizable facts about drug use beyond bias.  The other is to continue the current system of a discussion community, but enabling it to act on the ideas that have been raised.

Legal policy is not the agenda, never has been and shouldn't be now either.  We want to be the best we can at gathering this information, getting it into a factual context, and getting it available to everyone.  Becoming legitimate, this will help our goals so we can seek to be cited in research work (this draws more our way, both researchers AND people wanting the facts) and can be done also by providing a reference point for people wanting the anecdotal the published or both.


*Other*
We'd like to thank you all once again for your past support for the site in terms of research participation, monetary donations, and general site content with the support you all provide for one another in our many forums.  We look forward to the change in management which should energize the site with direction and purpose, creating opportunities for learning, sharing, and bonding with many more members while keeping our home the cozy community that so many of us have grown to love.  We'll keep you updated with our financial situation, our plans for growth, as well as where you fit into all we've got going on.  Thank you, and we'll see you for a long time to come!  :D




For a discussion of this ANNOUNCEMENT, please see the thread in SUPPORT - State of BL 2011 (Ownership, Finances, Direction)

As donation methods become available, you can access them on our DONATIONS page


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