Has this website been sold?

Wow, I didn't hear about this. Chris, is anything planning on changing on the site??

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing, I saw the same article. I see the homepage is all updated, not much substance there though. A bunch of links that take you to peanut cures (there isn't one) and where to buy both peanut and peanut free cookies.
Gee for 10,000 members, doesn't seem like this board gets much activity lately? Must be 10,000 members since 10 years ago? Doesn't seem like many are here anymore.

Yes, yes! Do tell...full disclosure please. How much did you sell it for, Chris? Does this mean the new owners have rights to all the content here?

Guess so. Nobody is home.

Maybe I should rephrase the question...

is this website still alive?

Is there anybody out there

echo

echo

echo

I am waiting too.....

My husband & I were talking about this last night and he thought if the previous owner of this web site already sold it back in April, he may not be "allowed" by the new owner to even log in anymore. He's been long gone! I have no idea if this is true, but my husband seemed to think that could have been part of the contract...and that it makes sense...? I don't know-I certainly don't know anything about that kind of stuff.
Just a thought...

He is still the contact for advertising etc.

[url="http://www.peanutallergy.com/contactus.htm"]http://www.peanutallergy.com/contactus.htm[/url]

Even if that's the case this is still a great site with lots of supportive members! I appreciate all the knowledge you all still share with me and everyone else.

I haven't seen Chris log in, but it looks like Patti (or someone using Patti's screen name) has been posting alerts.

I've also posted a question asking Chris to fix the link to the terms of use for this website but so far, no response.

I just emailed Chris asking him to post a response here for us, as well as fix the link for the Terms of Use. Just so you know someone is attempting to contact the 'communications center'.

:)

Someone edited a post of mine recently where I posted a link to another food allergy message board. I post links to *this* message board elsewhere but if I can't post links to other boards here I"m probably going to stop positng links to this one elsewhere just to make things all the same.

Maybe it was a mistake, you should try again. There are soooo many good sites out there. Each has its own unique things to offer!

Originally Posted By: saknjmomMaybe it was a mistake, you should try again. There are soooo many good sites out there. Each has its own unique things to offer!

Are you talking to me? I'm sure it was NOT a mistake. I posted links to other boards here in the school forum. My posts were edited and the links were removed. the posts then said, "edited" on them where the links had been. There certainly are other good sites out there with lots of members and great info, etc. I would say that anyone interested should just google food allergy message board and you will find several. I know of at least 3 others that are quite good and have a lot more traffic.

I have no interest in posting links here if they are going to be deleted but I will also no longer be posting links to this board elsewhere. Bigger loss for this board IMO. I'm sure I have sent many a person this way. Short sighted policy IMO.

Originally Posted By: lakeswimrOriginally Posted By: saknjmomMaybe it was a mistake, you should try again. There are soooo many good sites out there. Each has its own unique things to offer!

Are you talking to me? I'm sure it was NOT a mistake. I posted links to other boards here in the school forum. My posts were edited and the links were removed. the posts then said, "edited" on them where the links had been. There certainly are other good sites out there with lots of members and great info, etc. I would say that anyone interested should just google food allergy message board and you will find several. I know of at least 3 others that are quite good and have a lot more traffic.

I have no interest in posting links here if they are going to be deleted but I will also no longer be posting links to this board elsewhere. Bigger loss for this board IMO. I'm sure I have sent many a person this way. Short sighted policy IMO.

That's odd! Let's test it out. I visit

[url="http://allergy.hyper"]http://allergy.hyper[/url] boards.com/index.php

OH - I SEE it won't even show that boards name! It comes up as censored??

well it's

www. food allergy support. com - just take out the spaces! Yikes...I have never seen a URL blocked on a board...it's not like it's porn! LOL

a lot and have found it particularly helpful in the school area, recipes, and just general support for people/parents dealing with peanut AND other life threatening food allergies. There are boards set up for many major allergens and even EE!

Why on earth would another allergy site be censored?

It's a long story but yes, that "other" food allergy board is censored here.

Wow, I have to admit I'm a little concerned about the censorship stuff. I remember reading a post with a link removed and wondered what that was all about.

Regardless, I appreciate the people who post here and offer their wisdom and experiences.

SarahB typed in an allergy site with 'hyper' in the url. Please feel free to manually type it in and have a look. It is also a wonderful site with a high volume of traffic and knowledge, especially on schools and 504's.

There are many great sites for allergy folks to come together on!

KSLaru, I feel the same way about others here! :)

It's not odd for a site to have a rule against posting links to 'competing' boards. This is a business of sorts after all. It would be like standing in K-mart and handing out Wal-Mart flyers. You're directing traffic away from the board. I belong to other message boards that strictly enforce the same rule.

And let's face it, there is bad blood in this case. Maybe not everyone knows about it, actually I hope not everyone posting on this thread knows. I'd hate to think people are just trying to stir things up again here and that they're genuinely being clueless.

If the site has been sold, will the [i]new [/i]owners will allow links to other sites, even competing ones?

It isn't exactly like giving Walmart coupons in Kmart. Gina's site has a discussion forum, as do other sites linked from here, and are all non profit. The censored site is also not there to make money.

The value of this site is due to the members putting in their time to help people, I think that's a great cause and a great feeling to contribute to someone else who needs allergy help.

Problem is that in thinking we were just "helping" we were unknowingly adding value to the site while the owner sat back and did very little to contribute. So, he made $$$$ on his members without ever contributing in any meaningful way. Other than giving us a forum to share information. That just seems wrong.

If you're interested in pure good information, support and not working hard so someone else can profit, think about what you're doing.

I may be wrong about kidswithfoodallergies being non profit. they do seem to be charging a fee these days.
BUT there is a whole topic here asking for links to other sites.
So, what's the problem?

While I respect that everyone has a right to their opinion, I fail to see how this constant referral to other sites is helping people who choose to come here for their support. Please remember that we choose to be here and many of us have remained even though there are other sites. Please respect our right to do that.

Hello Everyone. My name is Victor Belonogoff and I run Deep Dive Media which recently acquired this site. We are focused on the development of web portals and online communities which aim to make a positive impact on our world. We have a network of sites that focus on Healthcare and Alternative Energies. Some example areas are Fertility, Addiction, Eating Disorders, and Lymphoma.

Our goal is to continue to grow this site and over the next few months we plan to add more content and more community features. If there are any questions please let me know.

Thanks so much. Have a great day.

Originally Posted By: SkyMomWhile I respect that everyone has a right to their opinion, I fail to see how this constant referral to other sites is helping people who choose to come here for their support. Please remember that we choose to be here and many of us have remained even though there are other sites. Please respect our right to do that.

I don't think there is anything wrong with being here. Of course not. But it is also very good to know of other message boards--esp those that have very high traffic where you can get many, many replies from very experienced FA parents on a huge variety of topics. If people here are satisfied here that's great. Many people who post on FA message boards post on multiple boards. It isn't an 'either/or' situation but a both/and. The more links posted here I am sure the more links to this board posted elsewhere so linking is only going to increase traffic here IMO.

Originally Posted By: vicbHello Everyone. My name is Victor Belonogoff and I run Deep Dive Media which recently acquired this site. We are focused on the development of web portals and online communities which aim to make a positive impact on our world. We have a network of sites that focus on Healthcare and Alternative Energies. Some example areas are Fertility, Addiction, Eating Disorders, and Lymphoma.

Our goal is to continue to grow this site and over the next few months we plan to add more content and more community features. If there are any questions please let me know.

Thanks so much. Have a great day.

Thanks for posting. I would recommend you start to allow people to post links to other boards here. Good luck with your venture.

Will we be updating the forum with a new technology in a few months. It will protect the site from Spam and Bots posting unrelated links but it will allow members who have been a part of this forum for some time to reference related sites.

Originally Posted By: vicb If there are any questions please let me know.

Hi, Mr. Belonogoff~

I do have a question: when we post on this board do the contents of our posts become the property of Deep Dive Media?

Thanks.

Hello.

The answer is no. We do not claim any ownership rights of any content that is posted on any of our sites. For example, if you decided to post a poem that you wrote here you would still own the rights to that poem.

I hope this helps.

Vic

I have to say that is very refreshing to hear. There was great concern about this in the past.

Being upfront and answering questions is the number one thing you can do to create trust by your members.

If you don't mind me asking a question, this is still a for-profit site? Thanks in advance....

Originally Posted By: vicbHello.

The answer is no. We do not claim any ownership rights of any content that is posted on any of our sites. For example, if you decided to post a poem that you wrote here you would still own the rights to that poem.

I hope this helps.

Vic

But now that I look over the legal statement, it seems to say something different, unless of course I'm not understanding it properly:

[i]You hereby grant to PeanutAllergy.com a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual license, with right to sublicense, to reproduce, distribute, transmit, create derivative works of, publicly display and publicly perform any materials and other information you submit to the website by all means and in any media now known or hereafter developed for any use or purpose.[/i]

I will definitely make sure and check in to make sure everything is answered. This site is a part of our business. Most of the revenue generated goes to pay our staff of writers. Our goal is to make all of our sites content rich and not overloaded with advertisements. We will continue to add articles and content every month.

Thanks.

Vic

These terms are pretty standard for online sites. You own the rights but gives us a non-exclusive license to it. One of the reasons these terms became standard for online communities was to protect the website itself. For example, let's say a writer working for a site posted a new article on the main website. Then a community member says they want the article taken down because they posted something similar 4 years ago on the community message board. It would be almost impossible to check all posts before a new article was written.

I hope that answers your question.

Vic

Hi Victor - Thanks for answering our questions. Just to double check on the legal stuff, if I read it correctly, by allowing you all non-exclusive royalty free rights, it means you can use our posts without worrying about us claiming copyright violation, but if we decide to post or publish our own personal posts elsewhere, we could still do that.

If that's what it means, it makes sense to me. I figure when you post to the internet it's basically using up first publication rights anyway.

By the way, you should probably know that there is some bad blood between the previous owner and some of the long-time posters. Ancient history now, but this community is still recovering. Things that might help would be to enable pm's and allow folks to link to other allergy sites.

The previous owner tried to stop a mass exodus by preventing people from communicating about other sites. He banned certain people from posting at all, censored links to other sites, removed email addresses from profiles and disabled pm's. As you might image, this had the opposite effect!

At this point, I hope people are willing to come back together with a common goal of helping each other - no matter which website we consider our main "home."

Edited to add: And as long as I'm trotted out a wish list, it would be helpful to allow editing of posts beyond the 10 day limit. :)

Victor,

Thanks for clarifying and answering questions here. Can you tell me if the previous owner(s) are still in a site adminstrator capacity, and if not, what capacity if any are they in?

Thanks!

Hello,

You are correct. Since you own the rights to your content you are free to post it on other sites as well. I have increased the editing time to 3 months for now. We are just being careful about any major changes as we will be moving to a better system in a few months. I hope this helps.

-Vic

Hello,

Deep Dive Media now owns the site and we are now 100% in control of administration.

Thanks.

Vic

This is an important point for many people, so I'll just come out and ask it, are the Papkee's involved in this site in anyway at all now?

Thanks Vic, the fact that you're answering questions is great!

I do not mind answering these questions. My pleasure. Just to clarify, Deep Dive Media now runs the site. We are developing and own all the content on the main site (not the message board - as mentioned before the users own their own content). We control all site features and functions. The Papkee's are still members of the boards and can post as users.

--Vic

Thank you Vic.