Today I would like to ask you a simple question: what happens to reader appreciation when you a sell a site that has readers? Does the old site owner have any obligation to those readers? Does the new site owner have any obligation to those readers? Should the readers themselves expect anything from such a sale? Should the readers expect anything to change or remain the same during and after the sale?

To help you come up with some answers, let me tell you a story that happened not long ago: this is the a partial story of Gravatar.

Example: The 6 Gravatar volunteers, and the Gravatar Sale

I found out recently that Gravatar had been sold to Automattic, the company behind WordPress. On some levels it was kind of a good news for me, as that would probably mean that Gravatar would be developed further and would be around. On one level, it made me wonder as to what will happen to the people who helped run Gravatar in the beginning. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, none of the people who helped run Gravatar before besides the owner, Tom, were mentioned or thanked.

There were 6 people who helped run Gravatar at one point when Tom was not around. These 6 people were the only people running and rating every image on Gravatar for a long time, specially in times when the original owner was not around. I was one of those 6 original people, and this post is a part of my thoughts about this situation. We spent around 8-12 hours every day running the image approval system and managing the forums. I sent an e-mail to Tom recently about the sale, and the e-mail bounced back; I’m guessing his Gravatar e-mail does not work anymore. I think I cannot ask Matt about this as Matt can rightfully say “Who the heck are you? You are not part of this deal.” Matt would not be wrong at all in saying that in this situation. That makes me think more about whether the entire responsibility lies on Tom’s shoulders, if there is any responsibility at all.

Does reader appreciation persist after the Gravatar sale?

When I think about the sale, it makes me wonder about whether or not any appreciation should exist for the volunteers, and whether or not the person selling the site is responsible for it. For example, it is as if I volunteered with the Red Cross; I volunteer a lot and do all the work, and when the paid staff comes to take over the project after the storm has died, I am not remembered until another storm is on its way. Tom has thanked us in the past. The original Gravatar blog however has been deleted, and the new blog by Matt Automattic does not mention us at all.

I think it is not the responsibility of Automattic or Matt to keep in mind the volunteers who may have run the project for free for Tom. That is the responsibility of Tom. Tom himself, however, has indeed thanked us once and gave us Pro subscription to Gravatar for whenever the Pro version came out, so another question rises as to whether or not appreciation stops at some point.

Original mention of the 6 volunteers deleted completely from annals of history

It would have been nice if the people who ran the site completely, for when Tom was not around for person reasons, and the people who kept sanity around all Gravatar used in the world, were mentioned and not completely erased off the charts. No more mention, no more thanks, no more names; on top of that, all the previous mention and connections have been deleted, as the original Gravatar blog has been deleted.

The Lucky/Unlucky 6 - Thank you!

For some of history to at least stay alive, let me list the other volunteers who at one time ran the entire Gravatar rating system and the Gravatar forums for when Tom was not around and for when the blogosphere would have come to a screeching halt had the 6 of us not kept the things in balance [ok, may that is an over-dramatization, but it paints a good picture to make things more clear, no?]:

1. http://blog.maltese.net - “Chris :: wired”
2. http://spoken-for.org
3. http://www.thereasoner.com [me]
4. http://www.lookanothersite.com
5. http://desinformados.net/blog - Álvaro Castaño
6. http://www.geeklimit.com/

[quoted from the original Gravatar feed where Tom thanked us openly in April of 2006, which is still available]. Thank you my fellow bloggers for helping run Gravatar in the past. I would have had monsters in my nightmares have unapproved Gravatar over their heads, were it not for the 5 of you to help also and rate images, helping keep the entire bulk of the load away from me.

What do you think?

Gravatar is a good example of a situation where one can ponder about the issue of whether or not reader appreciation exists or stops after a site sale. I think it should exist forever. At least that is what I think; maybe the other 6 original volunteers have a different view on this. Tom does not owe us anything, unless you subscribe to the view that appreciation is owed to readers or helpers. Similarly, Matt and Automattic do not owe anything to the 6 people, as they probably do not even know the 6 exist.

What do you think? Do you think readers or people who help run the site should be part of a site forever? Should volunteers expect anything when they are helping?

At least I can be proud to say I’m one of the only 7 people in history who spent almost every day for a long time rating and labeling every image submitted by thousands of Gravatar users. I am still using Gravatar; I have not changed my original Gravatar image for about 2 or 3 years now [I cannot remember exactly], and Gravatar has worked very well for me. I probably approved your Gravatar image too during that time.

Thank you Tom, Matt & the Automattic Team

Regardless of this situation so far, I am and will continue using Gravatar as it is a very nice service. Thanks Tom for having us onboard in the past; it was actually an honor for all of us, or most of us including myself. Thank you Matt and Automattic for buying the service, as now the service can continue and hopefully we will see some better integration with WordPress.

Thank you for reading everyone.

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