denim

I think he's right about the lurkers, Halx. Also, if people have nothing to say but are forced to speak, imagine the level of discourse. "Inane" would probably be a good word for it.

What we seem to be talking about here is part coffee house and part club house. Let's look at that.

Anyone can come into a coffee house, listen to the music, buy a drink, take off again. No biggie. Low investment by the house, some profit, yes?

The club house part comes in with the rest of it. Let the customers per se see and hear the things they can get involved in w/o participating at first. Make the club house invitation only, where those invited must pay dues. However, they've already proven themselves of interest from their participation in the coffee house, and they want to contribute. I've seen this kind of thing work.

You can even have higher levels of participation and contribution. Profit might be spread among the highest group, who would be effectively moderators of the rest. Even "garden variety" mods might not be in the profit group.

And there's got to be profit unless you're supporting this some other way.

The group I'm thinking of is in the Boston area, but there's a similar group in your area. NESFA is in the Boston area, LASFS is somewhere around LA. These are long-term science fiction clubs.

I'm a subscribing member of NESFA. This means I pay a little bit and get a newsletter. I don't participate at all, though I'm certainly welcome. I live too far from the clubhouse, a commercial building they own in Somerville MA, so participating is kinda difficult. But I used to participate more when I lived closer, and they know me.

They have two or three higher levels of membership, which you have to be invited to join. Invitations only happen after they've gotten to know you for a while from your participation and interest. Dues increase with the membership level. Top level membership comes with voting rights for the non-profit corporation they've formed to embody their club, which is what owns the building. Higher levels of membership also come with minimum participation levels, counted by the number of times you show up at the club house for meetings, versus the number you miss. You can be downgraded if you miss too many meetings. And your membership can go on hiatus if you move too far away, IIRC.

You'd go a somewhat different direction than they have, as your goals are different, I think. OTOH, you might do something similar. They run an annual science fiction convention, collect books for a private library for members, and publish books. You might do a periodic convention of TFP members similarly, publish your own magazine, and do other things as time goes by and things develop.

I suspect you might speak to Matt about the legal bits, since he's got to be familiar with at least some of them.