As was mentioned toward the end of Episode 36.5 of Spam Spam Spam Humbug, Stratics — the original Ultima Online fansite and still the most active UO-related forums around — had been purchased by its own moderation staff. (You’ll hopefully recall that the site was put up for sale toward the end of 2015, and that the moderators launched a crowdfunding campaign to facilitate their purchase of it shortly thereafter.)

And while I initially thought that said campaign had failed — based on the fact that Stratics ultimately sold for over $16,000, whereas the campaign raised a bit over $12,000 — it turns out that they did in fact succeed in purchasing the site. And since that time, they have migrated it to new servers, are working on updating the site documentation, and are also looking to hire some new team members:

Since the successful crowdfunding campaign and purchase of Stratics, the senior staff have been in near-constant motion. While it may not be immediately obvious, the behind-the-scenes efforts that have been underway are the necessary building blocks for anything and everything to come.

• The most pressing news item that will immediately and directly impact Stratics users is that we have acquired TWO NEW (faster, bigger, better) SERVERS, which are now installed in a new secure data center to which we have physical access–check it out below! (Yup — those are our ACTUAL servers — primary and backup!)
• The Primary server has been installed, configured, and optimized. A test migration of the Forums was performed using a snapshot of our current Forum database with all posts/content, and was tested this past weekend — it works great (and boy is it FAST!) In addition, we’ve migrated the rest of the content from the old server, including uo.stratics.com, uo2.stratics.com, etc. (Thanks,@Oscar the Grouch — you rock!)
• The Backup server will be moved to a secondary data location in March.
• Documentation & internal operating docs are still being updated. The Stratics Terms of Service has been updated to reflect the ownership change. (No other change has been made at this time.) The Stratics Rules of Conduct are being closely reviewed. While we do not anticipate major changes in the spirit of the RoC, we are going over it very carefully to clarify and elaborate upon previously ambiguous or contentious points.
• We are in the process of recruiting and interviewing new candidates for various Stratics staff positions. Do you want to help? Do you have an interest in reporting, moderating, content creation/migration, or perhaps see a gap or opportunity for Stratics elsewhere? Put in an application! We are in particular need of a person or people to manage Stratics social media and people with CSS and/or PHP skills.
• The mugs and t-shirts for the campaign perks have arrived, and are beginning to be packaged for shipment. As you can see, several packages have been assembled, but there are several more to go. The extra ‘secret’ perk item for $1000+ donors has not yet arrived, so only mug and t-shirt packages have been packed so far. We’ll begin shipping these within the next couple of days, and if you are entitled to a physical perk we will email or PM you when your perk package has shipped.
• On the business front: the LLC that will hold Stratics, Gamer’s Gambit, LLC., has been formed. The primary operational document has been drafted and is under review before being approved and signed by the board members.
• The software inventory has been completed. Additionally, thanks to donated and transferring licenses, we were able to reduce our expected software licensing/transfer fees estimate by approximately $700!

The response from the rest of the Stratics community seems to have been on the positive side, so hopefully this transition to staff ownership will be to the site’s benefit.