I'm staying out of this thread, save to say that the way normal corporations work is;
Investors buy a certain percentage of the total amount of available shares (in this case, 10,000). The highest x number of share owners sit on the "Board of Directors".
That Board then elects, or hires a person to run the company and gives that person complete control of what is, or isn't done in the day-to-day operations. The only control the board would have over the day-to-day director (aka webmaster in this case) would be the ability to collectively vote to replace said webmaster at certain intervals if he pisses off too many people.
Investors can sell their shares, but cannot sell more shares than they own (obviously). The Board, should it decide to raise capital, could create new shares, but would need to accept that more shares = less % ownership for them (unless they bought the shares that is).
I have an idea of who amongst us would make (IMHO) the best day-to-day webmaster, but I'm *not* involved in this, unless someone specifically (and privately) asks my opinion.
As for the site, there are currently three modes of income which pay for the monthly costs, so no investor would be out of pocket there.
1) The donations which should continue
2) The Yahoo adverts (very, very little money, but it makes up for the months when donations fall short)
3) Site memberships. So far, 99% of those came in April/May for one year, meaning that there's virtually no income from that until next year. Any current memberships were put towards paying the costs of the vB upgrade and any additional modules (such as vBCMS, links engine, etc) that we bought to get the current functionality.
The total of which usually equals about $40 to $60 per month on average. Yahoo ads pay off once the $100 shelf is reached, meaning it pays out $100 about every 3 to 4 months.
Any income from the project is usually set aside to build an operating budget for the project itself (reinvesting in the business) until such time that a percentage of the profits begins being divided up between the investors as a dividend.
Someone who buys the site, who isn't banned from Google Adverts could probably increase the income potential of the site substantially.
Again though, I'm not involved in this thread, I'm just outlining a few things for you guys to think about.
Wayne