But Mr. Mikkelson, who owns the other 50 percent of the Bardav shares, said that Mr. Schoentrup does not sit on the board, and that the five shareholders should be viewed individually, as opposed to collectively, giving Proper Media equal ownership.

Mr. Schoentrup’s on or off status on the board is crucial in Mr. Mikkelson’s decision to cancel Bardav’s contract with Proper Media, which handles many of the technological and advertising services for Snopes. In March, Bardav gave Proper Media a 60-day notice that it would be terminating the contract, effective May 8. Mr. Mikkelson said the contract was agreed to when Snopes was a much smaller company, but now it had its own business-focused employees and other services “can be obtained much more cheaply from other vendors.”

Karl Kronenberger, a lawyer for Proper Media, said in an interview on Monday that Mr. Mikkelson cannot cancel the contract without calling a board meeting — which, in Proper Media’s view, would include Mr. Schoentrup. The company has continued as if the contract remained valid.

Last week, a court ordered Proper Media, which cannot directly pay Snopes employees, to release $100,000 of the advertising revenues to Bardav, on the condition that the money be used for expenses and not be paid to Mr. Mikkelson, according to Mr. Kronenberger. Proper Media sued Mr. Mikkelson in May, accusing him of mismanaging the company’s funds and abusing his position. (Mr. Mikkelson said he hadn’t received money from the company this year aside from expenses and salary, which he said made him the lowest-paid employee at Snopes.)

Mr. Kronenberger said Mr. Mikkelson has locked Proper Media out of Bardav’s bank accounts and “key databases it needs to do its job,” and he disputed that Proper Media had locked Bardav out from making technological changes.

“Mr. Mikkelson has absolute control of this domain name,’’ Mr. Kronenberger said. “He can move it within minutes.”

As for the advertising revenue, “Our position is nothing is being wrongfully withheld,” he said.

But on the crowdfunding page, Mr. Mikkelson wrote that “although we maintain editorial control (for now), the vendor will not relinquish the site’s hosting to our control, so we cannot modify the site, develop it, or — most crucially — place advertising on it.”