For decades, developers of natural gas bought mineral rights in northern Pennsylvania for a few bucks an acre, and that was the end of the story - no drilling ever took place. So Ronald B. Stamets balked when a land man showed up two years ago and offered him $500 an acre for a gas lease.

" 'Whoa, this guy must know something I don't know,' " Stamets, 63, a Web developer who lives near Lake Como in Wayne County, in the state's northeast corner, recalled thinking. "They were offering real money."

Stamets and some of his neighbors began researching the emerging natural gas discoveries in the Marcellus Shale, a mile-deep rock formation that lies under much of Pennsylvania. He created a slapdash Web site, www.pagaslease.com, where property owners could swap their findings about leases and exploration activity.

The Web site soon got discovered, and it has developed into a library of information on the locations and terms of the latest gas leases, as well as news about potential environmental threats.

From Sept. 29 through Oct. 28, 76,203 unique visitors viewed nearly a million pages of maps, data, and commentary at the site, Stamets said: "I had no idea there was such a hunger for information on gas leases."

What property owners have learned is that information is everything in the frenzied Marcellus gas boom, and that gas developers have most of it - geologic data, early production statistics, and knowledge about the going rate for mineral rights.

But, aided by the Internet, property owners increasingly are collaborating to demand better lease terms. Land that went for $25 an acre four years ago and $750 two years ago - that's what Stamets got for his three-acre plot - is now fetching $6,000 an acre.

As the signing-bonus payments have soared, so have the guaranteed royalty payments - the share of the gas that belongs to the property owner after a well is developed. Over the decades a well is in production, royalty payments can far exceed the up-front bonus.

Under Pennsylvania law, property owners get a minimum 12.5 percent royalty. Wyoming County landowners who signed leases in September with Cheasapeake Energy Corp. received a 20 percent royalty. In more developed gas-shale plays in Texas, property owners are getting 25 percent royalties.

"Some landowners who have found our site told me they were able to sign up for 10 times the amount they were being offered initially, and were able to secure far more protection for their land," Stamets said.

His site is not the only place on the Internet that is hosting impassioned discussions about shale gas.

Keith Mauck started a Web site for property owners in the Haynesville Shale in northwest Louisiana after an Internet search yielded little information about the fair lease price or what property owners could expect from drilling. He recently started a second site, www.gomarcellusshale.com, for the Marcellus, which lies under Appalachian states from New York to West Virginia.

"There are still some people getting piddly offers," said Mauck, 35, who was trained as a lawyer and lives in Manassas, Va. "One of the goals of the site is to get those people tuned in."

Commentators on the sites offer plenty of stories about unscrupulous land men who live up to the high-pressure archetype of the oilman Daniel Plainview, the main character in the movie There Will Be Blood.

"They'll come in and tell an 85-year-old widow, 'If you're not going to sign, we're going to drill next door, and you're not going to see a penny,' " Stamets said. "That scares the heck out of people, and they sign."

Stamets said that a few gas-industry representatives also try to plant misinformation anonymously on his Web site's discussion forums, but that more experienced landowners quickly recognize the ploy "and get right on them."

Industry representatives say they welcome the discussions as a way to educate the public in regions where the gas industry has little history and landowners have little knowledge of mineral rights.

"It's important that everybody goes into these things with as much knowledge as possible," said Stephen W. Rhoads, president of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association. "We're going to be in those communities for a long time, and it's in everybody's best interest to know each other."

Pennsylvania State University's Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport also has set up an informational Web site for Marcellus stakeholders, www.pct.edu/msetc. The university's cooperative extension has conducted more than 250 training sessions reaching out to 40,000 landowners, said Thomas B. Murphy, an extension educator in Lycoming County.

"We have found that the industry has been very receptive to an educated public," Murphy said.

Gas-lease provisions are critical. Once a well is drilled, the terms of the contract remain in force as long as gas is produced.

And not all Marcellus properties are created equal. Though the formation lies beneath 54 Pennsylvania counties, less than 20 percent of the land is typically in the "sweet spot" that produces the largest amount of gas. Some wells will come up dry.

When that happens, prices for gas leases quickly crash, and property owners who held out for higher prices end up with nothing.

"Everybody's rolling the dice," Stamets said. "Some people are going to get $10,000 an acre, it's just a matter of time. Where they are, we don't know.

"Ultimately, there will be others who hold out who never get a lease."

Contact staff writer Andrew Maykuth at 215-854-2947 or amaykuth@phillynews.com.