I say first poll because I don’t expect this to be conclusive. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Maybe it will just help refine some questions. We’ll see. Select all that you agree with.
0 voters
Expectations for revenue are low, but who knows? Plans are it goes into the treasury. Maybe we want donations to only towards A and ad revenue to go towards B? Dunno, if you have any thoughts on that, let us know and maybe they’ll make it into a refined poll. Of course anyone can do a poll at any time - but poll fatigue.
Seems like this was done backwards. Would expect to have a clear plan for ad (and any other) revenue before making the effort to collect it. What are the site’s expenses and what is anticipated, for example.
How much money are we talking here?
We know more or less what the site costs to host and either ads or donations cover it. People who do work on the site want/should get some money for the work. Maybe that would be different if 10 or 20 people were willing to do the work, but that’s not the case. Really i’s just gregorio and zikzak. Gregorio is seems uncomfortable taking any money at all. Zikzak seems to be somewhat uncomfortable taking donation money for anything other than costs, but not so much ad money — though there is very little ad money, not great prospect for it and Zikzak’s idea for distributing money basically ignores all early work so I want to make it clear that this is not a plan by Zikzak to “own” the site and make tons from advertising if somehow the site gets really big in the future.
Just to be clear here, we were already given permission to run ads and do whatever we want with the money, by a vote of 50-2.
Those were the conditions under which I subsequently put dozens and dozens of hours into this site. Changing the terms now, after all that work was done but before anybody has ever been paid anything, would be a pretty significant betrayal. I am very open to and strongly encourage discussion about what sort of advertising we have, but the question of whether or not we have ads at all and how much anybody gets paid is already settled.
After hosting the first port of call for any revenues should be to those that put the effort in in getting us here and keeping it going. - it was/is a lot of work that I hope is appreciated by all - I know I, the stingiest poster on the forum (currently), am very grateful.
Not a fan of ad networks at all.
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781610395694
I understand that revenue is needed but wanted to underline JTs 4th point - as it’s probably the most serious of them all imo.
There’s no mystery, we’ve just never discussed it because there hasn’t been enough money for anybody to bother yet. I’ve been reimbursed $60 for hosting costs so far. There’s a few hundred dollars in donations sitting in spidercrab’s bank account. There’s currently about $80 locked up in an AdSense account that we may or may not ever be able to access.
I think as long as there’s transparency it’s fine. The treasurer should be posting whenever money is distributed. If it ever seems like an insane amount of money that pisses people off, they’ll get pissed off and people will either change or there’ll be rebellion and people will leave. I don’t expect that to happen for one, because I don’t think there’ll be that much money anyway and for two, because I don’t expect it to happen even if there is a lot of money.
I kinda hate to post in the middle of your conversation, but if I don’t post now, I won’t get back to it. (As if anyone cares.)
I don’t like ads and will block them. As long as you don’t implement any anti-circumvention tech I don’t really care if the site has ads or not.
In case you’re curious, my objections to ads are mainly technical:
I’m understanding of the need for resources to support sites like this, and I do feel some guilt for freeloading, but not enough to put up with the above.
Besides, on sites like this, that are mostly or entirely user-generated content, I do contribute by posting and participating in the discussions that are the reason people are even here. At least that’s my rationalization, and I’m sticking with it.
I don’t think anybody is trying to fuck anybody else over, but I absolutely feel like I shouldn’t have to constantly be defending decisions about running advertising or justifying the pay that as yet I have never received and that will almost certainly never come even remotely close to fair market value, or even minimum wage. Yes, I’m a bit testy on this subject. It’s not directed at you, but yeah, it’s there.
My position, which I have stated many times, is that I believe net revenue should be distributed to everybody who does work keeping this site going. imo that list currently includes about 10 people who are entitled to something. idk what the percentage breakdowns should be because it’s never been discussed.
This is going to sound kind of dickish, more so than I really want, but the only source of awkward bullshit so far has been from people who don’t have any claim on the money. Like if kre8tive or simplicitus or the mods want to start questioning how any money might get split, they’d be totally justified because they’ve all made substantive contributions and deserve a share. But that’s a conversation for the workers to have among ourselves. Per the agreement that got us here, the community at large doesn’t get a say, and I think that’s pretty reasonable.
Well, I think trying to make decisions is what causes the infighting and the more concrete and long lasting the decisions pretend to be (yeah, all decisions can be changed regardless of what we think at the time) the more fighting.
I do think, in the interest of getting a small shock now instead of a big one later, there should be a precedent set and someone should publicly claim and receive some money as compensation (rather than a reimbursement) asap.
Tempted to just PM Zikzak, but I’m not part of a secret cabal, so I’ll just post…jeez man, you should chillax. This process right here, right now, is a vote of confidence. Look at the scoreboard. Don’t be defensive.
[Treasurer hat on]
Just two minor clarifications here:
[Regular poster hat on]
Several people have put a great deal of effort to get this site going, and I think it’s substantially better than what we had at exiled. I realize that we’re all to some extent volunteering our time to provide content for this site, but I don’t think there’s anything improper about those people getting some monetary compensation for that effort. (Just to be clear, I’m not in this group - I haven’t done jack shit to get this site going.)
Almost anyone on the site is free to become a mod or an admin and take over duties. You’re a member, not a customer. You don’t have time to do the adminny moddy stuff right now, but at some point you may. You may be the Chief Unstuck Admin of 2020 or maybe 2021. Who knows?
I think we not only decided that the people doing the work would distribute the money, but I think we’d decide that again if we reran that exact poll. But, the key imo, is that “management” is open to pretty much anyone involved enough around here to want to be part of it.
You stayed home from the club opening for this.
It’ll be fine. ZZ is occasionally a difficult person. I’ve posted my impression of him before:
And I know you and I have our philosophical differences, but that’s what makes the world go 'round. I promise if you ever want to go into some venture with me I’ll let you be in charge of all that type-A stuff and just take orders in that realm without complaint.
Partly because it’s not that big of a deal and no one is doing anything bad. And “falls into place” isn’t exactly right, because things can always change in the future. I hope things change and change back and change again and nothing is sacred. Anyway, voting is coming in pretty clear, though it’s not over. Maybe something can be done to regulate the type of ad or supplement the bad ads with extra good ones. And maybe we can get help desk to help some people use ad-blocker - or maybe let people opt-out of ads from the site side instead of client-side if they really want - with or without making a donation.
And by type-A, I definitely don’t mean control, but planning, organizing, documenting…stuff like that. Stuff that I suck at. Us non-type-A types have to sneer a little bit about the type-As or we’d be too depressed about how everything is in shambles.
it’s not a coincidence that you came in here to do this and ended up getting “i’m gonna do what i want with my site and the money i make from it, and if you don’t like it you can leave”. you didn’t catch them on a bad day, this is how they took control of the site in the first place, they’re thugs. cuserounder was our beautiful lenin, with vision and the will to make our community independent of the corrupt leadership of 2p2. but he was too loving, too kind, too trusting, and he was eventually manipulated by stalinists who perverted his vision because their ambition and lack of empathy drove them to become what we all hated about the old leadership.
and i never would have expected it from zikzak, who remains one of my all-time favorite posters. but i guess sometimes it’s the guys you least suspect, who end up betraying everything we all believe in so he can put a couple extra dollars in his pocket. just super shitty. let me count up all the hours i spend creating content on this site and bill you for it, i have just as much claim to the ad money as zz does. how is his work more important than mine? we had a site before he started doing stuff and that site worked just fine, his involvement isn’t essential to this community. creating content actually IS essential, and acting like this thing that you volunteered to do as a hobby is now SO much more important than creating content that we all have to become your customers because you say so, is shitty. it’s just a shitty way to behave.
absolute power corrupts absolutely, and we’re seeing that axiom proven again with these ads. i don’t want to be repetitive, but it’s exactly what stalin would do.
