I have been reluctant to do this because any realistic number I give will be massively higher than what can ever be paid back and I don’t want to seem like I’m sticking the community with a bill it can’t afford. Based on the actual numbers we’re looking at (which have always been publicly posted), if things go well over the next couple months and we decide to disburse money at the end of the year, I might get $100. Literally $100 for 6 months of work and all this aggravation.
The idea that we’re ever going to generate enough income to close the gap between what’s fair and what’s actually available is absurd. People keep imagining some future windfall that is so far beyond realistic expectations that it blows my mind.
Also, as I’ve pointed out several times already, I don’t control the money. I have to request it, and those requests are always public. If the community ever thinks I’ve made an unreasonable request people will have ample opportunity to weigh in with objections before I get anything. So rather than ask me to submit a invoice I don’t believe can ever be paid, how about waiting to see what my actual request is and then deciding if it’s fair?
You keep talking about “no cap”, “unlimited amount” and “endless revenue” and ask me if I am serious? This site isn’t going to be the next Google.
This whole discussion reminds me of people opposing a wealth tax/estate tax because at some point they just might have tens of millions and wouldn’t it be terrible to pay taxes on those imaginary dollars?
Yeah, I object. I think this is stupid. You want this website to survive, you need some revenue to cover expenses. If people want to opt out they should pay a subscription fee or something like that. You shouldn’t just be able to opt-out. As a side note, I do not see any ads, and I certainly do not have adblocker. I’m using google chrome on an ipad if that matters.
Also, Zikzak, ignore the vocal extreme minority who is attacking you in this thread. You will always have people like that in any forum (see, ie: the 2+2 politics forum when Wookie & I moderated).
How much can zz take for services rendered before you care? $20 a month? $200? $2000?
Or how much does the site need to generate before we can start discussing donations to political campaigns, charities, environmental causes, and everything else that was thrown out as a possibility? Because as it stands right now, with zz’s policy of taking it all, the answer seems to be never.
That’s a pretty weird reading of the situation. I don’t get the in perpetuity reading at all. Seems to me he’s planning on asking for an amount (which we can argue about and decline if we think it’s not right) that is way below the market rate for the work he’s done. After the 50 of us who cared enough to get involved and vote already agreed that is how it was going to go. I certainly don’t see any claim on lifetime revenue or anything approaching that. In fairness I did grunch to an extent so maybe I’m wrong.
There’s no qualifier. No stated limit. And no answer to your or my question to how much he is looking for.
That said, the basic assumption that we all have our hearts in the right place and no one is looking to screw anyone else is reasonable and certainly applies to zik. But not getting clarity on what his services are going to cost the community is a problem imo and something we should hammer out before moving on.
I didn’t assume it was forever. Just until X is covered. Hopefully zz can clarify because I’m not down with in perpetuity. Just until our debt is paid. (which may be functionally the same thing for a long time)
I’m not infuriated but I’m sorry to hear you feel this way. Maybe it would help if I explained how we got to that proposal for people who weren’t paying close attention back then?
We started out trying to have a community owned and run forum. We tried to organize community self-governance. We tried to form a community-run tech team. We failed miserably on every count. Eventually we were literally begging for more people to be involved as everybody who started the process began dropping out, but nobody else showed up.
It became pretty clear that a different approach was going to be necessary if we were ever going to get off Exiled and onto our own site. Several people suggested several different versions of basically just having one person own the forum and rule as benevolent dictator. None of those proposals were met with much enthusiasm.
After a couple months of spinning our wheels with ever decreasing participation and getting absolutely nowhere, we came up with a compromise position where it wouldn’t be a single person but a small group. Also, that the group wouldn’t own or control anything, but limit its activities to hosting and tech support. At this point it was pretty much just me and microbet left still trying to get things going, despite constant efforts to encourage more participation. That’s when I wrote the proposal that was voted on. That’s how we got here.
All of this was done in public, in full view of everybody, with constant announcements in the LC threads encouraging more participation. I’m sorry we couldn’t do a better job. We gave it our best effort.
It’s a combination of all of the above. Also, please note that fraudulent clicks do not help us at all. You’re not fooling Google even a little bit. Best case scenario is they are ignored and you wasted a click.
Idk if I’d go as far as clicking anyway, but what is a “fraudulent click”? If I click an ad just once with my mouse and then don’t buy anything, how does Google know I wasn’t a “real clicker” open to buying something?
X is ongoing and will most likely never be covered by revenue. Even bare minimum maintenance of this place is going to be hours a week, every week, for as long as it exists. If I’m not doing it somebody else will have to. We’ve already fallen behind the current forum release and don’t have a recent off-site backup yet because I’ve spent this morning in this thread instead of doing those things.
Sure but in theory if X is exceeded then the tap turns off right? I agree that may never happen as X grows. I think that’s all the reassurance people need. Like if in some bizarre universe we somehow go viral and start racking up the Benjamins baby. You’re not angling to get all of that. Right?
I don’t control the tap, but I would assume so. So much of this seems like such absurd requests that I honestly don’t even know how to reply. I don’t own the domain name. I don’t control the money. I’m not the only admin. I can be fired at any time, for any reason. The community can pack up the forum and move it somewhere else right now and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. Ya’ll can tell me to fuck off and that I’m never getting any money at all, not even reimbursement for hosting fees I’ve already paid, and I have absolutely no recourse at all. None.
Why am I the one who has to offer reassurances? The community holds all the power. I have none, by design. I helped set it up that way. The only thing I can do is threaten to quit.
There are a lot of "should"s up there that are different than “should have to”. Anyway, the position “everyone must donate or see ads” is quite a minority position, especially if you take it to mean adblocker could be blocked.
If you want to argue this though, instead of just voicing the thought and seeing what happens in the vote, please proceed.
You missed a lot of the governance stuff, but a lot of what was talked about was like the difference between a blocking objection and objecting, but accepting a decision anyway. The community is trying to not just run over people with a minority opinion.
I recognize I missed a lot of this. I don’t care about adblocker, people could use that on 2+2 too. I think people aren’t really recognizing what this forum is and that’s a problem. This is a tiny niche forum for a bunch of refugees from 2+2. We need some sort of revenue to pay for hosting fees to survive. Letting people opt out of ads is crazy. Ads aren’t that bad and are on nearly every other website on the intranets.
It could easily have happened that 2 people clicked an ad 4 times within 10 minutes, our traffic is taken into account, and then our troll score is bumped. Harder would be their ai determined a librul clicked an ad for something conservative.