Donations

[NhlNut]

@SensiblePerson

Lol, you’re good man. I appreciate you being willing to give it a shot and then write it up for us.

qft

[mosdef]

It was a really good idea to tackle this before Dictator Trump cancels Obamacare.

[sriracha]

It looks like Butthole Stew.

Excellent trip report.

[spidercrab]

Financial update, so those of you purely here for the Skyline Chili trip reports can skip this.

This month is a little more complicated:
Expenses

• We/@zikzak upgraded the site’s hosting ability, which I think turned out to be a good decision given the debate and Trump’s COVID status. New cost is $80/month. That cost can go back down (after the election/inauguration perhaps) if it turns out that we don’t need the upgrade long-term.

Donations

• No paypal donations and no gift card donations in September.
• Patreon donations in September were a gross of $134.16 and a net (after Patreon fees) of $117.08.
• Here’s the complicated part:
  2 of the donors who are listed as active had their donations declined in September. (The above $134.16 does not include the declined donations.) It isn’t clear to me whether those were effectively the donor choosing to no longer donate, or an unintentional credit card expiration, or something else. I will try to contact each of those donors just to make sure I understand which it is.

Donations going forward

• One donor reduced his/her monthly donation and an additional (third) donor shows up as declined from 9/30 forward.
• At this point, it looks like our net amount is about $103/month going forward if nothing changes. Still above the $80/month hosting, which is good, but getting closer to that level.

Advertising
Another complicated, unresolved issue. We are currently running ads on Google’s AdSense and it looks like that might be able to generate a dollar or two a day in theory (more on high traffic days). The major caveat is that Google is insisting that @zikzak confirm personal information, yet is seemingly ignoring his efforts to do so. @zikzak has repeatedly tried to contact them to resolve this issue, and has posted about it on Google’s public forums. But there is no resolution yet. So at this point, even though there is a dollar balance in this AdSense account, I do not consider those funds available to us in any way until they are literally in my hands.

At this point, I want to make a comment about the following post and the 5 people who liked it:

@beetlejuice

@Fatboy8

BTW, WTF is my donation going to if the site can’t handle the traffic? Thought we increases hosting?

going straight into @zikzak’s pocket, unfortunately, because he pulls all the strings. we all got played. we’re his victims

If this is a joke, then haha and whatever. But @beetlejuice has been saying this shit repeatedly and it’s a slap in the face to one of the very few people who is spending his personal time maintaining this site. @zikzak isn’t getting shit, other than the money that I reimburse him for hosting fees. The Patreon account is accessed by me. The paypal account is mine. And the Google AdSense account that I mentioned above is in @zikzak’s name, but I have the ability to log in and see the balance and any transfers. The balance is just sitting there. So I’d encourage everyone to kindly fuck off with any insinuations that @zikzak or anyone else is taking money from this site unless you have evidence that I’m not aware of.

Current balances:
Paypal: $30.39 after reimbursing @zikzak for July-September hosting fees. (We’re considering adding me to the hosting account so that I can just pay this directly.)
Patreon: $1,512.28
Total: $1,542.67

Thanks everyone for the support.

[Fatboy8]

My comment was purely a joke.

I’m indebted to the folks maintaining the site. My donation lessens that debt, but I think I have the better end the of the deal.

My workplace might argue differently.

[spidercrab]

@Fatboy8

My comment was purely a joke.

I’m glad to hear that, and I thought it might be. But with stuff like that, I wanted to be sure.

Thanks again.

[cassette]

Thanks for keeping track of the monies and for these informative updates.

[TheDuker]

Yeah I definitely took those comments as a joke. It’s funny because of how divorced from reality it is!

s to all those who work to keep this place running.

[sriracha]

@spidercrab

2 of the donors who are listed as active had their donations declined in September. (The above $134.16 does not include the declined donations.) It isn’t clear to me whether those were effectively the donor choosing to no longer donate, or an unintentional credit card expiration, or something else. I will try to contact each of those donors just to make sure I understand which it is.

It looks like I’m in this group, unintentionally. Something weird happened with my Patreon and all (3) of my recurring monthly subscriptions were cancelled. Just noticed it after trying to open a podcast for the first time in several weeks.

Anyway, I re-upped the monthly recurring with UP on Patreon so all of my monies are belong to you.

[cassette]

Given that we are floating water financially and have $1500 in the bank, I would like to propose a one-time $200 honorarium payment to each of zikzak and gregorio for all their hard work around here. This is not a payment for services rendered: that would be an insulting amount. It’s more like a gift basket saying thanks for keeping the lights on, updating the software, creating skins, and responding to complaints about the site.

I know other people also do work, like run the twitter account and keep track of finances. Those people deserve a hearty pat on the back as well. Thank you!

Anonymous poll for 100% honesty:

• I agree
• I disagree
• I want to propose something else (which means I disagree)

[cassette]

I guess this doesn’t go without saying…but if you want to propose something else, please do so.

[WAR]

Take the whole bank and bet it on Biden because if Trump wins WAAF and the forum will just be an easy way for them to find who to send to the camps.

[spidercrab]

I wasn’t going to tell anyone until after next week, but I already bet the entire amount on Biden winning Ohio, Georgia, and Florida. I’ll pay out a nice honorarium to @zikzak and @anon46587892 with the proceeds and still have the current balance left. Not sure how anyone would object to that plan.

[anon38180840]

Nothing on Texas?

[cassette]

Ok, given that most agree and the dissenters are shy, can we make this happen? @spidercrab?

[spidercrab]

I actually think we should post this question as a banner, to make sure that everyone sees it. I don’t feel comfortable acting on such a small population of users. I’m also having an internal debate about whether there should be a separate poll (or separate poll choices) for individuals who have actually donated, as it’s their contributions we’re talking about.

@goofyballer or @MrWookie?

[cassette]

I don’t think donators should get a special say in the matter. The donations now belong to the site and the site belongs to the community, imo.

[spidercrab]

I think this is a reasonable argument. But I think there’s another reasonable argument that people had expectations for what that money would be used for when they made the decision to donate, and that using the money differently goes against their expectations.

As an example, there are probably lots of charitable causes that would have >80% support among the members of this forum, but I don’t think I’d support donating “excess” funds to a particular charitable cause just because it got lots of votes from people who didn’t donate.

I’m legitimately on the fence on this one.

[clovis8]

I think we are overthinking this. Those two have done a ton of volunteer work. We are talking about giving them a one time honorarium, something that is very common. I can’t imagine anyone objecting.

[cassette]

Yeah, I get that. I guess I just think that donors had the assumption that donations would help maintain the site, and I don’t see sending a “fruit basket” to the two main people running this place as a thank you as being in conflict with the initial assumption of donors.