Well, one person has objected. But it’s probably zikzak :)
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I think once you donate you wave goodbye to your rights to say how it’s spent, except as a common or garden member of the community.
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My proposal is to give them more
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Ok, my new proposal is that anyone who would like to see a banner ad, or have this poll linked to other threads, or would like to offer a different proposal… please make it so.
Let’s leave this open for another …24? hours to see if any of these things happen or the voting changes.
I had hoped that tagging @goofyballer and @MrWookie would prompt one of them to post a banner. How about @RiskyFlush?
Basically, the question is this:
@zikzak and @anon46587892 have both put in an extraodinary amount of unpaid labor to maintain and improve this site. Do you support using UP funds for a $200 honorarium to each of them in appreciation of their efforts? This would not be an attempt to actually compensate them for their labor, because they’ve invested far too many hours for us to make any reasonable payments. Instead, as @cassette noted, it would be us giving them a proverbial beer as neighborly thanks for all the work.
Of course, a poll on its own doesn’t do the job. We need to ansewr this question:
What level of support from what group of individuals would we need in order to make these (or any other) payments?
If I were emperor, I’d probably say something like this:
- In order for a vote to count, it would need to have votes from at least 50% of the population of individuals who have posted in the last month. I have no idea what that population is.
- In order for a payment to be approved, it would have to be voted for by at least 2/3 of the first group.
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Just do it. 36 voters is a plurality of the active users here, and it has overwhelming support.
imo
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This
Seconded. No further discussion needed. But I’m happy to banner it if you prefer.
If I may, I have a separate idea that would serve as a proper gift both for them and the general community. Shall we PM spider? :)
We’ve had a hell of a year and it looks like something good is going to happen for once in a few days.
Honestly I don’t know how to post a banner, so I didn’t. jmakin is correct, though. If any of the ~3 dissenters want to speak up about it, they’re welcome to make their case, but I don’t see why a pretty good sample with an overwhelmingly lopsided response is a reason to hold off to much longer.
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I think at least the people who donated the money should get a chance to anonymously object.
Have they not had that opportunity? What do you propose?
Maybe they did. We do not know if any donator was one of the disagree votes. If they were and want to make their feelings known without opening themselves up for being criticized for it then they should for example PM a person they trust to post their objections.
Just saw this poll and voted for
I want to propose something else (which means I disagree)
I don’t really disagree, I just want a skyline trip report.
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Ok that seems reasonable.
Just voted in favor. I think it’s a great idea! This site is a life raft in a stormy sea. 
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I was the other “I want to propose something else” and gave my suggestion, but if you don’t want to do that I have no objections to the original proposal.
Monthly update - no Skyline report, but please note the intended honorarium to @zikzak and @anon46587892 at the end.
Expenses:
- Running at $80/month for hosting. Obviously this higher level is necessary during election week, and probably through inauguration. It’s possible that we could be fine on a lower tier plan if/when things calm down, but I think that’s not really worth considering until at least January.
Donations:
- No paypal donations and no gift card donations in October
- Patreon donations in October were a gross of $134.16 and a net (after Patreon fees) of $116.78.
Advertising
- We continue to be in a shitty situation with Google, where we do not appear to be able to access the advertising funds that have built up. (@zikzak can provide more details.) This is very frustrating, and I continue to think of these funds as not available to us in any way. I don’t understand exactly what the problem is here, but I can say this with certainty: I periodically log in to the AdSense account and can see the balance just sitting there. No one has withdrawn any funds from the account, and I’m going to be really irritated by anyone suggesting that people are running away with this theoretical money.
Current balances:
Paypal: $30.39
Patreon: $1,646.57 (I should note that I haven’t actually tried to withdraw money from Patreon yet. Unless we get Paypal donations soon, I’ll probably withdraw some Patreon money in order to pay the hosting fees. I assume that won’t be an issue, but I don’t have any experience with Patreon.)
Total: $1,676.96
As always, thanks to everyone for keeping this place running. I really enjoy spending time here, and the donations help make that possible. Please encourage your friends to join us.
Finally, given that we’ve generated a financial surplus and are currently bringing in slightly more than our monthly hosting costs, I intend to distribute an honorarium of $200 to both @anon46587892 and @zikzak in recognition of all the work they’ve done to keep this site up and running. Before doing so, I want to make a couple of things clear:
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My only role as treasurer is to keep track of funds and distribute them for hosting fees and other necessary expenses. I don’t believe I have the authority to just distribute funds based on my own preferences. That’s why I’m going out of my way to explain why I intend to make this discretionary distribution.
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@zikzak and @anon46587892 have put in an enormous amount of effort to maintain this site, and we don’t have sufficient funds to fairly compensate them for that effort. I wish we could, but we don’t. That being said, I view this distribution/honorarium as a proverbial case of beer to a neighbor that’s helped us out - it’s a tangible recognition that we’re grateful to all the work they’ve done.
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Posters here have voted overwhelmingly in favor of this distribution. It’s not just a unilateral decision by me, but the overwhelming view of the community, as expressed here:
Donations - #162 by cassette -
I will offer both @anon46587892 and @zikzak the opportunity to receive this honorarium in whatever form they’d like, as long as it’s legal and I can figure out how to do it with minimal effort. I will not disclose publicly how they respond or what they choose to do with the money.
Again, the original poll posted by @cassette seems fairly clear in that we all believe an honorarium is well deserved. But if anyone wants to raise an objection, now is the time.
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Does this mean we won’t know if they agreed or not? Or just the exact wording of their acceptance speeches?
Not sure if this is a joke, but here’s my reasoning:
I’m concerned that @zikzak and @anon46587892 might feel some implied pressure from the community to do something “good” with the funds, like donate to an important charity or hire a stripper. I think they should use this money to do whatever brings them a little bit of joy, whether that means buying a fancy bottle of scotch, 50 cases of terrible beer, a sick bread knife, a power tool that I wouldn’t know how to use, or hiring a stripper.
So I didn’t want to be in a position where they might feel guilted into doing something because they knew I’d publicize it.
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