Hey Una, how come your title is abbreviated SDSAB? Are you too cool for school, or not cool enough?
The thing about it, alterego, is that the information is indeed a secret. There are few privately held companies that report details of their balance sheet or income statement — or any other financial details. It is foolish to reveal to your competition details of how you are doing. But that’s just the business model.
I usually deal with people the same way in my own private life, much as though I were a private company. I will tell you that I have a money market account in which I have put aside 12 house payments, 2 car insurance payments, 1 property tax payment, 1 property insurance payment (our property taxes and insurance are not in escrow), enough to pay for a plaque concerning my grandson, enough to cover our Christmas expenses this year, and a sizable “emergency fund” that will come in handy if one of our heat pumps dies or something. But I won’t reveal any details about it. I won’t tell you how much our house payments are, for example. (Although I might, in some other context).
But one detail I will give you is that we have also set aside in the money market fund $800 in case it is necessary to pay for the mistake in the Obama tax plan, in which both my wife and I are receiving tax credits for the full amount of $800. We are planning that we will owe that amount next April.
Straight Dope Scientific Advisory Board.
I understand that. Everyone else’s is spelt out though, not abbreviated.
All of you that replied to me Just Don’t Get It.
The SDMB has almost always operated at a loss (or so they tell us). There isn’t any competition. It’s a lousy way to run a community site.
Or maybe you are the one who just doesn’t get it. :rolleyes:
:smack: I’m sorry, Contra. I should have known, what with your longevity and board savvy.
I’m afraid that that’s a non sequitur. It does not follow that because a company will not disclose its proprietary financial details, it is running its business in a “lousy way”.
If I may ask, what would you do with this information if you had it? Would you advise them how to increase their revenue (assuming they are indeed running at a loss)? Would you examine the numbers for patterns (as I would, what with being OCD and all)? Would you eat mud? What?
You’re still asking for hwaaaaay too much information.
Transparency is one alternative, it isn’t “the” alternative.
Yes, we’re a community – but we are a community that has gathered at a place of business. Think corner pub, not private clubhouse. We actually have no right to any information about the finances or operation of that business, just as you’d have no right to barge into the manager’s office at your favorite restaurant – no matter how often you eat there – and demand that they open their books to you. None of your beeswax, plain and simple.
I don’t think it is hway that much. As I said, Ed once gave most of those details for a particular point in time. It is just that there is no point in opening the books on a permanent basis to the community in the hopes of someone coming up with a solution. That is one crazy way to run a company if they did. Hope is not a plan of action. And for all the talk about open sourcing, I have yet to see a company run in open source financial management.
While sympathizing with those who wish they knew more — who among us likes being ignorant? — what you say is so very true. If I were the CEO of a privately held company, I personally would not share such information unless it was with a consultant who had a long list of professional credentials and a verifiable history of turning companies around. I would also want a crack legal staff or trusted attorney to draw up or review the contract with him or her.
I’m still trying to determine what **alterego **would do with the information. If he is not a finance professional, then whatever financial statements Ed might provide would be almost meaningless to him or her. I think it’s okay to toss out ideas. But it would be unlikely that we might suggest anything that Ed’s bosses have not already considered. Some things just can’t be made profitable. And if there is a way to make the board profitable, the officers and board members of Creative Loafing will discover it.
I’ve been informed that Ed is, in fact, the person to talk to about the question in the OP, and I’ve sent him an email. Nothing to do now but wait, I suppose.
Turning a profit is hardly a trivial matter: econ 101 teaches us that entry tends to drive accounting profits down to the required return of capital.
Beyond that, the newspaper industry has been declining for the past 30+ years: their difficulties precede the internet (TV news itself provided a challenge).
Personally, I suspect that the business models that may ultimately prevail are 1) intense localization (Cecil discussed this in a recent column) and 2) a not for profit framework like the BBC, NPR, Manchester Guardian or possibly the Nation or Mother Jones.
For the SD/SDMB, I suspect that there a bucketfuls of money to be harvested in fighting ignorance, but that capturing them would require substantial IT investment and creativity. Creative Loafing should negotiate a joint venture or buyout from Google. As it is, the SD empire tromps Yahoo Answers and even About.com IMHO (though they trail behind Wikipedia).
Oh yeah, post counts. AFAICT VarlosZ hasn’t responded to the “Click through the username if you really want to see the Guest’s post count” reply. Personally, I could care less except that I’m reluctant to make demands on management for trivial concerns.
Yes, you can click through to the profile, but it’s annoying, unnecessary, time consuming, and hamster-taxing. I seldom care enough to actually check the profile, but I frequently steal a reflexive glance at the corner expecting to see a post count only to be disappointed. It’s a small but non-zero annoyance.
How about if you could simply right-click on a poster’s username, select “Post Count” from a menu option, and then be taken to a page where the user’s post count is given in hexadecimal notation? To prevent abuse, of course, as well as conserve resources, you could not return to the main page for five minutes, and could not check another poster’s count for two days. Would that eliminate your annoyance?
Thanks to quick action by both TubaDiva and Jerry Davis, you are in, BigT. Never mind the details of how it was worked through. You are a member in good standing. Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board! 
Yet, you never hear about such dedicated service to the customers from the doubting Thomases, or the unrepentant critics. <sigh> This is the sort of thing we should have available as a cut and paste in response to assertions that the staff here “don’t care.”
Well, not for nothing but you would at least expect some promptness when it comes to taking someone else’s money. Nobody is so out of it that they don’t care about their bottom line.
Well, My thing was probably as prompt as possible. IT seems that Jerry (the only one allowed to override the automatic member system) only gets involved near the weekends. And they probably had to get Ed’s permission.
Anyways, I’m here to thank Liberal once again. I’ve already thanked TubaDiva and Jerry in private, but I guess I’ll do it in public, too. And, per my previous paragraph, I guess I should thank Ed Zotti, too.
I unashamedly and unabashedly thank all of you! No more annoying ads for me (at least for a year).
**
BigT**, *Member *of the Straight Dope Message Board
It involved, actually, a refund of money, not just the taking of money. And they lost money on the deal. In this instance, they truly went the extra mile.
(You’re welcome, BigT.)
Bolding mine. I wasn’t sure I was supposed to tell that part.
Nobody’s perfect, so I’m not saying that you guys can’t have legitimate gripes with those people I mentioned. But this isn’t one of them. Both people who were actually involved are perfectly satisfied. (At least, that’s how I read Liberal’s posts.)