I didn’t say that to denigrate Cecil’s column Tuba. It’s just that it seems to me the Chicago Reader would have the SD column AND the SD store up regardless of whether there is a message board. Very odd to include it in an assessment of SDMB costs.
Yeah, but you have to get a bigger bracket to hold the wheel. You have to bolt it down. You have to drill into the concrete for the bolts. You have to widen the door to get the wheel in. You have to put in a new elevator to get the wheel down to the basement. You have to put in a new shaft for the elevator.
You have to get new air conditioning because they work up a sweat. You have to get large refrigerators and freezers for the chetah’s food. You have to truck in the food daily. You have to get a really big bottle with a really big nipple for their water. You have to get large buckets for the chetah’s feces. You have to expand the sewer connection to handle the feces. You have to put in hoses to wash them down.
On and on it goes. But mostly, you have to keep finding new people to feed and wash the chetahs as the attrition rate is very high. It does cut down on the meat you have to store, but this is offset by the extra cleanup and the size of the sewer connection.
Well, there is a zoo in Chicago right? I would assume that they might have cheetas there as well as the necessary accomidations at the zoo for the cheetas. What we need to do is retrofit the cheetas habitat at the zoo with large wheels and transport the juice back to Chicago Reader World Domination Headquaters. Maybe some caffeine pills for the hampsters would help in the meantime. I’ll pay for those and mail them up.
Well, the Straight Dope stuff has always been all lumped up together, it’s all our stuff. What’s odd about that?
It’s not like they have to justify their costs to us; if anything, it’s the other way around.
your humble TubaDiva
Don’t forget the brief period when we had the Altoids banner on the messageboard. That must have been a goldmine right? 
Did you climb Pyroto Mountain?
your humble TubaDiva
Based on rates for renting a server + bandwidth, I’d estimate this board would in hosting fees be no more than $200 a month. The cost of the webmaster would likely be more than that. Confounding calculations here is that the cost of the static site (http://www.straightdope.com) apparently are being lumped in with the cost of these boards. I have no idea what sort of traffic the static site has, and thus what server costs would be for that. (From looking at traceroutes and such, the static sites and these boards appear to be on 2 independent servers.)
The boards have no ads on them. Thus, they are a pure cost center. I see that the static site has a banner ad and also Google Adwords. Plus the Straight Dope store. As to whether these ads and merchandise covers the cost of the static site, I have no idea.
And therein lies some of our revenue problems, though I seriously doubt adding more ads would do much for us.
There has also been quite a bit of resistance from the membership where ads were concerned. They have even taken the Reader to task for some of their advertisers in the past; some members felt the ads were inappropriate to the site. Mostly our members have considered most any advertising to be an intrusion.
your humble TubaDiva
Personally, I doubt that you could ever make significant revenues off ads on the SDMB. Dunno if many people would put up with ads to read my words of wisdom. However, you ought to be able to make OK money selling ads on the static site. As it is, whoever in charge is doing a lousy job monetizing the static site. For example, you need to have ads appear on all of the pages of Cecil’s archived columns. Given that Cecil writes his columns for syndication to other newspapers, revenue from the static site is just pure profit in the Reader’s pocket. There is no need for the SDMB members to have to pay to subsidize the static site.
Yeah, that was kind of my point. The column is already written and electronically stored for profit, seems weird to attribute the costs of displaying it to the message board. Sort of ironic as well, when you consider the format of many of the syndicated papers that carry SD are free weeklies.
Also, as I mentioned in a long ago thread: there’s no links to the store on the SDMB front page and no SDMB paraphernalia available for purchase in the store. Again, very odd to attribute store costs to the message board.
Tuba, I’m certainly not demanding an accounting. I’m just looking askance at some of the info dropped in my lap. I’m pretty sure that’s a tradition around here. If you give me the benefit of the doubt I think you’ll be surprised what an asshole I’m not, usually.
I presume it would make absolutely no sense to attribute any costs of the store to the SDMB, as the store is a profit center. The store makes money, and the static site is basically a form of advertising to get people to buy from the store.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (and probably be shot down for it, again): The Reader knows jack shit about modern publishing, the Internet or any way to make money off anything but classified ads. “Alternative Neewspaper” my ass. It’s a brick thick collection of more or less dubious classifieds packaged with some mildly (to not so very) interesting reading, to qualify it as a paper.
They simply don’t seem to grasp that one sometimes have to spend money in one place, to earn money in another. Their reasong, based on what TD writes, is that every cost must meet with revenue in the place where the cost arises. This is troglodyte business management.
This info was not just “dropped in your lap;” it’s always been this way and it has not been a secret. If you have chosen to perceive it differently through ignorance or unwillingness to accept reality, that’s really too bad.
You misstate the situation and slap at us along with it, which is not appreciated. I’ll be glad to give you the benefit of the doubt if you stop acting like an asshole.
It’s all about the site, period; the board is not held out separately despite some people’s efforts to do so. Store costs and other items are not “attributable” to the message board; the Reader looks at revenue from the SD side of the house, period.
While there are some who believe the Straight Dope Message Board is a standalone entity, it has never been considered as such by the company that owns it. If you choose to ignore everything else on the site, that’s your business, but it’s all of a piece as far as the Reader is concerned. The front page links to the board, and there’s a link back to the front page on the SDMB, what else do you need?
While the Straight Dope is published mostly in alternative/free papers, those papers pay a syndication fee to do so.
Just because something is or has been offered to you at no charge, that does not mean producing it is also without expense.
The Reader offers Straight Dope books and a couple of merchandise items online for sale. I note that no other contributor to the Reader has such support; for example, if you want columnist Jonathan Rosenbaum’s books, can you buy them from the Reader? No, the Reader links you to amazon. Hey, for the record, CarnalK, how many SD books do you own?
As for SDMB-themed merchandise, while the idea has been brought to the Reader, they have not chosen to offer more items. Merchandising is an expensive proposition up front and they have not wished to have, say, a warehouse full of SDMB mousepads and condom holders. I hope that situation changes in the future – I’d like to see you able to buy Straight Dope underwear and car deodorizers, if that’s what makes you happy – but that’s the current state of affairs.
your humble TubaDiva
Why not start a cafepress.com shop for the SDMB items. Its easy and no need for CR to get a warehouse for all of the SDMB merchandise.
It could be a nice money making machine for the board itself, if we raise X dollars CR gets a dedicated server for us if we don’t then we don’t.
You can create a thread for art and logo submissions and then vote on the top X designs upload them to cafepress and let the board members buy away.
Just an idea, I have seen other websites do this and make money with less exposure then the SDMB has.
Fine, whatever. If you can’t see how silly it is to lump it all together after a couple of posters try to explain clearly it to you, I give up. Offended snit-fits are a lot more fun, I understand.
It is my understanding that the site is resident on a dedicated server at Rackspace. We were previously on shared server space at the Reader offices.
As I said before:
"As for SDMB-themed merchandise, while the idea has been brought to the Reader, they have not chosen to offer more items. " This includes Cafe Press.
(I do intend to bring it up again, however.)
your humble TubaDiva
If you can’t see how silly it is to complain about how a company you do business with doesn’t manage and distribute its corporate assets to suit you, after several attempts to explain it clearly to you, I give up. Being snarky is a lot more fun, I understand.
your humble TubaDiva
No books, huh? Not even a coffee mug?
Most definitely. The Reader is definitely missing out on profits by not having ads on the individual pages of Cecil’s columns. They need to hire someone who knows how to monetize a website.
There are Coffee mugs too. My wife collects Coffee mugs. Are they nice looking or do they just say straight dope. No need to answer, I’ll go look and probably buy.
The mugs are . . . interesting looking, let me put it that way.
You may see a picture here:
The official Straight Dope coffee mug
Artwork by our own Slug Signorino.
The store also offers books and a classy Straight Dope t-shirt as well.
The Straight Dope Online Store
your humble TubaDiva