I get a lot more out of reading than I contribute. And much as I love the option of adding my two cents and interacting with people, it’s not like anyone would suffer without it
My account is going to expire soon and there’s about a 90% chance that I won’t be able to pay for a second year anyway
$500 may not be much to some of you, but it’s TONS to me.
The internet is a big place and there are ways to keep in touch with people outside the SDMB
I’d say the answer is yes. Maybe not for $20, but for $500, absolutely.
How about paying my Internet access bill ($26.95 a month) for as long as you don’t want me to post?
Oddly enough, that turns out to be just under the first number I thought of, $700 for two years. (The idea behind that, was that it would cover rent for just long enough that I could focus my paychecks on my living expenses and paying off the last of my debt.)
That’s a very valid point, but personally I don’t think the SDMB reaches enough people for me to consider myself silenced just because I didn’t post here.
Shove it in your ear. It’s a damn lucky–and rare–person on this planet who has never had to be inconvenienced or give up a certain amount of pleasure and/or time for money. You can get all high and mighty about people who steal sandwiches from the breakroom fridge at work, too, but my only response to that is “I hope you’re never in a situation where you have to eat somebody else’s sandwich to make it through the day”.
I do, too–but you could convince me to leave my “community” for enough money (how much money that is, depends on what exactly “community” means) and you could convince me to stop hanging out at a particular club for a lot less money.
I was speaking in general, not about prr specifically. If he wanted to leave anyway, there’s nothing whorish about the whole deal. I don’t like the idea of members here offering each other cash to leave, but that’s a different thing.
Aw, bullshit. “The thing you’re being asked to do” is to not do something. Therefore you are not being asked to doanything. You are, in fact, being asked not to do something. Obviously.
Were you under the impression someone thought there was actual whoring going on? I get that it’s metaphorical; it’s a bad metaphor. Since whoring is having sex (an affirmative act) for money, and the Deal with the Devil involved n doing something, it only works as a metaphor is you’re paying your whore not to have sex with you. Which is why it’s a stupid analogy And it is unnecessarily insulting to those of us who can actually place a dollar amount on what it would take to get us to leave – as is your implication that if we can do so, we don’t have consciences.
I dunno. I really don’t. I like the SDMB a lot, and I consider many posters here friends of mine. There’s another board I frequent for news and political discussion, but the thing is, political discussion is all they do. There’s a good bit of politics here, but that’s not the whole enchilada. I read things, and sometimes I just can’t let what I read go unanswered. I’d like money, and I’m sure that I’ll need it a lot more as I get older and start taking my financial burden from my parents, but… For a million, probably; almost certainly. For several thousand, I’d seriously consider it. For five hundred, maybe, but I kinda doubt it.
The point is really moot, as I don’t think anybody would want me gone enough to pay me.
It’d take more than $500, but not a whole lot more. A few thou and I’d be outta here. This is the best message board I’ve ever found, but the internet’s a big place.
You fools! This thread is just going to convince the Reader they can jack the fees up without anyone leaving. Me? I’d leave for a dollar. Really, I would. Honest.
I love the SDMB and derive a lot of entertainment and edification from it. I’d miss it like hell if I had to stop posting for some reason. That said, I’m going to be spending a LOT of money in the next 6 months and would have a hard time justifying turning down $500 for something as frivolous as posting to a message board. To me, it’s a lot of fun and the best place on the Internet that I know of, but the time I spend here could be redirected to other things, and that money put to good use elsewhere in my life.
As much as I enjoy posting here, and the information I learn has no value. I may be going away for nothing. I’ve returned to college online and my time is limited.
With my current bills and expenses I don’t know if I will renew my membership when it expires.
I can’t say how much I’d have to be offered to stay away for ever and I doubt I could do that. I’d say a cool million would do it but really 500 thousand would help me the same as a million and 250 thousand would help me the same as 500 thousand and really anything over 50 thousand would let me not worry about anything but work and my classes so I’d leave for that.
On a related note if anyone had suggestions on how to get 50 thousand people to donate a dollar to me I’d appreciate it (just kidding)
I don’t think accepting money to stay off the Dope necessarily would make one a whore. But if I’m in a debate with someone and the exchange is getting heated and my opponent offers me a sum of money to shut me up, I would feel dirty if I took him up on his offer. Basically I would feel like by taking the money, I would be conceding whatever argument I was defending so passionately. I’d be selling out.
So if someone started a thread in IMHO, offering to give the first poster $500 if they stopped posting, I wouldn’t hesitate.
But if I’m in a thread in GQ arguing with a Stormfronter, and he offers me $500 to quit gracing the board with my niggerish presence, then no, I would not take the money. Or at least, I hope I wouldn’t.
Ah, but where is your cutoff? Howabout $200? $100?
Me, I feel pretty similar to Qadgop, except that I’m much cheaper :p. I post less that I used to, but I still like having the option and I don’t need $500 that badly. Now pay my substantial credit card debt ( stupid hardwood floors ), plus a little extra for a household project or two and I’d happily take a one year posting ( not reading ) hiatus.
For a permanent departure it would have to take a substantial bite from my mortgage for me to agree to such a petty-seeming deal and compromise my comfort. Say low six figures.
And just in case Gorsnak is worried, this ISN’T the same as how high of subscription fees I’d be willing to pay ;). I would consider someone paying me not to post to be silly and unreasonable and would price myself accordingly. But I also wouldn’t pay $100 for an annual membership here - there are all sorts of different kinds of unreasonable.
Rather than go around and around about this, I’ll just say that the whore
I said and implied nothing of the kind. I specifically said pseudotriton isn’t a whore for leaving, and I thought I was pretty clear in that I was talking about myself, not what I think of other people. And for all of that, I said I could imagine leaving if somebody offered me a staggering amount of money. I could use a billion dollars as much as the next guy.
The point was that I want to be here, so I would feel like a whore if I accepted money to leave. Not that anybody else who would take the money is a whore - and even knowing I’d feel like a whore, I might take the money. This is being on a high horse?
I agree with Quadgop et al. Give me enough to retire, and I’d consider leaving the board. (Although I’d take a lot less to relinquish my posting privileges while still being allowed to visit, since I don’t post much anyway). I’ve been lurking on and off since 2000, and I’ll probably still be here the day the Reader decides to pull the plug. Odd as it may seem, I have a relationship with this place, and it’s hard to quantify that in monetary terms.
Huh. If someone offered me that money to shut me up, I’d take it as a sure sign that not only had I categorically won the argument with them, but that they were categorically not worth arguing with ever again. (Note that I think Lib has denied that he offered the money to shut prr up). Taking the money would be partly a boon to my wallet and partly a way of showing utter contempt for the person making the offer
Now that’s interesting. In that case, for some reason, I’d agree with you. I’m not sure what the difference is, but putting it in those terms changes the tenor sufficiently that I wouldn’t accept it. Maybe it’s the historical Jim Crow resonance, a resonance lacking from a debate about atheism, that’d make the difference to me.
As for the ethical dimensions of the situation, though, I tend to think that ethical situations involve harm or boon to someone. Posting on a messageboard is pure entertainment, and it has virtually no ethical dimensions to it at all. (Excepting, of course, posts such as death threats, consoling sick people, etc.; I’m talking about posting in general, not specific posts)
(just kidding)