I have filled out the new pre-subcription form. In my comments I included the fact that if the fee is less then $20 a year, I will offer to sponsor 5 people a year whom the administration deems worthy or needy enough. I start this thread to see how many others would be willing to do the same (and to what extent), so we can get an idea of how many impovershed dopers can join in despite their potential lack of funds.
In addition, I propose a 30-day free new member trial posting period. This gives new folks a chance to:
A) Post.
B) Get addicted to posting.
C) Offer themselves up to dopers as someone worthy of sponsoring.
I am not trying to get into a discussion of whether this new policy is a good idea or not. Go here for that.
We have some folks like jab1 who are good posters but are tight on cash, as he was talking about in a pit thread. I dunno if that is still the case, but I think a sponsorship thing would be good. Just a private email thing from one possible doper to another. Think of it as a way of having a mentor when you sign up.
You think? I imagine a situation where someone posts for 30 days, then says “My free membership is up, sorry, I can’t post anymore.” If someone has enjoyed their contributions, then they can offer to help them (probably through e-mail). I don’t envision 30 days of hard luck stories would do the trick for too many posters. Intelligent, witty, helpful, and kind posts is what would attract me as to sponsor someone.
This could occur (and would be great), but in addition I propose an Official “Sponsor Fund” run by the admins who make the calls on who the donations get assigned to. I am willing to cover 5 folks in this fashion, but if I met a specific poster who really did it for me, I might then offer privately, were he/she to be unsuccessful in qualifying for the “Fund” support.
How would the Administrators ensure that the hard luck cases were valid and not just people who don’t want to pay for themselves?
How would the process have to be kept open to prevent an inevitable pissed-off person from making charges of corruption, misuse, or non-use?
This would be a lot of work for the administrators. Many people are tight enough on money to try to avoid a $20 expense, but many fewer are so tight that they can’t afford it if they really want it. If there is official financial aid available, a lot of the latter are going to give that route a try.
I’m not saying that sponsorship and charity aren’t possible, but I am guessing the administrators (and the Reader’s lawyers) would prefer not to be the middle-men.
This is a tough one. What if you sponsored a newbie and then they dropped off the face of the boards? I can imagine feeling a wee bit put-out by that. Wouldn’t you feel you “own” their membership, at least to a tiny extent? What if they turned out to be that year’s <fill in blank with person that annoys you most here>, and people scream for YOUR blood because they’re here by YOUR grace? What if you sponsored someone and then just plain ol’ end up hating them? I can see a rash of emails to mods saying, “I own so-and-so’s membership and I want to take it BACK!”
I think I’d be more willing to let the mods/admins decide how people get sponsored, then just contribute to that. Since I’m getting back on my feet again, I have every intention of donating money to this cause, but I think I would much rather have it be a double-blind system, rather than feeling I might/should/could influence any person’s posting style in any way.
Only my $.02, nothing more. Not trying to thwart your sense of decency, dj, just thinking out loud, basically.
Oh, and btw, I do like the idea of the 30-day trial period. To nitpick again, though, it might encourage more socks rather than more money.
I hadn’t seen this last I looked in the other threads on the PFP, but they should seriously consider offering a discount or free membership to students. As for just plain down on their luck Dopers, or Dopers whose work is of high social but low monetary value (teachers, librarians, artists?) this has some potential. But it would definitely come with some overhead and the people who have to ‘suck up’ the overhead might not be thrilled, or have the capacity to do it.
I would sponsor, but not newbies as in the OP. Once this place goes pay, if you weren’t previously registered I won’t help out. I would gladly help out someone I know, a friend or respected poster from the board who may need a little extra, but I would not help a newbie who’s been lurking after the place started charging.
Could the Teeming Millions put the cash into a pool, and then a panel of dopers, would hand out the money, based on the reading of said doper’s posts, but not identified by name ?
This idea, while at the heart good-intentioned, would, I fear, create a lot of Bad Situations on the Board.
People flooded with requests for sponsorship. If 10 posters you really like, even are friends with, ask you all at once, who do you choose?
The people that are not chosen will bear a grudge against the sponsor who couldn’t support them.
Any time a sponsor is defended by one of those s/he sponsored in a debate, someone can say “You’re just saying that because they’re paying your way…”.
Alternately, an unscrupulous person might start saying “How can you not defend me? I paid for you to be on the Board, at least show a little thanks.”
People that end up being sponsored by no one will just leave, with much bitterness.
Some unscrupulous people who can damn well afford it will seek sponsorship, draining money from the truly needy.
Then you get into the “nightmare” issues. You sponsor someone, and they come on and turn troll. Then, people accuse you of funding a troll, and flame wars erupt. Since the troll is banned after just 3 days, you ask for your money back - not for yourself, but so you can sponsor someone else. More problems ensue…
The above are all IMO, of course. I just see a lot of bad things happening. And while you can say that sponsorship will be secret - come on, you know it will get out eventually.
And involving the SDStaff in the process would ad another layer onto it, and start making it truly Byzantine in politically complex issues.
Not that I, in my current situation, could sponser anyone, but that doesn’t stop me from pipping in.
Should someone who can afford choose to sponser someone who says they cannot, it should just be done. Without announcement or fanfare.
Then there are no feelings of responsibility and no one shouting for your head should the sponsered poster turn out to be the person who pisses everyone off.
I’d be willing to sponsor a poster or two who can’t afford to pay, but it would have to be done privately, and based completely on faith.
However, if we start subsidizing people it’s going to get really weird really quickly… anyone who pays for another would have to do so in a completely neutral fashion. We couldn’t afford to cherry-pick. That would undermine the vitality of this message board…
I mean, where are we going to be a year from now if some of us are paying for only the poor posters that we like?
As I sit here hung over, I am really enjoying all these thoughts posted so far. Truly, it is not an easy one to figure out. I can see advantages in having the mods handle the pool. That way I don’t have to pick. But youse guys bring up some good points about potential pitfalls.
If the administration chooses to start making us pay to post, decides not to handle any of the sponsorship issues personally, and you can’t afford the fee, then give me an e-mail, we’ll talk. . .
Was that a run-on sentence or what?
If this is the case, and you e-mail me: We can consider any sponsorship a no-interest loan. If you can never pay me back, no sweat. But should your luck change one day: pay me back, and if you can, do the same for someone else.
This place is great, and it’s not becuase of a cataloged list of facts (though that sure helps). What makes it REALLY great is the personalities behind all of these posts. I would hate to see some posters go the way of the Do-Do because of goddamn economics.
As one of the people who has been quite open about the fact that I cannot pay, I’ll be honest and say I don’t want to participate in a popularity competition. I wouldn’t want to be sponsored by someone and know who sponsored me or have the feeling they were expecting my posts to either be of stellar quality or that I had to come out in support of them in any debate. I don’t want to see claques on the boards. Accusations of cliques are bad enough ;).
I do like the idea of lower rates for students, single parents and them darn furriners. I know there would need to be some sort of honesty system in place and it could get tricky once we have newbies trying to get concessions. Esp the single struggling parent criteria.
I’m worried this place is going to die. I know it was vital and energetic in the AOL days but it was also free.
I’ll sponsor one or two people if the need arises. With one stiuplation-
The sponsoring is completely anonymous to others. As in, if I sponsor BobThePoster, the only people who will know would be BobThePoster and myself. Honestly, anyone who I feel comfortable sponsoring in a situation like that would be the folks I feel aren’t going to bring it up over and over again.
And I would certainly hope that most of us are beyond the stupid “oh well I sponsored you, so you owe me” phase. Give me a break, please.
