The SDMB subscription gain for the two year period comes out to $82,340.
$2,235 was spent to renew the hamsters’ contracts which included two years worth of Kaytee Chew Biscuits and Evian water for their cages.
$2,000 was given to Slug Signorino to help with him with his inspiration. He spent it on one bottle of Remy Martin Louis XIII and drank it down within the course of one hour.
$126 was spent on the Moderators and Administrators. They were given a choice between a Bolivian male escort and a coupon for a free triple Whopper with cheese and soda at burger king. Both choices cost an estimate of $7. I am not allowed to disclose which option each moderator picked.
The Administrators had the same deal except their Bolivian escorts could have been female and all the escorts knew how to play the trombone.
The remaining $77,979 were spent on a lovely chandelier for Cecil Adams.
If a person subscribes to a chargeable service they tacitly accept the charge.
If he/she was not already a member I do not think they should query the subscription fee on, or before, subscribing. They should not in effect say ‘I would like to join this message board but first I must ask you what you are going to with the money’. The message board offers a service and tells them how much it is going to cost. The terms are clear. That is business. The person takes his choice. He joins and pays the requested sum or he does not join.
However, if a person has been receiving a free service and the supplier of that service wishes to levy a charge I can see why some people (but not me for reasons previously stated ad nauseum on this thread) would ask what said charge was being imposed for. It is a natural question (maybe asked out of simple curiosity) but a question which the supplier is perfectly entitled to refrain from answering.
Not to speak for Ed himself, but I was just communicating with him today. He is snowed under with enormous cubic buttloads of work, but AFAIK nothing is bad or unpleasant otherwise. He’s about as busy as the proverbial one-armed man in the hypothetical paper-hanging contest.
The metaphor that’s been put forward in this thread about a boss requesting an accounting from an employee is a good one; let’s take it a step further.
Suppose you’ve been volunteering at a business; for example, a hospital. (I use the example of a hospital only because it leapt to mind as a place that has volunteers sometimes.) After several years of volunteer work, you get hired for a paying job at the hospital. Then does your boss have the right to demand an accounting of how you spend your paycheck?
Suppose you screw up at work now and then; sometimes you do things more slowly than the boss would like, and sometimes you show up cranky (and people suspect you’re hungover), and once or twice a year you fail to show up at all.
In some jobs, you’d get fired. In some other jobs, you would NOT get fired. But there is no job in the world in which you would feel compelled to tell your boss how you spend your paycheck.
The Chicago Reader is a privately held company; as such, they have no obligation to provide anyone with financial information.
They choose not to discuss this matter, not on this board or much of anyplace else.
If you feel we offer you good value for your $7.50 or $14.95 a year, then we don’t need to justify anything; if you feel you do not receive good value, there’s not much we can say to convince you otherwise.
Sheesh, you’d spend more than this to go to a movie. ONCE.
Finally, you may think whatever you like about Ed’s status at the Reader, but as he has been getting paychecks from the Reader for 30 years now, I don’t think his status is in any doubt. Certainly when he speaks here he speaks as management, as authority. He’s my boss, whether you accept him or not. That’s good enough for me.
The above quote (and similar ones made by other admins & mods), seems almost unfriendly doesn’t it? I find it a bit disturbing that the Chicago Reader / Straight Dope website conveys a rather laid-back carefree image until it comes time to discussing where the money goes. Yes a compnay may be privately held, but it still has obligations to provide somebody with financial information. How about the municipal, state and federal governments?
What if you wanted a loan from a bank? Do you tell them “Nyah, nyah we’re privately held and we don’t need to show you no stinkin’ financial statements.” ?
Yes you don’t have to tell us where the SDMB subscription money goes, but I think a lot of SDMB members have ideas about what types of software, servers, webhosts, etc are beng purchased with that money and maybe they could find better and cheaper alternatives. As you may have noticed, this board has many sharp, clever and intelligent people (some of whom probably even have High School Diplomas). They just might be able to come up with some interesting suggestions.
I noticed that but didn’t want to bring it up. I did everything in my power to offer this up in a polite and non-nagging way, but their responses seemed a bit knee-jerk and didn’t really address my question or point. Anyway, no biggie.
Now you’re gettin’ it. Aside from tax information, they don’t have to reveal a thing to the government. Loans are entirely optional, and if a company doesn’t wish to reveal financial information, no one can force them to get a loan.
It is clear they really don’t want any advice. And for some reason, that really ticks some people off.
I dunno, think in terms of an individual. At an office party, good ol’ Fred is rather laid-back and carefree until you ask him what his salary is. And then he clams up, and looks at you suspiciously. Most people, and most companies, view that information is confidential. Obviously, there are some circumstances where you must provide that information; but outside of those circumstances, most people are reluctant to be too open.
My own thought (not expressed by any READER manager) is that they’d be nuts to reveal any information to this particular group. As Fear mentions, hell, you can’t say the sun comes up in the East on this board without people offering their suggestions and demands for what they think would be a better approach.
We’ve been trying to be as polite as possible, but basically their answer is: none of your damn business.
I don’t recall any such agreement, in spirit or otherwise. IIRC, we were told the options were to pay for the SDMB or have it shut down. If anybody in authority ever stated that the subscription money would be used for upgrades, I didn’t see it.
Performance has been better since we’ve gone to subscriptions, but that may simply be due to fewer people being able to perform searches.
At last! An answer that even dopers should be able to understand. Kudos.
If a free newspaper went to paid subsciption, you’re answer would probably be, “we’ve been losing money for the past five years.” You probably wouldn’t get much more information than that. It would be unusual for a business to reveal that its customers.
I just hope some of the money went to blow and whores.
Good point. However, if one day Fred asked me for some money, I’d like to know why he wanted it and maybe also inquire about his finances.
Interesting example you chose about the Sun rising in the East.
Is the Sun truly rising or is it the Earth’s rotation making the Sun appear to rise?
Then again, using a relativisitc approach, we could say that both viewpoints are equally valid.
Okay, as can be seen from the above paragraph I definitely see why you wouldn’t want the financial details of the subscriptions to be revealed to this crowd.
My only point was that the answer could be put a bit more courteously than “we’re private - we don’t have to tell you anything”.
