SDMB financial problems.

[Irishman]

@Fear_Itself

I have no problem with unpaid guests. But when they start complaining about pop-under ads which are an expressed condition of their unpaid status, that is where I draw the line. Unpaid guests have no standing to complain about how the board is monetized.

First off, pop-under ads aren’t getting served to unpaid guests (e.g. me), they are getting served to anyone who isn’t logged in. Open the website on any computer without logging on (for example the way some people like to browse to avoid server clock issues that reset tracking of which threads have been read), and even Charter Members will get those pop-unders. It’s not tracking paid status, it’s serving ads to anyone not logged in.

Which leads to secondly, pop-under ads are a great way to drive off people you want to make paid members, or even registered members.

@JKellyMap

Serious question: Can someone (US resident) make a tax-deductible charitable contribution to the SDMB? Could it ever be registered as a charity? I’m guessing not – but I would argue that it brings community benefits not unlike a public library, say.

As currently owned, no. SDMB is a commercial entity, a business. It’s a promotional activity tied to a newspaper column owned by a commercial media corporation. Theoretically, someone could try to make a 501 c.3. organization about fighting ignorance or answering questions or something, and then run the SDMB as a function of that organization. Practically, I’ve been told that the IRS has clamped down on the 501 c.3. process, and it’s not as easy a status to obtain as it used to be. I suspect the organization would need a strong case for existence to win status, and “hosting a web board dedicated to fighting ignorance and chatting about Game of Thrones” I don’t think would measure up.

@cmyk

Finally, I figured it was the kludge of shit hardware & software this board is hanging from by spit and bailing wire which was giving me this issue.

The software is mostly fine. Just because it is old doesn’t mean it isn’t functional. Yeah, the search engine has limitations (and kinda sucks), but old doesn’t mean bad or broken.

I can’t speak to the servers, but Ed posted that they’re hosted on commercial servers, so I don’t think that’s the issue.

One problem (activity time tracking) seems to possibly be a server interaction glitch, where the server clocks aren’t synched or there’s a hiccup talking between servers or something. That’s an issue for the server farm to resolve.

I suspect the main source of the hangups is ad servers. No particular technical knowledge to support that, just my personal opinion, not suitable for GQ.

Now, 90% of the time I click on a thread, once I see it’s not loading, I’ll hit the cancel button, then reload immediately after. This seems to jog the buffering issue out of the way most of the time.

That does often work for thread calls. Not as useful for searches, as the search engine gets the ping, and then you get stuck in the “you have to wait 120 seconds between searches” message.

@Ed_Zotti

If we have tech problems they’re not because we don’t want to spend the money, it’s because I wasn’t aware we had problems. Reading through this thread and some others I see we have multiple reports of slow loading; I sent a note to Jerry asking if something’s up. [snip] I’ll let you know when I hear more.

Thank you, Ed, for taking the time to read and respond to these concerns. Your responses in this thread have been refreshing and appreciated. I may not agree with some of the business decisions, but I do appreciate you sharing the explanations. It does help relieve some frustration to feel the management is paying attention and sharing with us.

[Kenm]

@Muffin

I don’t know if it applies in the SDMB process, but when making purchases in Canada over the internet from the USA, I’ve found that Canadian VISA DEBIT tends to work when Canadian VISA will not work.

It doesn’t apply. The page is set up to allow payment only through PayPal. It’s PayPal or nothing.

[samclem]

@Irishman

First off, pop-under ads aren’t getting served to unpaid guests (e.g. me), they are getting served to anyone who isn’t logged in. Open the website on any computer without logging on (for example the way some people like to browse to avoid server clock issues that reset tracking of which threads have been read), and even Charter Members will get those pop-unders. It’s not tracking paid status, it’s serving ads to anyone not logged in.

Yes and no. This past week when I go to the main SDMB page and click on “Message Board,” I get a pop under ad. I’m comped for being a moderator, so same as being a paid member. I’m never logged out. I’m logged in constantly and forever. As a side note, I don’t think I’ve gotten a pop under the last two days or so. Perhaps Jerry is tweaking something.

[Irishman]

I posted what Ed said was the intended plan. If logged in posters are getting pop-unders, you need to contact Ed (or start a thread for that).