Oh, yeah? Back when I was a kid, we had to submit our posts with carrier pigeons. Sometimes we’d run out of pigeons and have to use snapping turtles instead. I’m still missing a few toes from the last flame war about Wildest Bill.
I agree that the slowness of this Board is troubling, but I don’t think it’s as bad as it’s always been. There were times two years ago when at peak hours when I wasn’t able to log on with a T1 line. It’s not as bad as that now, but I wouldn’t even try to get on here on a dial-up line.
What upsets me is the seeming unwillingness here to look at different funding models. Two sites I’m involved with (CricInfo and Fark) have had a lot of success with “enhanced membership” features (“CricInfo Plus” and “TotalFark” respectively) in which members pay a small fee to get more content. I haven’t been around Fark for long enough to know, but the changes in CricInfo since they introduced CricInfo Plus have been dramatic. It used to be all but impossible to log on during Test Matches; now it’s a breeze. In addition, the money they’ve been getting from subscribers allowed them to increase their content even for non-subscribers. I highly suspect (and I know a guy involved with CricInfo who told me this) that CricInfo might have disappeared–been bought out or shut down–without CricInfo Plus. Instead, they bought out Wisden Interactive!
We could all think of a few things this Board could do with a bit of extra cash. I know this post is going to get smacked down but I feel bad that so many great people put so much time and effort into this Board and the third part of the puzzle–money–is lacking.
You were planning on growing them back? I’ll get JAMA on the line.
Yeah, in fact sometimes we had to read a thread and then submit a reply three days before the thread was opened just so we wouldn’t be posting to an out-of-date thread!
Hey, I said nothing about the ones attached to my feet. Those pesky little turtles got into my severed toe collection while my back was turned. 
What’s the “non-donation tax problem”?
Slowness, shmoeness. I remember when the board would go down with maddening regularity, when threads had to be closed down after 10 pages and quadruple posts were the norm.
Ayuep, back when there were a mere 10,000 registered members and 6 forums.
I just ordered 6 new Straight Dope books and a T-shirt (my old ones (Old Ones?) were all getting a bit ratty anyway) and I’m unemployed, goddammit. Now I’m going to challenge all Dopers to give until it hurts, our goal for this month is $175 000 USD, which should solve this fucking server problem for a while. Buy 'em for your friends!
Ideas for new merchandise:
Black T-Shirts (!)
Anatomically Correct Moderator Action Set
Cecil Adams poster
Pink Unicorn figurine
1920’s-style “Death Ray” Monopoly token
Laminated Cecil Adams-Autographed Membership Card
Apparently, it’s that you can’t donate money to a corporation (the Chicago Reader, in this case). Of course, this problem could be solved immediately by setting up a 501©(3), as literally thousands of US companies have done. (I work for a 501©(3) myself.) So…is it really a problem?
Well she knows orange sets off my mental tick. (getting undressed and then shouting ORANGE ORANGE)
You can too donate money to a corporation, you just won’t receive a deduction from your taxes for doing so.
I’m not sure why the Reader would want to set up a 501©(3) (it isn’t a not-for-profit enterprise, I’d imagine), and I seriously dispute your statement that “literally thousands” of U.S. companies have done so.
Would you care to expand on your suggestion a bit? I’m aware of transaction structures that use a 501©(3) as a figurehead to operate something on a nonprofit basis then have the charity pay out management fees and the like to a company that runs everything, but it’s not something that’s done a whole lot or is a widespread “problem” or anything I don’t think.
I’d like for you to expand on your post a bit if you’re so inclined cuz so far it’s striking me as coming from the “it’s the corporations, man” side of things.
If they’re anatomically correct and life-size, then sign me up.
STONE HIM!
What are you, Bill O’Reilly? Why don’t you shut your piehole and let some decent folk vent for awhile; that’s why they’re here aren’t they? Now off with you before I stick a syphillitic bat up your skirt.
I didn’t think I was mean at all. From the reactions I got from that post, I guess I should have just said “Ditto” or “Me too” and just kissed his butt rather than telling it like it is. :rolleyes:
Torgo: If you think you can, go for it. Otherwise, shut your pieh… oops, I meant, “Me too”.
If that’s so, better tell the people who run this board, who have been using the “but we can’t take donations” line ever since I’ve been here, which is over three years now.
Most companies who set up 501©(3)s do so for quite different reasons than what I’d be suggesting for the Reader. Usually they’re done as corporate foundations, which there are thousands of in the US. Essentially, they’re done so that companies can set up endowment funds which they then contribute (mostly to other 501©(3)s, of course) without having to pay taxes on those assets.
However, those “corporate 501©(3)s” can also have monies donated to them, usually by the CEOs of said corporation. I don’t have the Giving USA 2002 book here, but some of the CEO-to-corporate foundation donations actually appear in their “Gifts of over $5 million” appendix. I should say that CEO-to-corporate foundation donations are under heavy scrutiny right now, especially after it was found that Enron for one was abusing the system (Bernie Ebbers apparently was using the Enron foundation as a checking account). But the point is that a corporation can set up a foundation that can then accept donations tax-free, with relatively little trouble (but see below).
Actually, it doesn’t cost a lot to run a 501©(3), especially if you don’t mess with stockholdings and endowment funds. When I was in fundraising in California, some of our parent donors had their own “family foundations” that had asset bases of less than $10,000. They’d put the money in for the year that they wanted to donate to charity, then pay it out as they needed. One guy told me his accountant handled the whole deal. Now, I know that large foundations put their money in stocks or other finances, and just donate the “interest” on their holdings, but that’s not a necessity, and it does cost money to handle that. But just putting money into a “holding” 501©(3) shouldn’t have that much overhead, so long as the Form 990-PV is handled correctly.
Frankly, this is the first time I’ve heard that a corporation can accept “donations.” How would a company explain to the IRS that “someone just gave us this money with no expectation of goods or services in return”? When we receive a donation, we must receipt all gifts in excess of $5,000 and attach them to our Form 990–would a corporation be under the same stricture to report such gifts?
I can see a major drawback to accepting donations: If the reader starts accepting donations, then people will *expect better performance. What if they don’t collect enough to provide it? You think people have a sense of entitlement about this place now… Wait 'till people have ponied up some money and are still unhappy with performance.
And think about how much grief mods get now about their decisions - wait until people think they are owed something because they helped pay for the place.
Sorry to offend the long-time sufferers, with whom I truly do sympathize.
I love this board and the community it fosters. And I do realize it’s not nearly as bad as it could be. In all honesty, it’s probably only been really bad (like last night) a handful of days I’ve been posting.
I just needed to vent, and thought this was the appropriate forum to do so. I apologize for opening my newbie piehole.
Thanks for the tips, ntucker. I learned the clipboard trick in the first couple days I was posting out of necessity. But I will be sure to disable all email notification. (FYI: From what I can tell, it simply remembers whether or not you had it checked the last time you posted in that forum, and defaults to the same.)
The fact that an intelligent conversation miraculously sprung up in this thread is yet another in a myriad list of reasons I love this place.
Let’s see. A new poster to the SDMB, who by definition doesn’t know the history of slowness of the server is annoyed and rants about it in the Pit.
Yep. All checks out. Not a trace of meanness in your post there at all.
I’m not sure donations are really the right solution here. Unless we have many very, very wealthy and generous members, I don’t see how it could have any permanent effect. Every other time that the MB has been sped up, more and more people came and started posting, slowing things down until they reached more or less the same speed that they were before, just with more people.
Then charge a membership to post, but let people read for free. Oh, people will howl, and some people will leave, but you know, for the most part, the loyalists will stay, and benefit from a faster, better SDMB.
I understand the OP. I have a love/hate relationship with this place. I love the many fascinating, informative, entertaining topics. I don’t get to read too many of them, let alone respond, because it’s just TOO DAMN SLOW. I hate clicking on a link, then going off to do something else, then coming back to see “This page cannot be displayed” or some problem with the database.
You get what you pay for? Yeah? Well, I’D PAY FOR A BETTER SDMB! Thousands, or at least hundreds, of others would too.