When you’re asking a question you’d like an answer to, do you normally address the person you’re asking as “fuckhead?”
I do prefer a shotgun approach, fire a quick and wide scattering, and then off to reload.
Fair enough, but that isn’t the nature of most of the defensive replies on p.1.
It’s not the asking, it’s the fact that he came in with guns blazing and spewed insults on everyone who tried to answer his question, implicating all of us in a vast conspiracy. That’s loonie stuff, and it wouldn’t be tolerated in any business other than a mental hospital.
How you doin’?
Is Muffin going to have to put “dude” in his location line like bbs2k used to do?
Just to be on topic, I would kind of like to know where the money’s going myself, but I can live without knowing.
I’ve seen this sort of stupid assumption several times over the years, and still don’t understand it. For example, see this thread from a few years ago:
Ok, I understand most people know shit about cost accounting, but you’d think 10 seconds thought would keep them from saying stuff that was completely stupid.
As I point out in that thread, even if you think the server, bandwidth, software and electricity are free, what about the payroll for employees who support and run everything? Even if you assume that no one involved in running the board costs you more than $30 an hour (which is a ridiculously low cost IMHO) if they spend only a total of 10 hours a week running the board, that costs you over $15,000 per year. Just a touch over that two grand figure you seem to know about.
Now, are you really sure that both Jerry and Ed work for free, so that the time they spend on the board is free? Do you think that there is greatly less than 10 hours a week spent on the board?
Now add back in reasonable charges for running and hosting the server. Call it $150 a month for a decent CoLo and bandwidth (could easily be more), plus the cost of upgrading the server hardware now and again, and you’re looking at another $2400 per year, easily more.
Now those are just guesses. The Reader is a private company, and as such the only proper answer to the question of “How do you spend your money?” has been given: Fuck Off and Die.
So how about it genius? Still married to that $2000 per year figure?
Hmmm, maybe it is time I changed it back to just “Boston”. My old name did lean sort of effeminate, but with my new streamlined and super cool abbreviation I can now come off as gender neutral.
Can you blame me though? The final straw was when the ladle guy told me he had a message board crush on me.
Okay, kids, I run web services for a living. For a site that runs forums, image hosting, and reasonably heavy traffic, call it about 1k users (each of whom admittedly uses more bandwidth than any one SDMB poster), I pay the following:
$46k every year for a junior system administrator to oversee it.
$60k every three years for servers.
$5k every month for bandwidth and colo fees.
This is for a relatively modest server cluster, with n+1 redundancy and load balancing.
Sure, I could run this site for $2k a month. If I had 300-500 users and no need for a paid administrator.
I would not want to run a site the size of the SDMB (and the Straight Dope site associated with it) for less than a budget of $100k a year, and even that would be on a shoestring.
My job title is “Director of System Administration” where I work. Take it how you will.
Interesting, but it does not appear that the Dope’s budget is that high. They appear to have spent no where near $60k every three years for servers. It fully appears to be only a portion of Jerry’s job to keep the Dope up and running. I would guess the numbers are much lower than 100k per year and it is being run on a shoestring, where with the addition of the google ads, they are probably running in the black at least.
Would you hazard a guess at the monthly bandwidth cost to the dope. We have some numbers from boardreader.com. I would hazard a guess at under $2,000 per month.
http://boardreader.com/domain/straightdope.com
http://boardreader.com/sp/Straight_Dope_Message_Board_11709.html
Jim
Zeriel, very interesting post, but like Jim said I don’t believe all those numbers add up the same way. Due to coincidences in service outages I can infer (full disclosure, I have no cite), that the message board shares the servers of the Straightdope.com and TheChicagoReader.com. The Chicago Reader has other sources of advertising income, and we also have other forms of advertising income on this message board.
I’m sure that all together these websites cost plenty of money to maintain and run, but I believe the voice of discontentment comes from the movement of having a nice message board for free, then the transition to a subscription fee. I won’t dispute that there haven’t been some marked improvements in many areas, but I think there are some who remain disappointed because they were under the impression that they were promised sweeping improvements a nigh-perfect service.
Awhile ago, I experienced a lot of interruptions and, after troubleshooting with TimeWarner (soul suckers), it ended up being my wireless router. Since replacing the router, I rarely experience board outages.
Granted, I usually post during non-business hours because BigBrother won’t let us cruise the internet during working hours.
Zambini57,
Each and every one of your posts is justifying my $15. I am vastly entertained by angry morons baying at the moon in absurd threads like this.
Keep it up! Bravo!
Wouldn’t that be justifying his $15? He has to pay to post his idiocy; you can read it for free.
The free market at its best!
Oh, yes. Who can forget the nightmarish passage in 1984 where minions of the oppressive empire are expected to work when they’re at work? Shudder.
I’ve been lurking for a few years too. The performance is pretty shit at times but is much better than it used to be. I used to have to pre-load pages in different tabs just to switch between threads quickly. Now the boards go down occasionally and there are bouts of hiccups, but back then it was slow almost all the time.
Technically, I suppose you’re right. But IMO part of what I’m paying for is the entertainment provided by other members, plus the opportunity to thank them for the amusement.
I suppose I owe the SDMB more than just about anybody else, given that I was led directly by a thread here to enter and win the Bulwer-Lytton contest.
But I’m not a poodle, so FUCK the SDMB! 
Actually the BigBrother comment was based more on the fact that my company has actual people who spy on what we’re doing. It’s more to prevent corporate espionage than to make sure we’re not posting to the StraightDope, but it still has a BigBrother feel to it.
[QUOTE=fetus]
It’s not the asking, it’s the fact that he came in with guns blazing and spewed insults on everyone who tried to answer his question, implicating all of us in a vast conspiracy. That’s loonie stuff, and it wouldn’t be tolerated in any business other than a mental hospital.
First of all, this is the Pit, so if I choose to come in “guns blazing”, that is my prerogative.
I have read many Pit posts, some come on strong, some weak. Some post a perfectly decent rant, and then say “Oh, this is the Pit , so fuck, shit, asshole, etc.”
We’ve all been witness to it.
The funny thing is that when the rant hits home, all the sacred cow-herders are suddenly offended at the "offensive " language.
What hypocrisy.
I agree. It’s absolutely your prerogative to look like total douche.