I don’t use adblockers on my computer soley for the Dope, and trying to “guilt trip” people here would be just as bad as guilt tripping people to buy a membership.
So what are you saying? Websites you like should be paid for by fairy dust and happy thoughts?
Everyone with an ad blocker should whitelist sites they want to support. Reminding people that they’re using something they enjoy without doing the decent thing is just good practice. The SDMB ad program makes that problematic, but it shouldn’t be a foreign concept.
Seriously?
A strange idea, but hey yes Kanicbird
Give the ability to ‘buy one’ for member that one likes, or a particularly post from a member that struck you just right. Sort of like buying someone a beer. It would equate to membership time that would be displayed along with their name ( membership days remaining ----). Put that option in the postings, sort of like a ‘like’ button.
Also allow one to buy oneself a ‘beer’, as sometimes we need it.
Here is what I don’t understand:
Why does the Chicago Sun-Times (a fairly “lefty” publication) not include the SDMB in their operations?
Looking at articles I see links to share on FB and Twitter, but no way to comment. I see editorials and opinions… but no response mechanism.
Even looking at the links below each page, the SDMB is missing. By reading the digital paper one would have no idea this place exists and no means to get to it.
Therefore, my suggestion is greater… much greater… integration with the parent companies main product. The CST should promote this site. Have a CST forum… then split into sub-forums… which each subforum representing the main section of the paper. Have a “comment on this article!” link below the articles which either (a) brings one to the proper subforum, or (b) brings one to a thread discussing that specific article. While I am not a techie, I am sure there are ways to automatically populate the relevant CST subforums with article-based threads… so do it.
Automatically register new digital CST subscribers to the SDMB, while conducting a push marketing campaign to current subscribers highlighting the community which will assist in driving visitors, utilization, and clicks.
And for God’s sake, put a link to this place somewhere on the bottom of each page, maybe between “opinions” and “autos”.
I mean, Patreon, coffee mugs, and raising the subscription price are nice ideas which will bring a burst of revenue, but if you want to truly save this site, the CST needs to stop treating the SDMB like a bad merger that happened a long time ago, where you don’t want to spend money to promote it, but you also don’t want to kill it for fear of the one-time charge which will hit your books. So use it.
Perhaps we are the red haired step child.
The foul-mouthed, slightly psycho, red-headed stepchild.
Like I said, perhaps the point in not closing this place is because the write-off will be too painful. But currently the company owns a newspaper without a comment section, and they own a comment section without a newspaper.
So, integration. I don’t understand why it hasn’t been done before (barring contractual reasons, of course) - it’s not as if the Straight Dope brand is worth millions. Rebrand the boards, integrate it into the newspaper, and promote the hell out of it.
Because there really isn’t much synergy between the Sun-Times and the SDMB. Anybody who still reads a daily newspaper does so for local news and features, not for sparkling discussions about whether the Bermuda Triangle exists. I’ve been here long enough to remember the Straight Dope Chicago forum, which dried up and withered away. If the Sun-Times thought there might be synergy, they would’ve kept the Straight Dope column when they sold the Chicago Reader.
Face it, as far as Sun-Times Media is concerned, this IS a bad merger that happened a long time ago. The Sun-Times bought the Reader, and the SDMB got dragged along with it.
IMHO the only reason Sun-Times Media is keeping the Board alive is because they think there’s some equity in the Straight Dope brand, maybe to squeeze another book or two out of the old columns. Why do I think this? One tip off is the Straight Dope home page. Look near the bottom of the page, where “Find us in the Chicago Reader” is still a live link, even though the Reader no longer has any connection to either the Dope or the Sun-Times.
We’re doomed!
I honestly don’t get why you think a cancelled column and its associated fan board means much of anything to the parent corporation. If they wanted a comment section for the newspaper, it would be trivial to set up. Warping this place into a newspaper comment section makes no sense at all.
What’s the reason that the Chicago Reader was sold off separately from the Straight Dope? IOW, why did the Sun-Times hang onto it?
No shit the board needs the revenue. But let’s be practical: do you really think nagging people and making them feel guilty is going to make them want to fund the place? It’s like when you go to a store and they try to upsell you shit.
Vinegar vs honey, that sort of thing. You don’t get what you want by annoying people.
The idea is to monetize the site. Coffee cups, gift subscriptions, and merging forums are bake sale ideas. Making this place useful to the parent corporation and its mission… even if it means rebranding and redesigning the SDMB… is not. There is nothing that states the SDMB has to remain the SDMB, after all.
Sure there is a high likelihood of failure, but this thread was started to discuss ideas to stave off the imminent near certainty of failure. After all, to quote the OP:
Yes.
Mods asking for ideas indicates that the SDMB is doomed.
Only two reasons I can think of
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Like I posted, STM media thinks there’s still some equity in the brand, and they don’t want to let it go
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The Reader’s new publisher didn’t want to continue the column and didn’t see any reason to take ownership of straightdope.com, so STM is keeping it going until they can figure out what to do (invest in it, kill it, find a buyer for it, or milk it until it dies on its own - at this point, any of those is possible.)
I don’t know if “doomed” is the right word, but I have the feeling that if the bottom line doesn’t improve by X date, it won’t be around after that.
But I will say that putting Tuba in charge rather than just shutting the whole thing down gives me at least a little hope.
To me, much of the value is the archives. The existing posts. If the STM decides to dump the SDMB, I would hope that selling it would be more profitable than just letting it disappear. Per some of our members with experience with message boards, they are very inexpensive to run.
Oh BTW, look at my junk ^.
I have detected a problem with this custom title fund-raising idea. It is invisible unless you post.
As evidenced by this post, this will certainly lead to even less meaningful content being posted.
Difficult for me be even less meaningful than usual, but I do my part.
There was a racist rant (post 80)https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=860037&page=2
And that’s the kind of thing we need to get rid of. Not warnings, just bannings. We dont need that kind of racism around here.
I don’t think any point of view–no matter how ridiculous–should be banned. How can we fight ignorance if we ban and erase every ignorant comment? Personally, I much prefer comments like that to be met with actual facts, statistics, logic, etc. We shouldn’t just be deleting all the comments we disagree with simply because they’re offensive. That’s not fighting ignorance, that’s avoiding it.
“We shouldn’t just be deleting all the comments we disagree with simply because they’re offensive.” Not all the comments we disagree with- blatant *racism. *
You cant fight that sort of racism with facts.
I disagree. While such a poster may be impervious to facts, readers more generally are not. If we don’t leave such posts intact and don’t post rebuttals then how is someone going to cope when faced with such a nasty argument? If we practice censorship, we’ll just see arguments along the lines of, “They couldn’t argue against me so they just censored me and made sure my posts disappeared.” whereas if the posts are left in place with rebuttals, then not only can they not say that but those with whom they argue can say, “Oh yes, we read your drivel and found it convincingly rebutted.” The Left, with its penchant for no-platforming and censorship, makes a big mistake when it practises the former.