The set-up is the simple - and cheap - bit. There’s all the other stuff to do: legal, administration, sales, backups, meetings, etc. Let’s say that it takes an hour a day (on average) to run the Dope. Let’s further say that (for simplicity) that Jenny & Jerry each cost their employer $100K per year - that’s not salary but the total cost of employment - and work an 8 hour day five days a week. So the cost of running the Dope is $12500 per year. That’s not trivial.
I am pretty sure I remember Jerry was not a FT staff, that he was called upon when needed, which is why little things, like fixing emoticons were not done.
And it’s not that Tuba isn’t worth it, but I doubt is she is being paid a fraction of that.
However, there is something then wrong with your figure of $12, 500.
But having been there, done that, I know that it doesn’t take anywhere near that much time to administer something like this. The setup was not the simple bit. It was the most complex bit. Once the infrastructure was in place it was maybe - maybe an hour a month. Backups can be done automatically. It really does become pretty much set it and forget it. The time consuming stuff is done by members and volunteer moderators.
If it cost 12,500 a year to administer vBulletin wouldn’t be able to host it for you for only $800/year.
I think it’s a real loss, FWIV.
I don’t see any reason for volunteer mods to be any more inconsistent than paid mods. They are still enforcing the rules on behalf of the board in question. They still can get together and can discuss exactly how they are going to mod, and work out any differences. They still have a set of rules–and rules restrict those in power as much as those who are not.
I also don’t like this line of thinking at all. We should not refrain on fixing the problems on this board because some mod might not like it and want to quit. A mod is still one user. They are not more equal than others. Plus, if we fix problems, more people would likely be wiling to mod.
And I agree with Lamia that we have a bigotry problem. Rather than being a welcome place for diversity of ideas, we drive people away. It’s the paradox of tolerance. If you don’t allow bigotry, you actually get more diversity.
That’s not to say that concepts related to bigotry can’t be discussed. Just that we should establish a clear line based on what we all pretty much agree is bigotry, and don’t allow it.
That said, I could see certain perennial arguments being just told to go read a closed thread, and to only come back if they can bring a new argument that hasn’t been discussed. Just for bigotry–not for anything else. It would basically be “Racist thread. Poster posts where that question has been answered and reports the post.” Mod does a quick check, and then closes the thread.
But that last part isn’t essential. The one where we just chop off the bigotry that isn’t in a GD thread arguing about what bigotry is is the important one, I think. Keep it out of the whole board, and it would be a more welcoming place.
I was thinking it might be worth considering having the Mods all post with the name “Moderator”, of course the could still keep their regular screen name when they just want to post regular stuff. But when they want to moderate, they should have a second “Moderator” banner they all post under essentially making them anonymous.
Might cut down on some of the bad feelings or drama between posters and moderators. Plus, it would make it less personal when Dopers do want to criticize a moderation.
As far as I know, the world has changed on that. Ads online are worth a lot less than donations now. Every online content creator I know is supported primarily through Patreon, not through ads.
And, yes, it should be possible to keep this board running on fairly little money. I know that the Straight Dope still needs to pay TubaDiva, but it should be doable.
If it cost a lot, then there is likely a lot of restructuring that could be done to reduce costs.
That said, some small unobtrustive ads from very reputable sites might be fine. I’m talking Google Adwords and such. And, yes, possibly getting sponsors directly.
But none of this stuff with the bar on the bottom and popunders and stuff like that.
That last one, I do not recommend. I know that, if I feel forced on that issue, then I will find a way around it, and then I will not in any way contribute. You can serve a reminder or something, but I have never given into any site that tried to force the issue.
On the other hand, as long as it’s my choice, I’ll support financially and find ways to make ads tolerable. (They generally involve tricks that make them less noticeable on my end, without blocking them entirely.)
I just only contribute when I think it can actually help, or briefly for access to perks. So I have adblock on by default.
Like back in the AOL days when I was always ArussFROG except “on duty” when I became Hostie6. In the Civil War room most of us kept our official identity “secret” and were just our screen-name to everyone else. Since we met a lot IRL (at various historic events and lectures) it did help quite a bit.
Then you’d likely be interested in this ATMB thread, started by a cofounder of Stack Exchange/Overflow from six years ago. Probably an interesting thread to review in full, but I’ll leave that to you or anybody else so inclined.
It depends on precisely what you mean by “diversity”. It also depends on what is meant by “bigotry” and who establishes that “clear line”. As to a “clear line” that all sides will agree on, I doubt that’s possible. I think we might be able to agree on extremes, and between them there will be disputed territory. I was going to give some examples, but I didn’t want to start the debate in this forum.
I bet everyone here is going to hate this, but I’m going to throw it in anyways. 
Instant money-making idea:
**Ban bounties. **
Any registered member can request that another member be added to the ban bounty board. Mods assign a very generous ban bounty based on that posters posts, join date, and mod-selected intangibles.
So Poster X: $500, Poster Y: $2000, etc.
Then anybody who feels strongly enough that the board would be better off without Poster X or Y can contribute whatever amount they feel like, and when the amount is reached, Poster X or Y is banned for a set amount of time, say 3 or 6 months.
You could have some fun with this - put it all public on a patreon, so everyone can see how much their silence is worth and how close other folk are to being banned, and whether it’s worth contributing.
Instant moneymaker!
There may be some moral hazard in that some particularly determined and controversial posters just keep coming back more and more determined to agitate after their 3 months is up, but as long as they stay on the right side of not getting perma-banned, that’s just another money-maker for the board!
Sounds good. Tuba can pay me to troll targeted well-off Dopers to keep the money rolling. And I’ll need socks. Lots of socks.
I’ve been rereading The Straight Dope Tells All (1998) and damned if it wasn’t relevant.
It was like seeing TUBADIVA’s baby pictures. 
I don’t know what a.f.c-a is/was, but apparently AOL was a revenue source. From the book:
Cecil says another feature would be
So my questions:
Did AOL pay the SD?
How much revenue was generated by the SD AOL store?
OK, so who is JKFabian? I don’t think I’ve heard of that user before.
The *Straight Dope Tells All *was published in 1998. I’d assume JKFabian is no longer around. There are dozens of usernames in there I don’t recognize: TamBlonde, Jaz Beau, Marrtenvdg, SueZ, BayBeary, WildBabe4J, Film Esq, Nootcheez, Bermuda999, and many more.
a.f.c-a stands for alt.fan.cecil-adams. It refers to the newsgroup, which came before the SDMB forum you see today. Newsgroups were a more primitive kind of bulletin board system. It was all text based. Newsgroups are still around, although they aren’t nearly as popular as they once were. You can see the newsgroup here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/alt.fan.cecil-adams
Newsgroups aren’t really managed by a central server, like the SDMB is. It’s a bunch of servers scattered around the internet by whoever wants to be part of it. If the SDMB ever went away, the alt.fan.cecil-adams is probably where you should look to see what happened. Someone would probably post info there eventually.
JKFabian was Firstborn of The Mods. She didn’t make the move over to this place, I gather.
I remember reading the "were leaving aol "note basically it read like a divorce notice from two nineteen year olds ….
But around that time aol was blowing up huge right after unlimited access started and people were paying attention to the content so they dumped all their “mature content” aka the hub …… and I think the dope not getting renewed was part of that mindset