[q] - It’s not that Jerry doesn’t care or the Reader doesn’t give a damn, but we are still not making them any money and they are not inclined to throw more money our way for no return on their investment.
They’re not even willing to spring for what it what take for a software upgrade – there’s just no money in the budget for the Reader to take a tech and put them to work fixing all the bugs and maintaining the system. (The last time they did this we had to have full time tech help for quite a long time, at the Reader’s expense.)
Again, it’s not that they don’t care, it’s that the Reader IS a business and needs to make a profit. We’re not a profit making concern yet.
As to why they turned down the Teeming’s fund raising drive, while all appreciate the thought, legally they couldn’t accept such a gift.
Please try to make the best of what we have, 'cause it is all we have.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator [/q]
What would be illegal about accepting a gift for upgrading the server and software? Do they feel that taking a laughably small amount (say 25,000) collected from 10,000 + members would encumber them in some fashion? I would be willing to have banner ads if it would move the server along. SDMB is pretty much unusuable for increasing periods of time lately. I think most SDMB folks would be willing to kick in 5- $ 10 month for SDMB if decent response was guaranteed. Why not have SDMB go private, what does the Daily Reader have to lose?
Hmm. I just reread it, and I think I had the premise wrong. They refer to “users” chosing to pay or not, but for them, “user” means board-owner, which is often a company hosting a message board for customer support. A different business model entirely.
Here’s a thought… we can all pool our money, and BUY OUT the Chicago Reader! Then we can upgrade the servers, and then SELL the Reader back to its original owners!!
And while we’re at it, we’ll raid the Chicago Reader warehouse and take all the Straight Dope coffee mugs…
Next idea-about 1,000 of the loyal SD’s each chip in $10-30 or so and by a big hulking server-the kind they need. We plug it in once, then sell it to the Reader for $100 as a used item. There can’t be a law against selling a used item to a corporation.
I believe they could accept it, but the money would have to be considered a gift and classified as simple income and therefore The Reader would need to pay taxes on it.
How would it be any different from a university (a “for profit” organization) that accepts huge multimillion dollar donations from wealthy benefactors?
[long, semi-related parallel]
My condo association (which is technically a business since we always have a small net profit at the end of the fiscal year) has received income from the local community association on several occasions, and at least once from the Historic Preservation Board. They like to encourage us to make certain cosmetic repairs to the façade just for the purpose of neighborhood beautification. Accepting the money does not obligate us to make said repairs, but we usually do anyway just to be nice neighbors. It’s often something silly like a little spot of peeling paint on the gutters or roof flashing, something that we would probably not bother addressing if left to our own devices.
The only catch is that, when we do accept this money, we have to record it on the books as gift income and we pay taxes on it. This works in my neck o’ the woods, but the financial and legal situation for The Reader may be quite different… I was just suggesting that a company can accept monetary gifts as long as they pay taxes on them.
I still have a giant tin of Altoids left from the SDMB advertising campaign of yore (I handed out a dozen of those monsters last holiday season), so I feel qualified to offer this one:
The very next time an advertisement appears up there…
CLICK ON IT AND BUY SOMETHING!
You will get something in return, rather than just sending money off that may or may not be spent to your satisfaction.
You will also hopefully spread the word among advertisers that purchasing space on the SDMB is a coveted ritual that is worth the freight.
Cool idea. Then we all go to Ebay and outbid each other like crazy until we’re paying something like $50 per copy! That’s basically what PBS does, right? I mean, you call up and offer to buy an attractive tote bag for $75.00 knowing full well that the damn thing only cost them $2.50 to make.
See? Look at all these clever ideas! You guys can’t tell us that this is an insurmountable problem with all of this determination we’re showing.
Well all right, it looks like they like your idea, SPOOFE.
In case anyone hasn’t figured out the underlying problem by now: Yes, there are several ways that the Teeming Millions could potentially help the Reader out. Many of these ways are already feasible, such as buying merchandise or advertising space. They’re within the means of a great many Dopers, many of whom have stated repeatedly that they’d be willing to pay for the Dope.
There’s just one little problem.
It’s very easy to say that one is willing to pay money. It’s considerably easier, in fact, than it is to actually get up off one’s duff and pay it. I’ll be honest here: I haven’t ordered my Straight Dope t-shirt yet, either. Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe. The fact remains, though, that a great many members of this community haven’t put their money where there mouth is, and if they did, we probably wouldn’t need to be having this discussion right now.
I hope that I’ve guilt-tripped everyone (myself included) enough in this post. Get out your credit card, give the Reader a hand, and fill up your bookshelf.
Why not make the SDMB subscription based? Maybe let the first 50 posts/user be free, and then charge after that? And if anyone tries to get around that by re-registering a sock, make them hand feed Lynn and Tuba chocolates 24/7/365.25.
Boy that’s a pretty high horse there Tex! I have been a member of this board for around 2 years now. I generally link directly to to the message board and usually (not always) bypass the Cecil Straight Dope home page. I have never, ever, to the best of my knowledge, been instructed publicly that buying a T-shirt would get a better server for SDMB.
In all honesty the SD is an interesting and amusing web site but I would not more give it 10.00 or 100.00 any more than I would give other favorite, for profit sites like Salon Magazine, Obscure Store etc. the cash. The site exists primarily to promote the Straight Dope Books and Cecil’s Column, which is great but those operations are self funding and I doubt Cecil is going to miss any meals if I don’t get a mug. The SDMB is what I am interested in and want to help. I realize, however, that they are joined at the hip.
With this in mind. If the Chicage Daily Reader would print a SDMB T shirt with… what?.. I don’t know. SDMB Smileys, the best pit rant of all time. Something colorful and interesting on it (not the silly slapping bag head) Something good looking and not too geekazoid that people want to buy and can wear in public as a conversation starter. Maybe a few different ones. I will pay $ 15.00+ for that shirt with the general understanding that the promotional T-shirt is to upgrade the SDMB infrastructure. As many people (including myself) as offered $10. - 100.+ dollars in the fund drive I think you could get at least 5,000 -
$ 10,000 this way from us “cheapskates”. You also need to be announcing this in the message forum headers and making the T-shirt = better board response linkage explicit.
Here is my order for 10. Let me know when they are ready.
I believe your analysis is correct, Attrayant, but I just wanted to point out that universities (at least in the U.S.) are “not-for-profit” institutions, which is why it is a different situation than the Chicago Reader.
The only problem with this idea is that while it does help out the Reader, it doesn’t necessarily help out the SDMB. I don’t know enough about the situation at the Reader to know whether an increase in Straight Dope merchandise revenue would cause someone to think about upgrading the SDMB server. (And I admit that I’m in the same position as you with regards to buying the t-shirt. We need a hanging your head in shame smiley.) Is there some way to set up the on-line ordering of merchandise to track total purchases buy SDMB members?
Something we shouldn’t forget is that the cost of a new server is not the only issue. There are also the on-going costs of maintaining the server, including technical support, software, and connection costs.
I just thought of another idea since we seem to be tossing out ideas. How about when people buy merchandise, having an additional box “Yes, I want to donate ____ to the SDMB server fund”? The amount would then just be added to the total order, similar to the coupons you can add to your order at the grocery store to give money to feed the hungry. (For those people who don’t have this, at the checkout, the store has a display with tear-off coupons for $1 donations, and you just tear off as many as you want. The amount gets added to your bill.) This would eliminate the need for any separate collection process.
I think Guin’s idea of selling autographed copies of Cecil’s books may be the easiest to get going. I think a few special books autographed by all the admins/mods would also be a good idea.
I have mentioned before that I have all the books and have purchased a few of them more than once. An SDMB t-shirt would be cool.
As to what Chronos said, does it really make a difference if we buy SD stuff on-line? If I buy the next book here instead of the bookstore on the corner of my block does it somehow help the messageboard?
I’ve never been on e-bay. That auction thing sounds like fun. If we all got together and decided how much each of us could pay for one, would that be considered illegal price fixing? If this e-bay thing should actually come to pass I’m telling you all, I’m fixin’ to get me an Ed, Cecil and the All Moderator Special Edition.
Ah, this might not be feasible. We’re spread over two continents; in fact, many of us have never actually met. There’s a couple in NYC and a couple in Chicago, but the rest of us are scattered in such odd places as Montana, Toledo, and Amsterdam. Shipping alone to allow everyone to sign these books could run into some real money.
