Hey… personalised SDMB mugs/t-shirts/whatever, with your username on them. Charge whatever th’ heck y’like. I’ll have one jes’ as soon as I get granted a Visa debit card.
I have offered to supply them with a new server with raid 5, with all new hardware, since the issue is not bandwidth related. I am an experienced network and system administrator with DBA experience to boot.
O
Well, I for one sure hope they take Oicu812 up on his offer. If the concern is accepting donations, they can pay him a small fee for his equipment and services.
Personally, I just bought the mug and T-shirt, and put in an order for all four available books so that I can supply the bathrooms at work with reading material. This makes a grand total of 15 lifetime purchases of Straight Dope books by yours truly. (Replacing lost books, buying for friends, etc.)
I really wish there were some more efficient way of donating my money to the boards. I mean, I will continue to buy the books if that’s really going to help, but somehow I wonder if buying $40 worth of books really translates into contributing $40 for a new server for the boards. Once everyone involved in the publishing chain takes their cut? Probably not. Of course someone who knows more about this can feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about this.
Hello MsWhatsit. Allow me to introduce myself: I’m Jonathan Chance, Publishing Professional.
Looking at the pubs available on the board here’s my guesstimate on profit margin on them:
If you bought all 5 available books (one is out of print) the Reader would gross $52.85 (US Dollars). Of that, based upon the margins I get from the books my house sells, I’d say their net profit ranged from 10% to 25%. Overhead, printing and storage can really kill you in the publishing business. Yuck.
And now I’ve talked work from home. Yuck redux.
On the subject of what I can do. I offered to send a $250 check to the CR with Anthracites drive. Never happened but how about this:
It’s not really a matter of server capacity but of hosting location. Suppose I could pull strings and get the SDMB on a server that was kickin’, had multiple T1 lines, and only cost the reader US$20/month for 100 MB of storage space? Would that be worth it?
And I can do it. Just contact me. Nothing wrong with pulling some strings for a worthy cause, is there?
I suggested a long time ago to do some sort of item sales exclusively for the boards. No dice. What I simply cannot understand is this:
The Chicago Reader has a board so popular that the members are willing to donate money, and have offered to on many occasions. I have yet to hear exactly WHY they are unwilling to accept money for a new server. People have offered to donate outright, buy auction items, buy merchandise- why not try it out? What can it hurt?
Zette
For the record, I just purchased 2 mugs and 2 t-shirts for the express purpose of supporting the SDMB.
Cheers
…and that was my 100th post.
Ja. This is why we are all scratching our heads:
Chicago Reader: “We’re not making any money off that damn web site! Where’s our ROI? Grumble grumble…”
Almost every member (who has expressed an opinion on the matter): “Here you go! Here’s money! Here’s thousands of dollars! We want ot buy stuff! We’re willing to pay huge markups on your stuff so you can channel funds toward a server upgrade! Here we are! Ripe for the picking!!”
::A few hundred people throw money at The Reader::
Chicago Reader: “No thanks.”
Message board members: 
---
The Reader is a business, no? The reason for being in business is to make money, no? My (business layman) perspective on this is that The Reader is sitting on a pile of money, even if it’s not a huge one. I can’t believe there isn’t some clever cat somewhere at The Reader who can’t find a way to make a few dollars off of this site.
If the KKK can adopt a highway in Louisiana, why can’t I sponsor the message board for a week (or whatever)? Is the problem that I have to legally receive some service from The Reader for them to be able to take my money? Fine. Add one line of fine print under the SDMB banner that says “Brought to you this month by Attrayant” and consider the cash I send in, be it $20 or $200, to be the “price” for that ad.
Maybe there is some sticky legal issue I don’t know about, but it seems like we have a pretty good think tank here & should be able to figure something out.
OK, I can understand the Reader’s reluctance to just have us throw money at them. However, as a newspaper (particularly a free newspaper) and online source, collection of advertising revenue is their core business.
On the bottom of each SDMB page is a link to the Chicago Reader Online Rate Sheet. On the Rate Sheet, it looks like the Reader is offering “Run of Category” ads for the Straight Dope pages (though not the SDMB) for $25 per thousand displays. The Reader also offers to produce a simple banner if the advertiser does not have one to use.
I realize that the Reader advertising department would not appreciate getting tons of calls for $25 placements, but I’m sure that many of those who have expressed interest in contributing to the server fund would be willing to buy a run or several of vanity advertisements.
Perhaps you could suggest to the Reader that they put together an advertising package for the SDMB server fund and offer it online to those who are interested in contributing. As part of the package, you could include an advertising contract that makes clear that the payment is just for the advertising and clears up any other legal issues the Reader may have.
I don’t see why this wouldn’t satisfy everyone’s concerns.
Ed Zotti had this to say in Una’s thread:
IMO, Ed’s 100% right - and though he knows just how much the SDMB could use the money, the only path of integrity was to decline. And he did so with graciousness and class. My hat’s off to him after reading that post.
When you’re handling contributions, you have a whole different set of responsibilities than you do when you’re handling money in the pursuit of profit. I don’t know the legalities - ask Jodi, Sua, or DSY about that - but I’ll bet the legalities are there, and it’s certainly a whole different moral universe. Mixing the two just doesn’t work, IMO.
Ed went on to say (this was on 12/5/00):
In the past few months, I think we’ve all become aware that nobody’s figured out a way to make anything (besides porn) pay on the Web. Sucks, but it’s the truth. And it’s not Ed’s fault, or the CR’s fault. It’s just the reality of the Web in 2001.
So, I have another dumb question.
If I hypothetically were to buy $100 of ad space for my website on the Straight Dope website, that money would somehow (perhaps not directly, but at least indirectly) help get us a better server/connection?
Save the server; type sigs manually!
It would only help if they agreed in advance to earmark it.
Otherwise, it would be lost in the general fund.
I know it’s hard to believe, but people keep asking and it seems they really don’t want to accept money.
If they did, they could get all kinds without the overhead of creating and running the ad. The current example is at OpalCat’s site. She asked for donations a couple of weeks ago, got dozens of responses and a couple thou for a new server. If that’s any indication of poster loyalty, then based on sheer number of posters SDMB could buy a new server in a matter of days.
So, puzzling as it is, it’s their decision to not accept money, and I think we should let it rest there.
(Note, I’m not saying this because I’m stingy- I’d gladly buy an earmarked ad.)
Out of the mouths of babes. Er, well, out of the clothes of babes, maybe?
Women (oh, ok, men too) of the Straight Dope, arise! You have nothing to lose but your shirts! 
(I wonder if this is the “Plan B” Ed refers to. )