You know what? It's really not that fucking expensive to run a message board.

The BBQ Pit
1

In light of these ridiculous google ads on the SDMB, I just wanted to call bullshit on the quotes given in the “About this message board” thread about the ads that said things like “even after each member paying $15 a year, this board is a financial vacuum for us.”

Bullshit.

For a quarter of the money that this board brings in through memberships, anyone could make a board with ten times the features and basic functionality of this one. It is simply pure mendacity to continue to pretend that this is some sort of money pit - I personally know a guy that runs an enormous board with twice the daily traffic of this one, and he’s never charged anyone a cent.

It is insulting to the paying members of the SDMB when the moderators continue to spout these ridiculous statements - especially for a board that’s so unreliable that people make constant jokes about the “hamsters” powering the thing, and one that’s connected to a major publication. Ridiculous.

2

Oh goodie. Another thread about the ads. Although I guess compared to pay-to-post it hasn’t been nearly as bad.

Sorry, but I’ll take the words of the folks who look at the books over “yeah man, I know a guy.”

And saying someone should punch a mod in the jaw? Classy. I don’t think the ads will be bothering you much longer either way. . .

3

It’s a free country, mate. Why not try putting your money where your mouth is rather than bitching about it.

Stranger

4

Linkety-link here for the punch threat. I think we should encourage the OP to elucidate his preferred means of dispute resolution.

5

Jesus, it’s a METAPHOR. The only thing more ridiculous than the ads is the people like you guys that have come out, ready to piss all over everything and say, “I love the ads, so FUCK YOU!”

:wally

6

A metaphor is a comparison not using like or as. Care to elaborate?

7

Haw haw haw, you dick-grabbing piece of garbage. The point is that if you refer to that as a THREAT, you’re George W. Bush up in this bitch, not a reasonable human being.

8

Sounds like someone’s a little cranky. I guess they don’t teach literary devices in highschool anymore…apparently they don’t teach “how to react rationally to situations around you” either.

9

I’ve got two fingers for you, mate.

10

Really? Isn’t one usually sufficient for all your communication needs?

11

If you’d like to go on proving my point, please do keep posting…until you’re no longer allowed, of course.

12

Dick-grabbing? Is that now an insult? Does any man not grab his dick? Are we to assume that you don’t? Did you lose your hands in an industrial accident?

13

Regardless of how many defenders the Google ads get (and they aren’t all that difficult to ignore completely, and I wouldn’t ever click through them, out of principle), the OP is correct. While I don’t mind paying to post, and don’t find the ads to be particularly offensive, I do feel manipulated by the rational behind both actions. I really, really find it hard to believe that this board requires a $15/year registration fee AND ‘pay per view’ or ‘pay per click’ advertising to just keep its head above water - unless the admins decided to go through Halliburton for hosting/bandwidth and personnel - especially since the board hasn’t functioned more quickly, or with more added bells and whistles for members than it did when any old yahoo could post. I found the board to be much more diverse and to include a much wider viewpoint when posting wasn’t restricted. And to those who might doubt my experience because of my regdate, I’ve been a lurker for close on 7 years now.

Is the board required to kick some specified amount towards the Reader that’s not immediately obvious? Does the paper run on a ‘shared costs’ module? Why is the board consistantly a ‘money sink’ despite the offers of others to take the financial burden from the Reader’s shoulders, or regardless of the examples of other sites running larger boards with more users that manage to do more with less?

Eh, it’s not keeping me awake nights, but it is irritating.

14

You know what? SDMB is owned by The Chicago Reader; a for-profit company.

Servers cost money. Bandwidth costs money. Sysadmin cost money. Space to put these things cost money.

Your friend who runs this huge messageboard: how does he pay for it if he doesn’t charge anything?

15

I’ve never once thought about this. But, yeah, I can think of a few message boards with way more forum features and more daily traffic that operate much smoother and without any cost to the users. I don’t know enough about the business behind running websites/web forums to really comment beyond that. I do find it interesting this forum is supposedly a money sink.

16

RE costs:

The PC server hardware that runs this board can’t be much over
10,000 - 15,000. (possibly less) The adminstrative (admins & mods) labor is esentially free, The tech labor might be a few thousand a year.

The unknowns (to me) is/are the cost of the bandwidth and the associated networking (routers etc) hardware. Bandwidth cost can be quite expensive.

Beyond all this the SDMB is intended to be (at some point) a profit center. Was this ever some sort of mystery? There are parts of the web that re still free, but this is changing. Why do internet users, of all people, imagine there’s still a free lunch out there. Those old days are rapidly coming to close across the net. Like Salon Magazine It’s going to be ads or pay or a combo in a lot of places.

17

I think the concern is why people still need to view ads even after they have pay for that. Does Salon still have ads once you have pay for it? (Just wondering)

18

I don’t expect to get something for nothing - but when I see other comperable examples of other boards giving more for what I pay, or less than what I pay here, then I start to wonder what’s going on that I’m not seeing. Money isn’t the issue - the value of my money at this particular site is.

19

Slashdot doesn’t, unless you count the product reviews masquerading as articles.

20

I can give some insight into this.

At my work I’m looking to co-locate some of our servers. A full rack worth of space (it’s a 6 foot rack), in a secure location, with back up power, a single T-1 line for bandwidth and a block of 16 IP addresses will run me about $1200 a month. If I wanted redundant bandwidth it would be about $1700 a month. This is a grade A, tier 1 type space.

Those are “friend” prices because we have so many 800 numbers and T-1’s through this telco provider. Even still, minimum would be $14k a year with a 2 year contract.

With another project we have a rented dedicated server with a T-1’s worth of bandwidth for about $500 a month - $6000 a year. This is fairly cost effective because it covers power, hardware and networking costs.

Bringing a T-1 with bandwidth into our location is about $600 a month for a single line - $7200 a year. This is just a raw line. No power backup, data backup, network security, administration, etc.

The company I work for bills me out at $120 an hour for sysadmin work. When I freelance I bill myself out at $50-60 an hour depending on the job.

With that in mind let’s add some conservative numbers.

Consider a rented, dedicated server. That’s $6000 a year for hosting.
You hire an admin for $70 an hour and he/she bills one hour a week for a year - $3640
This totals $9640 a year.

I think the bulk of subscriptions at SDMB are “charter members” at $7.48 a year. At that price you’d need almost 1300 subscribers a year to cover basic bandwidth and admin costs. At $14.95 you’d need about 650.

This doesn’t factor in other costs like bank fees for credit card payments, accountant fees, taxes, hardware costs, or any form of office space.

The main page of the forum says there are 54,922 “members”. I’m almost 100% sure those aren’t active, paying members. That number would include banned members, guest accounts, expired subscribed accounts and I’d guess the accounts that were in the database before SDMB went to a subscription format - and those members never subscribed. Just guessing, I’d say SDMB has around 1000-2000 active members.

Using those numbers, and figuring I did my figuring right, SDMB might be breaking even.