2011: Ads or fundraiser?

No offense, but it is this exact attitude that has, in my opinion, ruined the internet. Advertising is meant to be obtrusive by its very nature. So what if there is a little bit of empty space on the left and right sides? We don't have to fill every single inch of screen space for a forum like this.

 

We don't have to, but would you rather the people put their money into buying more kit for themselves or to share via community dump, or into hosting? Why do one or the other when we can do both

An adless experience is obviously a nicer exprience but there are only so many times you can ask people to keep donating when there are natural disasters etc and year on year for the most part it is probably the same small minority supporting the freeloading majority. Even natural disaters when there are a few in rapid succession, despite relief/aid for noble causes they receive less money crisis on crisis with people being bummed out by previous charity. What happens when the regular donaters think fuck it, they paid their dues to last a lifetime and stop donating? The board dies and we let it? Everything that has a beginning has an end but with some subsidies it will not be for the forseeable future

It will cost about $0.25 per member per year to keep the site running. The majority will not even donate $0.01 but the minority may donate $10, on more than one occasion too. Advertising, albeit not the most ideal of solutions, distributes the responsibility for payment much more fairly and donaters will have to stump up less to plug the deficit, if any. Any profit = win.

 

Advertising is no better, as it is effectively a 24-7 "fundraiser" instead of an annual or semi-annual event.

 

Exactly. But it is a 24-7 fundraiser where everyone plays their part whether it is pay per view or pay per click and it can be done in a manner so it is not so in your face too.

Even the freeloaders thanks to adverts will end up doing their part too, albeit inadvertently

Of course we will probably still have fundraisers but then at least there will be more funds available for community dumps and not so much worry for hosting.

 

Advertising cannot be done unobtrusively period. Advertising + fundraisers causes people to wonder why there is advertising in the first place (i.e. it looks greedy, regardless of whether or not it is). Fundraisers (seem to) have worked just fine for the past couple of years. I understand that Kevin is looking at alternatives, but I think that it will be a bad move for both the website and the bottomline.

 

Well if you care to elaborate as to why it would be a bad idea I'm all ears, but your post doesn't explain why it is a bad idea, only states that it is.

I'm not saying an advert can be done unobtrusively but it can be done tastefully.

To be honest I'd be interested in leasing a subdomain. I'd probably not make much use of it but if I was given a nice starter sized package at a reasonable rate I'd take it to show off my (current lack of) collection or whatever and I'm sure others may too. Such reasonable rate could be at a small markup towards overall operational costs, but even this idea rolled out across every interested member probably wouldn't keep the boards running without adverts or a donation.

Of course, if it is just a matter of you prefer people to have less money available for other things or prefer to let the freeloaders do so at the expense of others, especially in a period of austerity, then I won't understanhd it but no problem.

 

Bullshit.

Like legit said, there are over 8,000 users (8,553 to be precise) and a large percentage of them won't contribute a penny. Hell, a large percentage of them don't contribute a damn thing - 5663 have a 0 post count. To be honest, they probably registered back in the day when certain areas were restricted to registered users only, e.g. the Marketplace. I was all for that, but it got revoked to get better results from search engines.

However, if you're worried about the bandwidth those users are using, they're actually small fry. When I looked a few minutes ago, the stats read:

So only 25% of users currently browsing the forums have even bothered to register! The rest are getting information for free, at our expense.

Does having ads AND the option to pay to turn them off seem so greedy now? The non-members who have no intention of signing up and talking to us clearly won't pay for the site costs. Why shouldn't they have to suffer a few ads?

Do we get the option to pay to turn your flashing avatar or grossly oversized signature off? ;-)

 

This ray:

 

Your reponse is a little ambiguos in that I do not know if you agree with retro or it is a piss take, but whilst you'r down there...

Going from the statistics provided by retro from the posting members it would cost each member above 0 posts $0.76 per year in site costs to keep us up and running yet even then the majorty of registered users wont donate at all. Those that do will eventually grow tired of doing so irrespective of loyalty to the community.

On top of this there are an exponential number of people viewing the site with no contribution whatsoever. Is it fair that those who share information also have to share the cost? Perhaps, but why not have the non-contributors contribute passively by sharing the burden with pay per view or pay per click tiny banners? They eventually become part of the furniture when you learn to ignore them so I do not understand the resistance. Read between the lines: ASSEMbler probably wouldn't even suggest it if there wasn't a real need for it in the forseeable future, especially when assholes come here selling something they shouldnt and the site gets hit with legal fees which he personally pays for.

I don't know how else to effectively articulate my stance. I do not want adverts, but they are a necessary evil, if anything to give donaters a break and those that have yet to do so the ability to share the burden without adversely altering their unregistered or isolated viewing habits.

 

This isn't what I was getting from LeGIt's posts, specifically the comment:

Making the site ad infected for the unregistered/leaches is fine with me if there is a way to get rid of the ads for the rest of us.

 

This is a welcome change in stance which some other people have taken but it still won't be enough. Even the pay per view or pay per click from the 3000 or so posters and the 5000 or so 0 post leechers @ $0.01 a time over the course of the year will soon add up nicely and go a long way to keeping our personal costs down. Plus people may just register and make 2-3 posts before fading away just to adless browse then it is more lost revenue. The burden of cost for the site must be shared by all but to do that so shall the eyesore of advertisements. You will learn to ignore them anyway and some of the ads could be from other board members with something of interest for you too if you don't

BTW remember when I dumped the unreleased PSone game Deuce? I had a hard time even getting $100 in donations as a contribution to my expense. I had a poll to dump it in part community expense or dump completely at my expense. The majority of people voted to dump at my expense.... aka freeloaders, not willing to share the burden just want the reward I almost didn't bother but lo and behold once I dump it all the freeloaders come out asking for download links

 

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against sharing information with the community, but if you're going to get something out of a site, it's polite to give something back.

I don't want the site to be elitist. We should encourage new users to join up and chat. Even if their contribution is starting a conversation with a question, or telling a joke in OT, it's something.

I had a suggestion myself, although I guess it has been dismissed without putting it to the public, as it were.

One good way for members to contribute is to share an interesting item found on eBay in the eBay thread. However, I am somewhat against the fact that all and sundry can see that thread easily without even registering. It gives them a lazy way to find nice items. This is one reason why I think the Marketplace should require signing up, at least.

How much does eBay charge to list games? I believe it's 10% for auctions (plus 10p for £1 or more start price), or 9% for Buy It Now (plus 20p listing). That means that listing £50 worth of games will cost you £5 in fees.

How many people that list on the Marketplace have more than £50 worth of items to sell? Or, at least, over a year. Most, I'd say! (Apologies for working with UK examples, it's late here and I'm not up for much thinking!)

Why not charge a nominal fee to access the Marketplace? Say $5 for a year. I'm sure sellers would be happy with this, as they'd easily be saving still over eBay costs. Buyers may be comforted that they're not going to be pipped to the post by non-members, and still feel they're getting value for money with a nice range of items for sale, plus the eBay and YJ listings.

That would, of course, need 500 members (nearly 10%) to raise $2500. You could still incorporate this with an ads idea, having them switched off AND access to the Marketplace for your $5. And/or you could keep a fundraiser going on top.

 

Sorry, I wasn't very expressive with that , I agree with retro, if you read my previous posts you can see I support the ads for non-members idea, I find it great and it would be a nice way to deal with all those lurkers that do not contribute at all with this community in any way, it would be a way to make them register and join us instead of just lurk around.

 

You can't use your one-handed controller on the forums! :-0

 

dude you sound like a socialist

thats spreed the wealth around right there if i decide to be charitable thats my desishion and mine alone not someone elses to force apun me

besides ill just use ABP to block specific ads and no script and never see any ads

 

So what? If that bothers you then don't donate. The fundraiser hasn't had any problems in the past.

Surely the whole purpose of sharing information publically is to make it available? Not everyone wants to register for forums, some peple are happy enough just reading, and that doesn't bother me in the slightest. I don't see why adverts should be placed there if there's no need for them.

Bollocks are they "necessary", the current system works fine. The year that the fundraiser fails, the ads should come in, but not until then.

 

And your problem with that is? Do you decide where your taxes go or are you a tax dodger? If you vote for a change to benefit your community or yourself does it happen unless you are rich or connected? Never mind, politics have a dedicated thread and not to be discussed here. Besides, no one is telling you where to spend your money. If anything the adverts will mean you have more money to yourself as you won't have to donate as much every 5 minutes.

The adverts will just enable visitors, which are the majority of site users, to contribute towards costs too, which is only fair.

If you are going to block the ads, fine, then I see no logical need for you to resist when you will not be adversely affected? Those that don't adblock, their contribution would no doubt be welcomed.

We are not talking about the past. We are talking about an uncertain future. It makes no sense to turn to ads when we may have desperate times, though I'm not saying we are desparate at this moment. It would take a lot of months for the ads to make any sizeable income whatsoever and by that time if there is an emergency and cash is in short supply we could be fucked. It is best to plan ahead to future proof hosting expenses so if there is a crisis it will need less donations and as such we should have more ability to plug the gap.

No one is saying don't share the information. But all those unregistered or no poster views could contribute with their pittance from a passive pay per view or click.

Why do you think ASSEMbler would ask? Because it is failing and/or he cannot afford to keep personally bearing the brunt of any legal costs when some idiot tries to sell something they shouldn't. Is it fair ASSEMbler pays for that? Would it be fair for the users to pay that? IMO the idiot seller should be paying it but it isn't going to happen. We are in this together, registered or not.

The registered people above 0 posts have paid their dues in one form or another and the unregistered or stalkers have also benefitted and it is right that they should. Information should be freely available but that doesn't mean it is without cost. It is only fair the non-participants pay their fair share too, regardless of whether we need their money or not.

 

With respect mate that's pretty presumptuous. If the site is in trouble I have no doubt he'll let us know.

 

Read between the lines....

 

Actually, the site has run at a loss before now. Kev swallows the cost and doesn't moan about it.

Wasn't it last year that we had a donation of an Ultra 64 board? That sold for what, $800? Do you think the site donations alone without that board would have been enough to cover the running costs?

Kev put a lot of work into some invisible changes last year, changing servers, hours of backing up, ironing out bugs, upgrading and testing. We had issues copying the database, and I spent several hours going over possible solutions with him. He gives his own time for free so that we have a site. This version of the site has been running nearly 7 years now. If it cost $2,000 each of those years, do you think that it has received $14,000 in donations over that time?