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Future of the Forum

RemieV said:
About 95% of that isn't true. ;) If you think the JREF doesn't know where its members are, you're out of your mind.

But honest to god, funding the forum with t-shirts and paperweights is insanity.

As someone just said in the chatroom, "That's like funding a conversation in a coffee shop".

Here's a comparison -

I'm working on promotions for a novel. At this point, I have generated an audience for the promotion of 150,000 people. The bulk of the work is being done by volunteers. Photographers, voice actors, filmmakers, artists, designers - those are all volunteers. Even so, about $2,000 has been sunk into advertising so far. But when I say "an audience of 150,000", I'm not even counting those people who will see the ads entirely by chance. 150,000 people will be ACTIVELY campaigned at.

The goal is to sell 2,000 copies. And the promotion is fun and interesting and involves puzzles and craziness and eerie crap that will happen in real life - and I'm STILL not sure if this campaign will succeed. To be safe, I'd like the number to be more like 400,000 people, and I'm still searching for ways to get to that number (though I'm swiftly running out of time).

You're talking about funding a 7k/yr forum within a closed system of 2,000 people. We do not have a high enough turnaround, or even a mission statement, that is going to draw in enough outsiders to offset that entire cost.

Now, I assume Zazzle is a lot like CafePress. I've had CafePress stores before. You get maybe $2 for each sale. Since what you're working off of it a closed system, it's better to just ask people for donations than to waste their money on a t-shirt you get a tiny percentage of profits from. If people are buying a shirt, they won't think it's necessary to donate direct. Instead of $20, you're getting $2.

If advertising whatever the t-shirt/paperweight concept is goes off-forum, great. You've expanded your audience. But then, again, you are looking at advertising costs - and you're also looking at having a campaign that is incredibly good.

This is my wheelhouse. This is what I'm good at. This is an unworkable concept.

Really and truly, it would be better to start reaching out to posters on an individual basis and asking them what they would be willing to donate and keeping a list up-to-date. Find the people who post a lot. Start with them.
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...yeah this: I think your analysis is spot on. I can see why people would think its a great idea: but the numbers won't work.
 
Just a thought

I know little about the issue of funding forums [ Remie seems to have a good understanding ] & Darat's point should not be ignored.

But if we are just kicking ideas around – how about this.

There was a chap called Josh something involved in the RDF forums.
He seemed to be quite the whizz at monetisation.
Perhaps be could be brought in ?
 
For full transparency (have posted this in the past). I had my conference fees waived for the TAM I attended (3 or 4 can't remember which) in LA, I was also given a free ticket to TAM London.

Otherwise I've had no "compensation" for being a volunteer. Why would I need anything, the Russian hackers I sell members info to are very generous. Only this year they've not kneecapped me!
 
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Darat said:
For full transparency (have posted this in the past). I had my conference fees waived for the TAM I attended (3 or 4 can't remember which) in LA, I was also given a free ticket to TAM London.

Otherwise I've had no "compensation" for being a volunteer. Why would I need anything, the Russian hackers I sell members info to are very generous. Only this year they've not kneecapped me!
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This is exactly the sort of non-salary perk I consider quite acceptable.
 
RemieV said:
About 95% of that isn't true. ;) If you think the JREF doesn't know where its members are, you're out of your mind.

But honest to god, funding the forum with t-shirts and paperweights is insanity.

As someone just said in the chatroom, "That's like funding a conversation in a coffee shop".

Here's a comparison -

I'm working on promotions for a novel. At this point, I have generated an audience for the promotion of 150,000 people. The bulk of the work is being done by volunteers. Photographers, voice actors, filmmakers, artists, designers - those are all volunteers. Even so, about $2,000 has been sunk into advertising so far. But when I say "an audience of 150,000", I'm not even counting those people who will see the ads entirely by chance. 150,000 people will be ACTIVELY campaigned at.

The goal is to sell 2,000 copies. And the promotion is fun and interesting and involves puzzles and craziness and eerie crap that will happen in real life - and I'm STILL not sure if this campaign will succeed. To be safe, I'd like the number to be more like 400,000 people, and I'm still searching for ways to get to that number (though I'm swiftly running out of time).

You're talking about funding a 7k/yr forum within a closed system of 2,000 people. We do not have a high enough turnaround, or even a mission statement, that is going to draw in enough outsiders to offset that entire cost.

Now, I assume Zazzle is a lot like CafePress. I've had CafePress stores before. You get maybe $2 for each sale. Since what you're working off of it a closed system, it's better to just ask people for donations than to waste their money on a t-shirt you get a tiny percentage of profits from. If people are buying a shirt, they won't think it's necessary to donate direct. Instead of $20, you're getting $2.

If advertising whatever the t-shirt/paperweight concept is goes off-forum, great. You've expanded your audience. But then, again, you are looking at advertising costs - and you're also looking at having a campaign that is incredibly good.

This is my wheelhouse. This is what I'm good at. This is an unworkable concept.

Really and truly, it would be better to start reaching out to posters on an individual basis and asking them what they would be willing to donate and keeping a list up-to-date. Find the people who post a lot. Start with them.
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Remie,
We can discuss this when you address what I wrote, not what you wish that I wrote. Until then, then.
 
I am still not unconvinced that the plug will be pulled if Randi or his minions become peed off enough with the barking dogs.

Having said that, I am in a bit of a bad mood this afternoon, even though it's Friday and I am going to Glasgow's Grand Ole Opry tonight.
 
Darat said:
For full transparency (have posted this in the past). I had my conference fees waived for the TAM I attended (3 or 4 can't remember which) in LA, I was also given a free ticket to TAM London.

Otherwise I've had no "compensation" for being a volunteer. Why would I need anything, the Russian hackers I sell members info to are very generous. Only this year they've not kneecapped me!
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A pittance for all you've done.

As are my thanks, but you have them anyway.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Remie,
We can discuss this when you address what I wrote, not what you wish that I wrote. Until then, then.
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I added another post to clarify, because I realized it was unclear on my step from "just a drib" to "the entire forum". Did you see that one?

I can do a line-by-line instead.

Foolmewunz said:
One of our members posted up-thread about setting up a proper non-profit. A non-profit has accountability. This is what I'm hoping to see, but I believe the poster has had two half-hearted PMs on the topic. I actually went out of my way to contact a member ITRW who hasn't posted in a while, but who has experience with NGOs. I figured we could use some help from someone with experience.
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I would like that too. However, it gets a little sticky with a forum because a forum doesn't have a location. If we have a board, the members have to meet in person a certain number of times per year, I believe, and the place they meet is the non-profit's legal location. Someone should probably verify that, though, because it's been a while since I was tipping TAPS with this kind of info.

None of this has been addressed. I realize there are reasons for some of the cards being played "close to the vest", but some of us are not just tossing bricks at the plate glass windows; we actually care.
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I don't think anyone knows what's going on yet except the JREF (if they've even decided, and they may not have.

The JREF never "exploited" the opportunities available to them among the forum membership. Not for support of any of their efforts, not for financial gain (meaning "necessary funding", not "profits"). They also did their accounting, as you know, in a shoe box. They have no cross-relational information on how many Foundation supporters are Forumites. They have never accounted for the amount of money spent on events by Forumites. They simply don't know and don't really care because they decided long ago that the forums are a drag on "the mission" (which is so loosely defined and promoted at present as to be a puff of skeptical smoke).
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Completely disagree with the bolded. Again, if you don't think the JREF knows where its members are, you are out of your mind.

And I don't even mean this to solely be criticism of the JREF but explanation for why some of the people here are saying that the new org can be self-sustaining. For the kind of chump change Icerat mentioned? I'm broke but if we had commitment and papers to show that this is formulated as a 501(c) or whatever the proper terminology is.... I could raise the funding for the first year in about four hours of emailing. I'd be really surprised if Darat and Jeff couldn't do it in half the time.
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Don't need anyone to do that. The first six months is already paid for.

Amazon links can be pure money-makers, but dribs of money that help pay the bills. T-shirts and mugs and jewelry and paperweights? First, we have some talented artists. We need a logo and some ideas. And I'll bet they'd donate their copyright/ip. And it becomes another little dribble of income but a nice way to raise some awareness. I don't think of it as sustaining the forums, but just a trickle of resources (like Age of Empires refers to it). But I'd prefer to see fundraising and begging and a 501(c) set-up than commercial advertising, even to "visitors, but not members".
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This is the portion my post referred to. I did write a second post explaining why I was taking "dribs" to "the whole forum", but the explanation for jumping from one to the other was probably unclear.

People tend to donate in one specific way. Like, they make a conscious choice about how to donate, and pick ONE option. So, this concept has two options for donating - flat handing over money "to fund a conversation in a coffee shop", or buying a t-shirt. Buying a t-shirt has benefit (if it's a cool shirt, you get a shirt). Flat donating has no benefit whatsoever. Buying a shirt gets the forum a tiny amount of money - let's say $2. Flat donating is pure profit. For a person who was willing to give up $20, you just convinced them to give you $2.

The achievable goal is to make flat donating more appealing rather than rely on t-shirt sales for even "dribs", because by doing that you're accidentally REPLACING real donations with t-shirt buys.

That's how I got to the other part. We can run on the steam of a few wealthy donors for maybe five years (optimism, here). If, however, the forum has a goal of some kind, we can make it run indefinitely.
 
RemieV said:
The achievable goal is to make flat donating more appealing rather than rely on t-shirt sales for even "dribs", because by doing that you're accidentally REPLACING real donations with t-shirt buys.
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I don't see these two as mutually exclusive, just tools to be used differently.

Long term funding of the forums ideally should be through automated serial donations. If it can be set up as a non-profit charitable org, then employer match kicks in, too. Make it easy, make it inexpensive, get many people signed up.

Ad hoc fundraising through t-shirt sales and other logo items, donated artwork, etc.. can be effectively used for targeted campaigns. This was done for TAM scholarships in the past, I believe.
 
madurobob said:
I don't see these two as mutually exclusive, just tools to be used differently.

Long term funding of the forums ideally should be through automated serial donations. If it can be set up as a non-profit charitable org, then employer match kicks in, too. Make it easy, make it inexpensive, get many people signed up.

Ad hoc fundraising through t-shirt sales and other logo items, donated artwork, etc.. can be effectively used for targeted campaigns. This was done for TAM scholarships in the past, I believe.
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TAM scholarships were funded with auctions. That's different from having a t-shirt store.
 
It's my understanding that icerat has offered to host the forum indefinitely; however, I for one don't expect him to bear the full cost of such hosting indefinitely, and will certainly be one of those donating to support the forum when such donations are being accepted. Perhaps the forum will become like NPR, with an annual donation drive to cover the cost of hosting and hardware. Perhaps there'll be ads. Perhaps both. In any event, I think we can all agree that the essential thing is to continue the forum in whatever guise. The collected expertise of the community here is simply too valuable a resource to flush down the proverbial toilet.
 
Akhenaten said:
A pittance for all you've done.

As are my thanks, but you have them anyway.
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This.

I would be delighted to be able to chip and help buy each mod a nice book at xmas. There's nowt better than a nice book at xmas. Perhaps cake. With marzipan.
 
ehcks said:
Will these be the extremely basic text ads that ad blockers tend to ignore, or will I continue to not see them for free?
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For any forum or site that depends on either ads or member contributions to operate, one can only hope that enough members find enough value in the site to either live with the (presumably reasonable) ads or contribute money or in other ways in order to ensure the site continues.

A yearly premium membership works out to cents or fractions of a cent per hour of entertainment, pretty good value IMO.

But yes you can't stop people from blocking ads, people are going to do what they want.

There are other avenues as well, sponsorships are one. It's still a form of advertising but "Science and Technology Subforum - Sponsored by Edmund Scientifics" is better than random banner ads IMO. But that does require someone actively selling rather than just signing up for ads.
 
malicus said:
....... With marzipan.
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This^

Except, in the same way that the Maasai own all the cows in the world, I own all the marzipan in the world. So you'll have to ask me very nicely first before any mods get any marzipan. Mods prefer books, I promise. Or chocolate.
 
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