Role of the Forum in the JREF (Split from "Change to Rule 6")

[bookitty]

The JREF should post the costs and advertising revenue.

Why should this information be available to people who are using a free service? People aren't doing the JREF a favor by using the forum, it is the other way around. Simply being here doesn't confer any special privileges, especially in regard to the main organization. If there is any profit or loss, it will be in with the more general financial information.

(and why does this all sound so familiar?)

I moved all the posts that were not explictly about Rule 6 over here.

Posted By: kmortis

 

[tesscaline]

Why should this information be available to people who are using a free service? People aren't doing the JREF a favor by using the forum, it is the other way around. Simply being here doesn't confer any special privileges, especially in regard to the main organization. If there is any profit or loss, it will be in with the more general financial information.

(and why does this all sound so familiar?)

This is a forum in which those who make claims are expected to back up those claims with evidence. Why should the JREF (or Mr. Grothe) be exempt from that expectation?

 

[not daSkeptic]

... the JREF spends a considerable amount of money on a monthly basis to provide this forum ...

I have to agree with others, I don't know that I necessarily buy this argument. What exactly are these costs? Certainly not the vBulletin license or supports fees -- they're dirt cheap. There shouldn't be any other significant software costs. Your published traffic figures indicate your bandwidth requirements are very low, so your equipment and ISP fees should be minimal. It's also my understanding that your personnel costs for this site are little or nothing. Are you doing some sort of heavy marketing?

... for free as a benefit to the skeptics community ...

It's not free. There may be no financial cost incurred by the users, but you're not just doing this out of the goodness of your hearts. It's an outreach program. It has business value.

Fourth, it does affect: for-profit businesses selling products or services to skeptics or forum members, such as jewelry makers, for profit magazines, for profit conferences and cruises, and the like, or promotion of other home businesses or commercial enterprises (as an example: say you are a roofer -- we wouldn't want you to focus on promoting your roofing business to our forum members, etc.).
...
The consensus decision was, however, partly precipitated by the fact that the JREF is about to announce its next Amaz!ng Adventure, and a number of folks have assumed incorrectly that Jeff's new business venture is the new name for JREF's cruises. The JREF holds no ill will toward Jeff or any other former employee, but given Jeff's status as a former employee and his former role with JREF's cruises, we want to avoid any confusion on the cruise topic.

This is completely understandable. You don't want anyone to mistakenly think the JREF is affiliated with these things. It could be bad for the bottom-line. That's fine, but it would be better if you were direct about it. Yes, you're a non-profit, but you're still a business. You sometimes have to do things that are self-serving just to keep the lights on. I doubt anybody here will fault you for that.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

According to the 990 form for FY 2009 (Latest available.)

Assuming that this is EITHER Advertising or IT..

Advertising total expenses: $3155 USD total
Information Technology expenses: $10688 USD total
Software: $4500 USD total.

I'd say DJ's right there.

ETA: Although, since this isn't itemized, come to think of it, I'm actually mildly skeptical about the forum being 1/5th this total.

 

[rjh01]

According to the 990 form for FY 2009 (Latest available.)

Assuming that this is EITHER Advertising or IT..

Advertising total expenses: $3155 USD total
Information Technology expenses: $10688 USD total
Software: $4500 USD total.

I'd say DJ's right there.

ETA: Although, since this isn't itemized, come to think of it, I'm actually mildly skeptical about the forum being 1/5th this total.

I doubt that this forum costs anything near the above. You need to subtract costs for SWIFT. Also I assume JREF staff have a PC each.


This site is worth about $40,000. So it should be something JREF spends time developing.
Ref http://pagestat.com/www.forums.randi.org

 

[Geek Goddess]

Then again, the JREF could be better off financially because of the forums. Surely with tens of thousands of unique visitors per month there is a financial windfall from advertising, donations, and increased attendance at their events, the auctions being the most direct and obvious way people pay to attend who wouldn't otherwise attend. If that's the case, they really aren't do people a favor as you put it. It would be a transaction of sorts. But anyway.

This is true for a lot of people. When we do the annual 'forum photo' at TAM, there are well over 100 people in the picture. I have a large copy of the forum photo from TAM 5 in my office. There are 101 people in it, and I can name a great deal of them, from being on the forum.

I know I started going to TAM and JREF functions, and making donations, because of the community I met at the forum. not because of reading SWIFT and certainly not because of any skeptical/community outreach. A few years ago, the members of the forum raised $10,000 in (IIRC) about a week or so, for doing some work to the forum server.

Any one with a few ounces of brain matter knows that the Skeptours group has nothing to do with JREF (even though Skeptours cruise registration fee donated money to JREF as part of the cost), just as they know the CSI cruises aren't JREF. Or that they know SkeptiCon isn't TAM. No one is confused.

ETA: I noticed that I have a link to the JREF Library at Amazon in my signature. Amazon is a for profit business. I assume I should fix that.

 

[bookitty]

This is a forum in which those who make claims are expected to back up those claims with evidence. Why should the JREF (or Mr. Grothe) be exempt from that expectation?

Because any financial information that a non-profit is required to make public has already been made available. How does it benefit the JREF to post every piece of financial minutia to a group of primarily anonymous, often hostile forum members who have no right to that information? Asking to play forensic accountant because one enjoys a free service provide by the organization is over-reaching and frankly, ridiculous.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

While I'd normally agree, it's a main point of his argument...

 

[not daSkeptic]

How does it benefit the JREF to post every piece of financial minutia to a group of primarily anonymous, often hostile forum members who have no right to that information?

It's not a matter of rights, and she's not asking for every piece of data. A specific claim was made and the claimant has been called out to support it with evidence. She's saying the fact it was made by the JREF is irrelevant.

As to how it benefits them, it would show they aren't above their own teachings and that they "drink their own Kool-Aid" as it were. To refuse or ignore the request would essentially be an admission that claimants are occasionally entitled to special treatment if the circumstances warrant it.

 

[tesscaline]

While I'd normally agree, it's a main point of his argument...

Exactly. I have no interest in the information other than that a claim has been made -- a claim that goes very directly against commonly known and accepted principles about the subject at hand -- and no evidence has been provided to support it.

I am not asking for itemized lists of expenses. I am not proposing a forensic accountant dig through their records.

I'm saying that they should back up their claim with evidence -- that evidence could be as simple as "well, we spend around X amount per month". And I wouldn't be asking for the evidence if they hadn't made the claim in the first place, or if that claim was incidental to a core portion of the argument being put forth.

Unfortunately, Mr. Grothe himself is the one that brought up the subject of expense, and made it a core aspect of his argument. How is it unreasonable to ask him to back up the claims he's made on the matter?

To those objecting to asking for this supporting evidence:

Are you merely crying about it because we're not blindly accepting the word of the almighty JREF, like the happy little forum-sheeple we're supposed to be? How dare we question the validity of the holy word of a JREF disciple? Is that the problem? Because if this were anyone else coming in and making extraordinary claims (that running a forum costs a large amount of money is an extraordinary claim, by the way) I doubt you'd have any objection to people asking for evidence to back it up.

 

[tesscaline]

I mentioned $200 to $400, but I do not disagree that it might be possible to do it for $100 with a board this size. I figure with the main site running Joomla on the same server and probably e-mail software, a dedicated server with some headroom is in order. And not being a big organization, they would pay for managed hosting. However, if they wanted to do it on the cheap, it could be done for $100/month.

You and i are pretty much in agreement.

I was taking the stance on the subject as if only the costs of running the forum were important, as only the costs of running the forum were mentioned by Mr. Grothe. And I think that's the only reason you and I are coming up with different ballpark numbers

 

[HawaiiBigSis]

According to the 990 form for FY 2009 (Latest available.)

Assuming that this is EITHER Advertising or IT..

Advertising total expenses: $3155 USD total
Information Technology expenses: $10688 USD total
Software: $4500 USD total.

I'd say DJ's right there.

A few years ago, the members of the forum raised $10,000 in (IIRC) about a week or so, for doing some work to the forum server.

(bolding mine)

If both of these statements are true then I have a hard time understanding how the JREF itself has spent a substantial amount maintaining the forum.

 

[tesscaline]

There are a number of posts that seem to express some heightened frustrations and even a sort of suspicion or paranoia in this thread.

I plan on making another response, just to try to allow folks to take it down a notch, abd to address a number of factual misstatements and suspicions people have raised. I'm waiting on detailed info from our accounting department, since I'm disinclined to report the general estimates I have been given a few times before, knowing that they would likely not be sufficient in this thread. But it is a holiday weekend, and so I'll have to wait till folks get back to the office.

I appreciate that, thank you. A general estimate would, however, be sufficient for my purposes. I can't speak for anyone else, however.

Of course, please don't take what I or anyone else on blind faith, but also please don't assume immediately that I would be lying about the topic. It is good to be skeptical, but not so good to appear so cynical or suspicious. Being a trusting sort of person who doesn't always assume the worst is not the same as being gullible.

Personally, I don't assume that you're lying.

I don't doubt that there is a quantity of money dedicated to supporting this forum. I don't doubt that the quantity is greater than the possible amounts that I and others have put forward in this thread. However, I have pointed out that if you are spending greater than those amounts, something is wrong with the situation. What is wrong could be any number of things, only one of which is an outright lie, with many other simple explanations ranging from misunderstanding a summary dollar amount to simple mismanagement and poor planning with resources.

As for perceived frustration:

Yes, the members here are frustrated. We're seeing inconsistent activities (again) in the moderation of this forum that seem to go against some of the very principles being cited as the reasons for the activities. We're also seeing factual claims that are inconsistent with the realities of a well established industry. And it very much feels as if someone is attempting to obfuscate motivations. At the very least, there was a royal scrub up somewhere that someone is trying to justify while saving face.

I should point out to you that these forums are largely populated by critical thinkers, and debunkers. People who spend gratuitous amounts of time poking holes in other people's logic, highlighting BS claims, and being activists against deceptive business practices. We confront spin doctoring, and obfuscation, daily. We make it our purpose to not fall for these things, and to help keep other people from falling for them.

And when we get the feeling that someone who is supposedly one of the same sort of people we are is attempting to use that same spin doctoring and obfuscation on us, expecting us to fall for it, well, that can be fairly insulting. Especially when it comes along side platitudes of "we do all this work for you, with no benefit, out of the goodness of our hearts, because we feel what you do is important" (and I'm sorry, but saying that the JREF does not receive benefit from hosting these forums is grossly inaccurate -- whether the person saying it is lying or not, is irrelevant to that fact). It's hypocritical and offensive.

Now, I'm not about to attribute any sort of intent -- I'm no mind reader. I don't think anyone at the JREF is intending to insult myself, or any other forum member. In fact, I'm much more likely to attribute such a thing to ineptitude, or a misunderstanding, than I am to malice. But it doesn't change the reaction of "ugh, yet another person expecting me to swallow a line". And yeah, it's frustrating no matter what the intent behind what's going on. Because, intent aside, by asking people to accept the reasoning being thrown out, those people are having their intelligence insulted.

I'd be much happier if the statement was something to the effect of: "Yeah, we were worried that Jeff's thing was going to cut into our bottom line, but we realized we didn't have any rules against the behavior. So, we made a rule that might be a little more far reaching than we intended, but we felt we needed to act quickly on the matter, and we'll review it to see if there are any changes we can make so that it only affects things like what Jeff had going on. Sorry if we handled it badly, but this was the best idea we came up with at the time."

I wouldn't have liked it. But I at least wouldn't have felt my intelligence was insulted, or that someone was attempting to pull the wool over my eyes, and I could at least respect it.

What's going on here... Not really having a whole lot of respectful feelings about it, sorry.

 

[Cleon]

If you really are spending "a considerable amount of money on a monthly basis to provide this forum": With all due respect, you're doing it wrong.

My company is in charge of managing web services for multiple companies (amongst other things), and the costs associated with maintaining and running a suite of e-commerce marketing sites, including mail services, and a billing software -- with revenue in the multi-millions a year -- is peanuts. Server space and bandwidth is dirt cheap these days. For an endeavor the size of these forums, you can get a managed server for less than $100 a month (in some cases I've seen costs as low as $15 a month, if you don't mind a virtual server) and be done with the whole thing.

And for an organization with a pay-gap of over $100k... Well, "considerable expense" my bottom.

The $100/month servers are simply not sufficient (to say nothing of virtual servers). Been there, done that, and as the forum grew, it started to slow and crash more and more frequently. Considerable expense was put into moving it to a new server (and ISP).

This is a large forum, and yes, it's expensive (beyond "peanuts") to keep it up and running. A $100 server is more than enough for a decent-sized store, but forums are much more taxing on the systems they run on. The DB alone has to be extremely robust; each page makes numerous DB queries. Consider that as I type this, over 500 people are online--and this isn't even a busy time of day (the most users online simultaneously is over 1,600). The DB needs to manage a screaming crapload of connections and queries simultaneously--with that comes massive CPU needs, to say nothing of hard drive speed (and space) as well as memory.

The volunteers who've managed the IT needs of the forum are professionals in the field, with years (decades, even) of experience as sysadmins and developers. A lot of thought was put into what our needs were, and believe me, those who remember the constant forum crashes a few years back can tell you that the upgrade was quite necessary--and resulted in significant improvement.

 

[bookitty]

Exactly. I have no interest in the information other than that a claim has been made -- a claim that goes very directly against commonly known and accepted principles about the subject at hand -- and no evidence has been provided to support it.

I am not asking for itemized lists of expenses. I am not proposing a forensic accountant dig through their records.

I'm saying that they should back up their claim with evidence -- that evidence could be as simple as "well, we spend around X amount per month". And I wouldn't be asking for the evidence if they hadn't made the claim in the first place, or if that claim was incidental to a core portion of the argument being put forth.

Unfortunately, Mr. Grothe himself is the one that brought up the subject of expense, and made it a core aspect of his argument. How is it unreasonable to ask him to back up the claims he's made on the matter?

To those objecting to asking for this supporting evidence:

Are you merely crying about it because we're not blindly accepting the word of the almighty JREF, like the happy little forum-sheeple we're supposed to be? How dare we question the validity of the holy word of a JREF disciple? Is that the problem? Because if this were anyone else coming in and making extraordinary claims (that running a forum costs a large amount of money is an extraordinary claim, by the way) I doubt you'd have any objection to people asking for evidence to back it up.

No, I'm not crying. (Hyperbole, much?) I just don't see "skepticism" as some magic wand of entry into things that are none of my business.

 

[Varanid]

I know at my 501c3 I have to be careful not to "endorse" any commercial venture. I would have initially thought this was the case here, but I haven't seen that idea mentioned.

Also, the 990s are public, so where can we see JREF's 990? (Asking for the forum, I lost interest in this already).

According to IRS disclosure regulations, exempt organizations must make its three most recently filed annual 990 or 990-PF returns and all related supporting documents available for public inspection. This public disclosure rule also applies to Form 1023, which is filed to obtain exempt status.
Link.

 

[Cleon]

I know at my 501c3 I have to be careful not to "endorse" any commercial venture. I would have initially thought this was the case here, but I haven't seen that idea mentioned.

Also, the 990s are public, so where can we see JREF's 990? (Asking for the forum, I lost interest in this already).

According to IRS disclosure regulations, exempt organizations must make its three most recently filed annual 990 or 990-PF returns and all related supporting documents available for public inspection. This public disclosure rule also applies to Form 1023, which is filed to obtain exempt status.
Link.

Guidestar.org

 

[tesscaline]

No, I'm not crying. (Hyperbole, much?) I just don't see "skepticism" as some magic wand of entry into things that are none of my business.

If it's none of our business, then the person who brought it up (not me, by the way) shouldn't have brought it up as part of his argument.

By doing so, especially in such a way as to make it a core tenet of his argument, he made it the business of anyone assessing that argument. If he didn't want the subject questioned, or was unwilling to provide evidence, then he shouldn't have mentioned it.

If this were any other subject -- say one about homeopathy or psychics -- there would be no objection to a request for supporting evidence of a claim. I really don't know why you're being so obstinate about it.

 

[not daSkeptic]

This is a large forum ...

The DB alone has to be extremely robust; each page makes numerous DB queries. Consider that as I type this, over 500 people are online--and this isn't even a busy time of day (the most users online simultaneously is over 1,600). The DB needs to manage a screaming crapload of connections and queries simultaneously--with that comes massive CPU needs, to say nothing of hard drive speed (and space) as well as memory.

Actually, forums are very simple software systems. They generally have no significant logic, are read heavy, and exhibit a great deal of locality of reference. Significant database activity except under heavy posting load would be indicative of a naive implementation.

Additionally, the number of people online at once is a meaningless statistic considering most of them are reading their screen (or have gone off to another site entirely) and aren't doing anything with the server. Published statistics show an average of around one request per second. Even a low-end machine running decent software can saturate a gigabit circuit and handle a good 500-1000 thread requests per second. This site has nowhere near that level of traffic.

 

[JREF Staff]

Dear tesscaline

I am sorry you have the feeling that someone is "attempting to use spin doctoring or obfuscation" on you. I think this is the kind of overly suspicious attitude that I spoke of in my last post; that is, I think you are being more cynical than skeptical.

Contrary to what you say in your post above, you have in fact doubted that we could possibly spend a greater amount of money on the forums than you or others guessed. For what it is worth, I think we may pay too much. This is the website and set-up that was around when I assumed the presidency of the JREF, and one of the things I'm aiming to do is to address the cost issues resulting from management decisions from before I came aboard (but this is a pretty complicated website and forum, and people have put a lot of sweat and tears into building it, so we are proceeding cautiously). But certainly none of this is germane to the issue of nonsolicitation on the forum or to a noncommercial-use policy. I mentioned the cost issue as context only because it is true that we spend a considerable amount of money on it, and do so gladly because we value the forum, for at least the two reasons I mentioned before. But even if we spent nothing to maintain the forum, or it brought in gobs of ad or other revenue (which it does not -- only about $100.00 per month in ad revenue, pretty consistently), we would still be implementing a no-commercial-use policy. It was my mistake not to implement it when I first came aboard, but at that time, I was less concerned with the forum than I have become recently. Frankly, I had bigger management issues to deal with at that time.

For a number of reasons (I touched on some of this thinking in my first post), we are reverting to a nonsolicitation/noncommercial use policy similar to the one we had before. My intent in making my first post on this was to personally respond to requests for clarification. My post was not an invitation to debate the merits of or rationale for the policy. And contrary to some of the other suspicions that folks posted in this thread: many other forums have very similar no-commercial-use policies, such as the Skeptics Society forum, the Rational Skepticism forum, the Richard Dawkins forum and Center for Inquiry's forum. One of my favorite online forums that I spend a lot of my spare time at, NeoGAF, has a very similar policy. Such policies are fairly standard across the board. But even they weren't, we would still be implementing a policy that doesn't allow commercial use or solicitation on the JREF forum, since I think such a policy best supports the goals of the forum and the JREF.

As for your charge of inconsistency -- consistency is exactly what we want out of this policy, as opposed to inconsistently applying a policy that would allow some JREF forum members to promote their businesses but not allowing others to use the forum for commercial purposes.

A couple other thoughts: some folks in this thread have suggested that we benefit a great deal as an organization due to the forum. I do believe we benefit a great deal, since I believe the JREF forum helps foster skeptical community, and also because it is a really robust skeptical resource on the web (when I said this before, you dismissed it in your suspicion as mere "platitude," but I think it should be obvious that these facts about the forum make it a big benefit to our mission.) I am sorry that seemed unclear to you, or that you thought I was being insincere when I said it before.

But as for a lot of financial benefit coming from the forum? Not so much. Let's look at TAM and also memberships and donations.

First, TAM: One person in this thread suggested TAM revenue or attendance as something that should be factored into our appreciation of the financial value of the forum. I believe that early on forumites comprised the lions' share of TAM registrants. The upcoming TAM Vegas 2011 has roughly 1,200 paid registrants right now (this number does not include any comps, staff or speakers). When registering, folks are asked some questions that we hope will help us when we plan future promotion and outreach. The answers may be relevant to this discussion:

Is this your first TAM?

Yes - 50.9%
No - 49.0 %
User Provided No Response - 0.1%

How did you first hear about The Amaz!ng Meeting?

Skeptics Guide to the Universe - 25.9%
Word of Mouth - 16.5%
Randi.org - 10.9%
Skeptic Magazine- 5.5%
JREF Forum - 4.9%
User Provided No Response - 4.9%
JREF Newsletter - 3.9%
Other/Not Listed - 3.8%
Local Skeptics Group - 3.5%
Skeptical Inquirer Magazine - 3.2%
Bad Astronomy - 3.0%
Skepticality - 2.3%
Other Website/Blog - 2.1%
Facebook/Twitter - 2.1%
Point of Inquiry - 1.6%
Pharyngula - 1.4%
Other Podcast - 1.3%
Friendly Atheist - 1.0%
Skepchick - 1.0%
Online Search - 0.9%
Richarddawkin.net - 0.2%
Skeptic Blog - 0.2%​

The data suggests a couple of things. First, because TAM is growing significantly, a lot of new folks are coming to TAM for the first time. (We had about 700 paid registrants a couple years back and we think we may have 1500 total attendees this year in Vegas.) Second, 95% of the folks who are attending TAM this year heard about the event from a source other than the JREF Forum. Originally, a strong core of forumites were early boosters of TAM, but it looks like TAM may be reaching new or additional audiences at this point. I think that is a good thing. It means we are growing, which is important if the foundation wants to increase its impact advancing its mission.

Now, about the idea that some people in this thread have put forward that a lot donations or memberships come directly from the forum: at the end of Q1 2011, which are the most up-to-date numbers that I have handy right now, there were exactly 600 current members of the JREF.

In the organization's 15 year history, we have had a total of 4,911 individual donors, with our highest number of donations occurring last year (961 total).

In our 15 year history, we have had a grand total of 2,991 members. Again, there are only 600 current members of the JREF today.

But now look at the JREF Forum's numbers: there are currently 27,489 JREF forum members. "Active members" of the forum number 2,985.

We can probably safely conclude that the vast majority of forum members have never joined the JREF, never supported it financially, nor attended TAM. Some may even be hostile to the idea. That's fine, of course, since there are many types of folks in the world, and both TAM, and the JREF as a small nonprofit with a niche mission, may not be everyone's cup of tea. But I wouldn't want folks to think incorrectly that the JREF forum represents a big financial windfall for the JREF. Operationally speaking, it is a money loser. We are ok with that, of course, because it helps foster skeptical community and because it is a valuable skeptical resource on the web, as I said before.

And so much other good has directly come out of the forum: important skeptical projects have been launched, longtime friendships have been made, amazing volunteers for the JREF have plugged into the organization, and a lot of help has been given to needy forumites. And all of this is made possible by the volunteer mods, who do their stuff without any pay, and all because they value this online skeptical community so much. And just so I am not misunderstood here: though only a small fraction of forum members are actual supporters of the JREF, a couple of our most generous and consistent supporters have in fact come from the forum community, and we are incredibly grateful for that. I am just trying to put things in the larger context.

So, here is the point. Contrary to the suspicions otherwise expressed in this thread:

1. We sincerely appreciate the forum, despite its financial cost. This is because we know how much good has come out of the forum, both for skepticism in general and for the JREF specifically.
2. We are implementing a policy here that we had before, which prohibits commercial use of the forum, and this is similar to most other forums.
3. This policy is not personally motivated and will be applied consistently.

This will be my last post on the topic.

D.J.

 

[tesscaline]

The $100/month servers are simply not sufficient (to say nothing of virtual servers). Been there, done that, and as the forum grew, it started to slow and crash more and more frequently. Considerable expense was put into moving it to a new server (and ISP).

This is a large forum, and yes, it's expensive (beyond "peanuts") to keep it up and running. A $100 server is more than enough for a decent-sized store, but forums are much more taxing on the systems they run on. The DB alone has to be extremely robust; each page makes numerous DB queries. Consider that as I type this, over 500 people are online--and this isn't even a busy time of day (the most users online simultaneously is over 1,600). The DB needs to manage a screaming crapload of connections and queries simultaneously--with that comes massive CPU needs, to say nothing of hard drive speed (and space) as well as memory.

The volunteers who've managed the IT needs of the forum are professionals in the field, with years (decades, even) of experience as sysadmins and developers. A lot of thought was put into what our needs were, and believe me, those who remember the constant forum crashes a few years back can tell you that the upgrade was quite necessary--and resulted in significant improvement.

It sounds to me as if someone is attempting to solve a software problem with a hardware upgrade, based on your description.

It also doesn't really jive with how vbulletin claims to operate.

Yes, this forum is "large" in comparison to the myriad of teeny little private forums out there that only have 20 members. However, it is by no means huge or gigantic in the scheme of things. We're not talking about a forum with multiple millions of frequenters, with a high resource forum layout. We're talking about a couple thousand people, with a very very simple layout. A single, relatively basic (speaking in modern terms) server should be more than enough, hardware wise, to satisfy the needs of a forum such as this one. If it's not, there's a problem other than just the hardware.

I'd also point out that the claim was made that the "montlly" costs were "considerable expense". Not that a one-time hardware upgrade was expensive. So, assessing the cost of a one-time hardware upgrade isn't really relevant to the questions I've posed.

Even if one is running their own hardware, the ongoing costs are relatively small for a single server. A quarter cabinet in a co-location facility with a megabit internet service (more than enough for the JREF's purposes, or even the purposes of larger operations) can be had for ~$400/month. Or even less, depending on location and security requirements of the facility, and if you're able to negotiate a smaller cabinet or not. What other ongoing costs are there? vbulletin license? Psh. Their license is a lifetime purchase -- no ongoing cost there. If you pay for full support from them, that's only $300 a year -- less than $30/month. Technical staff? Well, you've already said that those are provided on a volunteer basis, so they don't cost anything to the JREF. So what other monthly costs are there that are for this forum alone?

And while that may not be "peanuts" for a single private person, we're not talking about a single private person. We're talking about an internationally active organization with a pay-gap of over $100k (based on the last available statements).

So, I stand by my statement:

If there truly is "considerable expense" on a monthly basis to provide this forum alone, they're doing it wrong.

 

[not daSkeptic]

... this is a pretty complicated website and forum ...

On the contrary, the stuff you're doing is quite ordinary, straightforward, and novice-level. It may not seem that way to you, but it's Tinkertoys compared to many other systems out there.

My post was not an invitation to debate the merits of or rationale for the policy.

What site do you think this is?

But as for a lot of financial benefit coming from the forum? Not so much.

I'm not aware of anybody suggesting otherwise.

 

[CriticalThanking]

Dear tesscaline
[snip]
But as for a lot of financial benefit coming from the forum? Not so much. Let's look at TAM and also memberships and donations.

First, TAM: One person in this thread suggested TAM revenue or attendance as something that should be factored into our appreciation of the financial value of the forum.
[snip]

How did you first hear about The Amaz!ng Meeting?

Word of Mouth - 16.5%
Randi.org - 10.9%
JREF Forum - 4.9%
[/INDENT]

To me, those numbers indicate the forum could be responsible for anywhere between 4.9% and 30% of the TAM attendees first hearing about it. First hearing about it and what got them there are two related but different things. My anecdote is that I heard about it on the old Skepchick site, but it was the forums that got me over the hump to wanting to go.

Now, about the idea that some people in this thread have put forward that a lot donations or memberships come directly from the forum:

[snip]

We can probably safely conclude that the vast majority of forum members have never joined the JREF,

Agreed

never supported it financially,

Maybe - see below.

nor attended TAM.

Agreed.

More anecdote - I was an annual member for several years. I have donated far more than the annual membership (and I was not always at the minimum level) to the JREF scholarship drive and related donations. I don't know that such data was/is tracked. I certainly never put anything on my Paypal that I was a forum member. I just donated because I felt it was the right thing to do.

[snip]And just so I am not misunderstood here: though only a small fraction of forum members are actual supporters of the JREF, a couple of our most generous and consistent supporters have in fact come from the forum community, and we are incredibly grateful for that.

Chicken or egg? Did those donors give because of the forum? If the forum was a large factor, this would contradict the idea that it is a net money loser.

[out of order quote done by CT]My intent in making my first post on this was to personally respond to requests for clarification. My post was not an invitation to debate the merits of or rationale for the policy.
[snippity do dah]
This will be my last post on the topic.

D.J.

Yep. You (collectively) have made a decision. The mods and admins must enforce it. The membership wanting to continue posting must abide by it as part of the membership agreement. Suggestion - if you want to make a proclamation, announcements can be made in locked, sticky threads. Posting in an ongoing discussion thread and responding to specific posters made some of us mistakenly assume you were open to considering arguments and ideas presented.

CT, who will abide by the decision

 

[tesscaline]

Dear tesscaline

I am sorry you have the feeling that someone is "attempting to use spin doctoring or obfuscation" on you. I think this is the kind of overly suspicious attitude that I spoke of in my last post; that is, I think you are being more cynical than skeptical.

I'm sorry, when statements people make do not match up with actions being taken, I do get suspicious. If you don't want people to be suspicious, then maybe some effort towards consistency should be taken.

Contrary to what you say in your post above, you have in fact doubted that we could possibly spend a greater amount of money on the forums than you or others guessed.

I never said you couldn't possibly spend more on the forums than I suggested was a reasonable expenditure. I said that if you are spending more than that, then you're doing it wrong. That's a very important distinction to make.

For what it is worth, I think we may pay too much. This is the website and set-up that was around when I assumed the presidency of the JREF, and one of the things I'm aiming to do is to address the cost issues resulting from management decisions from before I came aboard (but this is a pretty complicated website and forum, and people have put a lot of sweat and tears into building it, so we are proceeding cautiously). But certainly none of this is germane to the issue of nonsolicitation on the forum or to a noncommercial-use policy. I mentioned the cost issue as context only because it is true that we spend a considerable amount of money on it, and do so gladly because we value the forum, for at least the two reasons I mentioned before. But even if we spent nothing to maintain the forum, or it brought in gobs of ad or other revenue (which it does not -- only about $100.00 per month in ad revenue, pretty consistently), we would still be implementing a no-commercial-use policy. It was my mistake not to implement it when I first came aboard, but at that time, I was less concerned with the forum than I have become recently. Frankly, I had bigger management issues to deal with at that time.

For a number of reasons (I touched on some of this thinking in my first post), we are reverting to a nonsolicitation/noncommercial use policy similar to the one we had before. My intent in making my first post on this was to personally respond to requests for clarification. My post was not an invitation to debate the merits of or rationale for the policy. And contrary to some of the other suspicions that folks posted in this thread: many other forums have very similar no-commercial-use policies, such as the Skeptics Society forum, the Rational Skepticism forum, the Richard Dawkins forum and Center for Inquiry's forum. One of my favorite online forums that I spend a lot of my spare time at, NeoGAF, has a very similar policy. Such policies are fairly standard across the board. But even they weren't, we would still be implementing a policy that doesn't allow commercial use or solicitation on the JREF forum, since I think such a policy best supports the goals of the forum and the JREF.

I take no issue with a non-solicitation/non-commercial use policy. No where have I said that I did.

The way this has been implemented, however, is where the problem lies.

As for your charge of inconsistency -- consistency is exactly what we want out of this policy, as opposed to inconsistently applying a policy that would allow some JREF forum members to promote their businesses but not allowing others to use the forum for commercial purposes.

Personally, I'm not objecting to not allowing some JREF members to promote their businesses but not allowing others to use the forum for commercial purposes. [Edit for clarity: I'm not objecting to disallowing both JREF members and others from the forum for commercial purposes] That IS consistent. However, if you're really going to implement the policy consistently then no commercial promotion of any kind other than JREF only activities should be allowed. Other organizations events shouldn't be allowed in the section of the forum about skeptical events. Other organizations podcasts should not be promoted. People should not be able to self-promote when they write a book. The section of the forum profile that allows you to list a "homepage" should not be allowed to list a company site.

This is a rather awkward sort of policy to be able to enforce consistently as it's stated.

Honestly, the original rule with banned "spam" was enough to cover what the seeming intended purpose of this new version is supposed to. Unsolicited commercial discussion is, well, spam. I'm not going to try to make a case for switching it back. I feel it's unnecessary to do so. It's your sandbox, you can do what you want with it.

But if your goal really is consistency... You might want to take a little more care in watching how this new wording is implemented, and make sure that it's implemented in an even and balanced way that does not alienate the community that you claim is so valued.

A couple other thoughts: some folks in this thread have suggested that we benefit a great deal as an organization due to the forum. I do believe we benefit a great deal, since I believe the JREF forum helps foster skeptical community, and also because it is a really robust skeptical resource on the web (when I said this before, you dismissed it in your suspicion as mere "platitude," but I think it should be obvious that these facts about the forum make it a big benefit to our mission.) I am sorry that seemed unclear to you, or that you thought I was being insincere when I said it before.

And here lies the rub about inconsistency. You claim you want to foster "community". Part of community is working together to support commercial endeavors within said community, as the fiscal solvency of individuals within the community benefit the community as a whole.

And yet, the implementation of the new policy has been to prevent that. Disallowing the use of even a URL in a signature -- which is not spam, which is not blatant commercialization -- stifles that.

But as for a lot of financial benefit coming from the forum? Not so much. Let's look at TAM and also memberships and donations.

I have not said that there is "a lot". But the JREF does receive benefit from these forums.

First, TAM: One person in this thread suggested TAM revenue or attendance as something that should be factored into our appreciation of the financial value of the forum. I believe that early on forumites comprised the lions' share of TAM registrants. The upcoming TAM Vegas 2011 has roughly 1,200 paid registrants right now (this number does not include any comps, staff or speakers). When registering, folks are asked some questions that we hope will help us when we plan future promotion and outreach. The answers may be relevant to this discussion:<snipped stats for brevity>

The data suggests a couple of things. First, because TAM is growing significantly, a lot of new folks are coming to TAM for the first time. (We had about 700 paid registrants a couple years back and we think we may have 1500 total attendees this year in Vegas.) Second, 95% of the folks who are attending TAM this year heard about the event from a source other than the JREF Forum. Originally, a strong core of forumites were early boosters of TAM, but it looks like TAM may be reaching new or additional audiences at this point. I think that is a good thing. It means we are growing, which is important if the foundation wants to increase its impact advancing its mission.

As much fun as it is to use these statistics to demonstrate that there is little value generated from the forums, I think it would be the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot to do so.

Yes, only ~5% of the people filling out that questionnaire said they learned about TAM directly from the forums. But how many people who learned about it by word of mouth learned about it from people who learned about it on the forums? How many people answered "randi.org" instead of the JREF forums because they didn't see a difference between the two (the forums are part of randi.org after all)? How many people learned about these other places listed in the responses by going to the JREF forums first? It's really not very relevant, but I wanted to illustrate that these statistics are all but useless without context.

Now, about the idea that some people in this thread have put forward that a lot donations or memberships come directly from the forum: at the end of Q1 2011, which are the most up-to-date numbers that I have handy right now, there were exactly 600 current members of the JREF.

In the organization's 15 year history, we have had a total of 4,911 individual donors, with our highest number of donations occurring last year (961 total).

In our 15 year history, we have had a grand total of 2,991 members. Again, there are only 600 current members of the JREF today.

But now look at the JREF Forum's numbers: there are currently 27,489 JREF forum members. "Active members" of the forum number 2,985.

We can probably safely conclude that the vast majority of forum members have never joined the JREF, never supported it financially, nor attended TAM. Some may even be hostile to the idea. That's fine, of course, since there are many types of folks in the world, and both TAM, and the JREF as a small nonprofit with a niche mission, may not be everyone's cup of tea. But I wouldn't want folks to think incorrectly that the JREF forum represents a big financial windfall for the JREF. Operationally speaking, it is a money loser. We are ok with that, of course, because it helps foster skeptical community and because it is a valuable skeptical resource on the web, as I said before.

Are you including in that assessment sources of volunteers (which saves you money)? I have first hand knowledge of one such which would have been worth several thousands of dollars over the course of the relationship if things had not ended sourly.

And so much other good has directly come out of the forum: important skeptical projects have been launched, longtime friendships have been made, amazing volunteers for the JREF have plugged into the organization, and a lot of help has been given to needy forumites. And all of this is made possible by the volunteer mods, who do their stuff without any pay, and all because they value this online skeptical community so much. And just so I am not misunderstood here: though only a small fraction of forum members are actual supporters of the JREF, a couple of our most generous and consistent supporters have in fact come from the forum community, and we are incredibly grateful for that. I am just trying to put things in the larger context.

So, here is the point. Contrary to the suspicions otherwise expressed in this thread:

1. We sincerely appreciate the forum, despite its financial cost. This is because we know how much good has come out of the forum, both for skepticism in general and for the JREF specifically.
2. We are implementing a policy here that we had before, which prohibits commercial use of the forum, and this is similar to most other forums.
3. This policy is not personally motivated and will be applied consistently.

This will be my last post on the topic.

D.J.

I don't deny that you appreciate the forum. My objection was to the idea that you provide the forum at no benefit to the JREF. This is patently not the case, as you admit here. You do derive benefit from the forum. Whether that benefit makes up for the current costs of running it... Is debatable, I admit. I'm not about to speculate either way on it, as there are simply too many ways it could go. But there is benefit for the JREF that is derived from the forums. I feel that statements professing that this forum is maintained "for free" to be hollow when someone is deriving business value from the endeavor.

I'm sorry to hear that this will be your last post on the subject. When you make a decision that affects thousands of people, and there is concern over the implementation of that decision, it's disheartening when the one who's made the decision isn't open to discussing the topic fully.

I'm not trying to get you to change any policy, I'll point out. I am concerned about the implementation of said policy being inconsistent with the ideology of "community", and the missions of the JREF as a whole, as well as being unenforceable in a consistent manner across the board.

 

[gentlehorse]

"You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.”
Thomas Sowell

“Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work.”
Albert Einstein

“I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughtnut... I don't need a receipt for the doughnut. I give you money and you give me the doughnut, end of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. To some skeptical friend, 'Don't even act like I didn't get that doughnut, I've got the documentation right here... It's in my file at home. ...Under "D".'”
Mitch Hedberg

 

[This is The End]

[asmod]I think that we moderators need some more guidance on what does and what does not constitute 'commercial purposes'. Is it only one's own business, or any business? What about links to not-for-profit associations that accept donations? If we're to enforce this rule, we need clear guidelines in the Sooper Seekrit Modspace on how we are to do that.[/asmod]

I'm not affiliated with JREF, so obviously my reply has no direct weight in this situation. (But I'm fairly? sure it will be the answer to arthwollipot's first question.)

As a few may remember, in a thread where I questioned a link someone posted that they (I believe their spouse) received direct benefit from, I said I was involved with a very large (at the time) forum many years ago.

I was in dis-belief that the JREF allowed links that the poster directly benefited from, as that was one of the few rules that we had (at that other forum).

As for links to other commercial sites (Amazon.com or even woo.com), those were fine as long as the poster received no benefit from the link (in any way what-so-ever).

You may think that determining that (whether the link benefited the poster or not), at times would require some detective skills, but it was usually fairly easy to find out.

I would also like to back up Cleon, in that having a forum of this size run smoothly at all times is much more involved (read costly) than some others are purporting.

 

[not daSkeptic]

I would also like to back up Cleon, in that having a forum of this size run smoothly at all times is much more involved (read costly) than some others are purporting.

Please elaborate.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Are you merely crying about it because we're not blindly accepting the word of the almighty JREF, like the happy little forum-sheeple we're supposed to be?

<snip>

You have raised a number of points worth considering, both prior and subsequent to this post.

It's a shame you had to spoil all that with one sentence.

This sort of dismissive categorization is only going to incline me to view your posts with the same element of doubt that is provoked by other ideologues with a chip on their shoulder.

Maybe if you borrowed less rhetoric from talk radio ...

 

[not daSkeptic]

This sort of dismissive categorization is only going to incline me to view your posts with the same element of doubt that is provoked by other ideologues with a chip on their shoulder.

Your response to her question causes me to view your posts in exactly the same way. It's a perfectly valid line of enquiry. I see no reason to think that people here are necessarily immune to such things. As forums posters, the first party we should be skeptical of is ourselves. Second is the JREF. Only after that should we turn our attention to others.

 

[bookitty]

When questioning the value of the forum in regards to TAM or donations, there needs to be some consideration of the harm. This forum is made up of a huge variety of individuals, there have been personality conflicts. People have left the forum due to these. Some of those either identified as skeptics or were interested in skepticism as a movement.

In many cases, the forum was their first introduction to skepticism as a movement. if they didn't or couldn't follow that up with a local, in-person meeting, their interest may have dropped considerably. I'm not particularly social and yet I know two people who have left thinking that skepticism is represented by the worst this forum has to offer.

The JREF does not always benefit from offering this forum.

 

[tesscaline]

You have raised a number of points worth considering, both prior and subsequent to this post.

It's a shame you had to spoil all that with one sentence.

This sort of dismissive categorization is only going to incline me to view your posts with the same element of doubt that is provoked by other ideologues with a chip on their shoulder.

Maybe if you borrowed less rhetoric from talk radio ...

Okay, I'll bite and risk being dinged for "bickering".

First: I do not listen to talk radio, so there's no way I could be borrowing rhetoric.

Second: It was in response to statements that I (and others) had no business asking for a material claim to be backed up with evidence. The only thing it was dismissive of was the mentality that the JREF should be immune from having to provide evidence to back up their claim. It was, indeed, hyperbole intended to show just how ridiculous the idea was to me. I'm sorry if it came off as if I have a chip on my shoulder. I don't. But I find the idea that I can't ask for evidence before accepting a material claim, and must blindly take someone's word for it, to be something akin to religious fervor or even cult-like behavior. I'm pretty sure I would have responded to anyone behaving that way, whether it was about the JREF or not. They're not getting any more "special treatment" from me than any other subject I get involved in.

Third: It'd be a shame if you let one hyperbolic sentence detract from any valid points you may have seen me make. I really hope you're not saying that you would knowingly do so. I don't know that I could respect such a thing, as it seems remarkably petty.

 

[ZirconBlue]

Considerable expense was put into moving it to a new server (and ISP).

Wasn't that "considerable expense" funded by forum member donations? Or is that a different upgrade I'm thinking of?

 

[quadraginta]

Your response to her question causes me to view your posts in exactly the same way. It's a perfectly valid line of enquiry. I see no reason to think that people here are necessarily immune to such things. As forums posters, the first party we should be skeptical of is ourselves. Second is the JREF. Only after that should we turn our attention to others.

"... happy little forum-sheeple" is a valid line of inquiry?

When someone falls back on generic disparagement of an entire group as their approach to "inquiry" then I think it is perfectly "valid" to include it in my assessment of their argument. Borrowing tired CTer catchphrases to do so only adds to the inclination.

Sorry if that bothers you.

 

[Sc00ter]

I can kind of see the point of this. Nobody wants Frank from Frank's Skepticism Emporium to start posting links to all his sales and whatnot every other day. But, especially in the events sub-forum, I can totally see the point of posting an event in case others are interested, regardless of who is putting it on or why. Perhaps a 3rd party has to post them?

For example, Granite State Skeptics is currently an LLC for legal reasons and our member base. I do eventually hope to make it a non-profit, but for now it's not. Trust me, to call it for profit is silly, it's a money sink, not a money maker.. But if I post an event for something we're happening, even if it is to make money, I think it's still of interest to the community, same if another group did the same. Again, if it gets abusive and I'm posting something every week trying to make money, that's excessive, especially if it's not directly related to skepticism.

For example, what about skeptrack at DragonCon? DragonCon is technically a for-profit corp. From Wikipedia "Dragon Con has hosted the 1990 Origins Game Fair and the 1995 North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC). It is operated by a private for-profit corporation."

It has given money to charities, but so has Jeff's endeavor.

 

[quadraginta]

Okay, I'll bite and risk being dinged for "bickering".

First: I do not listen to talk radio, so there's no way I could be borrowing rhetoric.

Second: It was in response to statements that I (and others) had no business asking for a material claim to be backed up with evidence. The only thing it was dismissive of was the mentality that the JREF should be immune from having to provide evidence to back up their claim. It was, indeed, hyperbole intended to show just how ridiculous the idea was to me. I'm sorry if it came off as if I have a chip on my shoulder. I don't. But I find the idea that I can't ask for evidence before accepting a material claim, and must blindly take someone's word for it, to be something akin to religious fervor or even cult-like behavior. I'm pretty sure I would have responded to anyone behaving that way, whether it was about the JREF or not. They're not getting any more "special treatment" from me than any other subject I get involved in.

Third: It'd be a shame if you let one hyperbolic sentence detract from any valid points you may have seen me make. I really hope you're not saying that you would knowingly do so. I don't know that I could respect such a thing, as it seems remarkably petty.

If you don't listen to talk radio then you're spending way too much time around someone who does. The lingo is rubbing off on you.

It seems remarkably petty to me for you to cast aspersions upon an entire segment of people without any particular need to. Not least because you have no way of ascertaining how many of them even disagree with you.

Discount it as hyperbole if you want to. Even so it was misguided hyperbole, did nothing to further any of your argument, and casually insulted people who might otherwise be in agreement with the points you are attempting to make.

You pretty much demonstrated your ideas about respect when you chose to do that. I won't feel diminished by a further expression of the same on your part. You have already shown it to be both expected and ill-considered.

I agree with you about it being a shame, but probably not for the same reasons that you have.

 

[tesscaline]

If you don't listen to talk radio then you're spending way too much time around someone who does. The lingo is rubbing off on you.

It seems remarkably petty to me for you to cast aspersions upon an entire segment of people without any particular need to. Not least because you have no way of ascertaining how many of them even disagree with you.

Discount it as hyperbole if you want to. Even so it was misguided hyperbole, did nothing to further any of your argument, and casually insulted people who might otherwise be in agreement with the points you are attempting to make.

You pretty much demonstrated your ideas about respect when you chose to do that. I won't feel diminished by a further expression of the same on your part. You have already shown it to be both expected and ill-considered.

I agree with you about it being a shame, but probably not for the same reasons that you have.

Hey, if you want to make a circumstantial ad hominem that's fine. I can take it. I'll call you on it, but I can take it.

If you want to take my words for anything other than the hyperbole to make a point, I can't stop you.

It shouldn't insult anyone other than someone who would blindly accept the JREF's word on faith alone, and then criticize anyone who doesn't -- which is exactly the group of people it was intended to call out. If you're not part of that group, then why are you insulted? And if you are... Well, I'm sorry that the truth hurts. That's not my fault.

And yeah, I don't have a whole lot of respect for the ideology of someone who says that I'm unreasonably demanding when I ask someone to back up a claim with evidence. And if that alone is going to cause someone to disagree with the completely valid points I've made, well, I'm not so sure I want them on my side to begin with.

Would you like to discuss the actual topic of the thread now, instead of making a long string of personal attacks?

 

[not daSkeptic]

"... happy little forum-sheeple" is a valid line of inquiry?

Yes. Sorry if that bothers you.

 

[not daSkeptic]

DJ has the same knack for coming off as condescending that Jeff had when he was in charge. It must be the job, because both seem to be otherwise very nice and hard working people who have done more for this movement than I ever will.

Not necessarily. Just because someone is good on the production line doesn't necessarily mean they're good in the executive chair.

 

[bookitty]

Hey, if you want to make a circumstantial ad hominem that's fine. I can take it. I'll call you on it, but I can take it.

If you want to take my words for anything other than the hyperbole to make a point, I can't stop you.

It shouldn't insult anyone other than someone who would blindly accept the JREF's word on faith alone, and then criticize anyone who doesn't -- which is exactly the group of people it was intended to call out. If you're not part of that group, then why are you insulted? And if you are... Well, I'm sorry that the truth hurts. That's not my fault.

And yeah, I don't have a whole lot of respect for the ideology of someone who says that I'm unreasonably demanding when I ask someone to back up a claim with evidence. And if that alone is going to cause someone to disagree with the completely valid points I've made, well, I'm not so sure I want them on my side to begin with.

Would you like to discuss the actual topic of the thread now, instead of making a long string of personal attacks?

You haven't shown that your inquiry is material. Here is the statement:
First, a little context: one, the JREF spends a considerable amount of money on a monthly basis to provide this forum for free as a benefit to the skeptics community, and we do so happily, seeing the forum as such an important resource on skepticism on the internet, in addition to providing a place online for a number of skeptics to maintain close ties and foster community.

It basically says that the JREF spends money to provide a free forum and considers this forum an investment to promote goodwill & community, and to provide a resource for skepticism. That is the claim.

The amount of money spent is completely immaterial to this claim, whether it is a considerable amount or not. Whatever the JREF spends, it considers it a good investment. You may feel that it is not a good investment, or you may feel that the money could be better spent elsewhere but that is a different argument. If you were trying to judge whether or not the forum is a good investment, you could ask for clarification of "considerable" but again, that is not the argument you are making.

You have plucked a single vague word from the whole and pretended that it is decisive but that word does not distract from the authenticity of the message.

 

[not daSkeptic]

You may feel that it is not a good investment, or you may feel that the money could be better spent elsewhere but that is a different argument. If you were trying to judge whether or not the forum is a good investment, you could ask for clarification of "considerable" but again, that is not the argument you are making.

You're right, it's not the argument she is making. I don't see anywhere she said it's not a good investment. What I do see is someone who has experience with the business-side of operating complex Internet systems saying they see no reason for this site to incur considerable monthly expense. I also see a certain amount of wagon-circling in response to skepticism directed at the JREF.