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SoylentNews is people

posted by chromas on Wednesday June 06 2018, @02:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the community++ dept.

[Update #2: Wed 20180606 @ 14:30 UTC: WOW! Since this story first posted, we have received 36 subscriptions totaling approximately $1126.27 which brings us to a total of approximately $2716.36 which works out to just over 90% of our $3000.00 goal!! I am extremely impressed with the showing of support from the community and reminds me why I volunteer so much of my time here. It really is the community! THANK YOU! --martyb]

[Update #1: Mon 20180604 @ 14:14 UTC: So far today we have received 16 subscriptions bringing us to just shy of $2000.00 raised for the period and just over $1000 to go. THANK-YOU! --martyb]

tl;dr: SoylentNews needs your financial support... $1400 by June 30th. Please Subscribe.

We have raised approximately $1590.09 towards our funding goal of $3000.00 which covers the period from 2018-01-01 though 2018-06-30.

We run the site with a team of volunteers — absolutely nobody gets paid for their work on this site... all the funds raised go directly into keeping the site up and running.

From the time we went live on February 17, 2014 through today, we have posted over 22,000 stories and nearly 120 polls. In kind, the community has posted over 3270 journal articles and over 688,000 comments.

We understand that not everyone can afford to support the site financially. Those who make contributions "in kind" through submitting stories or comments, making moderations, and the like... please accept my sincere "Thank-You!" Without your contributions, there would either be no site or no reason to come here.

For those of you who have previously subscribed, thank YOU for "keeping the lights on". Good wishes did not pay for servers, federal and state tax returns, or domain registrations... You did! Thank you!

A complicating factor came from our having a problem with the subscription page about a month ago... but TMB put up a fix and we've seen no regressions, since. Perhaps this bit you and you meant to "try again later"? (As of my writing this, we have 123 users who have accessed the site within the past month, who had previously subscribed, but whose subscription is now lapsed.)

Whether your subscription has lapsed or you never previously subscribed, would you please consider signing up? Go to the subscription page, pick a duration, and type in an amount that is at least the amount suggested for that duration (excess amounts are, of course, most welcome!). If you would like to help the site without getting a subscription for yourself, you can make a gift subscription by specifying a UID and an amount, instead. (If you have nobody in particular in mind, please feel free to use UID 6 — "mcasadevall")


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @11:12AM (25 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @11:12AM (#688316)

    I would be more inclined to donate if there was a long term plan that is better than sell a few trinkets and beg for money. What Soylent News needs is a war chest. Is there anything legally preventing non-profits from owning securities? I know it seems like a lot at first, but $100,000 invested in the Vanguard REIT index would yield about $4000 per year in dividends. The great thing about indexes is that they eliminate conflicts of interest since you literally own a share of the entire market the index represents. Another great thing is that historically, real estate prices tend to equal inflation, so dividends and market value should keep pace with inflation. Self funding through investment would require a rainy day fund that is equal to about 2 years worth of expenses to ride out the occasional recurrence of Black Tuesday that tends to happen every decade or so.

    A war chest can be built up over time. Due to the nature of compounding, the bigger it gets, the faster it grows. I would start by ruthlessly finding ways to reduce expenses and coming up with ideas to bring in some revenue. I would suggest retail affiliate programs. It is possible to post a link to some retailer's landing pages that could avoid promoting certain products. Affiliate usage doesn't have to be permanent, once a nest egg is built up, it can be ended. Amazon, Newegg, and Walmart all have affiliate programs. Some of you may be opposed to this due to the site's mission to be impartial, but I think that can still be done. If one of the vendors doesn't like some comments negative and decides to revoke the partnership, so be it. Is it better to have 0 dollars or >0 dollars? Once enough cash is brought in to self fund through index investment, the affiliate programs can be dropped.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 04 2018, @12:15PM (21 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday June 04 2018, @12:15PM (#688326)

    He makes more sense than Trump, but... maybe misses the difficulty of stepping up an order of magnitude in fundraising?

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @01:30PM (20 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @01:30PM (#688337)

      Same AC as OP. I don't expect 100k to show up in a year. This is suggestion with a decade or more outlook. How many comments do I see where people are bitching and moaning about investors and senior managements short time mind sets? Instead of bitching about it, how about we as a community set an example? Cultural changes have to start somewhere, and once they get enough traction, eventually become mainstream. There is no reason this can't be the start. One thing that differentiates the likes of Buffet and other great investors is the long term outlook. Buffet didn't make over $100 billion dollars buying companies by having a short term outlook. If Buffet hadn't have given away a bunch of his money to charity a few years ago, he would be substantially wealthier than Gates or Bezos. As an example, Mid American Energy, which was bought by Berkshire Hathaway is building a shit load of Wind generators. It may take a decade or more, but it will likely be very profitable in the long run. I use Buffet as an example because he is the poster child of rational long term thinking yielding substantial rewards.

      The beauty of investing is the formula P(1+r/n)^nt. Notice the exponential growth. Progress would seem futile at first, then slow, then significant, then several years later SN would be like "holy shit we have tons of money!" Consider the parable of the king, chess board, and grain. It takes some time and discipline. The investing game is as much about what your gonads are made of as your brains. Persistence and rationality during bubbles and crashes make rational decision making based on facts and data difficult. An average Jane with titanium ovaries and a rational temperate will probably get rich while Joe the genius with balsa wood balls will probably go broke.

      Now to where to get the money. Does the test environment NEED to be on Linode? Could the developers use github to host the code and test locally using something like virtual box? Is Linode the most cost effective hosting? If test NEEDS (I doubt it) to be hosted, could prod stay on Linode and test somewhere cheaper? Can another provider meet the requirements for less money? Tax filing. Could Ncommander copy last years returns on to the current years forms, then have an accountant review it to catch mistakes rather than pay them to do everything? Could everything run on two VPS hosts running hypervisors? The more initial capital that is thrown into an endowment, the faster it will grow. Combine cost cutting with finding an additional funding source, and raising 100k in a decade or so starts to be feasible.

      Frankly, most people, Americans anyway, suck with money. Consider the percentage of Americans that can't handle a $1000 unexpected expense without going into debt as evidence. I highly doubt the majority are there due to circumstances out of their control. I haven't seen the SN financial details, so I am guessing, but there is probably at least SOME room for improvement.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @01:59PM (19 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @01:59PM (#688347)

        Just a few days it was mentioned that SN was overpaying for bandwidth. I think some cost cutting is in order.
        Instead of a real estate fund, I would suggest vanguard's current income fund, something like 55% bond, 45% stock, both including US and exUS.

        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @02:07PM (15 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @02:07PM (#688351)

          I have reservations wrt a "war chest". Too much money attracts political types, greedy people, SJWs and flimflammers. I would hate to see a currently proud organization like SN being used to fund toys for the exec board or get wasted on "Outreachy" type horseshit.

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 04 2018, @06:38PM (13 children)

            I really don't see that happening unless we have a massive staff turnover. I mean, for starters NCommander and matt_ are the sole shareholders and can nix anything they both disagree with. Maybe way down the road but not any time soon.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:54PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @06:54PM (#688506)

              Of course I wouldn't accuse our honorable current leadership of going down that path. But board memberships are fluid, and it just takes one bad apple to bring in more.

              How long did the Gnome Foundation and Mozilla remain fully committed to their original purpose? For five, ten, but not twenty years.

            • (Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday June 06 2018, @09:32PM (10 children)

              by fakefuck39 (6620) on Wednesday June 06 2018, @09:32PM (#689564)

              you don't have any staff, you don't' have any development, you don't have any test. you're a bunch of dorks who can't hold a career-type professional job who copied an old codebase from slashdot and spend a lot of time talking to each other because you're society's rejects. let's not pretend all you do couldn't be accomplished by running a perl script on an old wifi laptop stuffed in the closet.

              get a job ya damn fugly hippie!

              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday June 06 2018, @09:47PM (9 children)

                by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday June 06 2018, @09:47PM (#689572) Homepage Journal

                Who do you think you're calling a hippie? I'll have you know I shower regularly and everyone knows soap is hippie-kryptonite.

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                • (Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Saturday June 09 2018, @12:23AM (8 children)

                  by fakefuck39 (6620) on Saturday June 09 2018, @12:23AM (#690608)

                  Jumping off your little boat into a rancid lake doesn't count. Hippies are who I call unsuccessful losers who don't have the social skills to have a real career and win at life by moving the goal post further apart.

                  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 09 2018, @10:18AM (7 children)

                    I get in my boat and go fishing whenever I feel like it. That is the very definition of winning at life.

                    --
                    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                    • (Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Sunday June 10 2018, @04:05AM (6 children)

                      by fakefuck39 (6620) on Sunday June 10 2018, @04:05AM (#691030)

                      it takes a special kind of idiot to re-iterate the point without understanding the point. ever glared up at the sistine chapel, scuba-dived with manta rays off an actual boat (one with a pool and a helicopter) on a little island in the middle of the ocean? How about looking down at the world from it's tallest building? Been on a beach full of hot girls, while it's 140 degrees outside, but the sand is cooled by pipes in the ground and the air is cool from the outside ac? ever lived in another country for a time long enough to become a local and absorb their completely different culture, so you can open up your little mediocre mind and grow as a being? Ever seen real actual modern-day slaves? How about a 12 year old girl being sold as a wife on the market, next to the camels?

                      Just because an indoor cat defines winning at life as getting fresh fish does not make getting fresh fish actually winning at life, you retarded loser (at life).

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 10 2018, @04:49AM

                        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 10 2018, @04:49AM (#691035)

                        Uh oh, looks like some fake fuck wants to marry young girls.

                      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 11 2018, @02:12AM (4 children)

                        Honey, sweety, darlin, winning at life is nothing more or less than being able to do what makes you happy without having to put overly much effort into keeping that ability. All those things you brought up? They're just an empty soul trying to fill itself.

                        As for broadening my horizons? The US has fifty states and I've been to most of them. How many does the EU have? Americans don't have any need to leave the US to experience radically different cultures; we have most of those cultures within our own borders because everyone comes here after deciding their own nation sucks ass.

                        --
                        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                        • (Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Monday June 11 2018, @05:47AM (3 children)

                          by fakefuck39 (6620) on Monday June 11 2018, @05:47AM (#691293)

                          again summarizing my point w/o getting it. i'm american you idiot, and no, we don't have the same cultures in our borders as they do in Versailles or Tokyo or Doha in Quatar, or most of the EU. Only an idiot without a passport living in a little box would say that. Ever heard the story of a frog in a well? I'm sure you haven't. Enjoy your crickets and little rancid fish. Seeing the world and living well means filling an empty soul? Yes, yes it is. Yours is empty, forcing itself content because you have no skills to offer this world that would give you the ability to actually enjoy life. A loser is what we call you. A mediocre loser who has convinced himself he's happy by moving the goal posts, so he doesn't get depressed and shoot his brains out about how shitty life actually is.

                          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 11 2018, @03:29PM (2 children)

                            Feeling the need to keep score denotes an empty life, yes. Whether it's unique experiences or money or power, it's all just a poor substitute for actual happiness.

                            --
                            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                            • (Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday June 12 2018, @09:58AM (1 child)

                              by fakefuck39 (6620) on Tuesday June 12 2018, @09:58AM (#691844)

                              Ah, gotcha. People who have a well-paid career, money, travel and seen the world, and really really enjoy life - they're just unhappy. You need to sit in your little box on some lake and fish to be happy. Gotcha again. Then there are people who live a shitty life by the standards of people like me, and convince themselves anyone who has accomplished and does more, must be unhappy. Gotcha thrice. You win at life.

                              Of course this all goes back to why I remember this little majestic and very entertaining loser. Some script that posts from soylent to soylent-twitter broke. You asked a bunch of people on this website if they use twitter to read - they said no, so you didn't bother fixing it and lost all the twitter users. I mentioned that you have a low user count here, and that guess what - asking people who read on twitter outside of twitter is idiotic - they never got your message so they couldn't answer.

                              Then you told me to shut up because you're so awesome and you win at life, so someone like me giving you advice is funny to you. Then I started noticing every time you post another blissful bit of entertaining retardation.

                              Enjoy your boat loser. I'll enjoy my big house, hot young wife, monthly travel overseas, and mostly - my smile. And do keep telling yourself there's nothing more to life. The more people removed from the real job pool the better my pay.

                              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 12 2018, @10:48AM

                                You know, I kind of feel bad for you. Not actually feel bad but sort of a passing "damn, that sucks for him". Not for all the above nonsense but because you're trying so hard to troll me and just getting amused responses in return. All you can do is witness my happiness not being contingent upon others and despair.

                                --
                                My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 07 2018, @12:15PM

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday June 07 2018, @12:15PM (#689822) Journal

            I agree. If Soylent is going to remain "of the people" it serves a useful purpose to do a fundraiser like this occasionally. It reminds everyone, especially the trolls, that nobody is doing this for the money.

            One thought about the swag--i have the SN t-shirt and baseball cap, but i think the logo could use an update. Would anyone like to get together on IRC to brainstorm a new one?

            --
            Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @02:24PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @02:24PM (#688368)

          Just a few days it was mentioned that SN was overpaying for bandwidth.

          That is incorrect. The plan SN uses at Linode comes with a shit-ton of bandwidth. Even a $5 a month plan at Linode comes with 1TB of bandwidth.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday June 04 2018, @04:02PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 04 2018, @04:02PM (#688419) Journal

          Just a few days it was mentioned that SN was overpaying for bandwidth.

          Linode gives you an appropriate amount of bandwidth that a Microsoft product would use.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:41AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 07 2018, @10:41AM (#689802)

          This is cheap. It works. Why change?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @12:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 04 2018, @12:22PM (#688328)

    Interesting idea to set up something like an endowment.

    Something similar was suggested for a non-profit pbc that I volunteered for back in the late 1980s. This pbc had funding (from a large company) to administer prizes for a technology contest. The contest ran for several years, but the prize money was provided up front, so the prizes were fully funded. The large company had their name attached to the prizes, but no other connections to the pbc. The interest on the prize money was available as seed money for the pbc, which I hoped would become an endowment. Interest rates were higher then, after the 4 year duration of the contest, it turned into about USD $35K, iirc.

    However, what actually happened was that a subsequent slate of officers decided to raid the money for some capital expenditures (or as I felt at the time--buying toys for themselves to play with).

    I had hoped that an endowment could support one part-time paid employee to handle correspondence and membership, which would have taken a huge load off the volunteers. The end result was a split in the membership with quite a few volunteers dropping off. The pbc continues to operate but it is pretty marginal, barely surviving on membership dues and a few die-hard overworked volunteers.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Monday June 04 2018, @12:39PM (1 child)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 04 2018, @12:39PM (#688331)

    Is there anything legally preventing non-profits from owning securities?

    Not at SN scale. There's a business pattern where a taxable for profit hospital is completely 100% owned by a non-profit and the non-profit's only job is to run hospitals and pay very large salaries, sort of a tax avoidance scheme that the IRS is not amused at. So if SN started selling web log /. hosting as a service and that sub-company was completely owned by non-profit SN the the IRS would be somewhat offended eventually. All rather unlikely. In summary no problem.

    I know it seems like a lot at first, but $100,000

    some back of the envelope guessing the site has lifetime revenues about like a new car, so thats gonna be awhile.

    Linode likes to bill for every little instance and item, not on a load basis. I like and use Linode, however much as it pains me, perhaps if SN is gonna have many servers consisting of many instances and many ip addresses (linode does, or used to, bill for ip addrs, for example), setting up at linode might not be the best fit. The puzzle is where to move, and in detail how, of course.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:13PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:13PM (#689332)

      if SN started selling web log /. hosting as a service

      Just to be perfectly clear, I don't mean that's a bad idea, but I do mean that trying to avoid paying taxes using the non-profit as a shield is something the IRS finds easy to squash like a sqooshy bug. Do it, just pay your taxes...

      Its not the craziest idea, its something the org knows how to do, running a puppet/ansible/shell/wtf script on twice the hosts isn't all that harder than running on one, etc. Who would be the customers, I donno. People running wordpress blogs who want to outsource and get that /. retro look?