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posted by martyb on Friday March 06 2020, @01:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the alliteration++ dept.

I have a couple things to bring to the attention of the community concerning site funding and comment moderations. As always, if you are not interested in these matters, feel free to skip past this one; another story will be along shortly. Otherwise read beyond the fold for an update.

Finances:

A recent comment to a journal article about SoylentNews now having a privacy policy prompted me to pursue something that had been nagging at me for a long while.

In short, I have learned it costs more to run this site than I had estimated. We have actually been operating at a loss for the past couple years. I have, therefore, provided a revised fundraising goal of $3500.00 for the first half of this calendar year in the "Site News" slashbox (that appears on the right-hand-side of the main page).

I have been advised our current funds on hand can support the site for just six months.

For those who have been around for a while, it will come as no surprise to learn that I try to keep a handle on subscription income for this site. Further, I have been maintaining what we affectionately refer to here as the "Beg-O-Meter' that appears in the "Site News" slashbox. It provides a running tally of our financial goal for the period and how far along we are towards attaining that goal. Lastly, I have posted stories in the past apprising the community as to our progress towards those goals.

We are an entirely volunteer organization (no staff member has ever been paid anything for their work on SoylentNews). All funding for the site comes entirely from the community (we have never run advertisements and are strongly resistant to any suggestion to do so). The vast majority of our funding comes from subscriptions.

My prior estimates of $4000.00 per year were based on the only information I had available at that time. Our monthly web hosting costs ($260/month), the fact that we needed to file and pay taxes, and that we paid an accountant to prepare them. Twelve months at $260/month works out to $2160 per year. I reasoned a goal of $3000 for the year would give us about $840 for those other expenses... that should do it, right?

Apparently not.

Thanks to the above-referenced comment, I reached out to a member of our board of directors and inquired as to our financial status. In very short order I received a pile of PDF files. A separate file for each fiscal year's Profit and Loss Statement and a separate file for each year's Balance Sheet. It took a surprising amount of effort, but thanks to the concerted effort of a few staff members, these have been uploaded to our Wiki and can now be accessed through the SoylentNews Finance page.

A couple things bear explanation. You may notice that there are expenses associated with subscriptions. The amount of a subscription made to SoylentNews is a gross amount. From that, Stripe or PayPal charge a processing fee for each subscription. These fees do add up and amount to the aforementioned expense.

Also, why is a Delaware company paying Massachusetts state taxes? I reached out for an answer from a board member, and here is his reply:

We pay Massachusetts income tax (since we are not profitable, we pay the minimum amount of $456 each year, but if we ever become profitable, we will have to pay more) because we are physically located in MA (through me). A physical address was required to open our checking account with BoA[*], and for various other things. For example, we need a physical address to sign the engagement letter with our accountant every year. Note that we are not required to pay Delaware income tax because we are not physically located in DE. The tax that we pay to Delaware each year is technically a franchise tax that we pay for the privilege of being incorporated in Delaware (allowing us to be a Public Benefit Corporation, among other benefits).

[*] BoA - Bank of America.

I will keep the community appraised should I learn anything more.

Moderations:

We had had a discussion on the site a few months ago about moderation on the site. I have been pursuing a possible implementation of one of the suggestions raised there: adding a "-1 Ad Hominem" moderation. Discussion among staff has suggested we would need a counter moderation should a "-1 Ad Hominem" be perceived to have been in error. That wold mean the addition of a "+1 Not Ad Hominem" moderation, too. (In proper geek fashion, they nicely abbreviate to: "-1 AH" and "+1 NAH"!) There is more to its implementation than just adding these options to the moderation table; coding changes would also be needed. This, in turn, would require the modifications be submitted through GitHub as a pull request, then testing, and finally a rollout to the community. It is important to note that this would be on a trial basis! If it proves to NOT be workable, we need to be able to roll that back. This is easier said than done! The previous moderations will need to remain in the system (what's done is done) but future moderations must be able to be blocked... and the code is not designed for this at all.

It bears mentioning that our goal is to provide a forum for the community to comment on stories and to moderate those comments. We strive to be as hands-off about these matters as we reasonably can.

In short, this is mostly an announcement that AH moderations have not been forgotten, design work is in progress, and that when time and developer availability permits, we hope to be rolling this out for a test run. I would not expect anything to happen in the next month, but wanted to provide as much advance notice as to the intention as possible so as to encourage any feedback, discussion, etc. that could help inform our implementation.

<Note class="TMB">

s/next month/next few months/

Contractor woes (just because I technically can do everything doesn't mean it's always the wisest idea) wound up pushing move-in date on the church I've been remodeling back a couple months (end of April is what we're currently shooting for as a best case scenario) and I don't want anything hitting production servers that hasn't had at least two weeks worth of testing on our dev server after me calling it done, because I'm quite often wrong about that. The end of May is the soonest anything is likely to hit production servers, with some time in June being far more likely.

</Note>


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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2020, @09:03PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2020, @09:03PM (#967654)

    I've been pretty critical of SN in the past and actually got into some arguments with Buzzard over it. That matters because I have no particular incentive to defend SN.

    When you're donating to a charity or other non-profits, it's reasonable to expect they disclose their finances. Donors have good reason to want to ensure their money isn't wasted on overhead or embezzled, but actually gets where it's supposed to go. Non-profits also get to avoid some taxation, meaning there's a general public interest in ensuring those privileges aren't being abused.

    SN is not a non-profit. They're a public benefit corporation. They have two shareholders, neither of whom has been repaid for their initial investment. A public benefit corporation can pay their staff. A public benefit corporation can turn a profit. The primary difference between a public benefit corporation and other corporations is that a public benefit corporation is not obliged to maximize profits for shareholders. A public benefit corporation isn't required to open their books and provide financial reports, except to shareholders. SN has chosen to be more transparent, which is why they're telling everyone the reason for raising the funding goal. Although SN doesn't choose to run their operation like a business, they are for all intents and purposes a business.

    At best, you're a customer, who subscribes to the site and receives additional services in return. Or perhaps you don't subscribe and still benefit from paying customers. Customers don't get to walk into businesses and demand access to financial records. SN can run their operation as they see fit. If you don't like it, you have the right not to pay for their services. If you're a paying customer, you don't have the right to demand anything in return other than the services you paid for. If you're not a paying customer, you're not entitled to anything.

    The only legitimate concern I think you could raise is that if you were a subscriber and SN ceased operating during the subscription period, you might reasonably be able to expect a prorated refund for services not received. I don't think SN actually has a mechanism for providing such refunds, nor would there be a pool of money to pay being back from. I suggest that perhaps SN should make it clear going forward that, in the event the site ceases operation, subscriptions cannot be refunded.

    As for you, I highly doubt you're a subscriber. You seem like someone who just wants to be an asshole and piss people off. At least a good troll is funny and provides some entertainment value. You don't even have that redeeming value.

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    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2020, @10:14PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2020, @10:14PM (#967674)

    The primary difference between a public benefit corporation and other corporations is that a public benefit corporation is not obliged to maximize profits for shareholders.

    No organization is obliged to maximize profit for shareholders, not even for-profit corporations. Before you display more ignorance, let me refer you to this:

    The General Corporation Law (Title 8, Chapter 1 of the Delaware Code) was recently amended by Senate Bill No. 47, effective August 1, 2013, adding a new subchapter XV, which authorizes the creation of public benefits corporations. As defined in the GCL, a PBC is a for-profit corporation intended to produce a public benefit and operate in a responsible and sustainable manner. The PBC is to be managed in a manner that balances stockholders' pecuniary interests, the best interests of those materially affected by the corporation's conduct, and the public benefit for which the PBC is formed.

    IMO, it have doubts it is run in a responsible and sustainable manner, and that both the stockholders interests and the public benefit are in jeopardy.

    Customers don't get to walk into businesses and demand access to financial records. SN can run their operation as they see fit.

    Sure they can. But that's the funny thing about money: It's scarce and hard to get. Try to tell the bank you won't tell them your salary, and they'll tell you to pound sand when you ask for a mortgage. This non-profit site asks for money to keep running, and I'm going to question how it's going to help. And my first reaction to hearing an "Oh My! We blew through all our money!" is not to say "OMG! Have another $20!" as the underlying causes continue to persist.

    Your opinion of my motives are irrelevant.

    • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2020, @11:35PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2020, @11:35PM (#967704)

      Yeah, money talks with more clarity than any comment here can. When you sign up for a subscription , it gives you a suggested amount of $20 or so for a year's membership. I always paid more because I could afford it and (if browsing at -1) could get a wide variety of opinions on a subject. I gifted subscriptions for two accounts, one of them being realDonaldTrump, whose channeling of Trump was hilarious. Looking at the financial statement, I was covering a good 5% of the hosting bill annually. Then rDT got run off, and therefore I chose not to not be as generous anymore and discontinued that gift subscription.
      I still contribute to the operation of SN, because it is a non-profit website run by volunteers who are dedicated to free speech. I would think the vast majority of people here doesn't contribute a cent, but that is fine by me.
      Personally, I would like to see the moderation changed to "deweaponize" it as a tool of censorship by the bands of people that up and down mod based on political opinion. An additional mod item is useless to combat that problem, and in light of the financial difficulties highlighted in this post, suspiciously timed.
      I still have hopes for this site, but if it ever turns into some sort of control-leftist wasteland, at least I won't have my hard earned cash going to support that.
      "Go woke, get broke" then.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 06 2020, @11:40PM (3 children)

        They're not difficulties. We've just been nibbling away at our emergency savings instead of slightly growing it like we thought we were. You guys have always pitched in whatever we said we needed, we just said the wrong number for a while.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 07 2020, @12:01AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 07 2020, @12:01AM (#967722)

          Then SN should goto back to what that German guy was saying, control the costs and overhead.

  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 06 2020, @11:32PM

    Although SN doesn't choose to run their operation like a business, they are for all intents and purposes a business.

    We're absolutely a business. We have a business license and pay business taxes. We're just a business with a very specific, non-monetary goal and nobody on staff who cares if we make a gazillion dollars more than necessary to run the site or four dollars more.

    We're also staffed pretty much entirely by folks who don't want to do paperwork. If you have said desire, by all means get on staff and push that paper. Or get on staff for any other job you feel like doing and abracadabra you are now part of The Man and can help keep everybody down. I don't think we've ever turned anyone down for a staff job. I doubt Ari could keep story posting privs very long if he signed up to be an editor but he's welcome to give it a go.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.