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By now, you have had the chance to read the updates of both NCommander and Barrabas. Nonetheless, you may still be wondering quite a few things about the site and its staff. Here is your chance to ask us anything. These questions can be general in nature, in which case the staff will select a spokesperson to answer it, or it may be specific to an individual. If the question is for an individual, please ensure you identify that person specifically enough.
We will select the best questions from the thread and provide answers to the community. These questions may not be the highest rated, although we will probably use those first.
In keeping with tradition, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.
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Interview: Ask SoylentNews Staff Anything
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poverty, n.:
An unfortunate state that persists as long
as anyone lacks anything he would like to have.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:23PM
How do you plan on making money, and what happens if you don't make enough?
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:25PM
I don't believe that money is the "bottom line" of this site.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mhajicek on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:28PM
True, but running a site requires a certain amount of money.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by crutchy on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:46PM
i wonder if debian would be willing to host soylent news, if it adopts similar foss principles (which it seems to be), or maybe one of the other foss hosts
don't necessarily need to use their domain (could use a freebie from freedns.afraid.org if they become really desperate) but the foss community should be fairly supportive of a not-for-profit discussion forum for geeks, and organizations like the linux and apache foundations no doubt have some fairly wealthy backers.
(Score: 1) by edIII on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:42PM
It would be nice to be able to donate at some point too.
There was also an article about Tidbit. I'm very interested to know just what the viability of cryptocurrency mining using client-side architectures would be.
If the mining could generate enough revenue from the user base to replace advertising, that may be all we need to keep the site alive and functional without external financial support.
I'm not opposed to that, or running a native app to donate processing cycles to SoylentNews.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by mcgrew on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:07PM
Well, my site is only fifteen bucks per year, but soylent needs a bit more than I do. But I, too, wonder what will happen if they can't get cash. I hope they're getting advertisers, at least enough to break even.
In my case, the money for my site comes from the books, which are the only reason it exists. But like I said, my needs are very, very minimal.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday February 19 2014, @10:36PM
What about Memberships?
Would each user consume more than $5/year of bandwidth and server space?
Sometimes I think when you pay for something you are less likely to crap all over it by starting flame wars etc.
Even maintaining the site will take someone's time and money. Otherwise the first good paying job that comes along snuffs out the interest in maintaining SN.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by mcgrew on Thursday February 20 2014, @08:29PM
Maybe subscriberships, like at slashdot, but I wouldn't want soylent to be paywalled. We're not going to grow our community with a paywall.
And as far as "when you pay for something you are less likely to crap all over it by starting flame wars etc", well, there are other, non-monetary ways to invest in it... like contributing good stories, good comments, modding trolls and morons down (which is how you stop trolls and visible flamewars), putting stuff here for free you're selling elsewhere (see my sig and journal)
We were all pretty invested in slashdot or there would not have been such a backlash against Beta, everyone would have simply disappeared, shaking our fists in vain at Dice. I had the same feeling when K5's community deteriorated, and that's what I did -- I disappeared.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by frojack on Thursday February 20 2014, @09:01PM
When writing that recommendation, I wasn't thinking about paywalls so much as the Wikipedia way of raising funds (begging banners), that could be turned off by tossing a few bucks via paypal or something like that.
Also, (Mentioned in other posts in this thread)...
Keeping "For Profit" an option as an founders want to maintain, does not seem inconsistent with seeking donations. There are many ways to seek income.
Note:
I almost suggested No ACs, or no way for AC posts to be modded above zero. I understand the anonymity angle, but i'm not sure its worth the disruption ACs cause. But then the thread was about funding, and ACs didn't seem on topic.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday February 21 2014, @03:30AM
I think those are good ideas. As to ACs, even though 99% of them are trolls, morons, or trollish morons, sometimes folks do make insightful comments anonymously that deserve +5s. As long as the moderators do their jobs you shouldn't have to see many.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday February 21 2014, @05:11AM
Maybe a "Right to Post AC" is one of those "Achievements" the server can hand out.
(I know, I know, the job of getting slashcode running at all is big enough that
adding fluff at the beginning is a step too far).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday February 21 2014, @03:44PM
I don't know, I haven't seen any need or had any want to post AC here. I've posted AC at /. a few times when I was on a terminal I didn't want to log in on. Once you have karma, why would you want to post with a starting score of 0 when you could post at 1? No point writing if nobody's reading.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mmcmonster on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:29PM
May not, but some revenue is needed.
Who's paying the bills now, and what are the plans for covering expenses in the future?
(Score: 5, Informative) by DarkMorph on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:41PM
One cannot ignore the fact that presently we have nothing foreign loading on the site. No third-party elements, no advertisements, beacons, trackers -- nothing of the sort. Yet we're all aware that keeping the server running has a cost. Surely many of us are curious how we will keep it running, and it's worth asking if there will be a method to facilitate donating to the SN fund to help with the costs.
Back on
(Score: 2, Interesting) by internetguy on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:32PM
"the Internet existed once without ads just fine, and it will continue to exist with or without them."
I wonder what triggered costs on the Internet to increase to the point people found it necessary to create ads. It seemed to happen during the dot-com erra. Any ideas?
Sig: I must be new here.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DarkMorph on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:46PM
It wouldn't surprise me if, by now, many sites figure that it's worth a shot, because there's always the chance of acquiring ad-based revenue, whereas if there is no advertisement, there is a guarantee of no such revenue.
SoylentNews represents the first time I've ever seriously considered donating to contribute to the needs of a news-oriented community. I find what SN stands for to be rather significant. Ironically the redesign of
(Score: 1) by buswolley on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:52PM
images. video.
I bet the hosting cost on SN is not as large as one might think. Very clean.
However, this disregards the labor of the people maintaining SN. Volunteer labor without compensation is finicky.
subicular junctures
(Score: 2, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday February 19 2014, @10:43PM
Exactly.
Servers do cost money, hosting costs money. And that's all good until you outgrow what can be handled by a single machine, or you exceed the bandwidth that your hosting situation can supply, or you sustain your first DOS attack or something.
Eventually, you realize you just want to put it all in the cloud somewhere and leave all the hardware and bandwidth issues to someone else. And THAT costs money too. Probably Big money.
But to remain interested, people have to at least make enough money to do the work even if it is only part-time work.
Just dealing with a small portion of the users that need help or want to bitch takes time and mental anguish.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by EvilJim on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:43PM
I don't mind the odd ad here or there, but if allowed, they should only be static images or animated gif's, no java/flash or control by advertising networks who are likely to try to sneak that crap in.
(Score: 0) by crutchy on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:55PM
increased traffic probably
i can host a website on my home PC for next to nothing (electricity & internet access)
when "dot com" became trendy and moved beyond the realm of nerds and geeks, and corporations realized they could make a profit using the interwebs, they pounced
now there's ecommerce, bots of various sorts (good and bad), spam, viruses, multimedia, online games, etc.
the bottleneck for a popular site is generally dns and load balancing. processing requests and database load etc can be spread out.
(Score: 2, Funny) by dilbert on Wednesday February 19 2014, @10:08PM
Maybe we could ask Jimmy Wales if he'd be willing to annoy every user on every page for an entire month for us so we can stay ad free.
In all seriousness though I'd be willing to donate toward the site maintenance.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Iskender on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:21PM
One source says the number of web users doubled within the years 2000-2001. Almost doubled in 1999 alone. Other sources I looked at give slightly different numbers, but they all agree that there was huge growth. The dotcom era may have involved a lot of hot air, but it certainly helped make the web more popular.
Someone said it's complex. I don't think it's complex at all - the web got popular, and when it did, one's hosting solution couldn't be "freeloading on my university's network" anymore. Another user said there were images (and video, which came later), and those made advertising even more necessary.
Now, slash-style sites are designed to require little bandwidth. But I believe even the processor requirements by themselves will drive hosting costs up if you're popular - all the old hobbyist ways of doing things fall apart when faced with modern amounts of users.
(Score: 1) by unitron on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:32AM
"I wonder what triggered costs on the Internet to increase to the point people found it necessary to create ads."
Leaving college and having to pick up the costs of a server and bandwidth instead of sponging it off of the school?
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 2, Insightful) by technopoptart on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:57PM
Donations, seems to be the best way.
I am curious to know about the hardware and hosting details. Is this hosted at a home / home office/ a company supportive of the ./ community, or a VPS provider?
But i think this community is big enough and had a good percentage of people earning a good living. Some people will give $5/$10 a couple times a year, and others will give $300 or $500 a year.
(Score: 2, Informative) by boltronics on Thursday February 20 2014, @10:41AM
Originally, they were running on two Linode 2048s running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/02/18/072 4232&mode=nocomment [soylentnews.org]
However Barrabas wrote that they're also planning three additional servers for development, testing and experimentation purposes.
http://soylentnews.org/~Barrabas/journal/41&mode=n ocomment [soylentnews.org]
According to the front page of the Linode website (https://www.linode.com/), a 2Gb server (presumably what is meant by "Linode 2048s") is $40/month (presumably in USD). So $80/month for production. If the other three servers are the cheaper $20/month 1Gb machines, then we seem to be looking at US$140/month absolute minimum (assuming no extra storage or data transfer quota is required). That figure also does not include things like domain name registration, SSL certificates, etc.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 1) by Castout on Wednesday February 19 2014, @10:22PM
Since this is more of a community driven site - I would be curious if an 'ads only' page would work.
Create a link that takes you off the main pages to one that is only ads. Make them tech relevant, load them in a decent format, and when you want to contribute, load the ads page and click around (in a Linux sandbox VM of course)
Would keep the main pages clean but allow some unobtrusive easy access ad revenue
"Think outside the box but park between the lines!" - Castout
(Score: 2, Interesting) by demonlapin on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:33AM
(Score: 1) by sibiday fabis on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:54AM
I'd appreciate being able to support SN in this way. Unobtrusive and useful. Great idea!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by omoc on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:38PM
in addition, how much did this site set you back so far? I don't assume advertisement would cover the expenses, do you have any plan for subscription plans for early access like /. did or LWN does right now?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by cx on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:39PM
(Score: 3, Funny) by Random2 on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:53PM
Well, they thought abut implementing one, but jar.js just feels so wrong....
If only I registered 3 users earlier....
(Score: 5, Funny) by zocalo on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:44PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:38PM
That's why they should make it a Java applet - tip.jar
(Score: 1) by d on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:16PM
LOL, a java applet would serve as a perfect addition to an ancient Apache server!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by johaquila on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:36PM
I am just putting this vague thought out here in case others can continue it in a useful direction:
I really like the way Duolingo is making money (though apparently not enough yet to break even - not surprising given how fast they are expanding). They lure users into their ads-free site by offering them some of the best foreign language courses available, and make them translate the web to train their new language skills. Instead of milking or selling users in the usual way, they make them create content which some companies are prepared to buy. It's a win-win situation.
Maybe this idea can be transferred somehow. For instance:
I would imagine that the attention of the SoylentNews crowd will also be a pretty valuable resource. Maybe some companies would pay money for the privilege of asking us our collective opinion about some issue. Hopefully not just as a PR exercise.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:46PM
Rather than slashvertisements I would be much more tolerant of a marketing poll.
We're thinking of entering the fashionable dog food delivery over the internet market. Do you feel our founders should be compensated:
1) One Billlioooon dollars (twists mustache)
2) Billions and Billions of stars, err dollars
3) one Cowboy Neal
Somewhat more seriously if there exists a market for extremely high end thermostats and smoke detectors I could totally see a poll to figure out if we'd pay $500 for a twitter connected garbage disposal or WTF. I could see it.
(Score: 1) by Jerry Smith on Sunday February 23 2014, @09:20AM
Although the idea is good, the polls on 'that other site' have a major disclaimer, big enough to validate serious doubts.
I'm positive towards a quick and easy kind of tipjar, via amazon or paypal.
Make 2 options, a nice (few dollars) and a royal one (tens of dollars). The app stores have made it very easy to pay a few dollars, it's a model that could work for soylent. Make it HARD to make a payment more than once a week, to avoid hijacking or other abuse.
Just make the 'nice' option small enough for my SO not to notice please.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
(Score: 2, Funny) by crutchy on Wednesday February 19 2014, @10:28PM
or maybe a service to help connect companies with nerds for hire
soylent could build in some kind of feature for tipping users based on their skills (kinda like linkedin). skills could be demonstrated either by having worked with a fellow user, having used a program developed by them, having read about them in journals etc, or how they portray their knowledge/skills in solylent comments, journals and the like.
companies could come to soylent and put a dollar offer on the table, users could accept, and soylent could provide the company with a preview of a selection of user tips for the company to review. users could also set a minimum offer and put some resume stuff in to help with the process.
just a thought
(Score: 1) by EvilJim on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:26PM
Why the 'funny' mod mods?, this sounds interesting.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:51PM
For what its worth I'd pay more than zero but less than "not very much" to gain control over where vlm@soylentnews.org and/or http://vlm.soylentnews.org/ [soylentnews.org] forward to. You want to charge enough to not front for spammers, however. Maybe on a delay or only up while $karma > 0 && $subscription_paid_up == "Y" or whatever. Or for the total noobs $karma > 0 && $subscription_paid_up = "Y".
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Jaruzel on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:14PM
Following up on that... how about a small charge for username@solyentnews.org email forwarding (or even better on-site secure (web-)email at mail.soylentnews.org) ?
-Jar
This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:36PM
Probably his business plan is:
1. Start Slashdot clone.
2. ???
3. Profit!
SCNR
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Barrabas on Wednesday February 19 2014, @10:34PM
I plan on taking community consensus.
So far I've seen discussion of seven income types. I've thought them through and have notes and observations which should inform discussion.
I'm putting it all down on paper in a vision statement which should be published in about a week, although I'm finding that things take much longer than expected.
The ones I have so far:
If you have more suggestions for income channels, please post them below & I'll include them in the vision statement.
I have set aside $10K to run the site for the first year, we have that long to establish our brand and break even. If we aren't successful then, I'll probably leave to pursue other interests.
Total startup costs are under $1000, a full accounting will be in the vision statement. I expect an additional $1000 in Business/Legal/CPA fees (mostly incorporation fees) and $200-$300/mo. in bandwidth.
Nowadays, you can start an internet revolution for under $1000. Who knew?
If we don't hire anyone in the first year, our expenses will be mostly for bandwidth. Sys estimates this at $200-$300/month, which is consistent with the estimated bandwidth for Slashdot today. Slashdot of 2007 used an estimated $1400/mo, and slashdot at its peak used even more.
Extrapolating from the first day's usage data, we're using about 30% of the bandwidth at our current linode tiers, which cost $100mo. Refer: 2nd day stats [dropbox.com].
Note: Someone should check my math.
Until we choose a business model, this is still "officially" a for-profit venture. I don't think it fair to solicit donations under that model.
Not yet, consult a lawyer, probably not.
I can't answer these at the present time due to the liquid state of our governance and business model. Simply put, if this happens it will affect everyone involved with running and developing the site, some of which may have families and jobs to consider.
It seems reasonable to have a clearly-worded statement of intent and policy regarding these issues. I'll put it on my (ever-growing) list of items.
Oh, and to the best of my knowledge, we've not been contacted or compromised by any government agency or individual. Let me know if this is somehow "weasel worded" and I will rephrase.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SpallsHurgenson on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:07PM
Regarding your options for getting money:
Donations are fine. I see no problem with a tip-jar even if you are a for-profit website; if you are doing a good job, there is no reason not to accept a little cash on the side or even to solicit donations.
Advertising is okay, so long as it is discrete, and on-topic. Just be aware that most of your users are tech-savvy enough to install ad-blockers, so most of them won't be seeing the ads anyway.
Swag is always a fun option, but - unless you dedicate large portions of the site to hawking it - it's also brings in very little money. It's less a way of bringing in cash and more a way to market your brand.
Paid reviews are probably not a good idea. First of all, it brings up conflict of interest issues; if you accept a paid review for a product, will you later run a story about how that same product catches fire if you plug it in? Second, if there was one message yelled loud and clear during the Slashcott, it was that most people are more interested in the comments than any articles you may put up. We're here for the discussion, not the editorial content.
Job Listings sound neat, but that's a really hard market to get into and will likely require staff to maintain the listings and handle customer service. Soylentnews.org is unlikely to be the first place recruiters look for new hires; costs would probably fast outrun any income earned.
Memberships and subscriptions can be tricky; one of the strengths of the Slashdot community was that it was the content of an individual's comments that were value more than anything else. It didn't matter if you got the first post, or were had a low UID - if you sounded like an idiot, you would get modded down. On the other hand, even the lowliest of the anonymous cowards could end up with a +5 Insightful post if he had something of value to say. It was a very democratic and meritorious system. You want to be careful not to upset that balance by giving subscribers any advantage over the hoi polloi. On the other hand, people who pay for a subscription may expect certain benefits. Finding some sort of equitable harmony between these two conflicting desires can be tricky. Personally, I'd be happy with "no adds and a little gold star next to my UID" if I were a subscriber, but others may want more. On the other hand, I would also be less likely to pay a monthly (or yearly) subscription fee than a one-time "membership" fee if that were all I got.
My two cents, as a joe-average user.
(Score: 1) by demonlapin on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:36AM
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday March 04 2014, @11:20AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1) by Techwolf on Thursday February 20 2014, @03:27AM
This an answer that need to be addressed very soon. I've seen community sites spring up and die due to not securing a revenue stream soon in the progress. What happen is when the site started to get into dire situation with bills and had to resort to last minute changes to the site to bring in revenue, the result was not pretty and site soon went *poof*. The sites I've seen flourish got a revenue stream early on and didn't have to resort to those last minute changes out of desperation.