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SoylentNews is people

posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the ontology dept.

prospectacle writes:

"An important choice remains for this site. What kind of organisation will we be, practically, legally and financially?

A for-profit, shareholder corporation seems out of the question, by general consensus (correct me if I'm wrong), but other questions remain. The basic choice is this:

Will we be like a charity, a co-op, or a recreational club?

  1. (Like a) Charity:
    Being like a charity means operating for the public benefit. What we produce is news and englightened commentary for the benefit of the world. All our finances and operations would be geared towards this aim. All excess revenue is reinvested into the site.
  2. Co-op:
    A co-op is for the mutual financial benefit of individual (possibly paid) members. Three main sub-options for this exist that might be appropriate for this site:
    2a) A retailer's co-op. Members use a common organisation in order to make individual profits. For example if members used this site to display their stunning intelligence, and then put their resume or website links on their profile page so people could hire them. Maybe there are services built into the site to find someone to hire who fits your requirements.
    2b) A worker's co-operative: Employees share any excess revenue. Some revenue would go to expenses, some would be reinvested, whatever remains is shared among employees.
    2c) A buyer's co-op. We exist to get discounts, or to buy together what we can't afford separately. Maybe we're buying well-written news and analysis from professional authors. Or maybe we're bulk-buying electronics, etc, so the price-per individual can be lower.
  3. A Recreational Club:
    This takes membership fees to provide access to equipment, organize competitions, etc. Maybe paid members would get to use extra services, like an email account, or storage space, or their own discussion thread area, or software project hosting, or chat-rooms, etc. Non-members could still be permitted, with fewer privileges, and would have to pay-per-use for the extra services (or pay to become a member).

This is a gross simplification, but gives some idea of the options involved. Feel free to offer alternatives. So what should we be, what is our purpose, really? And what kind of a structure is required to make sure we serve that purpose, and that money doesn't end up in the wrong pockets?

Bonus question: which jurisdiction should we set ourselves up in to fulfil our mission most effectively?"

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:05AM (#15168)

    I vote for option 1.
    And as for jurisdiction, anywhere outside the US and a few other countries is probably fine.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jt on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:19PM

    by jt (2890) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:19PM (#15242)

    Could you elaborate on why the US (and I am guessing UK and other 'five eyes') states are not OK, in your opinion? Moral issues with surveillance? Tax? Lawsuit exposure? Publishing news and opinions is key to this place so ideally we would pick somewhere that values free speech. Exactly what that means is open to debate. However, we should not lose sight of basic issues of practicality. The people who will run this place - where are they based? What are they familiar with? Lets not get carried away with esoterica at this stage.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:45PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:45PM (#15292) Journal

    Iceland.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:14PM

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:14PM (#15424) Journal

      Unfortunately, most (all) of the workers and volunteers don't live there.
      And Iceland has nothing to offer over any of the other countries.

      There are really only a couple reasons (other than TAX reasons) to choose any given country:

      1) Freedom from Take down notices
      2) Demands for submitter IDs and records

      I'm not sure all possibility of these can be avoided anywhere. Although with editorial care we can largely avoid the former, and use of a Warrant Canary flag [wikipedia.org] could at least make us aware of the latter.

      Press freedom (lets not lose the word NEWS in our name!!!) is still quite strong in the US and court cases have established bloggers as journalists [theatlantic.com], which offers a lot more protection that you would get in France, and possibly Iceland. EU regulations seem to be in a constant state of flux, but in some cases they are actually preferable.

      So it seems to me that there should be two things we seek out of an organizational structure, Tax protection and journalistic freedom protection.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:55PM

        by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:55PM (#15442) Journal

        you forget about the NSA and its ability to just bully any US based business into turning over records. Basing a web service in the US shows that the owners care nothing for their user's privacy.

        But I forget, your the toadie for the Feds. I can't help but wonder if you are actually Cold Fjord, but I don't have enough evidence yet.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:10PM

          by frojack (1554) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @09:10PM (#15532) Journal

          Oh climb down from that soap box before you hurt yourself.
          Why is it you can't have a discussion without slinging insults?

          Its pretty hard to bully anyone into giving you what you don't have. Its even harder for the NSA to do anything with it once they get their hands on it. (What ever "it" might be).

          Do you know what a Warrant Cannery is, and how it works?
          Do you seriously believe being located anywhere else in the world would be a problem for the NSA?
          (Seriously, if you believe this, you haven't been paying attention.)

          --
          No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 2) by demonlapin on Thursday March 13 2014, @03:08AM

          by demonlapin (925) on Thursday March 13 2014, @03:08AM (#15663) Journal
          If any dev is in the US, they'll just use him as the way in if they really want to.

          OTOH, you get the First Amendment and US libel laws. I don't know what the right choice is, but there are advantages to being based in the US as well as disadvantages.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:03PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:03PM (#15446)

    Iceland!