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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: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:18AM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:18AM (#15176) Homepage Journal

    Just to declarify, many charities do pay their admins and staff. Well even, judging by the suits many of them wear. When was the last time you saw Shaprton in anything off the rack?

    How about as a [for|non]-profit with revenue beyond staff payment, overhead, and reinvestment being donated to the charit[y|ies] chosen by the community?

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    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
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  • (Score: 1) by strength_of_10_men on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:16PM

    by strength_of_10_men (909) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:16PM (#15238)
    I second this. I was going to suggest a "Newman's Own" kind of model where SN itself is a for-profit but donates all post-tax net income to a separate SN non-profit. That way the site can be run as a business and still be a "charity".
  • (Score: 1) by bootsy on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:54PM

    by bootsy (3440) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:54PM (#15441)

    I agree with the above. There are some more extreme examples of this, see the pay off ( never mind the annual wage ) that ex-head of Amnesty International got when they left. I find it obscene.

    http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/N ational/article555707.ece [thesundaytimes.co.uk]

    (it's a link to Murdoch owned site but you can use your favoured search engine to find another )

    You can be very, very well paid working for a charity.