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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?
- (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. - 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. - 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?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by geb on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:22AM
Splitting the core elements of the site (news, comments, journals and so on) into free and paid areas would be divisive and bad for the growth of such a new site.
Adding on extra features so that people can pay for those, while leaving the core elements free, would be difficult. I suspect that most people paying would just be doing so as a form of donation. (You could in fact just have people paying to recieve an "I donated" icon on their user page)
What there is right now is a site with an uncertain future but lots of people who want to see it succeed. Take donations, see how long you can run on donations alone, and then make changes if that doesn't work.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by MOS6510 on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:22PM
I'd have to agree with this comment. Considering the amount of interest this site has generated in such a short amount of time, I imagine any expenses for growth, maintenance, etc could be funded by donations alone.
It's obvious there's a lot of buzz being generated around SN, maybe granting donors a special status like "Gold" or "Silver" members based upon the amount committed on a yearly basis could be an additional incentive to donate.
Anyway, kudos to everyone involved in getting this site up and running! I'm very excited to see a worthy alternative to ./ spring up and look forward to watching it mature.
g=c800:5
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 12 2014, @12:32PM
True, but it doesn't need to be divisive.
If you really like the community site, you are going to fork something like the equiv of 1 week coffee for at entire year to pay for maintenance, dev and staff, aren't you?
Otherwise, with a "guest" account, you can still be able to access all the functionality of the site, but within a limit of... say... 50 posts per day?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:58PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Soruk on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:46PM
Linux Weekly News seem to have made this work.
The paywall is temporary, articles are made free to view (and comment on) after a week. Paying subscribers get the current news as it's posted.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 12 2014, @04:32PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by captaindeerface on Thursday March 13 2014, @09:50AM
This a thousand times!
Paywalls be damned!
-Captain Deerface
(Score: 1) by G-forze on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:13PM
Agreed. An "I donated" icon and the right to vote in important matters concerning the site (if one has donated some sufficient sum within some timeframe, that is) would probably be satisfactory to most of us.
If I run into the term "SJW", I stop reading.
(Score: 1) by Reziac on Wednesday March 12 2014, @03:49PM
I agree. The story/comment system should be free for all. Otherwise you're going to wind up with elites and marginalized, which is manifestly contrary to the spirit.
Working as a co-op, maybe -- but the structure needs to be kept as simple as possible. Otherwise there's going to be unfairness and hard feelings as too many corner cases worm their way in.
I've been a subscriber over on Slashdot since around 2001. It's probably cost me all of $20 total, which with the small benefits made it a good value for my miserly budget.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.