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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, Insightful) by timbim on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:06PM

    by timbim (907) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:06PM (#15231)

    Just throw some damned ads on the side and be done with it. Nobody's going to pay for a membership. Man, you nerds really over think thinks sometimes.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jt on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:31PM

    by jt (2890) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:31PM (#15246)

    Simple is always good. I understand that SN came to exist as a result of dissatisfaction with the business organization of Slashdot, hence the unusually early discussion of these matters, but equally we should keep organization to the bare minimum. We can always add more structure later if we need it.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:56PM

    by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:56PM (#15258)

    Ah... I'd pay a membership fee to avoid seeing stupid ads. One I was getting a lot was someone holding some kind of a small transparent jelly with red veins and blood with the caption "want to lose weight, eat this and find out how!"

    I can't remember the last time I bought a physical item online, but recently took an interest in electric circuits and bought a couple of small DC motors from Amazon about a week ago. Now I have an ad for DC motors which is actually tolerable to look at, had I known spending $40 on Amazon was all that was required to get the disgusting slime off every site I visited I would have bought something sooner. I'd pay a membership fee just to have this as one of three sites I frequent where I'm not forced to look at highly non-work appropriate nearly naked cartoon women trying to sell me on some MMORPG or some crappy weight loss ad, I'm 5'9" and 180lb why the fuck do I need to lose weight?

    Not to mention these are not the kinds of things I want people reading over my shoulder when I'm Googling stuff to see. Mostly because a) I like games in my off time, I don't need ads for them plastered all over my work space. b) I know it's inappropriate and co-workers shouldn't be subject to it. But especially c) since we have a very strict sexual harassment policy and quite a few extreme feminist kicking around my office looking for any reason they can find to have the guys around here fired. Not the "women are awesome and I'm proud to be one" kind of feminist, the "your a man and must suffer the death of a thousand suns even though you've always been nice to me and have never given me a reason to hate you, actually you've saved my butt on a number of occasions and I should thank you, but you were born as part of gender I hate on principal" kind of feminist.

    --
    "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
    • (Score: 1) by radial-flyer on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:59PM

      by radial-flyer (1020) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @01:59PM (#15261)

      I vote the route of charity.

      What about providing ads by default, allowing people to block them, and allowing for premium payments as well?

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:36PM

        by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:36PM (#15283)

        That I'm ok with. On the other news site I appreciated being able to click the little check box to disable ads. I'd have no problem paying a premium so I don't have to see them and letting anyone who just wants to leach from the site deal with them their own way.

        --
        "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by melikamp on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:53PM

        by melikamp (1886) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:53PM (#15298) Journal

        I believe that unsolicited advertisement should die. It is brainwashing, and pushing it on people who didn't ask for it is unethical.

        On the other hand, solicited advertisement is perfectly fine. I strongly urge the stuff to implement opt-in ads. No one should be able to see any ads by default, but if a user clicks a "upport this site" link, they should be offered to get to see ads. This can be done even for ACs, with a simple cookie. As long as ads are tastefully done, this should provide at least some revenue.

        Commenting on the other posts in this thread, I would never pay a ransom to make ads go away. I simply don't trust anyone who is already pushing unsolicited ads. They will surely take my money, and then a week later will start pushing "unobtrusive text-only ads", or "relevant links from our sponsors"... They will come up with some bullshit excuse why their ads are not ads (looking at you, NPR). Fuck it. Be ethical, don't be a dick to your readers and contributors, and you may actually see some cash from me.

        • (Score: 1) by timbim on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:25PM

          by timbim (907) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:25PM (#15401)

          I just figured everyone uses AdBlock anyway. Ya know?

          • (Score: 2) by melikamp on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:29PM

            by melikamp (1886) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:29PM (#15404) Journal
            I don't think that's true, and there are straightforward ways to defeat it anyway. If you think about it, seeing how no one is actively trying to defeat the blocking, one could guess that only a small proportion of users even heard of adblock.
      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:49PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:49PM (#15409)

        Flip it?

        Subscribers either see ads and pay no money, or see no ads and pay a modest amount of money.

        Anonymous cowards and regular account holders by default see no ads.

        But, if you subscribe, either way you "pay" for it, you get a little thumbs up icon next to your name on every post.

        This should make everyone happy and generate at least some revenue?

        At great cost in coding, you could probably generalize "ads" not just to banner ads but also outright soilvertisements and cheesy reviews and affiliate link stories. Again, no need to torture the general public or drive anti-ad people insane, but those who are cool with helping the site make a little money, either directly or indirectly, get the ads. Or if not, that's OK, no change.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by jt on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:00PM

      by jt (2890) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:00PM (#15262)

      Agreed that adverts are never welcome. Besides which, we all block adverts in our browsers anyway?

      • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:34PM

        by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @02:34PM (#15281)

        I'd block ads, but most of the blockers I've tried wreak havoc with my web development and I'm too lazy/forgetful to switch the blocking on and off so most of the time it ends up just being left off anyway. When I do remember to turn it on I forget about it while I'm working and will spend hours trying to figure out why somethings not working or doesn't look quite right. Also IE and compatibility mode F things up, but I've blamed IE for issues I thought were related to compatibility mode, that were actually caused by an ad blocker and vice versa. So unfortunately for me I see the ads so I know when things aren't working it's not because of a third party browser plug-in.

        --
        "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
        • (Score: 1) by SuperCharlie on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:09PM

          by SuperCharlie (2939) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:09PM (#15577)

          Kinda same boat here, however, I use different browsers for developmet (Firefox) and personal (Opera for now) which lets me use the adblock and not forget to turn it off for dev. Also keeps my bookmarks and logins, yada kinda straight.

          • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:18PM

            by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @10:18PM (#15581)

            Just found out today from the technology services group they're banning Firefox in our Windows 7 upgrades based on an impact report done last year. So only IE 9 and Chrome will be approved browsers, and Chrome will be extra locked down, because you know it's less secure than IE 9.

            Where do they get these security advisor from?

            --
            "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
    • (Score: 1) by timbim on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:21PM

      by timbim (907) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @05:21PM (#15398)

      holy shit man, I'm sorry about the militant feminists. That's no fun! What line of work are you in? I guess it's not IT.

      • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:46PM

        by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @06:46PM (#15440)

        I am in IT, but I work with a lot of non-IT people from other teams in our group, and there are a lot of groups made up of a lot of other teams in my organization, who deal with data collection (mostly men), quality control (50/50), HR and other clerical work (mostly women). Most of my team (data processing and development) is made up of very talented people, at least half of which are women and the women I work directly with are brilliant, laid back and easy to work with. It seems it's the women in other groups, HR specifically, that have chips on their shoulders. There are only really a couple of women that seem to spend their whole days pacing up and down the cube farm poking their noses in on what other people are doing, specifically the men in data collection and development, and criticizing their work. Two of these women in particular have made their positions on men in the work place very well known publicly and have been spoken to about their attitudes and blatant discrimination, but obviously they can't be let go. Actually it's not obvious at all, but for some reason even after repeatedly starting conflicts by sticking their noses in on what others are doing and being told to bugger off they're still at it.

        --
        "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by ancientt on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:49PM

    by ancientt (40) <ancientt@yahoo.com> on Wednesday March 12 2014, @07:49PM (#15476) Homepage Journal

    Speaking as someone who still has a paid membership to slashdot, I humbly beg to differ.

    I find advertising generally irritating, but particular types of advertising unacceptable. To browse the web with sanity, I use adblock and noscript pretty heavily. There are a few places where I've appreciated what they had to offer enough that I was willing to throw a few dollars, just a few, toward supporting them. Mostly it is limited to sites that I actively participate on and want to survive. (Slashdot has probably gotten their last contribution from me. Even though I still hope they turn around and fix their issues, I'm not optimistic.)

    I would happily add SoylentNews to the list. Probably. If they pick a different name, then it is more likely.

    You know what I'd like to see? Two polls. One for fun and one where each vote costs $1 with a limit of ten votes per account for voting on site issues and features. Add the disclaimer that "We reserve the right to ignore the results of a poll but try to take them seriously."

    --
    This post brought to you by Database Barbie
  • (Score: 1) by PoiBoy on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:38PM

    by PoiBoy (3713) on Wednesday March 12 2014, @08:38PM (#15511)

    But don't all good nerds use adblock?