SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 3, Insightful) by terryk30 on Wednesday March 12 2014, @11:31PM
(may now be redundant with etherscythe's "it might exclude too many people", but what the heck)
I may not have understood that properly, but just speaking generally, a process that asks people to be continuously involved in things like vetting new members may be too much of a commitment for most readers and contributors. Sure, I realize that (a) it would be in their interest to do so, and (b) it may be the true price of maintaining what's important; but...
Consider what I believe was the typical /. reader/contributor: someone who is busy and rations their time on the site, perhaps logging in (automatically from their main work or personal machine) once a day to check for anything of particular interest. Much of the content is quickly passed over as simply not personally relevant enough, mostly by story title, some by skimming the summary, some by seeing that the comments have added little value for them.
Only for a select few stories will they read through the comments and perhaps moderate or contribute. Then, it's back to More Important Things. Other than checking later to see how a discussion unfolded, there may be no continuity of commitment. When things get really busy, they may only be skimming summaries for weeks, if at all.
It would be sort of like having to use ALL your mod points to ever get more. In other words, contributions are of inconsistent intensity, and any continuous obligations will not be met by this group - but who, in total, add a lot of value.