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Journal by isostatic
That little donate box in the right of the screen shows that SN needs $4500 to operate for 6 months. Fine.
But look a little closer:
http://wiki.soylentnews.org/wiki/Finances
$1,950 for server hosting/backups for 6 months
$1,250 for C.P.A.
$420 Massachusetts Foreign Corp. tax
$420 Delaware Franchise Tax
$200 Administrative costs
$250 Unexpected costs buffer
That's a 100% overhead! $2200 goes on actually making the site work (with a bit of contingency), and $2290 goes on overhead!
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
If I have trouble installing Linux, something is wrong. Very wrong.
-- Linus Torvalds
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Friday May 29 2015, @10:06PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by tynin on Saturday May 30 2015, @06:49PM
The link says these were finances specifically from (January-July 2015). Not sure if it is strange that it is projecting out 2 months into the future, other than it assumes no new finances should be needed in that time frame. Nor am I sure about last years finances.
Still, I believe I read that most of the overhead listed was a one time thing to setup some legal standing, that should not be a re-occurring debt... at least that is how I remember reading it. Re-clarification would be nice since the comment is being made.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Sunday May 31 2015, @07:27AM
Maybe they asked initially just for the required money needed to keep SN afloat, and then after getting it decided to see if they could recoup the funds spent to get the site off the ground. That would explain why I noticed the requested amount increase substantially at least once. (Unless I dreamed it, which is possible.)
It's also a pretty standard funding strategy: if the number is too high, then people refrain from donating in the belief their money won't matter, so it's recommended that the initial request be for half of what's needed. If donations reach that lower number, then the group is supposed to either update incrementally in detail as new expenses come in, aim for what's genuinely needed, or some compromise between the two.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Wednesday June 03 2015, @06:39PM
We never changed the funding goal that was put up in the beginning of the year, and that goal only reflects what we need to pay for in the linked "Finances" page on the wiki. A new goal will be up by the end of the month with what we project costs to be for the 2nd half of 2015, my estimate is less then half the current goal.
This 1/2 year system leads to the first half of the year looking heavy, so maybe a yearly goal is better, but I thought a shorter time-frame would be better for us actually being able to see the bar move. Maybe next year I'll try to estimate yearly costs, and break it down into quarters. I'm open to suggestions on that.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday May 31 2015, @09:10PM
I have nothing to do with the operation of this site and don't know anything about what is done with the finances, but what if they are pocketing the overhead? With all the effort put into the launching and maintenance of this place, don't you think that the staff should at least be entitled to a little somethin'-somethin' for their troubles? I donated 20 bucks to this site and I wouldn't give a single fuck if NCommander used that 20 bucks to buy a bag of weed, or if Janrinok used it for a cheap hooker.
I don't know how the rest of the community feels about it but I certainly have no problem with people being paid for their efforts. As long as they keep the site running they could spend all the monies on a trip to Vegas and a big pile of cocaine for all I care. A real warning sign would be censoring politically incorrect content or legal but aggressive arguing. It may be off-putting to see political incorrectness here, but it serves as a warning canary -- if politically-incorrect speech is banned, product reviews posted as articles are not too far behind.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday June 01 2015, @07:07PM
I suspect the overhead is going directly where they're claiming it's going. It just seems a painfully expensive way way to run the place. Does it really cost $2500 a year for a business with a $10k turnover?
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday June 01 2015, @07:08PM
s/does/should
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday June 02 2015, @11:16PM
Well, that's not an accurate picture of this year's finances as it is just the first half of the year. All the tax stuff I included on this half of the year (because I will need to start forking over some cash to them soon) so it is going to look pretty tax-heavy. The 2nd half of the year should be much less costly (no more tax to pay and we recently reduced our hosting costs), and I'm trying to be conservative in my numbers. I'll have more info when I get the next goal (July-Dec 2015) posted up, which I should have up by the end of June. Furthermore, I expect the large sum of cash we turn over to the CPA this year would be significantly reduced for future years, and I'll do everything I can to keep that cost down for this year also.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by n1 on Sunday June 07 2015, @05:31PM
I'm not involved in the financing or bookkeeping of SN in any way.
That said, in my own experience as a small business owner, the costs and bureaucracy involved to be an 'official entity' can be quite staggering. I could in theory spend my whole life on 'compliance' regarding various tax and regulatory concerns, with 0 attention paid to the work the company was founded to to. Finding some government agency or third-party to pay at every step of the way to the mythical and forever moving goal of 'compliance'.
We (my business partner and I) spend about the same on external fees and (what I call) 'existence taxes' on my business as SoylentNews does, probably more. That is also with the added advantage that part of the work we do is involves work on tax and regulation compliance for our own clients. Yet we still get shafted ourselves by fees and licenses beyond what I think is reasonable.
These burdens only seem to be increasing too, but they are quite real as unfair and illogical as it appears.
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