This is a quick blurb about our financials last year and looking forward.
Last year we comfortably paid expenses and reduced our server costs. We ended up paying more for tax prep than originally was estimated, but we exceeded our funding goals by enough to afford that with a little breathing room. I'm optimistic this year will be similar, if not better overall; I believe that tax-costs will be lower, and we have no large expenses planned. Here is a rough breakdown of where the money is going:
- 54% Hosting/Backups/Domains
- 37% Taxes/Accounting
- 9% Administrative/Other
It's obviously frustrating that such a large amount of where we spend money is on taxes, but we should see that number come down as we mature.
Moving forward I'll be estimating all expected costs on a yearly basis, and then still continuing with goals on a half-year funding periods; this should make things more consistent and easier to understand. As usual I'll link to the current funding breakdown on the wiki from the beg-o-meter. My estimate is that we will spend about $6,000 this year, so that puts the beg-o-meter at $3,000 for each half. Thanks again for all of the support we receive that keeps this such a cool community for everyone.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 05 2016, @11:52AM
It's not that the taxes are really that large, they just look that way in our extremely low-cap budget. If SN were a person with the same yearly income, it would be getting foodstamps.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2016, @02:37PM
Not sure how it goes in the states, but if SN were a person in Canada it wouldn't be paying taxes at all if it's yearly income was $6000. Basic tax credits would completely drop the taxes to 0.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday January 05 2016, @03:45PM
Yes, but the we base pay corporate taxes (minimum tax) and we pay the tax preparer.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday January 05 2016, @10:16PM
Always a good idea to pay the tax preparer the first time when starting a business, and maybe the second year as well. But after that you realize there is no great magic involved and you can just download the forms and file them yourself. I've done that with 4 different businesses (all for-profit) over the years and it is pretty easy.
Big changes, either in the business or in the law, require another trip to the tax guy, but its not too hard to determine when this is needed (because the forms change or the instructions start mentioning new forms).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2016, @12:16PM
9% Adminsitrative/Other
Is the 'Other'-money going to be spent towards adding a spell checker to the story submission box?
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 05 2016, @01:22PM
Strangely enough, there is one for the Editors. You may now mock them for not using it on this story.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by martyb on Tuesday January 05 2016, @02:01PM
TheMightyBuzzard is correct that there is a spell checker for the editors, except... it only appears during initial submission processing. When updating a story that is already queued to go out, the spell checker does not appear. Also, it is prone to false positives, as in: “testing this out” would suggest that these words were misspelled:
Thanks for pointing out the error — it's been corrected.
As an aside, you seem to have a keen eye for such things... we can always use new editors, even on a part-time basis. Reply here or contact someone in our IRC [soylentnews.org] channel, or just send an e-mail to admin@soylentnews.org expressing your interest.
Thanks again!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday January 05 2016, @10:07PM
TheMightyBuzzard is correct that there is a spell checker for the editors, except... it only appears during initial submission processing. When updating a story that is already queued to go out, the spell checker does not appear. Also, it is prone to false positives
Maybe you should look into using something like Firefox's It's All Text! [mozilla.org] addon? It adds a configurable button to textareas that, when pressed, opens the text an external editor of your choosing. It works by watching the temporary file for changes and updating the field on save. It can be configured to also work on one-line text fields as well if needed. That would let you use a proper editor with decent spell checking at any point in the process, as long as there is some sort of text input available.
It also lets you take advantage of any other features of your editor of choice, like syntax highlighting, auto insertion, etc. I've been getting a lot of use out of it here by using IAT to open emacs and enabling the major mode "ham-mode". HAM stands for html-as-markdown; you compose your text as markdown and it transparently converts it to HTML on save. That means I can start a comment, open it in emacs, write in markdown, and then it shows up here as html and saves me a lot of work when I need formatting. As a bonus, I also get the spell check and any other useful modes as part of the deal.
It even works between previews, at least on comments. I can keep hitting preview and see the final output over and over and IAT keeps saving to the input box between loads because it's the same field. Only down side is I have to preview first, because the original post-comment field has a different ID or something, so IAT thinks it's a separate textarea.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2016, @10:18PM
It would be nice if we could get Markdown mode on the site. Isn't the original Markdown written in Perl also?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Tuesday January 05 2016, @11:35PM
It would be nice if we could get Markdown mode on the site. Isn't the original Markdown written in Perl also?
I'm quoting this to hopefully give it visibility; I ran out of modpoints or I'd have just +1'd it instead.
And yeah, it was -- Markdown.pl -- and in addition, I'm sure CPAN has a markdown converter somewhere, probably alongside Devel::KitchenSink and Editor::Emacs.*
* Found 42 matches in CPAN's flat module list (here [cpan.org]), though four of them are the Markdown category itself. It also has 3 matches for Sink, 1 for KitchenSink, and 15 for Emacs, including its own Emacs:: category. I was close.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday January 07 2016, @03:58AM
Thanks for the suggestion about the "It's All Text!" add-on. I just downloaded and installed it, and this is my first try at using it.
Worked well on the first try... very nice!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Tuesday January 05 2016, @06:35PM
Speak for yourself... no spell check shows in my interface.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Tuesday January 05 2016, @12:49PM
Thank-you to all those putting in time and effort, as well as cash, to fund this place. I appreciate it. Very much.
Many thanks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2016, @01:55PM
And for those who don't code and are broke: submit good stories! (that's what I do)
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2016, @01:59PM
BREAKING: Anonymous Coward discovers ONE WEIRD TRICK to support SoylentNews without paying a dime! Click to find out how.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2016, @01:39AM
Yes, a bargain at twice the price...
(Score: 4, Funny) by ilPapa on Tuesday January 05 2016, @02:03PM
I can throw a few bucks you're way, Soylent News.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday January 05 2016, @03:54PM
Thanks!
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday January 05 2016, @05:34PM
Your sure this is the coarse of action you want two take?
(Score: 3, Informative) by WizardFusion on Tuesday January 05 2016, @02:09PM
And when you do donate, you get a nice little star next to your name to say that you have. Not that I actually care one way or the other.!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2016, @02:22PM
I did not realize that. [youtu.be]
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday January 05 2016, @03:54PM
Also, the star is optional and can be disabled in "Preferences".
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2016, @05:57PM
Step up to the plate Anonymous Coward!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2016, @08:09PM
Anyone using a text-only browser (or a browser configured as text-only[1]) doesn't see that.
Adding alt-text for the graphic would improve that condition.
[1] star.png is the only something other than visible text that I currently have whitelisted at this site.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2016, @09:10PM
A quick update to the previous post: please disregard all statements made therein, as if to ignore them wholly and completely. Furthermore, I would like to make public that I regularly apply suction to the male appendage commonly referred to by a slang term believed to be derived [1] from an alternate name of the rooster (Gallus gallus).
In short, disregard that; I suck cocks [2].
[1] M. Harrison et al., 2014 [quora.com]
[2] A. Coward, 2015 [soylentnews.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday January 05 2016, @02:30PM
or bitcoin payment? I really don't like paypal. I did create a paypal-account for my first subscription even though I hated paypal for their role in the . Last year they earned even more dislike for their changes to their terms of service. (They went back on that one.) I know that Mastercard and VISA were not better and would prefer to just transfer money via bank transaction, but that might also be expensive from Germany to US? [wired.com]
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday January 05 2016, @02:59PM
Bitcoin has been accepted for quite some time, I believe...
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Tuesday January 05 2016, @03:47PM
I just checked by trying to subscribe, but the Bitcoin option was not available.
It's PayPal only, at least for me, which is why I didn't complete the subscription.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jdavidb on Tuesday January 05 2016, @03:52PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday January 05 2016, @03:53PM
I would also like to see Dwolla as the fees are quite low.
It may not be an issue as these are donations, but typical transations for Paypal and credit cards are billed at 3%. Dwolla uses a flat rate system around 25c if above 10 dollars.
It also would allow us to not use Paypal, a feature in itself. I like the concept of Bitcoin, but please forgive me for being skeptical of the institutions which support it.
http://blog.dwolla.com/3-ways-dwolla-works-for-non-profits-as-told-by-our-users/ [dwolla.com]
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday January 05 2016, @03:56PM
We are working on getting stripe [stripe.com] payments working for non-paypal credit card transactions for the future.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 05 2016, @04:21PM
Stripe is definitely a good choice - I've managed integrations with them, and it was (relatively) painless. Compare that to some of the players in that space that either steal your money (PayPal) or require all sorts of unpleasant bureaucracy, and it becomes an even better choice.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Tuesday January 05 2016, @03:59PM
It's true that paypal was not our first choice, but most of the code was already written, so we pushed that one out first. Bitcoin was an option (via bitpay), but they borked something on their end and we have yet to fix it on ours. Currently in the pipeline as well are stripe [stripe.com] payments for raw credit card transactions and also getting bitcoin options back on the menu.
(Score:1^½, Radical)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06 2016, @02:23PM
They are complete asshats.
When buying an item in Australia using an Australian address with a credit card in American dollars the following happens:
1) Select item to purchase e.g. $10
2) Go to checkout
3) Select US currency
4) Pay
5) Paypal processes the payment charging an additional x% to convert from American to Australian dollars (WTF?)
6) Bank is charged for the original amount plus the conversion cost
Asshats. Complete asshats.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2016, @05:17PM
Calling it a "cool community" will not make it that. But thanks for the positive words.
Now how about some negative words:
0. Lying
1. Taking things out of context
2. Believing in myths
3. Repeating what they saw on tv
4. Bots promoting the 0.1%'s interests
5. Promoting hollywood crap
6. Difficulty understanding even simple logic
7. Voting anything as troll if it was critical of god's chosen, and total apathy of such voting
8. Actively working to give more power to the 0.1% without knowing it (see bots(4) above)
9. Thinking what they are told to think by the media
10. Emotional responses
11. Lack of critical thinking skills
12. Unable to tell propaganda comments and calling them out as such
13. Not reflecting on the fact that their future is decided in Jerusalem
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 05 2016, @05:39PM
Cool community, Soylent. Want to bring it to the White House?
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Wednesday January 06 2016, @01:58AM
So your complaint here is, what exactly? You read some discussion threads and thought that some of the comments showed typical flaws in reasoning characteristic of human thought?
And your kind of hung up on some kind of Israel thing?
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Wednesday January 06 2016, @02:01AM
By the way, emotional responses are entirely normal and appropriate and if any one of you motherfuckers disagrees with me, I will beat the goddamned shit out of you with a sock full of quarters.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.