Just three days ago, I asked for the community's help to raise funds for continuing operations. Incoming funds were trending upwards — but way too slowly — and it was clear we were going to come up short. I was genuinely worried about our ability to continue as a going concern.
My fears were, apparently, unwarranted... over those three days we received 49 subscriptions totaling approximately $1534.74 which led us to exceed our base goal of $3000.00 for the first half of the year!
THANK-YOU!!
Of these 49 subscriptions, the vast majority were for $20.00 (36 of these), but we also had 3@$40.00, 1@$50, and (drum roll please) 3@$200.00! And for those who subscribed at other amounts, I also thank you. I've had times in my life when my finances did not allow me to help others as I'd wished. Every bit helps!
Let me interrupt the funding-focus for a moment to call attention to a notable accomplishment among our staff: Our Editor in Chief, janrinok (aka JR), just passed 4,000 stories posted to the site! There was a long stretch about a year or so into SoylentNews' existence when JR and LaminatorX (aka LamX) handled pretty much *all* of the story duties on the site. During that period, story submissions were rare and often little more than a bare link to a story of interest. So they'd tag-team finding stories on the web, making submissions, posting stories, and reviewing same. Were it not for their extended and heroic efforts, there would have been a period of months with almost no stories for us to read. LamX left us a couple years ago (would love to have ya back!) But JR has stuck with us, and we are forever indebted to him for his generous contributions of time, expertise, and guidance. Please join me in congratulating JR for reaching this amazing milestone!
Many thanks, too, for the feedback in the comments to the earlier story — I read every one of them — but am in severe crunch mode at work and lacked the spare time to respond individually as I would have liked. I'll respond to a couple items here.
There was a suggestion to set up a "war chest" from which we could draw off interest to support continuing operations among other things. I don't anticipate we will have $100K in the bank any time soon (one of the suggestions), but having a rainy-day fund "just in case" does seem prudent to me. In light of that, you may have noticed in the "Site News" slashbox there are now two goals listed: a base goal and a stretch goal.
So how much should the stretch goal be for?
As it now stands, we have received approximately $125 in excess of our base goal. So, how about $2000.00? With only about 3 weeks remaining in the period, that seemed like too much of a stretch. I pulled a number out of my butt and came up with $1000.00 which is still a stretch (doh!), but I believe is attainable. I am mindful that we have the second half of the year ahead of us and will be needing funds for that period, too. So, I am NOT asking for folks to go crazy to reach this stretch goal at the expense (pun intended!) of the needs for the rest of the year... if you can help out, that's great! If not, well that's okay, too.
Another suggestion was a means to generate funds besides subscriptions. I failed to mention this in my earlier exhortation, but we DO have SoylentNews-related things for sale over at https://www.zazzle.com/soylentnews*. (NOTE: The asterisk at the end of the link is intentional and gives SoylentNews a slightly larger return on each purchase; please leave it in.) This link is also listed in the Site News slashbox ("buy SoylentNews Swag"), should you wish to refer back to it.
We are still in the process of taking advantage of the free disk space upgrade available from Linode. It is unclear at the moment whether these free disk upgrades will make further server consolidation possible, but we are looking into it. We will keep you informed as we proceed with the upgrades, as well.
One more thing. One of the comments mentioned how soylentnews.org had become their "goto site" to see if the internet was up. I nearly fell out of my chair! Those who were with us the first few weeks of the site will well recall how we would have multiple crashes each day. That things have changed so dramatically as this... please join me in thanking the sysops who may stay out of the limelight, but keep things running like a top!
Again, please accept my thanks for the huge outpouring of support for the site. I am humbled by the generosity of the community and count it a distinct honor to be able to play some role in it. --martyb
Related Stories
[Update: as of 20180603_135454 UTC, all 4 server upgrades have completed and all servers should be running normally. --martyb]
Our server provider, Linode, has made available a free upgrade for our servers. Generally, it's a storage upgrade and sometimes a bandwidth upgrade, too. We use only the tiniest fraction of our bandwidth allocation each month (something like < 1%), but the extra storage IS useful.
We (read: The Mighty Buzzard) have already taken 4 of our servers out of rotation this morning. We anticipate no community-visible interruptions of service as a result of these upgrades.
So far, migrations of sodium, hydrogen, and lithium have completed. Migration of neon has started and should complete within the next 10 minutes or so.
Migrations of the remaining servers may cause some community-visible effects. We will provide advance notice before we perform those upgrades. Very tentatively planned for Thursday.
[Update #2: Wed 20180606 @ 14:30 UTC: WOW! Since this story first posted, we have received 36 subscriptions totaling approximately $1126.27 which brings us to a total of approximately $2716.36 which works out to just over 90% of our $3000.00 goal!! I am extremely impressed with the showing of support from the community and reminds me why I volunteer so much of my time here. It really is the community! THANK YOU! --martyb]
[Update #1: Mon 20180604 @ 14:14 UTC: So far today we have received 16 subscriptions bringing us to just shy of $2000.00 raised for the period and just over $1000 to go. THANK-YOU! --martyb]
tl;dr: SoylentNews needs your financial support... $1400 by June 30th. Please Subscribe.
We have raised approximately $1590.09 towards our funding goal of $3000.00 which covers the period from 2018-01-01 though 2018-06-30.
We run the site with a team of volunteers — absolutely nobody gets paid for their work on this site... all the funds raised go directly into keeping the site up and running.
From the time we went live on February 17, 2014 through today, we have posted over 22,000 stories and nearly 120 polls. In kind, the community has posted over 3270 journal articles and over 688,000 comments.
We understand that not everyone can afford to support the site financially. Those who make contributions "in kind" through submitting stories or comments, making moderations, and the like... please accept my sincere "Thank-You!" Without your contributions, there would either be no site or no reason to come here.
For those of you who have previously subscribed, thank YOU for "keeping the lights on". Good wishes did not pay for servers, federal and state tax returns, or domain registrations... You did! Thank you!
A complicating factor came from our having a problem with the subscription page about a month ago... but TMB put up a fix and we've seen no regressions, since. Perhaps this bit you and you meant to "try again later"? (As of my writing this, we have 123 users who have accessed the site within the past month, who had previously subscribed, but whose subscription is now lapsed.)
Whether your subscription has lapsed or you never previously subscribed, would you please consider signing up? Go to the subscription page, pick a duration, and type in an amount that is at least the amount suggested for that duration (excess amounts are, of course, most welcome!). If you would like to help the site without getting a subscription for yourself, you can make a gift subscription by specifying a UID and an amount, instead. (If you have nobody in particular in mind, please feel free to use UID 6 — "mcasadevall")
(Score: 5, Interesting) by martyb on Friday June 08 2018, @10:11AM (7 children)
Just in case you missed it above, I want to point out that our esteemed Editor-in-Chief, janrinok, just passed the milestone of 4,000 stories posted to SoylentNews! (https://soylentnews.org/hof.pl [soylentnews.org]).
Please join me in congratulating him on his achievement. He's a modest fellow, but I would like to embarrass him just this once. He made a tremendous sacrifice during a lean period on the site to help keep us up and running. He deserves every accolade we can throw his way!
Congrats JR!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Fnord666 on Friday June 08 2018, @11:53AM
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Friday June 08 2018, @12:14PM
Thank you, all editors, for feeding this site and keeping it alive. Thank you, martyb, janrinok, takyon, everyone!
P.S. Great to find there are people in this site who respond on such fundraising calls.
(Score: 1) by conn8d on Friday June 08 2018, @02:49PM (3 children)
JR,
Thanks for all your efforts! We truly appreciate you. If I was a chick, I would have baby with you and call him JR Jr.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @05:55PM (1 child)
> If I was a chick, I would have baby with you...
I guess this is meant to be positive? But I would be tempted by a -1 Creepy mod if such existed.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 09 2018, @12:03AM
Or +1 Creepy.
(Score: 3, Funny) by janrinok on Saturday June 09 2018, @06:16AM
Er, thank you - I think .....!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday June 08 2018, @07:14PM
The "most active" hall of fame is a scary reminder of what we argue about: 1 stories about assholes mowing crowds, 1 about US guns, 1 about potential violence because of an extremist, 1 about inequality, and 2 about the site name.
Diversity needed: We need a story about a school book about Trump's lawyer paying a prostitute to get an abortion in the trans-only public bathroom shaded by The Mexico Wall.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 08 2018, @10:59AM (2 children)
I posted this in the last story about fundraising, but was perhaps too late to the discussion:
I have the SN t-shirt and baseball cap. I'm thinking the logo could use an update, though. Anyone interested in hopping onto IRC to brainstorm one?
Also, thanks to everyone who make SN work!
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DavePolaschek on Friday June 08 2018, @03:53PM (1 child)
I have the T-shirt. When people ask "What's solylentnews?" I reply "Imagine slashdot with less suck."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 09 2018, @06:03AM
I see you got one of the reare misprinted ones. Hang on to it, one days it will be a collectable.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Gaaark on Friday June 08 2018, @11:08AM (2 children)
Don't really have the words:
Thanks JR, and thanks to everyone who contributes soooooo much. We have something REALLY nice here and it is run with intelligence....
...the internet needs MORE intelligence.
So thanks to all. Home is where the body count climbs! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Mainframe Bloke on Friday June 08 2018, @11:37AM (1 child)
Yes, this is an island of freshness in the ocean of rubbish. Always find something to think about here.
Thanks heaps for keeping it real and online, nothing good happens without dedication and you have gone above and beyond.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Friday June 08 2018, @02:31PM
Might be a good time for another little push by us regular users to friends and acquaintances on social media, etc. This is a nice place, let's tell people about it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @01:40PM
Good job, everyone involved. I might typically only lurk, but I visit the site daily, and I would miss it if it were gone.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by hereweareagain on Friday June 08 2018, @03:38PM
Hit up a philanthropist, celebrity, etc and offer them $something if they will help sponsor the site or at least match contributions. SN is in my top 3 websites (along with /. and Fark) to visit daily, and I wouldn't like to see it go out like Kuro5hin did.
Heck, hire somebody who knows how to drum up this kind of stuff. They'll literally pay for themselves.
/ Yes, I (over)subscribed for this last round - even though I'm only working PT... and not getting enough hours
--I'm willing to admit I just *might* be wrong... Are you?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 08 2018, @06:07PM
My $.02 -- set up a separate fund for the endowment. Initially this could be earmarked funds in the accounting system, but eventually it might be easier to keep track of with a separate bank/investment account.
On the subscription page, make it clear that regular donations should be made to the current account. But if one of those larger donors wanted to, they could have the option to give part for the endowment. Endowment money would normally only be invested, with the principle not raided for current needs (unless something dire happens). Ideally the investment income would be kept in the endowment to increase the growth rate.
It may start out small, but could turn into something useful in a few years? A first goal might be to have enough endowment to cover operating expenses. After that, the board (presumably with community input) could work on other good uses for the income.