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Thank you for the transparency. It's almost weird having this level of visibility into this community I've been a part of for so long.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:46
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Zophar posted:I have no problem whatsoever contributing to a Patreon. The $10 to join I gave up literally 15 years ago has paid for itself countless fold at this point.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:47
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:It's variable and there is a fixed and percentage-based portion for each transaction. I believe in October, in that initial burst of purchases, we had a bunch of large lump sum donors, saving money on those fixed portions. In addition, the credit card companies charge varying amounts for various cards and generally, the fancier the card is, the higher a fee we pay. It's very opaque even for me - I get some manner of breakdown of names of various fees, but they aren't exactly illuminating. November and December have the normal flow of mostly $5 and $10 purchases and thus have a higher percentage going to fees. Do you think allowing people to bulk-purchase redtext certificates would mitigate that?
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Jan 27, 2021 18:47
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Erulisse posted:This. Seconding this.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:48
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el blanco suave posted:This would not be the stupidest thing I pay monthly for This wouldn't even be in my top 10.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:48
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alnilam posted:Here's a question Jeffrey, and you may not know the answer yet. I assume that SA LLC is its own entity and has its own bank account, and I imagine you're going to let it build up some cash buffer, but... Do you ever plan to pay yourself income from SA LLC? I think it would be reasonable if you did, I mean you fronted the money to buy it after all and you are doing work to run the place. I appreciate the transparency and hope it continues and I think if you are going to pay a dev for their work (good idea) you would have every reason to pay yourself too. Seconding this.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:49
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ColdPie posted:If you want to integrate fancy features into a recurring payment, fine, but for me, it's just a way to keep the lights on. I don't need anything more in return than this place's continued existence and ideally funding improvements that benefit everyone. I already have a Patreon, so that's the least friction for me personally. I agree with this, all I want really is the site to stay online and maybe some common sense improvements. I think most would agree that we don't need wholesale change, or an entirely new forums 3.0 experience or anything. Maybe ensuring the Awful app can continue to exist would be good too. Outside of that I don't think contributors need to have a say in improvements or features added, or any return on their donation outside of the lights staying on. And the email is another thing that strikes me as unnecessary. You don't want that technical burden, plus you then have people with those addresses who look like they are part of the site administration to the outside.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:51
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Lol this is a good point and no I have not thought about what I'd do with 100k/month. Maybe I'll buy a GTR and blow it up with SA-branded hand grenades. There is certainly room for more developers if astral and me both end up working full time - I don't know what the actual limit of my ability to manage and dispense money on behalf of the site is, but getting to 100k is pretty hard to imagine. Even in like 2005, I don't think the forums made more than 60k/month. alnilam posted:Here's a question Jeffrey, and you may not know the answer yet. I assume that SA LLC is its own entity and has its own bank account, and I imagine you're going to let it build up some cash buffer, but... Do you ever plan to pay yourself income from SA LLC? I think it would be reasonable if you did, I mean you fronted the money to buy it after all and you are doing work to run the place. I appreciate the transparency and hope it continues and I think if you are going to pay a dev for their work (good idea) you would have every reason to pay yourself too.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:51
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Who What Now posted:Any plans to work alongside the developer of the AwfulApp to make it officially endorsed by SA (of it hasn't been already)? So I'll stop short of an official endorsement in that sense but....I use the android app. It's cool.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:53
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Increasing Avatar Size Limit Be Amazed At Reinvigorated Revenue Stream.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:53
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:It's wild that we don't have a dev database instance and I plan on keeping one around. Any plans to open source the code or parts of it to have the OSS community to contribute?
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Jan 27, 2021 18:53
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How many cookie dollars is that? Im confused.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:55
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Baggot posted:Thank you for the transparency. It's almost weird having this level of visibility into this community I've been a part of for so long. poo poo it’s weird for the mod and admin team too. Having an active owner who cares about this place and works daily with the mod team to make it better is huge. Thanks for all of this Jeff. Buying the forums, just all of it. This financial report is fascinating too. So much for all that QQ about how the forums were going to shut down because we weren’t buying enough red texts to pay for hosting.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:55
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Increasing Avatar Size Limit Also the text limit, when I redtext someone with one of their own posts I’d like to be able to have it link back to the post without giving up too much of the actual text. You lose a lot of space just with the color/size/bold tags already.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:56
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Deadmeat5150 posted:How many cookie dollars is that? Im confused. At the current red text: goldbelly exchange rate it looks like December could have bought Jeff a dozen really fancy macaroons. Instead he’s doing poo poo like “hiring coders” and “building his business” and “caring for his community” 
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Jan 27, 2021 18:57
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Thanks jeffo you're a lot better than that other guy!!
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Jan 27, 2021 18:57
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You'd make a lot more money as a youtube celebrity
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Jan 27, 2021 18:57
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Jeffery, this is awesome and is exactly how the forums should be run. Much appreciated. I have seen places use Donorbox in the past, might be worth considering over Patreon if we don't need the features Patreon offers. I think their fees are less. I don't think it requires a non-profit.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:58
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Thank you Jeffers for being so transparent! It's nice to see that this place isn't going to sink any time soon.
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Jan 27, 2021 18:59
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A monthly contribution? But I need to buy candles!
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Jan 27, 2021 18:59
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there's a front page??! haha BOOM!!! YCS!!!
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Jan 27, 2021 19:00
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This is really nice. I'm thankful. I hope this forum does better. Oddly enough, some certain people in here have helped me get through hell, and become a better person. A patreon isn't out of the question.
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Jan 27, 2021 19:01
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ColdPie posted:I would sub to a Patreon. Yeah same or a direct subscription. I can't afford too much but like $5/month is very doable for me and worth it as an old who doesn't like change or things that comfort me going away.
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Jan 27, 2021 19:03
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I have a few questions JeffreyofYOSPOS:
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Jan 27, 2021 19:03
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Thanks Jeff for the transparency, it's greatly appreciated! Just throwing it out there that if the site has need of professional QA, I'd happily volunteer my time and expertise to test new features or anything that's needed. No pay needed and I've got years of web testing experience at a Fortune 50 tech company and wanting to give back to the community 
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Jan 27, 2021 19:03
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In terms of making more money I think it would be cool if you could make it so if you pay $10 you get  under your avatar and you can do it as many times as you want. It would help wealthier forum members stand out because at the moment they look just like poor forum members.
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Jan 27, 2021 19:04
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Great work Jeffrey, and thanks so much for saving SA. Stable, sensible, open, truthful management that posts more than once in a blue moon and really makes an  ... we didn't know what we were missing!
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Jan 27, 2021 19:05
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rope kid posted:there's a front page??! haha BOOM!!! YCS!!! Who gives a poo poo about the front page. Joke articles are dead. Comedic internet content today is naturally generated user quips in discussion or short video clips, memes, or tweets. The existence of the front page in its past form is archaic. Putting all the energy and focus on the forums in the short term is the right thing to do. Edit: poo poo just make the forums the whole website. Pay or take volunteer contributors to make effort threads, videos, photoshop challenges whatever. Full Metal Jackass fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Jan 27, 2021 |
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Jan 27, 2021 19:06
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hi jeff, in spite of the ridiculously high fees (8% from patreon+credit cards+processing to your own account), a patreon might be a good idea. however, right now i would advise against immediately opening one up on account of patreon is currently in the middle of trying to decide to some some extremely stupid billing poo poo that could really screw up literally anyone trying to make money on their website. thanks for the info.
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Jan 27, 2021 19:06
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One of the things I remember being really worried about the last time Lowtax was complaining about all his medical issues was what the business continuity plan for the forums was, should Lowtax become too disabled to continue managing things, or if he died. Is there anything like that in place now?
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Jan 27, 2021 19:10
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alnilam posted:Here's a question Jeffrey, and you may not know the answer yet. I assume that SA LLC is its own entity and has its own bank account, and I imagine you're going to let it build up some cash buffer, but... Do you ever plan to pay yourself income from SA LLC? I think it would be reasonable if you did, I mean you fronted the money to buy it after all and you are doing work to run the place. I appreciate the transparency and hope it continues and I think if you are going to pay a dev for their work (good idea) you would have every reason to pay yourself too. My plan here was to, once things are settled and coder(s) are hired, to consider paying myself, at the same rate I pay other developers, for hours of development work I actually do. Just owning the assets doesn't entitle me to a salary, imo, but I think it is reasonable to try to recoup my investment with work done on the site's behalf. Overall, I have not worried about this or figured this out, because my personal finances are fine and I am in no pressing need of income to live. I'd rather get things off the ground right than hurry up and pay myself.
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Jan 27, 2021 19:11
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I was conned into subbing to Lowtax's Patreon before, but I haven't learned my lesson and would absolutely sub to Jeffrey's.
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Jan 27, 2021 19:12
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Cyrano4747 posted:At the current red text: goldbelly exchange rate it looks like December could have bought Jeff a dozen really fancy macaroons. What an rear end in a top hat, jeez. He should be getting those cookies!
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Jan 27, 2021 19:14
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Everything about this is amazing. Would absolutely chuck $5/mo towards a patreon. Have you considered open-sourcing the site and opening it up for goons to contribute to? I've seen a lot of offers to help since the transition and I feel like your workload could be significantly lightened with a horde of goons to submit PRs. Could even make a private repo and limit the collaborators to accounts in good standing if you want to be moderately secretive about it. That way you can reap the benefits of the  while keeping dev costs down.
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Jan 27, 2021 19:15
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Ugly In The Morning posted:I would totally subscribe and pay like, 20 bucks a month to get two gift certs to change someone else’s avatar emailed to me because the forums store is clunky enough that it’s definitely stopped me from doing some redtexts because  in that there are all sorts of Very Serious Security Requirements to taking credit card payments, and some of them are easily sidestepped by not storing any sort of payment information. This is not just me being paranoid, but would also represent new costs as there is separation required from the rest of the servers. Maybe making browser autocomplete work with our form would be a good step? Then you could save payment info in your browser and use it on the site more easily, without adding the burden of securely storing payment info to our backend.
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Jan 27, 2021 19:15
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I am considering starting a patreon for this reason - recurring donations are difficult to implement in the store software we have, and it would be nice for planning purposes to be fairly certain we're gonna get at least $X/month. Please let me know what you think of this - my impression from the emails I've received is that a number of people are willing to contribute each month, and they currently don't have a way to do that. Long term, I would like for a subscription model that essentially confers SA credits, so that we can both contribute funds in a more consistent and budgetable fashion while also getting the perks of forums purchases. That said, I fully understand that this would be non-trivial to implement, so I'm not at all expecting or demanding it up-front; maybe just something in the nice-to-have column for down the road. Thanks for the update, appreciate the details!
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Jan 27, 2021 19:16
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Has anyone else pointed out how expensive the hosting costs seem to be for the 20 or so of us still posting here? 
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Jan 27, 2021 19:16
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Baggot posted:Thank you for the transparency. It's almost weird having this level of visibility into this community I've been a part of for so long. Right. Used to be you didnt know anything until poo poo had already dramatically hit the fan.
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Jan 27, 2021 19:17
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permaban lowtas
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Jan 27, 2021 19:18
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patreon? the forums already have a payment processor etc, why would you give away a big slice to patreon for......
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Jan 27, 2021 19:19
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