I’d have to agree about finances- it would seem to me best to try to find a solution that self-funds in some sustainable way. Pay to write? Co-op style contributions? Something else?
The point of this can’t be money. It’s that a bunch of us would like a platform to more publicly publish (and, presumably, have read…) our work. The litmus test will be if enough other people care to read it. If yes, then there’s a way to monetize that to at least pay for hosting etc. If no, then it remains a small vanity project (which could be ok, too).
I think short term it needs to be funded by those that write for it- pay to play sucks, but it keeps skin in the game for those that are contributing, and that can help keep motivation and quality up. We can worry about long term when it gets there.
My $0.02.
When it comes to contributors, things I know a bunch about:
- art, design, cartooning, animation (I’m writing a book on the latter and am a designer by trade)
- music (I used to write music reviews for Warren Ellis’ now-defunct website)
- condiments, foodstuffs, beer, whiskey, etc (I’m a habitual taste tester)
Yep, that’s obviously true. People do get hit by metaphorical buses even more often than real ones, and though I intend to be around for the long haul, one never knows, does one? At any rate, I can help get the thing started, buying literal time for us to secure further long-term funding.
Really, though, I’m a babe in the woods here. What’s a ballpark number we could expect to spend to mount this thing for its first year?
This idea is intriguing, but ultimately I think could be a disincentive for contributors who didn’t have the cash or want to put money in to something without seeing where it’s going first. I think I’d rather self-fund (collectively) or do something like Patreon (which would be much the same thing) and keep the funding and participant status separate, lest we create a class system instead of a meritocracy.
@Donald_Petersen: I don’t really know what it costs to run a successful website (i’ve run several, but never successful ones) but I think we’re talking a few hundred a year, at least to start. There’s domain names @ say $50, then hosting @ something like $60/month for 100,000 PV (that’s what Ghost charges). So total maybe $600, if all the labor (design, tech, etc) is provided by the community. Costs go up, of course, if we’re talking a wildly successful website with a million PVs, or if we were to create a custom platform, host on Heroku, or whatever. That could be on the order of several thousand or more per year. But as they say, those are good problems to have.
FWIW, I have two basic areas I can write about with something approaching “expert” knowledge:
Education
Bicycles
Though I’ve got good general knowledge in a number of other areas: diy, outdoor activities (camping, bushcraft, foraging, rock climbing, etc), stagecraft, poetry, design, and a few others.
In case I’d not explicitly mentioned it, I’m interested.
Paetron is a neat option- it makes it easy for me to kick in some loot to help more this along. Might even be a longer-term solution, too.
Content writers who need access to paywalled journal articles: just send me the DOI. I can’t make any promises if it’s an obscure or long-extinct journal but otherwise I’m all but certain I can get it for you.
This offer isn’t so much for the aspiring science writers (most of whom already have such access) but for culture and otherwise non-scientific topic writers who may have a unique take on a breaking science story but need the details in order to substantiate their piece.
One reason why I eagerly offer to toss a relatively sizable chunk of change at this is because I’m pretty sure that there are probably several talented potential contributors to the blog who wouldn’t be able to spend a thin dime, for whatever reason. I don’t have the time or inspiration to contribute actual posts on any kind of predictable or regular schedule… but I do have a few bucks to spare, and the willingness to do so in the service of this idea. I think it’ll be great, and that’s entirely due to this blog being made by you guys, whose thoughtful contributions to the BBS have entertained and taught me so much over the years. I wouldn’t ever want to exclude contributors who can’t afford (or simply don’t want) to pay to contribute.
And just to be clear: whatever funding I provide comes with absolutely no strings attached. Even if the blog turns into a celebration of bronys, EDM, and Drumpf, I won’t try to influence its direction beyond the influence of its lowest-paying contributor.
The existence of the thing is more important to me than the details of whatever editorial direction it takes. I trust you guys to make it good.
By promethean I mean a project that is organized for community engagement and educational opportunities.
Very cool. Good luck!
The people comprising this collective are too talented and too damn insightful to discuss a beige concept like ‘mission statement’. BB itself emerged not from any coherent declaration but rather, as @waetherman has suggested, an ethos, a set of principles. This is much more essential than any self-ascribed teleology.
You want readership? Shine a light where no one has. Reframe an issue that leaves the reader getting up from their laptop unable to not think of what they just read. Don’t just share, synthesize.
Need an example? Need several? Read the blog The Last Psychiatrist. The author (who really is a psychiatrist, specifically at the University of Pennsylvania Health System) goes deeper than the issue at hand by laying bare the mentalities fueling discourse around that issue. Also, it’s breath-stealing hilarious.
We have enough me-too blogs that spin their mental wheels or retread well-worn paths and contribute nothing to the conversation or public awareness and perception. Many of the commenters in this thread have already proven themselves better than that. Keep that standard going.
And of course this is when I run out of likes. Of course.
You made my whole morning! Thank you!! 
I wonder if someone could do an all emoji, jpg and gif blog … ? I would so love that!
Wait a minute …
The Last Psychiatrist
he stopped posting before I was first directed there but the still-main-page post is pretty staggering.
Yeah, I really wish he’d start posting again.
I think we’re putting the cart before the horse on funding. Let me explain why. The startup costs, divided evenly, for “unlimited” hosting and a domain name are nominal. We’re not even talking “diaper money” as @OtherMichael put it (although diaper money is a lot of money). What’s $200 split five ways (conservatively, more likely ten or more ways) for a year? I pay more than that for Netflix, and that has ZERO potential of ever being revenue neutral in the future. The last time I paid for a domain and hosting it wasn’t even $200.
Spending more than that for bandwidth we genuinely don’t know that we will need is a waste of money. If we have the traffic, then it becomes easier to discuss realistic options for monetization, because then we’ll have some clue who the audience is, and more importantly, we’ll have an audience that is responsive to an option like Patreon. Right now, even talking about Patreon is slightly pointless, because we don’t have so much as potential patrons. I agree that having an idea of where this is going is important, but it’s simply not going to be revenue neutral off the ground. But otherwise I feel like we’re trying to be too concrete about something we lack sufficient information to decide on. Like what if by some miracle the traffic necessitates $14,000-$20,000 worth of bandwidth? That’s I believe what the range is for the yearly bandwidth costs for This American Life’s website. The monetization issues (and the options available) there are fundamentally different than discovering we’ll need another hundred bucks, or even that we’re under-utilizing what we have. For the former, it’s a lot of money, but if we have that kind of an audience, then we’re probably going to be more thrilled than scared. Discovering that we realistically need another hundred bucks to accommodate another 10,000 daily readers points to Patreon, but discovering that it’s another $300 for another 100 readers points to something that Patreon may not be able to help with (although that scenario is unlikely).
My point is this, we simply don’t have the necessary information to make any kind of concrete decision right now, and I think that trying to shoehorn a solution to a problem that isn’t currently defined is actually going to make us less flexible and resilient to change. The other thing is that we can’t simply be 100% risk-averse and actually do anything.
I’m not saying we have to have a decision - but we have to have a plan.
When we pay for Netflix we get entertained; when we pay for this website we pay to entertain others (as well as work for it).
Are we afraid of having the site pay for itself?
Let me put it this way: I’m genuinely not sure what the difference is.
Help us out, what would a plan look like without specifics?
“within the next six months we’re going to decide on an ad network, or alternate revenue stream. We will evaluate the implementation over the following six months”
Yes, with the friendly amendment of a meeting will occur on DATE at TIME and individuals X, Y, Z … are selected to publicize questions, listen to proposals and then decide questions at the meeting.
@waetherman, @ActionAbe, @Donald_Petersen, @nimelennar, and @OtherMichael: do the following.
Nominate and vote on a:
- Treasurer
- Tech lead
- Content strategy lead
- Editorial lead
Similar to holoacracy each group can self assemble and have their own rules. And people can contribute where they feel necessary. But it is each leads responsibility that their team is reasonable and decisions/status are communicated.
