Clarification Requested (Donations)

You technically do pay to listen to the radio. There are either advertisements or member drives (NPR).

Not hatin', just sayin'...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

He said that. Way to read.

I agree with Mikey here, if it counts for anything. How long would it fucking take to implement a little text ad? 20 minutes? Get real people.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by ramoth

You technically do pay to listen to the radio. There are either advertisements or member drives (NPR).

Not hatin', just sayin'...

I did say that advertisements were the way that we "pay" for the radio.

NPR uses...not advertising, but "sponsors" which are basically corporations who donate money to get a blurb about them.

NPR stations do make money off member drives, but they also don't shut off the radio station and then call you on your phone to tell you that they forgot to pay the bills and the only way you'll be able to listen to NPR again is if SOMEONE ponies up.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'm not saying that donations should be the way to fund GFF instead of advertising, go back and actually read what I said this time.

I agree wholeheartedly, GFF needs some form of advertising revenue in order to keep going and I don't think anyone would disagree with that. What I was saying is that I think it's ridiculous how some people here seem to think that bobo is all of a sudden answerable to you just because some people (And I notice that doesn't include a lot of the major complainants) chucked him a bit of cash to keep the place going in the short term.

As I see it, it comes down to this. If you personally feel that Gamingforce is a cause worthy of some of your money, then give some of your money. If you don't want to spend money on it then don't but for God's sake don't think you have any right to complain how the place is run either way.

As has been said countless times in the past, GFF is not a democracy. There's a very strong sense of community here, granted and popular opinion more often than not sways the major decisions but at the end of the day, most of us come here to post and nothing more. Some people are made mods or admins to help the general maintenance of the site and keep things running smoothly but the site is bobo's. He and he alone has the right to decide how things work round here. If like me and Sass you appreciate his efforts over the years and are willing to give a bit back then you do so. If you don't like how things are run you either give nothing and shut up or you get the fuck out.

It really is as simple as that.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by BlueMikey

You know what?

I'm tired of this argument of, "Well, shit, you enjoy GFF so you should pay for it too." Do you fucking pay to listen to the radio? No, you listen to some advertisements. That's your payment to them. Same here. We could put advertisements on the bottom of the page and that would be it! That's enough! No more problems ever for the rest of GFF's life. More can be done with ad money on GFF than can be done with donations. And I guarantee you if you people hadn't have given all your money to bobo and had given it to someone who gives a fuck about this community then GFF would be running at full functionality at this very moment.

No one is arguing about the AdSense, Mikey. I am pretty sure we ALL agree that it should be done.

But ultimately, its not our decision. Not you, I, or anyone else can FORCE Bobo's hand on this one. We've all said our piece about it, and he has heard us. If he runs out of money again, well. Thats his problem. You can chose to give more or NOT give more. Its not hard.

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But you fucks are like, "Well, shit, I can PAY FOR GFF. That would be so much better! It is so much better to have bobo run out of money every 6 months and lose everything and have to pay thousands of dollars to get GFF back!"

Seriously. WHAT THE FUCK crawled up your stank ass and decided to become a whining bitch about this.

YOU CAN EITHER PAY OR YOU REFUSE TO. BOTH ARE VALID FUCKING OPTIONS.

IF YOU DO NOT LIKE HOW HE DOES BUSINESS, DONT DO BUSINESS WITH HIM.

Wow. You'd think AMERICANS would have this concept down by now. SHIT.

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Seriously. What the hell is wrong with you? Have you looked at any other website on the entire freaking WWW lately? Because they all have advertisements.

Yea, isn't that strange? For years, Bobo has been nice enough to actually NOT PUT ADS UP because he could afford NOT to. The MINUTE he needs a little cash, you fucking crucify him.

You can't really be that ungrateful, can you Mikey?

Maybe he'll put them up. Maybe he won't. WHO CARES? You're not going to be dishing out any cash anytime soon for the cause - how the fuck does it affect you? Your board goes down? Nothing lost on YOUR end, right?

Maybe you'll run off and find a board where you like the management better and has LOTS of ads. At least then, you wouldn't bitch so much!

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It's such a fallacy to point out that we are bad users of GFF because we advocate a system where no one has to pay anything at all. OH SO AWFUL. So awful that all our friends would be able to keep their money!

Its our choice to pay. I am completely happy giving money to people for service, if they need it.

Just like its your choice to NOT pay.

Fact of the matter is: GFF has been free for years. YEARS. And you've come away with so much from it. Bobo asks us all for a little understanding in a hard time, and you can chose to help or you can chose not to. (For the record, I did not donate this third time.)

If it continues at length for the amount of time I've been registered in the past, THEN I will flip out, and simply LEAVE.

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And shut up, Miles. We get that you are like super admin and super doner and super everything. You don't have to be super righteous asshole also.

Is that mutiny I see? AHAHAHHAA DRAMA~

FELIPE NO

Can I just express my emphatic agreement with Sass and Shin without tediously reiterating all the points they've made? I just want to make it clear that there are people out there who feel this way. If there were some kind of poll, I wouldn't even bother posting, but there isn't.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I see such strong feelings, coming from both sides. The point of disagreement seems to be directed at Bobo himself, and not the clarifications I'd wish to have.

Now, I'm sure both camps can agree on two things: First, we've used Gamingforce in the past, and continue to use it because we get something out of it. It's a community thing, and something that is not exactly easily replaced.

The second thing I can safely say we agree on, is that we all have an interest in seeing Gamingforce continue to survive. To that end, we're going to need a stable source of cash, at least sufficient enough to pay for the monthly $300 hosting fee.

In the past, Bobo has provided Gamingforce with funds, and had been a reliable source of it. However, I think we could also agree that his circumstances and priorities have changed. As such, he has been forced to resort to asking for donations.

I am not attacking bobo on this aspect. Choosing however to spend his own money is his own business. We reach a point of disagreement, however, when it comes to donations. This is my personal belief, that when you solicit other people's money for a particular reason, you're going to have to let them know exactly how you're spending it.

I tend to take a dispassionate view towards this, since it brings parallels to the world of business. In fact, it was bobo himself who expressed plans to incorporate the Gamingforce Network, in effect turning it into a real venture. Thus, I think the applicability of business concepts such as corporate governance is not unwarranted, since the metaphor was first broached by the head honcho himself.

I said earlier that we each have an interest in seeing the survival of Gamingforce. In order to ensure this, we have to secure a stable source of funds. Donations are a possible source, although I debate the sustainability of this model. Adsense has been brought up plenty of times (ad infinitum by BlueMikey it seems), and has been experimented on another forum.

The results indicate that even with a user base that is a fraction of Gamingforce's, the funds generated by Serious Business Forums from Google AdSense exposures are sufficient (and then some, by extrapolation) to fund Gamingforce's monthly server bills.

I'm happy to see that the majority is not opposed to having ads. I conjecture that Bobo might be unwilling to proceed with this, since he may feel marginalized or useless. It may be a matter of pride, you know.

Be that as it may, I still think AdSense is the way to go. The best solution, of course, is to have Bobo implement it himself. Any funds it generates will be split between the server bill, and himself (and holders of GFF shares, should he proceed to issue some and pay out dividends). He is entitled to the residual, since he spent a fair amount of cash setting up the community in the first place.

Bobo has been non-committal thus far ("I will definitely consider it"), hence my proposal for an admin to go ahead and put up the AdSense code. This is less preferred, since the money is flowing to a third party. Thus, I suggested that this money be held in trust for Bobo, and be produced when server bills need to be paid. The money is still rightfully his, only that someone else is holding it.

We all have a stake in this, and the fact that we're here after a relatively major crash testifies to our dedication. I hope we can at least agree on these points.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

If you're gonna start drawing parallels with the business world, you should be aware that the process of incorporating a business takes a little more than three weeks. If bobo has a business plan and if bobo decides he wants to share it with you, I'm sure he will. I know for a fact though that it takes a fair bit of time to formulate a proper business plan, then weeks longer to finalise it, circulate it, complete the neccessary statutory obligations and so on.

I also think that with voluntary donations, he has no obligation whatsoever to tell you what he's doing with the money. As I said before, if you don't feel comfortable giving your money to someone, then don't give him any money, simple as that.

I don't give a fuck what bobo did with my donation. He could have spent the whole lot on drugs and hookers and good luck to him. The amount of his personal time and money he's invested in this place over the years, he deserves a few quid off all of us I reckon.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I have been off and on the forums for the last few years now.

I think we can all say we are grateful for this site, which obviously is not free. We won't know if the server will crash, admins will hurridly be scrambling to pull stuff from back-up, and we won't know if the hat will come around for donations again.

I personally find it a little disparaging that if one were to donate money into getting this site back-up you would at least get some kind response back from him. If not as a reply, at least a pm for god's sake.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The regular updates he's posting as to features coming back up and new features being implemeted not good enough for you?

Also, is English your first language because that post made fuck all sense.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Oooo...a little testy aren't we.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Shin

The regular updates he's posting as to features coming back up and new features being implemeted not good enough for you?

Quoted for truth. Bobo has defied the expectation of the people who expected him to just ignore the site, and there's no reason to believe he won't do so in the future. Did it occur to anyone to wonder if the reason he didn't post for a while when the boards came back up was because he was hard at work coding PHP? Oh, and you know, living his life, god forbid.

Originally Posted by Bigblah

If you're going to say something, say it. We're not exactly clairvoyant here.

I hear they've been known to refuse to pay out, citing obscure, and possibly spurious breaches of the contractual terms. In other words, I heard that they've been screwing small sites, so that they can get advertising revenue without having to pay out for advertising space.

It seems unlikely, I grant you, but I thought I'd offer it as something for you to look into before you go ahead. Ask around, and stuff. I've probably just got my tinfoil hat on too tight, but here's where I heard it first.

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-375112.html

A lot of things I read these days tell me that Google are not our friends. Their famous motto "Don't be evil" does not seem to apply these days.

http://www.google-watch.org/

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?