Saving EnWorld Brainstorm (long-term less-technical discussion)

[BSF]

Some points- it is really the messageboard community that is bailing out EN world today. They are the ones that care. I think that a membership of $10 is not unreasonable to ask of everyone posting on the messageboards.

Aaron.

I will politely disagree with you. My DM hardly ever uses the messageboards, despite my attempts to engage him otherwise. He mostly stops by to read the news and see what new products are coming out. Nevertheless, he sent Morrus an email asking if he could donate, etc. With Morrus later adding the info to the news page, there may be people that were happy to donate and _still_ won't check the messageboards. Let's not forget those people!

I think a fund raising drive every so often would be a great idea. I am utterly amazed at how much was generated so quickly today. I knew everyone could do it, but I did not expect the overabundance of generosity. For a scheduled fund raiser, I think it would be more successful if we could keep some fun to it. And a Thank you present.

Maybe volunteers could throw together a PDF of NPC's, or magic items, or Artifiacts or locations, you get the idea. It wouldn't need to be the best polished thing, just useful. Maybe somebody would be willing to do a little edit work on it? Then, offer it as a community thank you to everyone that donates during a fund drive. I know I could dig a few things up and I would be happy to participate. I just do not trust my editing skills. Best of all, even the volunteers would have some motivation to donate so they could see what everyone else added to the PDF.

 

[Mistwell]

Cross-posted from the other donation thread (the long one). Might be more useful here:

Some thoughts for the future.


1. I agree this should be a yearly event, or every six months. A donation drive, with specific goals in mind, set on a specific date known well in advance, would make this run smoother and be easier to handle.

2. The donation drive could be backed by d20 Products donated by various third party publishers who frequent this board. I know there are tons of people who would be willing to donate a spare product or two here and there for a good cause, and goals can be set to get such products. For example "Donate $50 and get a free copy of Four Color To Fantasy" (hypothetical example only), or "choose from one of the following products", and have larger "gifts" linked to larger donations. People could offer services in exchange for donations to EnWorld as well. I know I would be willing to offer some free legal work to small press d20 publishers who donate X amount to EnWorld, and I'm sure other professionals would be willing to offer their services as well.

3. Incorporate as a non-profit organization in the US. This one involves more work, and some costs, but in the end I think it would be worth it. That way, contributions could be tax free to US taxpayers, and could be totally above board. In addition, I've done non-profit filings before, and I'd be happy to donate some time to helping you do this, if you are interested.

4. Get Paypal and your own credit card e-commerce account up and running. I know Morrus hates paypal, and I am sure there are good reasons for this. But, it's just too useful a method of collecting payments to totally dismiss it without looking in to it one more time.

5. Have a running chat session going for the "telethon", with goals per hour, specific "gifts" for first people to donate X amount in that hour, guest speakers popping in to encourage people to donate, etc... The chat could be on the message board itself, instead of a running chat screen, or both.

6. If possible, set the monetary goals higher than just costs to run the board for a year (or six months, or whatever the time frame between donation drives). A small salary is appropriate for the person who heads this whole board, and if at all possible it would be nice to send some cash to the good folks who help run it as well (like moderators, reviewers, reporters, etc...), not to mention the desire to sponsor special events. I know that seems far fetched, in a time of crises like this one, but I really think that a well-run donation campaign could generate a lot more money for this board than even this amazing turnout would indicate.

 

[barsoomcore]

I don't mind donating myself

Yeah, I'd be happy to donate myself. Not sure what Morrus would do with me once he got me, though...

but I don't think that making membership compulsory is a good idea. IMO it would remove enough traffic from the boards to ruin the high volume that makes ENWorld such a good resource.

Totally agree. The greatest thing about ENWorld is the amount of material and the numbers of posters -- that combined with the great mods and admins we have here who weed out the trolls.

But I would be suspicious of any plan that made it harder for people to post here.

It is also apparent from today's response that a compulsory membership is not required either.

Exactly. It's unfortunate that it took such a drastic situation to wake us all up, but I'm convinced that a yearly pledge drive can more than suffice. Look at what we just did in a matter of hours.

I know I would commit money once a year. It's what, $5,000 a year? If 100 of us commit $50 we're golden. 200 of us commit $25. I don't think that's asking a lot of this community.

I would prefer to see no sponsorship, either by WotC or any other d20 company. Money given that way brings with it the threat that it can be taken away.

This is OUR site (no offence, Morrus, but I think this is true. It is us, the community, who make this place what it is -- not that we don't depend on you and your tireless efforts). We should be responsible for keeping it in place -- AND for assuming the financial burden that that entails.

My thoughts -- but it looks like we aren't going to have to worry about this for a little while yet...

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Mistwell: Great great GREAT idea. I had a similar idea a couple months ago (when Morrus broached the full-time job subject) and I said that I thought it would be a good idea to run a special on Community Supporter Accounts. Make it, say, $15 or $20/year for a week or two, and some people who are on the fence or just can't spend $30 would jump on board. Or make it full price and throw in some EN World Publishing PDFs. Or some combination to sweeten the deal and rope in some people.

I can see now that what Morrus really needed was quick cash, and apparently CSAs take two months to go from your wallet to Morrus's. But I think he should really try one of these great ideas as a way to sock cash away for the future. It brings in hard coin AND makes members feel good about contributing to the welfare of the site AND gives them some nice perks for their effort.

 

[Alzrius]

Make it, say, $15 or $20/year for a week or two, and some people who are on the fence or just can't spend $30 would jump on board.

Now that is a great idea! I can really see that one paying off time after time.

On the corporate sponsorship thing, I agree with most people that that would be something we wanted to avoid. Being owned by a company carries strings...its just a fact. This is a community by of the gamers, by the gamers, for the gamers...lets leave it at that.

 

[Wraith101]

As you might notice, this is only one of a few of my posts on these boards (I make my home elsewhere on the web). if I had to pay to use them, I wouldn't even bother to lurk(I do a lot of lurking here. . . ).

I do think it is a good idea to sell volunteer products, I would be willing to be a sub-editor(plus a writer of course) no worries.

EnWorld must surely have the highest traffic among RPG sites so I don't know why advertising is not paying off.

 

[jasper]

How much space/time/money/bandwidth will be save if you delete the posts after a certain time? Ex. OT on general board automatically deleted 14 days after last activity. General board deletes after 90. Story hour posts delete after 120. Etc Longer time before deletion on boards with less activity.

How much etc will be saved if limit avatars, signatures, and size of pictures? It seems to me most of time the pics are posted are either after cons or to rib Piratecat.

What is the breakeven point for membership at $10 per year, $5 per year, $15 per year, $20 per year?

Could set different membership rates up? Ex $5 lurker mode few posts per day or week, no search function etc. Ex $20 banner full search etc.

What process or plan will be in place to show accountability? Is the books going to open, closed or etc?

 

[Krug]

Besides autographed pics, maybe some of the artists could do a sketch your char thing with donations to EN World. Hey if Todd Lockwood obliged...

Or a guest appearance in some publication...

 

[Sialia]

I'd sure like to see ENWorld file for the non-profit status and have a formal business plan.

It wouldn't have to be elaborate, just enough to know what our expectations as a community are, and our commitments to ourselves.

We may have raised a lot of money in what seemed like a few hours, but in reality, the money was raised over many, many months of being invovled with each other and caring about each other.

Lots of people, myself incluced, "always meant to support ENWorld but never got around to it."

The reasons were many, but mostly there was no really easy and secure way to send the payment. Everyone kept bombarding me with Paypal horror stories.

I think Expeditious Retreat's idea was fabulous and easy (and I hope probably generated some traffic for them too.) I worry slightly about whether it's all strictly legal, or whether we could go on using that, and what we'd lose to taxes and processing fees.

If we set up an annual pledge/membership drive, I'd need to know that we had a legal, safe and secure way to handle the money, and to account for what it got spent on. Maybe some community input about the budget priorities: e.g. is it more important to have a faster server or be online for another month or pay our administrator for his time and effort? Obviously we want all of these things, but maybe we should formally itemize the things we spend money on and be generally aware of them and what they are likely to run us in the next year.

A business plan would address that sort of thing.

 

[Sialia]

P.S. I'd happily donate a piece of art to a fundraising auction.

I might even volunteer to help compile a PDF of "the Best of ENWorld Messageboards 2003" which could be distributed to donors . . .