Shouldn't ENWorld be ".com"?

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

So is .edu.

Len "I'm not American and neither is Hong" Ooi

So is .mil. And they are very reluctant to let you use that one

 

[Greylock]

I approve of the changes. Especially if it leads to ENWorldGamer mag pdfs.

/wantingmore/

 

[Mark CMG]

Whoa, I'd hate to own a non-profit hospital under your ideas of how to operate a non-profit.

Not as much as I'd hate to be a patient at such a place!


Well, as near as I can tell, EN World has certainly crashed hard enough and often enough to qualify as a "dot com" . . .


But I kid! I kid because I love! Love EN World!

 

[Yair]

Whoa, I'd hate to own a non-profit hospital under your ideas of how to operate a non-profit.

You reminded me of a "Yes, Minister" episdoe I saw not long ago. It was about a hospital that was working at prime beeurocratic efficiency, all its personnel busy, its equipment in perfect maintainance, its work accidents ratio nill, and so on. Of course, it had no patients in it...

Non-profit hostpitals, in my experience, try to make their buissness aspects unitrusive and limit them. They have budgets for taking care of people that can't pay for their treatment, for example, and policies for not turning down critically injured people because they can't pay, and they don't try to increase revenue by using their status to sponsor affiliated brands or push their own consortium's medicine, and so on.
They are also not at all ashamed to solicit and accept donations, indeed basing a lot of their monatery finances on donations (from funds, the state, and individuals).
[In later years buissness elements are becoming more prevelant and obtrusive, which causes a lot of resentment and accusations of impropriatry, bribary, and so on.]
At least, that's how things work in my country.

And yes, the hospitals are constantly in financial need (so you wouldn't want to own one). I do believe one even went "bankrupt" a few years back but was "saved" by the state at the last minute [IIRC].
And being treated in one is often inferior to being treated in a for-prdfit hospital - if you can afford one.
But neither of these are their goals, and in their non-profit goal (healing the multitudes) they are far better than the few for-profit hospitals and wards we have. (I'm not saying they are perfect, or even good - just better.)

All of this is of course tangential to the original post, and Morrus is not running a charity.

 

[Sledge]

The point of a hospital is to take care of people in need. If as you say the non-profit model where they refuse to seek any reliable methods of funding results in "inferior" care, then that hospital is failing and NEEDS to rethink its methods of operation. A non-profit model doesn't have to be on the verge of bankruptcy to count as non-profit. Also a non-profit organization is expected to still pay it's employees. How many hours of work go into ENWorld? Who pays for these hours?

 

[Yair]

The point of a hospital is to take care of people in need. If as you say the non-profit model where they refuse to seek any reliable methods of funding results in "inferior" care, then that hospital is failing and NEEDS to rethink its methods of operation. A non-profit model doesn't have to be on the verge of bankruptcy to count as non-profit. Also a non-profit organization is expected to still pay it's employees. How many hours of work go into ENWorld? Who pays for these hours?

The point of a hospital is to take care of people in need. Not to make profit. If in your profit model you seek to exploit every avenue of revenue you may end up with "superior" care if it is a market demand, but you will NOT provide the best medicine for the most people.
It is all a matter of measuring success. If you are a for-profit organization, your measure of success is simple - the profit. If you are a hospital, however - just what is your goal? Improving the life quality of as many people as possible? Saving as many lives as possible? Providing the best medical care possible on this earth? Making as much profit for your owners? There are several possible objectices, and they cannot generally be achieved simultanously.

All non-profit organizations include an element of buisness to them. ENWorld, for example, always needed to pay for bandwidth and server services - a purely buissness transaction. Optional membership fees for added functionality are a "buisness model" it has been using for ages.
The point is not whether an organization has buisness aspects to it. The point is whether these aspects are limited by and serve the organization's goals, or whether the organization serves the buisness goals.

Regarding ENWorld specifically, I don't want to get mired in that. Morrus said his piece, that is enough for me.

 

[Umbran]

The point of a hospital is to take care of people in need. Not to make profit.

That's not an accurate generalization. In some hospitals, part of the point is profit, in others it is not. The percieved "point" will differ depending upon who you are. The "point" of the place for the doctors is not the same as for the patients, and the point is again different from view of the Board of Directors.

At no time will any place be able to provide the absolute best of service to the theoretical maximum of people. Because resources are limited, there will always be tradeoffs.

It is all a matter of measuring success. If you are a for-profit organization, your measure of success is simple - the profit.

That would be an extremely naive measure, if used alone. Raw profit is only one measure. Profit as compared ot expenditures, growth measures, sustained business, new business, and many other factors go into measuring the success of a for-profit organization.

The point is not whether an organization has buisness aspects to it. The point is whether these aspects are limited by and serve the organization's goals, or whether the organization serves the buisness goals.

Here, I agree with you. The place always had business aspects. The question is in what methods best serve the needs. Note that us users are only able to articulate our own percieved needs. We are not in a position to state what the place as a whole needs - we just don't have the data.

 

[Yair]

I agree with you Umbran. The first point was actually one I was trying (unsuccesfully, it seems) to make in my previous post. You're of course right on the second. And we agree on the latter.

I'll also add that we are not really in a position to define the needs, i.e. to set the goals. Morrus runs this gig, and he is the only one that can decide what he wants it to be.
He has apparrently decided that it is a buisness, it isn't non-profit, and and that its needs could better be served by a more comprehensive and obtrusive plethora of subsidiaries/ affiliates/ whatever. I don't particularly like this, but it's his call.

 

[Umbran]

He has apparrently decided that it is a buisness, it isn't non-profit, and and that its needs could better be served by a more comprehensive and obtrusive plethora of subsidiaries/ affiliates/ whatever.

Well, it isn't as if he could make them unobtrusive and have them work - by definition, if they were unobtrusive, nobody would notice them. Unnoticed business outlets are failed business outlets.

 

[Psionicist]

If not "owned" then certainly "controlled". Only American post-secondary institutions meeting criteria set by the U.S. Dept. of Education can register under .edu.
References: IANA, Educause (the administrator of .edu)

That depends. DNS is fragile and decentralized by design, meaning anyone can create their own DNS network and have the full legal right to do so. For example, if I create my own DNS and redirect all .edu domains to google, no one can stop me, because the control different organizations (such as Educause) have over topdomains is unenforcable and only worth something because the whole world has an inofficial agreement that's the case. DNS is like currency, the only power with the current system is because everyone uses it.

Most people have no idea how uncontrolled and ungoverned the Internet really is.