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Which is to say, the donations to the site are voluntary, and it has always been a central tenet of the donation structure that you don't get special treatment if you donate to the site over those who don't. It doesn't give you a privileged position, or any greater say in matters of managing Barbelith.
However, this does not mean that the concerns of members are not pressing or relevant. So, Glandmaster, once you've clarified what your actual objection is, I would suggest either posting it to the Policy or PMing Tom to tell him that you are having this discussion over here. As it stands:
Irrelevant to this discussion. I dont see ANY ads online UNLESS they are put on sites that I have already whitelisted. Hence this discussion.
Fair enough. If you object strongly to having a banner for the ORG on the site for this reason, you probably shouldn't be reading Barbelith until it is taken down. Alternatively, you could do what I do - browse without images. Or you could ask to have the banner removed, on the grounds that you don't think Barbelith either a) should host any advertising at all, even if that advertising is an unpaid advertisement for a not-for-profit site (in which case, the Amazon links are back on the agenda) or b) Barbelith should not be advancing any group's agenda or cause in this way - the site itself should have no such apparent favourites (a far more convincing argument, and one you can have for free, if you fancy). There can then be a discussion of that, if there is a will to have it, which so far it seems largely there is not - people seem, for I imagine various reasons, to be pretty unfussed about this.
'whereas now it appears to be that Tom is... exploiting the membership somehow?'
Thats where I am at the moment yeah. I asked two questions to prompt the debate - have you been there and if so what makes it ok for THAT site to have a banner here?
I am not going to ask why you didnt answer - instead I am going to reframe my question - thank you again for asking the question to force the change. Maybe a good theme for this thread...
Why is it ok for Tom to post a banner on this site without asking us or even responding afterwards? Did the place on the advisory council come up before or after a banner was offered here?
The answer to the first question: roughly, because this is Tom's site, he owns it, he pays for the server space and, ultimately, if he wants to replace the message board with a huge banner advert for the ORG then that is really his call, although if he does so he should give us a bit of advance warning. The second I don't know about - Tom says that he is on the advisory council already in his first post to this thread.
We are the people that add the content to this site which attracts those unregged visitors you mention, the people who exists as a community and support each other into not only making those contributions but also making those contributions mean something.
Tom provides a venue, we provide the content. The next question might be how much control it is reasonable for Tom to exert over the content, and how much control it is reasonable for us to exert over the venue.
Is Tom playing this game or is he using us as part of his CV?
Well, Tom works in social software development. Barbelith is a piece of social software. Of course he uses it as part of his CV. In the past, Barbelith is considered as part of his overall work in social software development. Short of producing it pseudonymously, I don't know what Tom could do about that. If you mean "does Tom use the prospect of an ad on the front of Barbelirth as some form of sweetener to secure non-paying positions with not-for-profit organisations?", then the answer is "not very effectively, on current form". On the balance of probabilities, I doubt this has taken place this time. Apart from anything else, I think you overstate the importance of Barbelith. Donations to _this site_ come from a pretty tiny number of members, at last count - it's unlikely that the coffers of ORG will be filled by the Barbegelt.
I want to hear that I am wrong and as has happened before I have raised something that isnt an issue but so easily could have been. I have experience in the non profit sector and non profit does not always mean good. Or useful.
This seems to suggest that if you were confident that ORG were good and useful, you would not object to the ad. Which contradicts, unfortunately, one of the possible arguments I suggested you might be making above, that Barbelith should not be advancing any group's agenda or cause in this way. As it is, I don't really understand what this means - simply that we should not assume not-for-profits are always benign or useful? Fair enough. One would have to go to the ORG site and see what one thought of it before deciding whether it was apppropriate to invite people to look at the site on the front page of Barbelith, if one did not believe that it was blanket inappropriate to have any links on the front page of Barbelith, which is also an option but one that means the discussion of the goodness or utility of ORG is irrelevant.
Personally, it seems to have its head screwed on. It's providing useful information. The members of the advisory council I know seem to be solid fellows. So, we're back to whether Barbelith should promote _anything_, once you have become a member and thus circumvented the banner ads. The fact that almost nobody has complained about this suggests that it may not be a concern for most members, but you may be able to highlight issues that have not previously struck them. Right now, though, I think you're still unclear on what precisely the problem is. |
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