Quoting:
YES, we would.
Sorry. Just please don't make us pay. You gotta remember that there is also the younger half of the population here that don't have much money (i.e me ;)) and overall would think it would just suck to have to pay to get to some pages...but whatever...maybe there could be a fee only for non-members  ;D?
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well, it's not like the whole site would be pay only.. I'm just talking about giving people an extra way to see the same stuff everyone else already sees.

Quoting:
and of course, the current volunteer editors, would all get access in return for their maintenance of the site
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Hey, it works for me  ;D

Hmm... looks like I better go edit my pages now!!   ;D

Quoting:
Hi Chuck :)

I'm not exactly sure how many people would actually pay for something they can see anyway :-/  I guess you could always count on the generosity of some donors and loyal fans of the site (myself included) but I just don't see how you can generate substantial funds this way.  Maybe you could create a pay only feature that nobody can access unless they paid (not just an update page).  
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well, it's a view you could only recreate by checking about twenty different pages.. I wouldn't need a lot of people to be succesful.. If I priced it at $20 a year, maybe 5 or 6 new people a month would be enough to consider it successful..

since I rely on people for new stuff, I couldn't really charge people to see stuff they submitted themselves.. there's a website called fark, which is basically just a link blogger, people send in funny links and they post the best ones. They offer a $5 a month subscription to get to see all the rejected links. Unfortunately, offering to let people see the stuff I reject is probably not attractive, since I accept so much as it is, and the stuff I delete is just awful.

another approach I've seen, is where very popular sites run a box of text links on the side of the front page. So if I moved the "updated pages" box off the front page, I could through up a bunch of sponsored links. mp3.com has a similar system, where authors can pay for their music to be promoted within the website (you pay to get your song highlighted). I could ask parody authors $5 a month or something for a text link on the front page to highlight their parodies or something.

what I'm trying to do, is come up with low impact things for the site to generate a little income.. the current banner ad made enough for the quarter (since I also got to charge Lisa for designing the ad), but I'm not getting a lot of nibbles for people who want to run banner ads.

Quoting:

there's a website called fark, which is basically just a link blogger, people send in funny links and they post the best ones. They offer a $5 a month subscription to get to see all the rejected links. Unfortunately, offering to let people see the stuff I reject is probably not attractive, since I accept so much as it is, and the stuff I delete is just awful.

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I don't think it's the best idea either, I don't think anyone would want to see the crap I have to reject whenever i update the Real lyrics...

And I guess seeing entries saying "your site sucks, stop making fun of talented bands," or whatever, isn't as much fun as seeing rejected links... I mean, I assume the rejected links are dirty/funny-- stuff that people would want to see?

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I don't think it's the best idea either, I don't think anyone would want to see the crap I have to reject whenever i update the Real lyrics...

And I guess seeing entries saying "your site sucks, stop making fun of talented bands," or whatever, isn't as much fun as seeing rejected links... I mean, I assume the rejected links are dirty/funny-- stuff that people would want to see?
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yeah, my thoughts exactly.. with the rejected links on fark, it's useful for news junkies, because you can see 50 links to something the second news breaks.. though Google News is going to overtake that useful aspect of it soon.. plus on total fark you can see the photoshop contests before anyone else gets a chance to..

Quoting:
Hi Chuck:
I have only been visiting your site for 3 or 4 months, but it seems to be growing fairly rapidly in a lot of ways - number of users, number of parodies, etc.  I'm guessing that there are some things that we can look up in 5 or 6 pages now that might soon be 10 or 20 pages.  If you can come up with ways to make these processes more efficient, that would be a valuable service for your users.

I also think that you put a lot of work into this web site that provides a lot of enjoyment for a lot of people.  Most of us would like you to earn a return on your work, your investment, and your intellectual property, and the amounts that you are proposing are very reasonable.
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glad someone thinks so >grin<

my philosphy on the matter is to really just make a little more than my site costs to run.. I've seen plenty of sites on the web that are geared towards making the site owners a lot of money, and while it would be nice to do this as a full time job, I'd much rather be working full time as an engineer.. I did actually try to do the site for a living at the height of the dot-com boom, when banner ads could make a site like this, a small fortune. I was so bored after two months, I went looking for a "real job".

I'd operate one of those paypal "tip jars" but I have two problems with those. First, it looks like begging, which I don't really care for at all. Secondly, when I was in Boy Scouts, you were allowed to ask for donations, you could sell candy bars, or similar things, but you weren't allowed to take money without giving something in return (which meant no raffles). I always liked that, I hate gambling myself and I really can't stand pan handlers.

On the other hand, I see something like "Save Kayren", this site for a whiney New York socialite who over extended herself buying clothes and other useless crap, and people actually donated $15,000 to her (a little at a time) to help her get out of debt and give her a "second chance". Something like that disturbs me, because here I am, running several sites with very little advertising, and I just want to make sure it remains free.

The only options that appear are affiliate programs (which take in far less than they probably should) and advertisers (which want every square inch of your website for nothing). I want to come up with a more interesting, and less offensive solution, which I think right now, is the pipe dream of every website on the web. I'm not going to pretend that I'm going to find the answer quickly.

I like the concept of using what I already have. Some people have suggested to me, that I should reprint part of the website as a book. I would feel a little uncomfortable with that though, since a publisher would want me to remove the content from the site in order to do it. Plus, I'm not sure if the stuff people send me, if it's legal for me to reprint it. Plus, I don't know how people would feel, if they sent something to a website, only to see someone turn around and reprint it for money. Seems a little wrong. On the other hand, people may be flattered their stuff is chosen, and I'm sure some people may just buy a copy to show other people.. though I don't save the names with misheard lyrics (at least the ones without stories) so I don't know how succesful that would be. Though I will admit, I did have some cool ideas for a book.

I know that if my traffic keeps growing at the rate it does, I'll need a second server by the end of the year. This is what is prompting me to start looking now for a source of revenue, since that's a lot of money to spend on a "hobby".  One server is bad enough, but once things get over a hundred dollars a month, they cease to be a hobby.

Quoting:
I'd operate one of those paypal "tip jars" but I have two problems with those. First, it looks like begging, which I don't really care for at all. Secondly, when I was in Boy Scouts, you were allowed to ask for donations, you could sell candy bars, or similar things, but you weren't allowed to take money without giving something in return (which meant no raffles).
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Chucky - it's not begging, or getting something for nothing - we're already getting something.  

Phil

Quoting:another approach I've seen, is where very popular sites run a box of text links on the side of the front page. So if I moved the "updated pages" box off the front page, I could through up a bunch of sponsored links. mp3.com has a similar system, where authors can pay for their music to be promoted within the website (you pay to get your song highlighted). I could ask parody authors $5 a month or something for a text link on the front page to highlight their parodies or something. End Quote

Not a terrible idea. What do you think, parody authors?

Quoting:
Chucky,

It is a bit of a conundrum: you put a lot of time and money into this, and it is a lot for us to expect you to continue doing this sort of thing for free ad infinitum.
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doing it for free isn't so bad.. doing it for a loss of money is >grin<

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One option (and I don't know how well this would work) would be to run an ad-sponsored "free" site, and a parallel subscription-only banner-free site - you'd need to be able to design the site so that the headers with and without banners can link to the same content.  Thing is, that's going to mean more work to set up(and probably more debugging and problems).

I know ezboard run this way, having an insane banner-ad mode, and a "gold ezboard" mode which is much nicer to use - except that it's up the people running their individual ezboards to cough up.  One that I pop into occasionally asked for contributions to cover the cost, and got enough in donations for a couple of years - I guess there's enough people out there who do appreciate something worth paying for (and not paying very much, either).

You also have to watch out you don't deter new visitors: although there are probably quite a few longer-term bods here who wouldn't mind coughing up something, a first-time visitor may be put off staying...  Hell, who said it would be easy?
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I've thought about that, and I could certainly code it.. but it's not working very well for Salon and IGN, and I doubt it'll work any better for me.. it just makes people race for ad blocking software..

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I get a lot out of amiright, and would be willing to put some back in: like most of us, I really appreciate what you do here, and hate the thought that you're substantially out of pocket.
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well.. I'm just trying to avoid paying out of pocket right now.. it's certainly not at that point yet..

Quoting:
Chucky - it's not begging, or getting something for nothing - we're already getting something.  
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yeah, but if you give me money and others don't, but everyone sees the same thing, that feels like something for nothing to me..