Dear mods and admins,
I own a couple of apartments and other stuff, that generate positive cash flow, as well as I get my due raises. I could easily finance the whole costs each month but if you’re wondering why I don’t do it, here are my points:
1) Charity:
I felt cheated, after you raised funds for the first time specifically to cover forum costs, you suddenly wanted to donate the excess money to charity, which was a break of the contract. By the way, the loudest proponents of this idea didn’t donate a single cent! In the end you didn’t let the non-productive members decide what should be done with my hard earned money, so we’re even here. It did however cost me a lot of nerves to even discuss such obvious topics with all these SJWs, to whom you gave enough fuel in the first place.
2) The case of the mathematician Keith from Hong Kong:
Keith, having posted many mathematical derivations and ideas, decided to delete all of his posts for an unknown reason. Your hypothesis – he got annoyed by one or more members. My hypothesis – he could have been persecuted by the Chinese government. Whoever is right on this one, I think it is his choice whether he wants to keep his posts or not. Your argumentation was, that as soon as he posts something on the O-F, it becomes the property of O-F (sic!) So are you a non-profit organization, or do you collect value in form of posts’ content as a forum asset, assuming it’s yours to take?
3) Last time I offered on the forum, on a similar occasion, democracy weighted by the sum of given person’s donation, my post was deleted and I was accused of flame baiting. Quite an accusation for just offering an alternative, that you’re just not accustomed with. In one of my apartments I have more voting power from the neighbor below me, just because I have slightly thinner walls, giving way for more area to pay for, thus more voting power, and everybody has to accept it.
The weighted democracy would have helped the community to get rid of major jerks, or at least peel their nails, before the normal people (including donators) left your forum for good. Your choice, but if you want play with the toys only by yourself, I won’t spend my family’s funds to buy them for you.
Enclosing here, it should also be valued, that you guys do donate your precious time into the forum, to keep it running by updating it and fighting off spam. I propose you to add that cherry on top of this service and try to lay tracks for solutions to come, instead of just pushing the train without tracks underneath.