$25,000 a month to "run" Free Republic????

[sufrommich]

To: All
Free Republic Monthly Budget
Once we get our monthly donations to the point where they will cover all of our expenses, we will not need to have fundraisers.
Est. Recurring Monthly Contributions $9,329.00


Monthly Expenses
Bandwidth and Colocation $2,430
System Administation and Programming 7,000
Administrative and Taxes 10,500
Legal and Accounting 1,000
Bank Fees, Credit Card Fees, Processing Fees 800
Equip, Maintenance and Repairs 300
Office Expenses, Rents, Insurance, Telephone, ISP, Supplies, Misc. 2,500
Travel Expenses 800

25,330.00



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Est. Monthly Shortfall ($16,001.00)




Doesn't that seem a little high for such a simple site?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2235461/posts

[onehandle]

1. $500 for bandwidth.

$24,830.00 for sheets and flaming crosses.

[sufrommich]

lol. nt

[Renew Deal]

16. Freerepublic runs on a mac.

:evilgrin:

[valerief]

51. ROFL!!!!

:rofl:

[Patsy Stone]

68. LOL!

:thumbsup:

[Lex]

2. For 25K per month maybe they could learn to spell "Administration"

Administation?

[Contrary1]

12. ...or spring for a spell checker. n/t

[tanyev]

17. RWers use a cheaper word processing system which only has a Speel Chek feature.

[Arkana]

3. RimJob has to buy chrome spinners for his Rascal.

[sazemisery]

4. Hopefully they can't raise it and will ooze away into oblivion.

:thumbsup:

[Dora]

5. "administrative and taxes"

I'd like to see the breakdown of that expense.

[sufrommich]

8. Me too. Someone's making a good living off the ignorant

loonies.

[ContinentalOp]

58. Gosh, those damn liberals are taxing discussion boards out of existence!

Seriously what is that all about? They would only be paying taxes if they're making a profit. But I wouldn't expect those nutjobs to understand that since the very concept of taxes seems to be well over their heads.

[damntexdem]

6. But how many months could it take? It's already so low, it should be easy to run it into the ground.

But it sure doesn't seem like a very FREE republic, now does it?

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Someone posts this here every time Jimrob puts it up at FR

Sure seems ridiculous to me.

800 a month for travel? For who? Going where? Out of the basement??

Give me $9000 a month and I will run a website for you. LOL

[sufrommich]

18. Really, I've never seen it broken down before. I always

assumed the costs and profits were top secret over there.

[jmowreader]

20. You might be able to run A website for $9k/month

but you'd need more like $90,000/month to run THAT website: nine thousand to run the site, $81,000 to NOT correct the misinformation in all the posts.

[Regret My New Name]

60. The only thing I could think of is going to the data center where they coll

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. Does seem awfully expensive, doesn't it? But I have no idea what a high traffic

site actually costs in terms of running it. :shrug:

[Renew Deal]

10. The programming number is bullshit.

There hasn't been a new feature on that site since 1994.

[Xithras]

49. That programming number is RimJob's paycheck. n/t

And yes, I agree on the features. There's no reason for that site to be as static as it is with a full time paid programmer on staff.

[tridim]

11. Wonder how much Rim Job skims off the top?

Travel expenses? For a simple forum website?

[TroglodyteScholar]

42. I'm guessing about 80% of that "budget" is actually...

...representative of what all his bills (professional and personal) and other personal expenses add up to each month. I mean---as was said upthread--"programming" in that budget is a complete joke. I suppose the administrative cost is actually just what he spends on cheeseburgers. It's amazing that anyone at all ponies up for such a pathetic, piece of shit site.

[Raven]

13. If I could be bought, you'd have to pay me a lot more to run

that sewer!

[baldguy]

14. $10k/month for "Administrative Fees"?

Yeah, right.

[ohheckyeah]

15. Wonder how much of this is salary?

System Administation and Programming 7,000
Administrative and Taxes 10,500

[jaysunb]

27. $ 16,500.00

got it ? :rofl:

[gratuitous]

19. Freedom isn't free

But Free Republic costs over a quarter mil a year. Right.

It's a good thing RimJob gets an allowance from whatever right wing sugar daddy is financing his miserable site, because the mouth-breathing nose-pickers who post there surely don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. I just wonder, in these dire economic times, if propping up Free Republic is the best and wisest use of some overrich guy's money?

[Wapsie B]

24. I've always wondered what daddy warbucks funds that site?

Just like those tea parties this has got to have money coming in from somewhere.

[CAcyclist]

63. Probably Scaife nt.

[Laelth]

21. It probably costs more to run DU.

DU is a better site, has a lot more traffic, and I think it's well worth it. In fact, I hope its owners are paying themselves nicely for providing this revolutionary service.

:dem:

-Laelth

[krispos42]

52. I think they have a lot more hits per day

But their site is so simple. DU is graphic-intensive. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the average number of megabytes transferred daily is about the same.


Letters are small and compact. All those avatars and sigline pics (and the hunky studmuffin thread in the Lounge right now) take a lot more bandwidth.

[Laelth]

53. They have more hits per day?

Really? You're in a much better position to know. I'd appreciate enlightenment.

:dem:

-Laelth

[krispos42]

54. Oh, I don't have any special mod powers or anythting like that

But there was a discussion about it last year. Somebody dug up internet traffic reports for FR, DailyKos, and DU. FR was several times busier than DK and DU combined, if memory serves.


Of course, they're a lot older than either DU or DK.

[Laelth]

56. Wow. That's surprising.

Thanks for the response.

:)

:dem:

-Laelth

[-..__...]

64. You can compare traffic results here...

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/democraticunderground.com

Just plug in any other sites you want for comparison.

Note... I have no idea how accurate or reliable that info may or may not be.

[Laelth]

70. Awesome site. Thanks for the link.

Looks like FR still gets more traffic, but the gap seems to be closing rapidly.

:dem:

-Laelth

[mudesi]

22. 7K For System Admin And Programming?????

What, exactly, are they doing over there for 7K? The site sucks and the "message board" doesn't work.

[flvegan]

23. "Equip, Maintenance and Repairs 300 "

$300? Hey Elad, how much gear can you buy for $1200 a year?

:rofl:

That is such a shitty site.

:rofl:

[Dead_Parrot]

33. Hey, good Vic-20's are hard to find

keeping all 3 of them up and running doesn't come cheap, y'know.

[hileeopnyn8d]

37. Dammit!

You stole my line!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

39. Where's the TRASH 80? The Kaypro Luggable???

:rofl: Cutting edge tech no low gee!!!

[tridim]

46. Is he still using the cassette drive, or does he have a 1541 disk?

My 1541 broke down all the time, but my Vic20 and C-64's still fire up like it's 1982. :)

[krispos42]

50. And double-density 5¼" floppies are hard to find, too.

:rofl:

[Tangerine LaBamba]

25. Cheap at twice the price .............

Since we're not contributing, we can agree that freeperville is a real bargain for DUers.......................

[Manifestor_of_Light]

62. MY EYES!! MY EYES!! EYE BLEACH!!! AAAUUUGGGHHHH!!!!

Damn, I need to sue ya for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
I need a good ambulance chaser.

Aggghhhh!!

[Occam Bandage]

26. I can buy the charges for bandwidth, system administration, and office expenses.

I have to wonder what the $10,500/mo in administrative fees are. RimJob's salary?

[MineralMan]

61. Yes, admin fees are RimJobber's salary.

The programming expense is his son's (JohnRobber) salary, for the times he has to show up and write some kluge to get the database working again.

[HughBeaumont]

28. What PROGRAMMING? It looks like 1994 HTML.

Who are these chumpstains trying to fool?

[TroglodyteScholar]

44. Q: "Who are these chumpstains trying to fool?"

A: A bunch of fools.

[FLAprogressive]

29. I thought it said "Bandwidth and Colonics"

:rofl:

[rug]

30. I see there's no monthly expense for spellcheck.

[CreekDog]

31. imagine what it would cost to implement spellcheck!

:rofl:

[lies and propaganda]

32. But its like the first website eevr created!

graphic designer s CRY when looking at FR!

[onehandle]

34. No, we smile.

We need examples of what not to do.

[Luminous Animal]

35. Periodically this comes up...

Here is Skinner's response way back in 2005 to an OP that points out that it costs $72,000 a quarter to run FR:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4948334&mesg_id=4955895

"I'm not surprised at all that it costs $72,000 to run FR.

Websites do not grow on trees. A high-traffic website like FR wouldn't *ever* run on the system you are proposing. Trust me, I know. To be honest, I think the folks over on FR are getting a pretty good deal."

[hileeopnyn8d]

38. But what about ad revenue?

[Luminous Animal]

41. Do they have much advertising?

I just went over there and I didn't see any. But I'm at work and I can't really poke around.

[hileeopnyn8d]

47. You know

I'm not sure myself. I think they have some on their main page. I usually don't spend much time there, poking around the site makes me feel icky. I immediately clear my cookies after. I don't know why, it just makes me feel better having no "attachment" to the website.

I do think they could upgrade their message board without a huge monetary setback.

[onethatcares]

36. will they ever collect enough to cover expenses

just wonderin aloud. If there were 25, 340 of em and they all gave a dollar each, they'd be in high cotton. guess there aren't that many freeps.

[burning rain]

40. Lotta rumors, even some talk there, that Jimbo's ripping the suckers off.

Definitely worth keeping an eye open for info on that.

[LiberalPersona]

43. You'd think

that with a budget like that they could afford to come up with a much better design.
Seriously, they easily have the most poorly designed forum I've ever seen.

It's a huge mess, you can't even tell just glancing at posts who's replying to who.

[laylah]

45. Please correct me if I am wrong...

however, my other "home" is Buzzflash. They need 30K per month. Not trying to upset the applecart and FR SUCKS beyond reasoning. I am just wondering why the thread? :hide: Flame away.

[tridim]

48. Because it's fun to tease RimJob.

That's all the reason I need. :)

[MadHound]

55. I love how Rimjob is double dipping for himself

Because as far as I know, he's the only paid administrator over there, and I doubt that taxes range anywhere close to $10,500/month. And lord knows, there's very little programming that goes into that place. So essentially he's double dipping with these two entries:
System Administation and Programming 7,000
Administrative and Taxes 10,500

My thought is that this hides Rimjob's $10,000/month salary, with the rest going to cover his IRS bills.

Judging by the length that these things are taking anymore, FR is slowly but surely dying. Used to be they could get their fundraiser out of the way as quickly as DU does its fundraiser. But the one that they've got going on now has been running for over a month and it's only a third over. At this rate Rimbo is going to be in perpetual donation mode, and then finally, thankfully slide right on under.

[SKKY]

57. I wonder how much it costs to run DU?

I would expect a bit more since DU is, without a doubt, a much better forum- regardless of the topic of discussion.

[Regret My New Name]

59. hah! How the hell?

I find the system administration and programming fees to be the most interesting... I rarely go there, but the times that I have, I can say that the site doesn't seem to change much on the front end.... I would have assumed that the owners of the site probably have enough system admin and programming skills by now to do most of the day to day stuff, no??? Are they billing themselves a few hundred dollars an hour to work on their own site? I'm curious what administrative and taxes is for too.

That being said, I can understand the bandwidth and colo fees, along with the legal/accounting... But really, it seems as if at least $18,000 of that is being used for something other than what they say... What do they pay rent for? Aren't they just a website? Shouldn't their only "rent" be their collocation fees?

[agentS]

65. Given the amount of downtime that miserable sewer has...

I am not too surprised by the bandwidth costs. You'd figure it would be higher, given the number of keyboard Klansmen the site has. Yes, that's right Freeper trolls, I called you keyboard Klansmen. Whatcha' gonna do , punks?
*back on topic*

Those office expenses are rather odd. I remember having a good deal on long-distance calls many years ago- why can't this guy do that? Unless he's calling those 1-900 numbers...

10K for admin and taxes??? For what? The site sucks balls! How much effort is it to ban a guy who threatens a president's life? 2 seconds point and click.

Given that it damn near disappeared right after the election and was down for 4 or more days, which seems to be happening on a consistent basis, I think the other poster are right that he's pocketing the money to use for various nefarious deeds.

[Forkboy]

66. Horrible spelling, hatred and craziness: Priceless

[cherish44]

67. With that kind of money surely they could hire a 7th grader to update their design a little

You know bring it out of 1994...(of course Freepers still think it's 1994, or 1894)

[Patsy Stone]

69. Cheetos ain't free, ya know. nt

[ddeclue]

71. Bringing the internet to wingnut morans: PRICELESS!

For everything else there's VISA...

:rofl: