response 2 of 34:

Mar 2 13:46 UTC 1997

Me neither.

response 4 of 34:

Mar 2 16:28 UTC 1997

I have no fundamental problem with selling ad space.  For me, it
boils down to how much moola it would bring in, how annoying and
intrusive the ads are, and how we can exercise content-control in
the case of particularly controversial advertisements (such as for
tobacco, alcohol, pro/anti-abortion messages, and so on).

As for money, looking at our web server stats
(http://www.cyberspace.org/stats/), it would appear that we're
getting around 5,000 distinct hosts hitting us per week.  Depending
on how they count distinct hosts (e.g., distinct over what time
period?), that could yield 20,000 distinct host hits per month, or
$160 per month in revenue, or $1920 per year, the equivalent of 32
annual Grex memberships - pretty substantial revenue for Grex.

However, that estimate is on the optimistic side.  A lot of those
hits are for user pages, to which it would be rather intrusive, and
a bit technically challenging, to automatically add advertisements.
Abbagirl's award-winning site, for example, got 25% our of Grex's
web hits last week.  (Jeez, she could earn $40/month with her web
pages alone! :-)

Also, people can always turn off graphics-autoloading, so Backtalk
users wouldn't need to see the ads each time they read a response.
But if they don't load the image, I doubt Narrowcast's hit-counter
would to register the hit, so that would again lower the revenue
estimate above.

So on the whole, I don't think this would bring in enough revenue
to be worthwhile, unless we were to impose ads on user web pages,
which I don't think would go over well.

response 6 of 34:

Mar 2 18:50 UTC 1997

I too would rather we not go this route.

response 8 of 34:

Mar 2 20:43 UTC 1997

two thumbs down for technical reasons. even if the ads are served off their
computers, there's still the process of linking, and all the other stuff.
considering the speed at which grex's web-server already runs, I don't think
we need anything like that slowing us down.

response 10 of 34:

Mar 2 23:09 UTC 1997

I also think ads are a Bad Idea.

response 12 of 34:

Mar 3 00:02 UTC 1997

I would see such ads as rather annoying, and they would certainly cahnge hte
look and feel of the system quite a bit.  If they would allow Grex to be able
to afford vast hardware and net link upgrades, they might be worth it.  In
this case, though, it looks like it won't bring in all that much money, and
the disadvantages would far outweigh the advantages.

response 14 of 34:

Mar 3 02:12 UTC 1997

I'm against the idea in general.  I might be persuaded that it was good for
Grex, but nothing I've seen so far is persuasive.  

response 16 of 34:

Mar 3 05:55 UTC 1997

I don't like to turn down free money, but this is not free.  

I think the biggest problem with this plan is that it would make users feel
like grex is getting revenue from the ads and so donations are no longer
needed.  For that matter, even if ads could meet all of grex's needs, that
would be no substitute for our current user-based funding model.

That said, I fully support putting ads for CICnet in the MOTD and web pages
in exchange for services.  If we could strike a deal with Sun, Ameritech, or
any other such company for goods or services in exchange for ads, I would
favor that as well.  But grex should not start exchanging ads for cash.

response 18 of 34:

Mar 3 15:23 UTC 1997

Advertisingis already pervasive enough on the Web. There's no reason for Grex
to add to the cacophony. (In short, I concur with the majority opinion.)

response 20 of 34:

Mar 4 04:59 UTC 1997

Sounds like we've got a consensus here.  Cool.  It's been a while...

response 22 of 34:

Mar 4 09:39 UTC 1997

   a separate advertising page(s) might be worth looking into, but i'm with
the majority here when it comes to the idea of plunking ads on grex's page(s).

response 24 of 34:

Mar 4 19:34 UTC 1997

although feasible, allowing grex to become the vehicle for commercialism
in return for grex raking in a couple of bucks leaves me a chilly.
  
it's a nice offer, tha's for sure, but not for us, i think.

.:p

response 26 of 34:

Mar 6 07:04 UTC 1997

I suspected that this idea might not be well received. I think some of 
the objecions are well taken. perhaps not all, though. Given the degree 
of distaste for this, I will tell them we're not interested.

Still, I want to point out some flaws in the logic posted here, for what 
it's worth.

In resp:4 Rob argy counted all the pages on Grex. The offer applies only 
to Grex's home page. On our whole site, we get 5000 unique hosts / week 
out of 15000 hits/week. That's about 1 unique host for every three hits. 
On our home page, we get about 1200 hits/week, or 5000/month. If the 
same ratio for unique hits applies, that's 1700 unique hits to our home 
page per month. So cut those revenue figures by a factor of 10, I think.

Re: Resp:1 Scott, no one would have to add any links.

Re Resp:8 Snafu, the cost of linking is just a couple of characters over 
the link. Really no one would be able to notice the difference in 
network performance.

That said, I'm inclined to think this is a bad idea, too. But I have no 
obkjection to finding creative ways to earn money for Grex so we can 
make this a better place. I do not believe that alternative funding 
would replace memberships in any meaningful way.