The future of OTF

[NHH]

If anyone wanted some help getting the legal side of things sorted, I'd be happy to help. We could pootle along with a common or garden unincorporated association but that works fine until it doesn't work (the latter caused by things very common on the interweb, such as flame wars and flounces or legal takedown actions) or get a Community Benefit Society which gives legal personality, or possibly a Company Limited by Guarantee.

[Duncan Gardner]

Great thread. Think I agree with our Uruguayan correspondent and everyone else. ?3 a month is just a box of Aldi stubbies

Anyway...we have a mystery benefactor (and senior though currently resting OTF-er). The only demand is that yours truly is restricted to the crossword megathread

Gon...er, the MysBen is offering a cool one-off million quid (so a hundred grand for each of his banned accounts....)

[EIM]

How much is it a year to run then?

[EIM]

Set up an OTF Only Fans, and finance the board through nob pictures?

[Diable Rouge]

I've been contributing to the WSC Patreon thinking that part of that found its way to OTF. I'm not saying that I feel ripped off, but I'd be happy to just buy a WSC subscription and then have a monthly donation going to OTF.

Likewise - and like Logan, a few things I could cut back on to stretch to same.

[jwdd27]

I obviously wasn't paying attention a few years ago when we changed back to OTF, as I thought the WSC affiliation had ended then. And obviously I gave no thought as to who paid for it.

I'm poor but can stretch to 3 quid a month, I'll just cut back on the horses a bit, or start winning a bit more. Probably the former.

I'd be in favour of the totally free access, but also if we can research somewhere cheaper and equally/more secure then fine.
Diacritics would be nice, too.

[Incandenza]

I've been contributing to the WSC Patreon thinking that part of that found its way to OTF. I'm not saying that I feel ripped off, but I'd be happy to just buy a WSC subscription and then have a monthly donation going to OTF.

[Logan Mountstuart]

278 GBP / year? Given I'm sure there have been at least a few voluntary contributions, that means probably less than 10 of us actually subscribed to the original 2 pound/ month PayPal request of 3 or 4 years ago. But read that thread and there was a lot of earnest goodwill...

For anyone abroad, 2 GBP comes through to me as 2.34 Euro on PayPal. OK, a bit of a rip off, but less than a quarter of a packet of chewing gum per month on the exchange rate at its worst.

If you think that you get a better dissection of the truth here than you do from any paywalled, vested - interest newspaper, or The Guardian, or state run TV station or social media? If this is one of the first places you turn to when you really want proper reaction to anything current or breaking then cough up the cash. 2 quid per month.

Even if if this is just a comfortable refuge, or you lurk here simply to laugh at the hopeless, misguided lefty old fat bastards.

If people have doubts about PayPal, then fine, do it through Patreon or find another way.

If 50 of us gave 2 pound per month. If 50 of us gave 5 pound per month? If we agree to give a short term donation to at least let the board decide in the long run what to do?

I would cut Netflix, or Amazon or any other twatty gits demanding a slice of my hard earned money.

OTF would be the last subscription I would ever cut. It's the only remaining place where I really have to think before I open my big gob. Where I really give a fuck what people think about what I say, and, I'll be honest, where I've found the answers to my instincts on things like Brexit, and Covid and Grenfell, and The Wire.

I've been massively helped by people on here, more than they could really know. And I hope I've helped one or two people too. I disliked GMan when I first arrived. Now I count him as one of the people I most admire. I know a beautiful lady in New York and am intimate with her animals. I've watched Hobbes grow from a desperate, lonely wreck one night to the bloke he is now. I didn't know any of that Melody Maker lot at all before I came here. I love Nishlord and Nefertiti equally.

It looks like this is the time to stop wringing hands and cough up a couple of quid. And yes, always free at source and no adverts, or it may as well die gracefully.

And I can't be an admin because I'm an emotional, anti - social hours, truck driving drama queen.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Happy to contribute. I agree with the costing excercise, depending on numbers, the yearly amount could change a bit. That said, always good to have a bit in reserve.

[Lang Spoon]

Or they are just rightfully sick of us. Especially you.

[Lang Spoon]

Surely they wouldn't assume legal liability for merely linking to us.

[wingco]

As to the question of whether there continue to be a WSC association, I think there should be; a sort of honorary affiliation, in view of the long history of WSC/OTF, signified by the retention of the little chap in the logo and perhaps mutual links.

[Auntie Beryl]

Have to admit I cancelled my ?2/month contribution when I went freelance a couple of years ago and things were looking uncertain. Only too happy to reinstate, go to ?30 a year, etc.

[wingco]

Yes, all I'd want for my money is that the board continue, preferably ad-free, and be free at the point of use.

[ursus arctos]

I very much agree with ChrisJ on the board being free at the point of use and am confident that we can develop a model that will allow that to continue to be the case going forward

[wingco]

Ah sorry, ?30 per annum, at least. There is a donations page and no reason why I couldn't have donated to that but they're easy to overlook, put off, evidently not that effective. An initiative like this I think would be much more so.

[Various Artist]

Blimey, I think the Wing Commander's just offered to cover the whole lot there. Steady on chief.

Anyway, I'm not rich (or sporting, or wom, etc.) but I'd happily chip in either a small amount per month or a larger lump sum per year – if possible I'd prefer either thing to be an option as it would be nice to know people have alternative ways of doing it.

I know the donation model can be very hit or miss in general, but I think there's plenty enough goodwill around here to let us raise sufficient funds per month. Oddly I think it might actually help if we (WSC/Snake) are able to nail down an actual figure, so that the annual/monthly upkeep cost could be published – I get the feeling that if the regular users are able to see just how much (or, perhaps counterintuitively) how little is needed then it'll spur people to donate, as they can actually see how much of an effect they'd be able to have, just like that.

[ChrisJ]

I will vote for free at point of use for all forums. First off, I think there is the risk that new or dormant posters would be put off by any subscription model (I avoid websites where it's not easy to opt out of cookies, let alone paying). A shrinking pool of posters is the end of the board anyway. Secondly, while I have no idea of others' financial circumstances, I have an idea that some of my favourite posters might be put off if they were having to subscribe. It would be good if the mechanism for donations was a flexible as possible, bearing in mind the international spread of members.

I'd prefer no ads but would tolerate some if that's the only way to keep the board running and free.

What about ad free for paying subscribers and ads for those that don't pay?

This is a good idea to investigate, but I thing Ad Hoc may have it right about the low traffic here.

But, I don't know how it would be possible to have subs and open access. If there was a dispute between posters and one was paying and one wasn't then that would be problematic. Also if people pay subs there would have to be much clearer processes around bans for bad behaviour and stuff. We end up in contract territory. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

I'm sure something could be written somewhere clarifying that while the board welcomes donations, it doesn't bestow privileges or immunity. If people are so difficult or unpleasant that they have have to be banned and their subs lost, so be it. IIRC, the Say Something in Welsh forum, which is part of people's actual livelihood, deleted racist posts by a member who threatened to withdraw his subs. They responded by cancelling his membership, returning his money and suggesting that anyone else who didn't like a racism-free board was welcome to leave as well. (I think I have that story right. PT will prob know.) Anyway, I'd like to feel OTF would be as comfortable in putting principle ahead of expediency.

I can't offer to help with admin or modding, sorry, I would be bad at it and find it incredibly stressful, but I will set up a small monthly payment to wherever gets decided. I'm a sporadic poster, but OTF is a great source of information, ideas and support and I would hate to lose it.

[wingco]

Count me in as someone who would happily pay ?30 a month, or whatever.

[ad hoc]

Do ads make much money? We've got a dedicated group of users who spend hours of time here every day (or a good number of minutes anyway) and who click through link after link. But we don't have that many unique users as a whole.

That doesn't strike me as an especially good proposition for advertisers.

Mind you perhaps we could ask fjallraven to sponsor us

[Antepli Ejderha]

What about ad free for paying subscribers and ads for those that don't pay?

[longeared]

My initial reaction to the OP was that it would have to be subs or ads in some way. I know a lot of people have argued against this but WSC (who sound as if they have kept OTF going for far longer than they could have done given all the circumstances) have shown that the donation model doesn't work in terms of current funding. What happens if we go down the donations route and there's a shortfall, are we going to have some people having to go round constantly reminding for donations? "we need another fifty quid this month or the board disappears", that sort of thing. I quite liked the idea up thread of having football as a free forum and everything else paywalled.

My sense is that WSC do a lot of heavy lifting that would switch to the collective when their involvement ends - things such as spam removal, hosting, knowledge of libel (although this place is nowhere near as wild as it used to be), technicals, visits from our Indonesian friends etc. There'd be no WSC safety net to deal with any of these and we'd need good quality admins to deal with these things.

I know WSC have said that there's "no timeframe" but presumably they already have an idea of when they intend to pull up the drawbridge. What sort of window are we broadly looking at? Easter? The Euros assuming they happen? Christmas?

[Guy Profumo]

for reasons which defy logic, I'd held off donating because I'd got it into my head it was taking money in USD rather than GBP

('Happy to chip in the suggested 30 a year)

[Antepli Ejderha]

https://www.onetouchfootball.com/donate/

The donation page link in case anyone is interested.

[Snake Plissken]

I say if we have more than we need we pay Snake

Not a chance. Stick it in the bank account. (Which I'm having a think about - are there still completely free bank accounts out there for this sort of thing? Very low volume of transactions per month.)