LinuxMusicians

Although modest, there are some costs associated with keeping this site running. Until now, I have footed this bill myself, with the help of several very generous donations by forum members. While this works, I have been reaching out to companies relevant to our community for sponsorship.

The post title gave it away: I'm happy to announce MOD Devices, famous for the Linux-based MOD Duo, has agreed to sponsor us to cover our costs. In return, I'll add a discrete note at the bottom-right of the forum, and introduce a new subforum to highlight and discuss new posts to the MOD blog. Additionally, we'll try to do something fun each half year, such as a contest or raffle.

Many thanks to the lovely people at MOD Devices!

For my personal taste, such small sponsor tag on bottom is fine, and it is ok to get similar sponsors.

falkTX wrote:Going to be as direct as I can be here, no joke.
I really hate it, and don't want to see it in things I personally use.
Either that, or don't count on me moderating this forum anymore.

I'm really bummed to hear this. As you well know you're one of the main driving forces behind this forum and an extremely valued leader here.

falkTX wrote:How much are the costs here? I am willing to pay it all from now on if it means taking advertising off here.

I've always been transparent about costs, and indeed they're very modest. I just feel it is more sustainable and reasonable to have them covered by a commercial entity rather than calling upon the community for this. Because the costs are so modest we don't have to be too dependent on the sponsor, and could easily part ways would they overstep any boundaries or when the relationship would otherwise turn sour.

I have been quite public about our costs and the fact that I've been looking for sponsorship, for example in this thread. It's a shame you didn't get in touch about it then.

I seem to remember you were at one point employed by this company and now are no more, so I actually reached out to you personally to check if there wasn't any bad blood there. For some reason we missed each other there and I figured it'd be fine - my mistake I guess.

I'm not sure yet how to handle this. Indeed the cooperation with MOD as described above would be a little beyond just "they give us money", but I genuinely thought this would be mutually beneficial.

If it comes down to it, you are more valuable to me than any sponsor. On the other hand, this has been in the making for a while and it would be disappointing to me to have to break it off now. Please give me some time to mull this over. If you have any additional perspective I'm interested to hear it.

I'm running a Hetzner server hosting some websites including projects and services like Calf, Guitarix, ShoutList and more at a load average of 0.05. I don't see a problem in hosting linuxmusicians there as well, even if the PHPBB will eat up some of the resources (we could do a test-run or something). This would reduce yearly costs to 19 Euro for the domain only. I would offer SSH access to an experienced and trusted person and don't want to see my name/logo/whatever shown in the footer in return. Just an idea to think about.

36 euro or 19 euro for a domain? Why are you using such overpriced registrars? I'm paying 9$ for .com.

Lyberta wrote:36 euro or 19 euro for a domain? Why are you using such overpriced registrars? I'm paying 9$ for .com.

While choosing business partners costs are a minor aspect to base my opinion on.

Could it be a solution to have the ad displaying only in the Marketplace section?

falkTX wrote:There are times where I dont check these forums very often, I think this was one of them.

No problem! I definitely don't see everything either

falkTX wrote:Just feels to me, being the costs modest as you say, we should not sell out for pennies and get ugly advertising and promotion to companies.
They have a lot more to gain than us from this, since the little money needed to show support is quickly recovered by a single sale.
Officially promoting a service or product would just make this place feel dirty, and in the end, unwelcome for me.
I can't see how we really benefit much. For me, seems really not worth the costs.

I don't think by arranging a sponsorship we're necessarily "officially promoting" the service/product. The logo at the bottom-right was more of a 'thank-you credit' than an 'ad' to me. Discussion of MOD blog posts could find their way into a subforum of "Marketplace" with a "full disclosure" note explaining the relationship.

Suppose I make the bottom-right shout-out a little less conspicuous and we group the content as I described in this post, would that still feel dirty/unwelcome?

I'm happy to toss in a couple of shekels, just let us know what kind of costs target we're trying to meet.

asbak wrote:I'm happy to toss in a couple of shekels.

Likewise. While I don't feel strongly about advertising, I respect falkTX's position and value his contribution to the community/forum far more highly than any sponsor.

I also think in future it would be a good idea to discuss thing like this before any deals are made.

I think the MOD is the best sponsor one could find for a Linux Musicians Forum, so first, respect to raboof that he managed that.
Why I think that? Because the MOD is the first commercial successful hardware device for musicians which ain't make a secret out of that they use Linux, and heavenly use and create Open Source, behind the scene. In opposite, they promote that in first place. Also they doing there work closely to the Open Source Community.
So, there is a relation ship between the MOD and LinuxMusicians, and it isn't just a ADD like doing from google addsense.

However, the presentation of the "ADD" in the footer is a bit loveless.
How about implement it in the header, but, only on the main page, and only for not login users. I mean then it could be a banner with nice images as well,

magicalex wrote:Likewise. While I don't feel strongly about advertising, I respect falkTX's position and value his contribution to the community/forum far more highly than any sponsor.

+1

tramp wrote:How about implement it in the header, but, only on the main page, and only for not login users. I mean then it could be a banner with nice images as well,

I was thinking the same thing, but maybe restricted to the Marketplace subforum, if that works for everybody.

uBlock Origin filter to block the ad:

Lyberta wrote:uBlock Origin filter to block the ad:

Code: Select all

###page-footer > div:nth-of-type(3)

Really? It's barely even noticeable.

I am absolutely against any advertisement of any form.

Instead we should try to raise the funds, even a in advance to have some headroom.
Donations should be anonymous from a certain threshold and if cooperations have an interest in helping still they can donate whatever they like.

Already now I strongly suggest running an adblocker in any case. This will get rid of any annoying MOD etc. stuff in any case.