Greetings Jonathan, > I have a few thoughts, Mike. Here goes: > > First, yes, I would be willing to make a modest financial contribution, > preferably via PayPal. However. . .
Thank you. I will let the community know when I'm ready to ask for donations. I don't see a point in doing it this soon since the list is paid up for the next few months already and I won't know until I've finished the legal/financial setup if I'm going to incur any additional costs of that sort... > Although I think that the non-commercial status is valuable, certain > kinds of carefully-chosen fund-raising might defer most of the costs of > a web-site format, and might even provide some modest research funds > distributable to those who have non-profit laboratories, such as Brooks. > Bradley. > Just as an arbitrary example, a PayPal link to Bob Berger's new book, > channeled through the SilverList, could include a small surcharge for > site maintenance. Yes. For one example, Amazon already provides an affiliate program that would pay us a small stipend if people buy a book by clicking one of our links. If the titles are carefully selected, I think this would work. As long as information and opinion is our only product, there's less gray area. > My point is that I don't think the integrity of the List would be > compromised by such a service, nor by links to, say, SilverGen or > SilverPuppy, provided that the exact financial relationship between > the list and the vendors was crystal clear to everyone. Yes and no. Up 'til now we've had no formal relationship with any of our vendor members. If they have a good product and are generous in their contributions to the list, their customers chime in with testimonials and they earn some new sales, I'm sure. My bigger concern is with government regulations. I hope that some of the folks with experience dealing with FDA/FTC enforcement issues will chime in on this topic. I'm concerned that as soon as you start to advertise topic related products on a site that will almost certainly be carrying 'health claims' about said products you're in trouble. Having a page with links to vendors and descriptions or reviews of some of their products, from a consumer standpoint, would be entirely different, in fact an obvious thing to do. Meanwhile, I imagine we'd have no problem with the law if I decided to run advertisements for, say, Craftsman socket wrenches! <grinnn> > A two hundred dollar purchase from a vendor might yield, say, two > dollars to the List. Or more. Or less. I am no businessman. Funny you should mention that, Jonathan! I've been approached with this exact suggestion from one of our loyal vendors. As much as I appreciate the support, unless I know it's safe I'm reluctant to do it. Your government at work... <sigh> > This discussion may soon need to move to the off-topic page, but I > wanted to put a few ideas out on the main page. > > NB that the excellent Whole Earth Review started a carefully-controlled > experiment with advertising, after many years of forbidding it. Done > properly, I think, some sort of arrangement of the kind I suggest could > make the List financially self-sustaining. I'm willing to look into all the options, Jonathan. I'm eager to hear anyone's experiences with regard to funding a site such as ours will be. Thanks! Be well, Mike D. [Mike Devour, Citizen, Patriot, Libertarian] [mdev...@eskimo.com ] [Speaking only for myself... ] -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com Address Off-Topic messages to: silver-off-topic-l...@eskimo.com The Silver List and Off Topic List archives are currently down... List maintainer: Mike Devour <mdev...@eskimo.com>
