Since 2011 Village14’s readership has steadily grown. For the last 9 years the site’s hosting has been taken care of at no cost to us thanks to Jon Shubow and Serpcom. They’ve covered our costs by selling ads on the site.
Due to changing circumstances that is no longer possible. From here on out we’ll need to pay $99 per month to keep the site running and on-line.
To fund the operation of Village14 for the next year we’ve just kicked off a $1500 GoFundMe campaign. If you are a regular reader or contributor please make a donation, big or small, so we can keep Village14 running for the next year.
Done!
Though I am happy and prepared to donate, I am wondering why Village 14 suddenly cannot use advertisements, the standard method to fund such enterprises, to cover its modest operating expenses. What has changed, and why can’t that information be shared on the blog?
…and what happened to my photograph?!
Wait.. this site wasn’t sponsored by Northland, Korff and the Newton chamber of commerce all these years? Shocking…
But seriously, as a tech person $99 a month sounds high to me. I thought AWS was way cheaper, especially if you have high school level tech skills
https://pubwp.com/estimating-costs-wordpress-amazon-aws/
I’ll donate if I get to post vs having my “guest posts” censored or rejected. 🙂
@Bugek – You are correct that if one of us wanted to take technical responsibility for the site’s operation, we could host the site for substantially less that $99/month.
$99 is not only for the hosting fee. Serpcom takes care of all tech support 24-7. When features get changed or added, when the site goes down for a mysterious reason, when any of the myriad issues that come up month-to-month, one email to Serpcom magically gets it sorted out promptly. That’s primarily what we’re paying for … and you’d have to pay me more than that to take that responsibility on 😉
I think I’ve contributed to the recent increase in readership. (Interesting comments, conservative balance, generate lively debate.)
Am happy to contribute!
Donated.
Good luck
I’d contribute if you get the “Like”function working. Either fix it for everyone or turn it off all together
Donated. Thank you for this forum.
@Claire – we’re working on the Like button. It’s just been turned off as you suggested. With luck it will be back soon.
@Jerry Reilly,
I actually prefer the lack of the “like” button. I’m now into crowd think, don’t care if people like or dislike, and reminds me of a popularity contest. So, with that said, I think it is quite nice this way.
Correction should read *not into crowd think* – fast fingers, slow eyes…
Ding, ding, ding, ding – We just hit our goal for the year in five hours!!
Thanks so much to all of you who donated. Not only are we delighted to have the cash to run the site for the next year but it’s great to know you all value what we do here.
Now its time to open a bank account and pay our bill.
Thanks
… and no.
There were no donations for from Korf, Northland, the Leaf Blower Assn of America, or any elected officials. All contributions were from individual readers and contributors to Village14.
Thank you.
Congrats!
One question – Bob Jampol asked what changed about ad revenue and I’m sure a lot of us have that same question. I hope you’ll answer it.
@Meredith – Maybe Greg can weigh in on that.
Thanks for the question Meredith and Bob. I was so blown away and gratified by everyone’s generosity that I overlooked Bob’s question.
The folks at Serpcom could perhaps answer this better than I could, but the ads that appear here are randomly placed by a service that sells ads at a very low cost to advertisers who have minimal say in where or when they will be seen. (As opposed to ads sold specifically for a specific site and time). Increasingly the market for web ads in general, and these remnant ads in particular, has shrunken as advertisers turn to Google, Facebook, earned media and other ways to reach eyeballs.
Basically that’s an imprecise way to saying those ads don’t generate a lot of money. Serpcom has been hosting Village 14 for some time at a loss and that needed to change.
The bloggers at Village 14 are unpaid. We take none of the ad revenue and don’t want it. When Serpcom came asking for our help, we concluded that we could either sell ads ourselves (and we didn’t want to do that!) or ask our community for help. That lead to the Go Fund me effort, which went remarkably well. Again, thanks to everyone who contributed!
BTW, we get pitched almost daily by marketers (not Newton based) that would pay us to post threads they write. We never take them up on that.
What Matt said. I’ll contribute when I (or anyone else who doesn’t toe the ‘party’ line) is allowed to post, completely uncensored, in a timely fashion. Everyone should insist on this before they contribute. P.S. : @Greg: ref : “marketers (who) pay us to post threads they write”: they just have you ghost it. With a heaping helping of gaslighting, LoL.
Being accused of not allowing folks with differing views to participate on Village 14 is, um, ridiculous.
But don’t take my word for it, all you have to do to is read the comments here on any given day to see that this is not true.
We created Village 14 as a place for folks to share their perspectives on all things Newton. That’s why we exist. Censoring different perspectives is antithetical to our mission.
It’s a bizarre accusation.
“Bizarre accusation”? ‘Fraid not. Dig into your emails, V-14-ers. Find my name and requests. Tell me they were followed up on. (Amy Sangiolo can vouch for me on this). I’m waiting.
Ahhh I see Pat. You complained about censoring different points of view but what you really mean is we were censoring you! Funny, I see lots of comments from you here. I personally have no knowledge or memory of you submitting something. But given that most of your comments are usually just rants. I suspect we’re not missing much.
Meanwhile, this blog has posted guest posts from Matt, Jim Epstein and many others. We’ve also invited Right Size many times to submit a guest post. They never do. And our core of bloggers — Jerry, Amy, the Bobs (Burke and Jampol), Paul Levy, Chuck, Adam, Sean, Marti, Gail, etc. reflect a lot of different perspectives.
So basically nothing to see here.
I want to thank those of our readers who contributed to help keep V14 running. I’m glad you feel the site is beneficial and that you’re here too.
Pat Irwin and Matt Lai, we accepted all donations without any strings attached. Doing otherwise wouldn’t be ethical. There’s no “pay for play” involved.
One person’s rant is another person’s affirmation, eh Greg?! Depends on where you sit. @Greg: back atcha: there’s been plenty of your posts I (and others) have characterized as rants. Yes, alternative viewpoints are posted. What happens when they do? They’re attacked by a school of pyrranahs. Not exactly supportive of ‘fair and balanced’. BTW – you’re doing the dodge. “Having no knowledge or memory” doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Ask Amy, as I said.
@Pat Irwin – I did as you said and searched my email for your name. I found a question from Amy Sangiolo about whether you could do a guest post. My response was “Sure tell Pat to just send the guest post and its headline to me and I’ll take care of it.” and gave my email and phone .
I never received neither an email or a phone call from you after that. Feel free any time to contact me at [email protected]
@Jerry: this was older. Apparently it got bulked :/ Appreciate your reaching out.
Gee now Pat, wasn’t that easier than falsely accusing us of censorship?
Speaking as an occasional V14 commenter who previously worked as a Web Developer, I would like to mention that if the V14 bloggers are willing to pay any company $99/month for hosting/maintenance, they should ask for a written agreement as to what this fee will entail. As has already been mentioned, $99/month is expensive for hosting and maintaining a very basic WordPress blog (like V14), and for that amount, I would expect a number of things.
First, I would ask for an uptime guarantee (I have experienced numerous instances of prolonged downtime when attempting to visit V14, which I would never accept for anything other than a “free” service). There should also be a review of the suitability of the current WordPress theme and plugins, or lack thereof, for example, the comment upvote plugin. I don’t understand why Serpcom can’t get this feature working. It isn’t rocket science, and when I don’t have time to write comments, I like to up-vote other people’s comments to express agreement with their viewpoint.
Also, since you are now paying to host the blog, can we request additional features, such as threaded commenting? Allowing commenters to reply directly to a comment would allow readers/commenters who want to “skip over” views they disagree with a way to follow the main discussion without reading sub-discussions which upset them. Threaded commenting would also make it easier for Newton residents to converse with one another on the topics raised on this blog.
With respect to censorship, I mostly lurk here because I have been censored by having a blogger make an untrue comment about something I said, after which he immediately closed comments for the post so that I could not defend myself, or even continue a discussion I was having with another commenter. So far, I haven’t been banned outright, but as a political Moderate (not a Liberal), I do not feel that my views are welcome on V14. So, each time I write a comment here, I expect to discover that I have been banned. I would probably participate more on this blog if I wasn’t made to feel unwelcome. In any event, I’ll read the blog and will wait to see how things go with respect to various viewpoints being respected here.
What Ubiety said. V-14 would do well to take it to heart. 😉
Ubeity, instead of trashing your comment because you are breaking our commenting rules, I decided to reply.
Your choice of an anonymous name tells us your you must be omnipresent on V14 – but that doesn’t mean you are allowed to toss around any ole accusation willy nilly such as “I have been censored by having a blogger make an untrue comment about something I said.”
Or complain about things that a cursory glance at this blog shows is untrue, such as, “as a political Moderate (not a Liberal), I do not feel that my views are welcome on V14,”
Or add features that contradict our policy that all voices are not only welcome but sought out in an attempt to have civil discussions of the issues facing Newton, as long as they follow the commenting rules,
such as, “ Allowing commenters to reply directly to a comment would allow readers/commenters who want to “skip over” views they disagree with a way to follow the main discussion without reading sub-discussions which upset them.”
We considered threaded commenting before. I’m not a fan and I suspect most regulars here wouldn’t be either. I prefer begin able to scan one conversation and skipping over the comments from regulars that I find uninteresting.
Ubiety just continue posting, Overtime folks are actually fairly welcoming here. Posts rarely get closed, and it is usually when folks have gotten personal. It is frustrating when a post gets closed if you are one of the ones who is involved in a heated discussion, but I don’t oppose the practice sometimes because some comment sections get rather circular and we all talk past each other. Sometimes the blog needs to take a rather big breath.
Just keep posting. There are a lot of conservative and moderate commentators. Although I know that the some of the conservative ones do tend to complain consistently… while posting consistently… 😉
@Ubiety. What Fig said. Hang in there. You say that understanding “word press”, “uptime guarantees” etc. isn’t rocket science Perhaps. but some of it is well beyond this 83 year old who was wedded to an 1920s vintage Underwood typewriter until well into the late 1990s. I really do try and focus most closely on the views of those I might disagree with because there’s always a chance they might be right. . Incidentally, that old Underwood was first used in Boston’s Democratic Headquarters when Al Smith was running for President in 1928. It got almost 50 years of good use before finally rusting out.
I don’t have a feel for Riverside, but my overall take on Northland continues to be mixed. I think the plan for what’s inside the project is pretty sound, even innovative in spots. It’s a plus for those who will live or work within the development itself. My problem continues to be with unresolved impacts outside the development, mainly traffic and congestion problems affecting the fragile Upper Falls neighborhood and with the cumulative effects of this and other development proposals on our already overstretched public transportation system . I know there are plans contending that transit improvements will be able to accommodate this growth in the year ahead. I’m skeptical based on past performance and by so many other pressing demands that are being placed on the T.
Ubiety
Paying $99 PER month for hosting this site is like buying a burger from mcDonalds for $99 because you didn’t want to walk 2 extra block to by a $3 burger from wendys.
I can’t understate how ‘ripped off’ you are being for paying $99 a month. It should only be like $10 a month with 0.01% downtime via AWS (Amazon Web Services). .. but I do understand the need for not being bothered to deal with all this, I’m pretty sure you could find a similar company to do it for 1/3rd of the cost
… because Sepcom is literally fleecing (think $300 dollars for a oil change for a Honda Civic level fleecing) you given the basic technical nature of this website
This is ridiculous.
SerpCom hosted this site for free for nine years. Now we’re paying them to do something that, sure, we could probably do cheaper on our own. But we don’t want to do it on our own.
Anyone who thinks we’re paying doesn’t have to donate.
Heck, you can stop visiting if it really offends you so much.
Really, don’t like it, start your own blog. I hear it won’t cost much, so what’s stopping you?
Thanks again to the generous folks who donated.
This thread is closed.