Sorry, folks, JtC was so kind to reactivate my account so that I can write my response to Johnny's "House for Sale" diary.

From what I have read so far, there are several suggestions of how to prevent the "sale" to actually happen. I do not want this site to be sold. It's JtC's and Joe's baby and we are the village folks who help raising that kiddo.

The best suggestion, imo, is the suggestion by daveincleveland to build an "Ad Hoc Caucus99 Compensation Committee" to gather a peoples' ongoing-fund-guaranteeing group.

Let me explain a little bit why I think that is necessary to have such a group and committee.
Back in the days in 1995/6 I had a full time job at a wire service agency as whatever kind of office and research assistant. The building I worked in was the first to get the broadband internet access cabling, so that all news agencies (it's the National Press Building in Washington DC) got high speed internet access. That was either 1994 or 1995. So, I discovered the intertubes. And was thrilled and fascinated. I started dreaming of building my own website from scratch at my spare time at home. I did that and it was "yuuuge amount of work" (just writing html from scratch and no other skills). I paid a coder, who developed the first free shopping card to make that side functional for customers. It came to the point I wanted to switch from giving up my day-time job (a secure but lowly paid job in a nice work atmosphere with kind colleagues and stuff) from full-time to half-time, so that I actually could write code for my side alone and sell my goods and support the site administratively myself with only very minor expenses for the emergencies I wouldn't be able to fix myself. Don't forget I think that was like the stone ages of the www world.

My boss said "No". I either work full-time for him, or I don't work at all. After being "four weeks in business" I knew I would never make money with that thing. Mr. Ueber Capitalist XYZ killed that thing (the guy is a 0.1 percenter).

So, even without being in any way a techie or a writer, I kind of know how it feels to be in JtC's and/or Joe's situation. So much for the backdrop.

I have gone watching myself and others going through blog writing and commenting activism on dailykos and here. I watched people in TV news production environment and developed a sense for visual communication just by being exposed to it closer than just being a common TV watching consumer.

My conclusion is:
1.that communication among people is a basic human emotional need and reaching out to others is as important as food for your physical health. One blogger on dailykos said once that he/she thinks the most important thing is that "communication happens". That means that anything that prevents it from happening is not desirable. We do want to talk, right?

2. online communication is deeply lacking as it blocks out 80 percent or more of normal real space person to person which is transferred through body language and facial expression etc.

3. anonymity online is necessary, but imo dangerous, as most people can't control what the good Germans call your their inner "Schweinehund", meaning if nobody can catch you and you can get away with anything you say or do, your inner "Schweinehund" gets mightily seduced to do just that, being a Schweinehund (something a little more "dreckig" than a usual "jerk".)

4. that the behavior of your "inner Schweinehund" hurts the readers, listeners and watchers (visuals can hurt as a much as words).

So, there is a need to somehow get a balance in controlling the seductive powers of your anonymous blog communication with the need to communicate as freely and uncensored as possible. Here now comes in the poor guy/gal who has to "monitor" all of your communication. A horrible work, if you ask me.

So, horrible, especially if that person also has to technically keep the site going and working to the many "desires" of its spoiled users, that

THIS PERSON NEEDS TO GET PAID
and not only paid but having the security that he/she gets the salary paid on time and be certain that it's coming in.

Therefore I am all in for "Fund Guarantee Mechanism" by the users of this site.

We are used to read all stuff for free online. Everybody is just worried to have a yuuge enough group of followers. I think people deceive themselves about that being really so important. I think what is needed are a couple of good writers and enough regularly paying members.

I could imagine a mechanism to work like this:

1. You are a lurker, reader only. You have no rights to comment, write or search the sites archives (heh, I was one day a lurker and started crying that I couldn't search old EBs on this site anymore).
Ok, this lurker has not to pay anything. Not that this is really fair either. You wouldn't get any print newspaper for free, would you? But apparently that's what it is. If you "print" in digits it's expected to be free. Basically that is unsustainable.

2. You are a member, but know you never would want to write a diary, but would like to engage in communication with other members in the comment thread. I think that's a privilege (considering that you can really talk a lot without repercussions, even if it's bs) to have and somehow, something you should pay for it. Very little, but something. Freedom of Speech in a kind and safe environment cant' be totally for free.

3. You are a member and you want to have the right to post your diaries as well as to comment and use all the bells and whistles the site has to offer. Oh yes, I think you should pay for that privilege a little bit more, but still not too much.

Most seem to be scared to not have too many interesting writers to post diaries. I think that fear is not really justified. Most people want to write and post. And hopefully not be bullied or put down for whatever they write as long as it is at a basic level of civility.

It's a privilege imo to post several diaries a day. So, that member, imo, should pay a little fee for that privilege.

I am sure you hate my opinion, right? But you wouldn't expect to ride the bus without paying for a ticket, so why do you think you can ride the internet highway's most fun sites for free?

It seems to be that the lowest amount people will be able to afford is $3.00 a month. The next level would be something around $5.00 a month. I myself am on a $10.00 monthly schedule with some extras, if I feel like it's needed. Others indicate they could afford $20.00 to $25.00 a month.

Let's say we want to give JtC a salary of $ 4000.00 a month (Sir, that is still an acceptable salary, right?), it would mean we need
800 people to give $5.00 a month
400 people to give $ 10.00 a month
200 people to give $ 20.00 a month
160 people to give $ 25.00 a month
100 people to give $ 40.00 a month

So, for those who can't afford $5.00 a month, they need to ask for a sponsor so that they can participate on the site. People who can afford to make a monthly minimum contribution of $5.00 for someone else, should shout out.

I don't think the salary for JtC should be dependent exclusively on "fundraiser drives". It's not secure enough for a man to depend on that kind of non guaranteed income for a full-time job for a longer time period.

Basically people who can't afford to pay $ 3.00 also could not afford to park their car or buy a bus ticket. They need our help and not being excluded. Paying a monthly fee for the privilege to throw any comment or diary on the site might help some to not overdo their participation.

Well, I know, JtC had told me before that any sort of mandatory fee would be out of the question. To which I say, basically your project to provide a site with so much free (and funny) conversation as we have seen here before, will be out of the question to maintain, unless you want not only take C99p to the funeral in a casket but JtC as well.

I think it's an exploitation of a do-gooder volunteer skilled person to allow that person to work for free for you 24h/7d.

And I haven't even talked about Joe's EB and some other regular wonderful OT and series writers here. Of course I wouldn't ask those writers to pay anything, as long as they committed to go on writing in a series. They should be at least tipped with some dough.

But I don't know about a mechanism technically to accomplish that.

Personally, I really, really come here for the collection of news in the EB and the many links to articles and books, mentioned in other diaries or comments. That's for me the real value. If it's even funny and comes with great musical offerings, ha, I would pay for that too.

So, I think there is a diary from dallasdoc for a fundraiser etc. I am on a 10.00 per month schedule on three or four sites. That was easy for me to do as long as I worked and up til last year. It gets tighter now. But I now consider to stop to donate to one site and use it to increase my monthly C99p payment to 20.00 a month.

I use payal with direct withdrawal from my bank account. I wished there would be an extra bank account for C99p for just transferring money from bank to bank.

People, who can afford to pay something in a lump sum quarterly, annually might help give JtC a more safe feeling as well.

So, I hope you can set up something like the group of guaranteed fund raising people through that committee daveincleveland suggested.