Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
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I think that question is definitely a worthy cause, but entirely misplaced. As others said, they donated to Beehaw not to some other foundation or charity. Rainy day fund is better than an oh shit, we're broke moment. I am extremely grateful to those who have and continue to donate towards Beehaw's Cause. We need to make sure that money is used, when needed, as expected.
Let it ride.
That money should be used to keep the server(s) running, as well as expanding if/when needed. Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.
Yeah, I agree. You never know when you'll need the money for an emergency, so I think it makes sense to hold onto the funds for unexpected expenses in the future.
I suggest putting bounty awards or running contest (prizes) for open source software related to Beehaw.... even $50 for certain feature, make a dedicated website maybe (Beehaw Bounty .org or something)
As far as I can remember, that may be possible if/when we spool our framework, however, the Lemmy devs have said that they don't want people doing this. Do take this with a grain of salt as I know my memory isn't great.
I'd keep it liquid for the reasons already stated, and in a bank that behaves ethically. Money never really sits at rest in an account, the bank will invest it any way. Plenty of them don't have ethical considerations.
For example, if my info is not incorrect, in the Netherlands one of the largest banks only gave out loans to farmers who expanded their livestock, even if they were against it. Now they have their backs against the wall with emissions. So it was shortsighted and bad for the farmers, climate change, and animal rights, and it's been causing plenty of political issues here too.
Personally I think a little fiscal conservation would be wise at this point.
Costs can, and do eventually, rise. Hardware fails, and other things can happen as a surprise; and I'd rather that Beehaw not be insolvent when those things happen.
While I get the wish to do fun things to enhance the community; I think we need to be keeping an eye on things too. A few bad months where users are squeezed and unable to contribute could also severely impact Beehaw; particularly in and around monthly costs. At no point should Beehaw admins be paying out-of-pocket for things if Beehaw itself as an organization has the funds to properly pay things.
If we do genuinely have too much funding in excess; examining how we could expand Beehaw or make it better is another way you can responsibly re-invest the funds into making Beehaw better.
Additional servers/services might be neat; things like:
Of course such things could also require additional staff on hand, so I understand that you might want to entice someone to help manage these extra things first.
Beehaw has enough to run without any additional donations for the next two years at the current costs so the finances of that seems well enough.
That said, I don't feel comfortable spending money donated to Beehaw for things non-Beehaw related.
As for expanding in other services.. Well, we already have enough trouble with Lemmy, I would not want to add more moderation hurdles personally.
Mastodon, for example, would have far better moderation tools than lemmy. As for your concerns with "Adding more moderation hurdles", genuinely I feel recruiting more mods before and while you spin up a service is fine. That may mean you take time to pick them out and train them right. That's fine. But I don't think moderation challenges are insurmountable.
I agree with everyone saying "donations are for running the server, use as intended", although I like the idea of the tiny mod-team getting a small monthly stipend or something. Maybe consider adding "5% of donations are divided among the mods for coffee and therapy" to the donation info text? 🤔
A compromise, in regards to charity, could be a community-based effort of some sort — everyone votes to pick a quarterly charity, and it's promoted as a stickied post:
"The Beehaw community has voted to support ~~X~~ [insert charity] * for this quarter, please support it if you can"
* Ugh, can't believe fucking Elon ruined a whole letter, and one of the cool ones, at that 🤢
I'm not sure. If we were too, I think we should have at least $10k saved up. But even then I'm not sure if we really should be. I wonder if it will reduce the number of donations. I'm not sure if everyone donating would be OK with their donations being redirected somewhere else, especially if the charity is seen as controversial by the donor.
I think a possible work around would be to donate to the maintainers of the software we use. That shouldn't be controversial. (but someone will probably find a way to be offended by that...)
If we do, well defined rules are a must. Like how we determine how much to donate every month, and to who.
Side note: The money is invested and earning interest, right? It's not hard to get 5% right now and that's a few hundred bucks a year.
I'd hope some of it gets socked away for any possible time in the future when costs may be greater.
As for the rest of it, I'd like to see it used to grow the platform - marketing to increase user base, more developers, etc. Whatever makes sense.
With £6k you're not gonna afford one developer, honestly, but I agree with you
Does the lemmy project have a foundation like blender or godot? Might not be big enough
Some charity donations would be cool, maybe each month a different community could vote for a charity
Yeah, I like the idea of a rotation of charities.
Yeah but doesn't beehaw want to move away from Lemmy? Doesn't seem like it's in their best interest.
...behave want too nice away from Lemmy?
^^^ Brand new sentence!
We are discussing moving Beehaw off of the Lemmy platform, yes.
Hah, I use swipe, and my vision is dying. I get so many typos these days.
I'd rather Beehaw didn't leave Lemmy outright; but I can hardly fault anyone for looking into other alternatives and spinning them up alongside the current Lemmy instance, getting that new thing up and thriving and then slowly migrating away from giving Lemmy so much attention.
Hmm, maybe some forum platform would be a good alternative? I feel like the Reddit format of Lemmy focuses more on news, rather than the forum format which is more about deeper discussions... Just an idea.
Well yeah, but I don’t really want that
If anything, I would say a percentage should go back to ActivityPub development.
ETA: I say this as a (small) monthly contributor, but I can only speak for myself.
If you gamble it then you could 13,000 in the coffer.
As we all know, 90% of gamblers go home before making it big
If you win its basically free money 💰
Is there not a way to put this money toward making the fediverse/beehaw situation work? I know you can't just throw money at problems to make them go away, but I can't help but feel as though there must be some way to use the money on making fedi work for beehaw long term.
As an aside, I've been absolutely dying to donate to the beehaw project because it provides me a lot of value but have been holding off because the continued existence on the fediverse has been up in the air
Save it up
I agree with everyone saying it should be used for things relating to Beehaw.
The plans to move to other platform are still ongoing, aren't they? I guess that would take time and resources...
Also, I know it's much work, but having another server in a different type of software wouldn't be a bad idea.
Or whatever you feel that would be useful, but the money donated for Beehaw should be used on Beehaw related things.
what if the extra went into something that could generate income and be a buffer against unforeseen events? at 1% thats $65/mo, which isn't a king's ransom but it also isn't nothing.