Re: Shutting down this site as Jonah has offered may be an excellent idea

This is an archived post from the old bulletin board. For new posts, see the forum.

Posted by Jonah (64.114.149.212) on October 03, 2003 at 06:29:57:

In Reply to: Shutting down this site as Jonah has offered may be an excellent idea posted by Stuart Gilman on October 03, 2003 at 04:49:22:

A critical examination of this site indicates the possibility that it may be financed by non-Bahais
A less critical examination brings one to the front page of the site, where since 1997 it has stated: "This is an independent site maintained by Jonah Winters and a team of contributors. It is not endorsed by any Bahá'í institution." Up until December 2000 this notice was at the top of the page and mentioned financial non-support, too: "This library is a private, independent site. It and its content is wholly unofficial and is not sponsored or endorsed by any Bahá'í body or institution."

and is intended to misrepresent Bahai to non-Bahais and to insidiously create covenant breakers among Bahais.
Stuart, you guessed it!!

it is time that there be a greater transparency as to the financial and other supports this site receives
In March I received a donation of $75 from a Baha'i. Sometime this summer Stuart gave me $25, as he has publicly mentioned. Thank you very much, Stuart. In August I received $110 from a Baha'i (after conversion from francs). Total: $210 for the year to date.

Let's calculate salary, which Stuart brought up in a posting I've since deleted: programming alone was 200 hours from July 15-September 1. I kept track. Then another 75 hours since. This spring, getting the old data in shape to migrate took most of four months, let's say another 200 hours, and 105 hours importing info for each record one-by-one (10 minutes per, I'm on record #610 out of #2030). Then of course there was my PHP course, 80 hours. Add 65 hours moderating the Bulletin Board (15 minutes/day for 9 months) and 270 other phone and email correspondence (1 hour/day for 9 months), and we're at 995 hours.

Salary is thus $210/995 hours, or 21 cents/hour.

Now deduct expenses: the server is $30/month, two domain names are $10/year each, and my course was $550 (US$ equiv). Total US$600 - $210 = deep loss. I fear I won't be paying my salary this year.

Is there anything else you would like to be transparent? I'll tell you anything but the PHP code, which obviously must be kept secure.

-Jonah

addendum:People have asked why I responded to this. Truth be told, I'm glad Stuart asked! No-one could possibly know or believe how much time and cost goes into this project, and perhaps my stating it on the record will inspire some users to donate to help cover at least this year's operating expenses. PLEASE!!


this topic is closed - post at bahai-library.com/forum

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