Money and future fandom home(s)

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lirazel raised the issue that we'll have to look at no matter where we end up and how we do it in this comment.

trascendenza speaks here about some organizational modes and their financial implications.

Comments

[mecurtin]

I've looked at the financials for OTW (budget c. $500k and the Wikimedia Foundation (c $50M), and I think a Network of Our Own would fall between the two, with a budget of order of magnitude $5M/year (range $2M-$10M). More than 1/2 of this would be for staff: full-time, experienced project managers, for instance.

We should expect to have to pay for one year=$5M without seeing any site yet. This sounds like a Kickstarter to me. Probably someone who knows how to run this sort of project could outline the Kickstarter, levels, etc.

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Relaying a comment from a Pillowfort user who said they don't have the spoons to come here and participate directly, we also have to consider the issue of fans doing business. This was certainly an important part of tumblr fandom, both in terms of commissions as well as links to etsy shops, ko-fis, etc. Not to mention the distinction between "here buy my fanworks" and "I'm a fan and need some financial help."

AO3 of course prohibits business/commercial/financial content and can do so in a fairly clear manner because of their focus on text archiving. But a site that more holistically supports fandom is going to have to deal more directly with these issues, I think. I don't have answers on this one beyond raising the point that conducting business on the site might be distinguished from linking to sites where one does business. It's going to take consideration of all of the ways fandom does business to make sure that where we settle neither prohibits this entirely nor exposes the site to legal issues.