Summary

Discussion of methods to allow Mike Mol to recover his costs relating to running RC.[[Summary::Discussion of methods to allow Mike Mol to recover his costs relating to running RC.| ]]

Discussion

I'm moving forward on sales of things like T-shirts and coffee mugs. Currently, the output venue is planned to be Cafe Press, which offers a variety of options for stamping pictures on. Some graphics work is being done to have images to put on things, but I'm going to want your help for some of it.

Plans

Current plans are to divide the image sets into four general concepts:

Core image -- A logo similar to the one currently at the upper-left of the wiki, though the background is going to be something I call the "multilingual" background when talking with the graphics designers.
Lingual sets -- A set of images where a phrase or idea is represented in as many languages as possible. Each image in the set represents the idea in its focus language, would have the core image off in a corner somewhere, and the background would be multilingual.
Monthly competitive -- Periodic updated images representing some ongoing competition. Core image in a corner, multilingual background. Examples include:
- (language) had the most implemented tasks
- (language) was in the top N for most implemented tasks
- A top ten list of languages with the most implemented tasks
General programmer -- multilingual background, core image in a corner, and a singular phrase (not translated for different languages).

--Michael Mol 02:25, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Where I need help

What I really would like help with is coming up with ideas for what to put on the lingual sets and general programmers. I can't offer any money for the ideas or their use; I don't even know that this will pull in enough to offset the cost of the server. (The graphics folks get a cut of what's left after Cafe Press takes their cut.)

Here are a couple links to deposit ideas:

--Michael Mol 02:25, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Web ads

Have you considered using advertising to help cover your costs? (For example, sourceforge uses doubleclick advertising but maybe something like adsense would make more sense here.) --Rdm 15:19, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Google Adsense is enabled on the site for anonymous visitors. I've gotten something like $10USD in the last month and a half. Monthly server cost is about $35USD --Michael Mol 18:25, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

They seem to be a lot more relevant than they were before. So we've got that going for us. It's not too intrusive anyway. Maybe turn it on for all visitors whether they're logged in or not? --Mwn3d 16:51, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I can do that, but I myself find ads on pages irritating. That's why I've limited it to text, only, and filtered out all ad categories that aren't relevant to anything RC is even remotely about. Which is almost everything they let me filter, oddly enough. About the only thing I haven't opted to filter out are 'video game ads'. The actual useful ads I've seen, such as toolchain ads for langauges, and "wanted" ads for coders of such, don't appear related to any of the categories I've seen. If it doesn't bother other people too much, I'll enable ads for everyone. I wish I {knew how|had time} to write a preferences extension page; I'd put an option to disable ads in there, and leave it at that. --Michael Mol 18:41, 20 May 2010 (UTC)