[MikeWaters]

I am contemplating adding advertising to Cougarguard.com in the form of google ads.

Here are the reasons:

1. The costs for running the site are essentially fixed (to a point). If we have 10 people here, or 200 people here, the cost is the same. However, I don't anticipate the donations of the past to match the donations of the near future, which leaves a small (in the scheme of things) deficit. The meager revenue that might be obtained from the meager traffic here would help sustain the financial operations of the site.

Having said that:

2. I didn't start CG as a money-making enterprise. I made choices that were actually counter to the financial interests of the site, because this was a labor of love. It still is not a business enterprise. Which makes it very different from sites such as Cougarboard.com. I have no problem with other sites being a business. In fact, some might argue that running it as a business is the best way, since you will tend to cater to the majority of posters by making them happy. I'm not here to make people happy, CG doesn't exist to make people happy. I don't care if CG is popular, I don't care if it makes money. Dare I say, I might not even be convinced that CG should exist. But that is a discussion for another day.

So........

3. If we run a surplus (which I doubt will happen, but let's be optimistic), we will do something that I have wanted to do for a long time. That money will go to charitable causes. I haven't decided what cause, or whether this will be me choosing a cause, or holding a vote on a number of causes I have selected, or giving to causes that are user-selected and user-voted. The cause might be secular, or it might be religious (i.e. Perpetual Education Fund). I intend the cause to fit with the overall mission of CG, which in moments of delusion of grandeur, is to make the world a slightly better place. Regardless of how a cause is selected, the information will be made public by me.

4. There are different levels of ads--lots of ads or few ads, text ads or image ads, etc. There would need to be some experimentation to see how obnoxious they are. Remember, that the ads are probably most targeted towards people that stumble here via search engines or are non-registered users. For example, there is a setting that will give registered users less ads than non-registered readers.

Now that is on the table, please give me your feedback, whether public or private.