USSM stuff
A couple of brief things and a longer one after the fold:
– I’m looking at some possible changes to commenting, like threading and the dreaded registration step. More on that as it happens, but we’re being (we believe) hand-attacked by comment spammers trying to get past that (sometimes annoying) spam-check box that has foiled them entirely since Dave Pease shared it with us. Dave Pease, by the way, awesome, and his generous donation made it dramatically easier to run the site.
– I’m working on fixing a couple of back-end things. If you notice weird site behavior, I’m probably being electrically shocked behind the scenes. Please don’t hit reload repeatedly.
– We’ve been thinking about upgrading our hosting for a while. It would mean much faster response times, better availability, none of the weird database errors you get sometime when Mr. Corcoran posts two different comments at once, causing the server to choke, and so forth. But this requires money, which leads me to…
… this part.
Many people have suggested that we ask for donations, which I’m loathe to do for a number of reasons.
I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing USSM T-shirts and stuff. I tossed this out in yesterday’s game thread late, and people reacted well. We could help defray hosting costs, while USSM readers get swag they can wear while helping the cause. There are two problems with this-
1) It’s kind of a pain and
2) None of us are any good at designing those things, which means snappy text or leaning on readers for help on design. Not sure how that would work.
In particular, I’ve been thinking about doing some basic USSM gear and then limited-run shirt-of-the-month stuff that would be cool and super-rare. But I’m just kicking that around.
Comments
131 Responses to “USSM stuff”
95: That’s over the line. Actually….
I’ve only gotten a date once, so…. for charitable purposes I’d do it.
I’ve only gotten a date once…
It’s shocking-SHOCKING!-that you didn’t get a second date.
I’m not good with people.
I know this really nice girl at work………….
Not good with people — What? Impossible.
I get really nervous around actual people, especially girls. They think I’m weird.
And a tad obsessive.
Then why aren’t you asking her out.
He must be married.
Good Guess Mr. Corcoran 🙂
How do you know MacMariner is a “he”?
Also, talk about topic drift. Holy mackeral.
Non-topical discussion threads:
DJC, Lectures on Idaho Traffic
DJC, Loves I Have (not) Known
I see a common thread.
Yeah Dave, but if adjust your weirdness for USSMariner effects and look at your performance with those with a similar skillset, it turns out you’re perfectly normal. So we just need to find you an affordable left-handed set-up babe.
I want a “Pocket Lint” shirt. Where do I sign up?
Anyway, I’d certainly be amiable to purchasing an item or 2 from the USS Mariner store.
I’ll buy 20 of anything you sell. Guaranteed.
Hey, how about a parody of those Mastercard ads, along the lines of:
Adrian Beltre: $64m/5yr
Safeco Field: $517.6m
Ichiro setting the single season hit record: Priceless
“USSMarinercard: For when you want the best baseball discussion and commentary in Seattle. For everything else, there’s Jim Street.”
uh, well, maybe you wouldn’t literally say Jim Street, but you get the idea.
81 – I think Paul is asking an important question.
Is the problem “we need some cash to buy the following list of gear”? Or is the problem “running this site is hoovering my wallet every month”?
As much as I’d love to wear USSM schwag, I’d hate for one of the people I want to read to be spending time wrangling (design, approval, copyright, shipping, returns, etc) schwag in return for inconsistent monthly cash.
I think if you guys simply said, “Hey, we need $10,000 for this list of gear. Here’s a PO Box and anybody sending at least $50 gets a t-shirt” you’d be done with this faster than you think.
Also, you might want to publish the list of gear you’re looking for. It seems the readership skews technical and there is often used iron about….
A small tastefull U.S.S. Mariner on the front with a large saying on the back would be perfect, and Nintendo’s idea for distribution is probably fine.
“Bret Boone might not have the skills he once had, but you know what? He’s not trying as hard, either.”
That’s brilliant.
I like the merchandising, but it does sound a bit intensive to organize and administer. You could hold an annual USS Mariner event where you could get one of those group ticket rates for a Mariner’s game, overcharge us for seats with the understanding that the overcharge is the cost for the server, maintenance, kickbacks, etc. That way we could involve baseball, alchohol, and it would be done in one day. You could avoid have $20 checks trickling in that you’d have to keep track of.
Just an idea…
“Is the problem “we need some cash to buy the following list of gearâ€Â? Or is the problem “running this site is hoovering my wallet every monthâ€Â?”
That’s not an either/or question.
If I was to try and put the problem in a 50-words-or-less form, I would say “The current readership levels of USSM require hosting services we are unable to provide if we continue to pay our server costs from our own pockets, and the alternative is having the current outage/performance problems get worse in the future.”
An excellent point. After all, this site is about writing, not schwag-wrangling (why do I feel fairly dirty after using that phrase?).
Another idea, along #118’s line of thought – how about a fund drive?
Once a year, take a week and say, every day, something like (and mention somehow in every post) “Hey, valued readers: this site costs us X dollars to run per year. We’re not gonna charge on a daily basis, but we’d love it if you’d give us some money to help defray those costs.
Give us $10, you get a USSM bumpersticker. Give us $25, a sticker plus a t-shirt. For $100, all the above plus trading cards (with stats!) of each USSM author…” or something like that.
Derek: go to http://www.cafepress.com and sign up.
All you supply is the design; they do all the work — and if you’re not set up for it, it’s a TON of work; just guessing how many S/M/L/XL/XXXL shirts to print is the kind of thing that could take all of your waking hours and leave you with nothing to show but a pile of unsold shirts. They do the printing, shipping, and accounting for you. They get a hefty cut, of course, but, hey, all you have to do is supply artwork.
They print on about ten different kinds of shirts — regular T, long-sleeve, baseball-style dark sleeve, girlie cut, tanks, hoodies, underpants (uh…), baby gear, magnets, coffee cups, caps, visors, mousepads, keychains, bumper stickers, golf balls, a million colors, you name it. Literally, you tell them which items you want in your store. Print on demand.
Your artwork should be something goofy and not too tech-geeky. I vote for “ussmariner.com” across the bow of a sinking cartoon ship with a Cap’n Crunch-style sea captain at the helm, done in simple line-art. Remember, it’s got to show up good on a shirt — white for dark colors, dark blue for white. If you want a slogan you could put “going down with the ship since 1995” or whatever year it is. Copyright is going to keep actual M’s logos off, and probably any explicit reference to the old Kingdome ship.
It’s not going to bring in millions, but the return on the investment of YOUR TIME is almost infinite.
#123 has it right. As a former member of a garage band, merchandising is incredibly time consuming. While I know the loyal following here would buy it by the truckloads,and the joy of donning my very own USS Mariner tee (with a trident “M” like the original Mariners) puts a smile on my face just thinking about it; the effort required to design it, order it, etc. could drive someone crazy.
We all appreciate the efforts that Derek, DMZ, etc. put into this site, and I think whatever gets done should make their lives easier and any hit to their personal pocketbooks minimal. The simplest way is to let us pay you directly, but I understand the issues involved with that. What seems to be common in this thread is that we appreciate the site, and want to help any way we can.
Whatever you guys decide will be supported.
“just sell advertising” NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! *in hank hill voice*
By the way, another of my redeeming qualities is that I can say “We sell propane and propane accessories” exactly like Hank Hill. Some people actually have nicknamed me “Hank” in honor of this.
DJC:
In one of the holiday posts you said you were hanging out with your girlfriend, but now you are saying you’ve only been on one date? What gives!
“none of the weird database errors you get sometime when Mr. Corcoran posts two different comments at once, causing the server to choke, and so forth.â€Â
Why do you pick on him in public? Seriously you can’t just email him?
127: That was my one date, right around christmas. And the chocolates were real. We never went on another one.
128: It’s OK.
Perhaps it was because you were publically referring to her as “your girlfriend” while on your first date?
Not publically, only here.