This is the blog of Blue Girl, and she lives in a "red state." Well, the people at the conservative site "Red State" are begging for money because their candy-assed, incompetent web masters and site owners have been screwing up for years.
I heartily encourage you to NOT give them money. Based on ad revenue alone, that site should have been investing in its own future and instead of spending their money on [insert something ridiculous here], they should have been taking care of their home and hearth.
The pitch:
RedState has a real need for your help
Imagine the power of a fully armed and operational RedState
By Erick
When we started RedState in May of 2004, we used a website program called Scoop — the same program a lot of similar sites on the left used. But, as the number of visitors to our site grew, Scoop kept crashing on us.
If we’d been a liberal website, we would have been able to fix the problem quickly and relatively cheaply. The online left loves Scoop. Unfortunately, there weren’t really any conservative Scoop developers out there to help us. We kept crashing and were out of money. We had to close down or take drastic action.
Well, we didn’t close down. We ditched Scoop and moved to the best alternative at the time, a program called Drupal. But, in accomplishing the switch, budget constraints forced us to sacrifice some popular site features in order to alleviate the strain on our overused servers.
[snip]
I’ll be blunt: I hate asking you for money. [$25,000, apparently] But I hate even more to imagine what America will be like if someone like Hillary Clinton or Barack Hussein Obama wins the presidency in November. RedState can help prevent that nightmare from coming true – but only if we’re offering the best possible web experience to the widest possible audience.
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Oh, my word. What a pathetic plea for help. Instead of maybe going out and borrowing the money--hello, interest rates are low and, if you really believe in your product, then your ad revenue should cover the payments and--to be honest--isn't that what a good businessman does in a capitalist system? Create a business model, borrow the money, take the risk, and reap the rewards? Or is this wingnut welfare we're talking about here? Apparently so.
Some commenters are already pissed and are crying foul:
You've seen me as "California Conservative" by LiveStronger
and as "Neodanite".
My first username was accidentally blocked when we went from RedState.org to redstate.com (1.0 to 2.0).
My second one was blocked (accidentally, I presume) last month for no apparent reason.
I've gone to the help page and followed its instructions. I've followed up several times to see if anyone there will at least send me a "we're looking into it" response. Nothing.
I can understand this treatment if I were some kind of trouble-maker or a troll. But I'm a diehard conservative who has contributed financially on several occasions in the past.
I know that you are Leon's wife. I've debated issues in the past with you. I'm always professional and courteous.
I even had trusted-user status during that brief period of time when trusted-users were allowed to troll-rate liberal abusers of this site.
I don't understand how the editors can ask for money while ignoring long-time contributors. I will accept whatever decision that's made as long as I get some kind of explanation.
To this day, I haven't even received a courtesy email. It has been over 3 weeks and several follow-up emails since my initial complaint.
Romney Republican
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Look, I've donated to RedState on at least three occasions. It was a significant amount of money each time. But when my username somehow got blocked last month, I received no explanation and no response to my numerous emails. Please respond to at least one of my emails first, then I'll consider donating. My handle was "California Conservative" before I got blocked. At least send me the email address of the person to whom I may take my grievance. Preferably someone who will respond.
Romney Republican
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Finally, someone tries to bring a whiff of sanity to the table. Given how violently the "Paul tards" were purged from Red State, one wonders how long it will be before this person is banned for life after they make a donation:
First off -- let me state I don't know squat about SCOOP or any of the buisiness side of websites like RS so maybe there is some key aspect of this that i am missing.
That said....
I don't mind a straight forward request for money to improve services, but blaming the liberal left for the results of your decisions seems tacky and hypocritcal. Is this not the community that believes in free market solutions? I doubt there is a vast left wing conspiracy to deny you access to SCOOP developers and there is no free speech demagoguery happening here. If the left has more developers available to them, its because they have created the market place that enables this to be so. RS should do the same, or move on.
You have made the latter decision and adopted a different business model that relies on donations. Dont' apologise for that, and especially don't blame others (isn't this what we critize the left for doing) -- just take responsibility and make it work.
-JAC
It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Good luck watching your alternative source of beef jerkey income dry up and wither away...
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