Ok, so I am locking this down now just so I can leave this as the last word.
First off, I want to say I have had quite a few chances to walk away in the past. Before covid three companies offered to buy the site with the largest offer being a bit over $300,000, but I turned them all down. It may seem like this is an odd thing to bring up but I want everyone to know that especially early on I had a chance to walk away with something nice to show for it as well, but I didn’t because I do really care about this site and the community in general. While I would love it if I could one day make this into a more full-time thing, I’ve always seen it more as providing a service for the community’s benefit.
Second, I want everyone to really understand that what I said above was not my first choice, or second, or third. What I describe above is really a hail mary that is right above shutdown on the list that I had as a backup plan if the worse ever happened. Being honest I wanted to ask the community for help first as suggested by @Keyfarer and was planning a post for June, but the enshitification post really got to me. Hearing what everyone had to say and the overall support it got made me feel like I failed everyone, and that I had no right to be asking anyone for help and felt I needed to do this on my own.
I am happy to see that I may have misjudged that assumption.
I talked with @Krodmandoon and we both think we can rework our moderation plans, so we are basically going to be giving @Keyfarer’s idea a shot.
I am working on trying to get some hard numbers together right now, but I am going to give the community a chance to stop me. I am going to post a funding goal no later than next Monday and if the community can hit that goal and stay there for 3 consecutive months before the deadline for decommissioning, I will not decommission the projects category as planned. If the goal is hit the within two months of the planned decommissioning (July), I will extend the deadline by 2 months to September.
This will not be easy though. I tend to understate our expenses so if this is going to work out, I must give the community what a realistic worst case is going to be like for me next year if things continue as normal. This includes the money I need to bring the main site online.
Also, I am not going to be allowing anyone to donate more than $250/month through Patreon. This may seem like an odd restriction, but I got a message from a long-time supporter a bit back where they told me they just became homeless, and they were sorry they couldn’t continue supporting the site. They told me about how they tried to hang on as long as they could and felt guilty about the matter, and when someone out of the goodness of their heart donates tens of thousands to this site, they should never feel that way for putting themselves first.
If this is going to work it must be a community effort, I don’t want anyone to ever feel guilty about having to put themselves first just because they worry about how it might affect Weight Gaming. And it cannot be in the shoulders of just 3 people. If anyone tries to donate more than $250 I am going to refund their donation as soon as possible.
I know I have already gotten a few new supporters on Patreon, and I thank you all for doing so. But, I would suggest everyone waits until I get the numbers together and set the goal. I want everyone to have all the information before they make their decision.
There are still some unknowns on moderation and I dont know how much this will help with my burn out, but I do really hope this can work out. I am not ready to give up yet so I would much prefer to try this if option if we can do it.