John C. Robinson

The Free Republic Controversy

Money is often the center-point or at least the lead-pipe of any good controversy. This is perfectly illustrated in the battle of (or against) Free Republic. A number of the site's detractors have repeatedly "demonstrated" that Free Republic is bilking thousands from little old ladies in a Jimmy Bakker-esque scam. I will offer a counterpoint for thought.

In this article I will attempt to justify some of that cost. Some? Despite popular conception, I am only an ancillary participant in the internal operations of the site, and therefore I simply do not know where every dollar is spent. However, I can tell you where and why exactly $6,700 is spent every month.

My father is Jim Robinson. I do contract work for him/Free Republic via my company cobbled together to support such activities. I do not speak for my father nor for Free Republic (LLC or .com) nor for any participant of the site.

Question: $72,000? Sniff Test!!

The question on seemingly everybody's mind. How much does it cost to run Free Republic? It's just a dumb website, right? Anybody can host their dumb ol' website for thirty bucks, so why are they asking for $22,000 (give or take) every freakin' month? Sniff Test!!

Answer: Size Matters

The site is huge, hosts nearly 1.5 million articles, more than 30 million comments, and easily does two to three million page views daily. Infrastructure of this scale "do(es) not grow on trees" as Skinner, admin of DemocraticUnderground.com--the antithesis of FreeRepublic.com, points out.

First I will touch on the scale of computing resources required to run a large database-driven dynamic website. Dynamic, every page view runs database queries and Perl-language software. With two to three million page views per day, custom-tailored to the preferences of the reader, we require two database servers and three web servers to drive the site and afford headroom when traffic spikes (Katrina, election cycles, 9/11--we do our best to keep the site running during these peak loads.) An additional front-end machine serves static content (some images and html pages.) We also host a secure server for credit card donations on a separate machine. Finally, an additional machine is left to toil on administrative tasks. That's 2 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 8 machines. Hardware is not free. Fortunately, for the most part it is a one-time expense addressed in the budget as a $300 line item (see Equip, Maintenance and Repairs) and an occassional higher quartery fundraising goal for special purchases.

$2,700 Here

This delivers the discussion to the next point of scale I need to make. Network resources. To be honest, I don't know how many gigabytes of data we push out each day. It's not an important figure. We've contracted with Verio for co-location and bandwidth, and we measure megabits per second. The site sustains in excess of 10 Mbps throughout most of the day. For that, and a full cabinet to store our equipment, Verio charges exactly $2,700 monthly. Down from $7,000/mo for a similar UUNET setup in 2001. It is important to note that this is a guaranteed 10 Mbps of throughput--reserved for us, to deliver Internet content. Many web hosts will advertise 100 Mbps service for some low-low price. They may not be telling you, or not upfront about, the fact that their bandwidth is shared by thousands of clients. You will see only a fraction of that, there is no guarantee you will be able to handle sudden traffic bursts effectively. Anyway, the point I'm making here is that it doesn't matter if you're allocated a googol of gigabytes by your web host if you're only able to push out a trickle due to burdened connectivity.

$4,000 There

The last subject I will touch upon is a matter of human resources. If the previously enumerated resources are sometimes overlooked, the HR issue is almost always overlooked. If it sounds like whining, well, I apologize in advance, the subject affects me directly.

It takes time to manage servers, to patch systems and troubleshoot issues. Free Republic, LLC owns eight machines, I oversee those, plus three other machines that assist Free Republic in some form. My day-to-day activities include: keeping abreast of the latest public security exploits and determining if they affect operations, and occassionally patching systems of said defects, monitoring network and server health, analyzing odd-ball traffic (sometimes indicates security threat), toubleshooting performance issues, keeping up with news from the distros and software we leverage, planning upgrade paths, and exploring software that will aid in these goals.

I program. I write and maintain software that is used directly and indirectly by the site. From the very visible forum software to the invisible mechanics lurking below. From the website's moderator tools to the low-level sysadmin tools. Features, big and small and mis-. I take care of it all. Including a years-in-the-making revisioning of the software. All the while, my #1 goal is to minimize interruption of ongoing operations. (Oh! How I wish to be able to take the site down for a week and refactor the database schema!) And, while I'm not much of a website designer, I do design and write the HTML, and attempt to architect the information in the best manner possible (at least the revisioning will.)

Also, I--well, my better part, Tami--deals with contract negotiations for bandwidth, credit card processing (a web of external entities in itself), obtaining and maintaining our secure certificate, domain names, hardware purchases, etc. She's an ever-present influence in the behind-the-scenes matters, from discussions of FR direction and focus, to how she dislikes a thin dashed gray line on some new page I've designed. Her input is manifold and not to be discounted.

She and I are Robinson-DeFehr Consulting, and we're consuming $4,000 every month of the $22,000 to be raised.

Now, I do not slave over the site every day for 16+ hours 7 days a week 365.24 days a year. Sometimes I do little at all. At other times, I burn the midnight oil either because I feel inspired or because I'm fighting a fire or simply because that's the only opportuntity I have to impact the site with a server-intensive task. I figure I owe 30 hours a week, I aim for that and anything else I do is simply because I enjoy what I do. $48,000/year is justified: I pay my own income taxes, including the employer's side of FICA, I pay my own health benefits, I purchase my own resources (computers I personally use, books, lots of books), my business must carry liability insurance and we pay the "LLC" tax. Subtract those costs of doing business and it works out to a fair and comparable salary.

Or, $6,700 Total

In sum, that's six-thousand seven hundred accounted and justified dollars alleged to be somewhere between $30 to a "generous" $600 by some of the site's detractors. They smoke crack.

Hidden Costs

This article serves merely as a demonstration of "hidden costs." The site does not accept commercial advertising, its sole revenue stream is through reader donations. Large sites have the same costs, if not more (we try to do things on the cheap.) These sites often rely upon commercial advertising to offset the costs of operation. Advertising is a big business, and successful sites are good earners, able to offset operations costs and turn a profit. In one form or another it's all advertising. Free Republic's advertising is simply more explicit: we need $X for Y period of service. Few see a banner ad as representing tens of thousands of dollars every month.

Consider other non-obvious costs and $22,000 is not a far out figure.

Er, not that I really care, but $7,000 is 32% of $22,000. If someone gave me an itemized budget for 32% of their monthly expenses and told me that I should be able to find the other 68% in "other non-obvious costs," I'd laugh them right out of the office. In fact, now that I'm interested, I took a look at the budget page:

Bandwidth and Colocation $2,700

Explained

System Administation and Programming 4,000

Explained

Administrative and Taxes 9,500

Can you give a detailed accounting of the taxes? In an LLC, flow through taxation means the LLC itself is not taxed - the members are taxed on the profits. Are members (members are the equivalent of sharholders of a corporation, but for an LLC) of Free Republic, LLC engaging only in not-for-profit activities vis-a-vie the IRS definitions in p535? Is Free Repbulic LLC engaging in any for-profit activities, vis-a-vie the same publication (This is substantially different than a 501c3 definition)? Can you give a detailed breakdown of member distributions over the past three years?

Having read now the Free Republic main page, the statement under "Who runs Free Republic?" seems needlessly complicated with words like "commercial," "in the sense of a traditional business." Would the following statement be true or false: "Free Republic LLC has never made a profit distribution to any member."?

Could you give a more detailed breakdown of "Adminstrative?"

Legal and Accounting 1,000

Reasonable

Bank Fees, Credit Card Fees, Processing Fees 800

7% is outrageous for bank, cc and processing. Do you have some sort of borrowed monies or trust structure that adds and expense on this line?

Equip, Maintenance and Repairs 300

Explained

Office Expenses, Rents, Insurance, Telephone, ISP, Supplies, Misc. 2,500

Reasonable

Travel Expenses 800

Reasonable.

Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:03, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Dunno if I made it clear here, the idea was to demonstrate that the part of the site I am responsible for, which some people had figured only cost $300 to operate, actually takes quite a bit more. The site isn't mine, it's my father's. I don't know all the details. The budget is supposed to be a "high level" overview, but it probably should state that he and his partner are the "Adminstrative" line item. Thanks for having a look, I appreciate the comments. John C. Robinson 00:22, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for my confusion. Are you saying that the Adminstrative and Taxes line item is a membership distribution, or is it some other fee arrangement between the LLC and it's members? Hipocrite - «Talk» 13:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I asked Jim about the $800 "Bank Fees, Credit Card Fees, Processing Fees". The figure is derived from an approximate 4% of an estimated $20,000/monthly collected from credit card and PayPal. It's a rough figure. With this quarter's goal, the $800/mo would represent 3 1/3% of collected funds.

Yes, that is far more reasonable. I didn't understand it was a projected number. Hipocrite - «Talk» 13:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

To address something you said earlier, the "Who runs Free Republic?" section may seem "needlessly complicated" because the site was never intended to be organized as a traditional business, or, well, any type of business. The site is an outgrowth of Jim's participation in a Prodigy message board covering Whitewater back in the mid 90's. It has always been his hobby project. It was only later organized as an LLC as a direct result of the lawsuit brought on by the Los Angeles Times. I believe the general idea was to protect me from legal fallout (I was originally a member of the LLC, I later removed myself.)

I think the question that remains unadressed was "Would the following statement be true or false: "Free Republic LLC has never made a profit distribution to any member?" I'd also ask about the Adminstrative line item and any implication there for member fee-for-service agreements. I consider the section on the front page needlessly complicated because it uses the meaningless word "non-commercial," as opposed to the meaningful "not-for-profit." Hipocrite - «Talk» 13:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, if you're interested in extending the FR article with excerpts of these early days I'll dig up some posts of historic interest for you. John C. Robinson 23:21, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I would be, yes. Hipocrite - «Talk» 13:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Unaddressed only because I haven't a clue—you're speaking a language unfamiliar to me. I can tell you my take on this, Jim and Amy are compensated for their time. Profit distribution, member distribution, fee-for-service, IRS p535 definitions, I don't know what any of that means.

Perhaps addressing your question in a different way. For years I've unsuccessfully petitioned my father to grow the site into a real money making venture. The popularity of the site would turn a significant profit in advertising sales, far more than donations. The later of which would not dry up because of advertising (especially if donors were able to remove advertising.) Jim doesn't want to take it in that direction. To me, that isn't the sign of somebody trying to get rich. With regard to the money, he's merely content with pulling a living out of the site. He's had the opportunity to sell the site, at a time when people paid stupid money for such things, all the while pulling down a salary. He didn't want that either. He could be swimming in cash. It's somewhat frustrating to me, but that's how it is.

There's plenty of interesting history that I believe is germane to the FR article. As I find interesting tidbits I'll append them to this talk page. One of those interesting bits is the TalkSpot deal (the "stupid money" offer) I previously mentioned.

John C. Robinson 21:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Pleasure to meet you

Welcome!

Hello John C. Robinson, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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In addition nice to see you here, I am sure you can add a lot a number of articles. If you have something that is unique to add, please remember that wiki doesn't allow research to be published here first. Often, people will publish elsewhere, then refer to it when writing wiki articles. Some associates of Ayn Rand have done just that. As far as the $72,000 goes can't you just go to Geocities for free and save all that money? Maybe you can pay in Canadian dollars and that way it would cost less! (heh) :-) Dominick 12:01, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Really, what's the point of "no original research" if you can just post it on a blog or something and cite that? Even if you're not supposed to, how can WP vet the source? And what about topic experts? If Einstein was alive today ... John C. Robinson 00:34, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I mentioned it because I didn't think you would want to participate in this kind of stuff here, but I guess you dont mind, so my point was moot. I think the policy was intended to keep people from making up a theory about Nazi Radio Transmitters in the Brain, and starting an unfounded artcle. Blogs are only sources if you are talking about the person writing the Blog. Barbara Striesand's blog is an example, we can use that to talk about her, but her opinion (!) on global warming is not going to appear in the global warming article. If you have original research, it is easy enough to publish at a symposium, or any refereed journal. There are other venues to do this at as well. For the FR data to be used, it would be used as a source for the FR article. We would not use something published at FR, to talk about say, Pamela Anderson. Dominick 14:10, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

The "interview" is no biggie. Didn't realize it was considered that until I read the FR talk page. Perhaps something useful will come of it. Certainly if I can introduce more background into the article, that would be great. John C. Robinson 21:31, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

new FR controversy

You may wanna look at the FR talk page. Dominick 17:12, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the in-progress pro-/anti- edit war? Seems like the only sane option is to let them fight it out until both sides get bored. Later, cue the adults to come in and clean up the mess. :-( IMHO, it is pointless to try to maintain balance in that kind of environment. And let's be honest, that's the absolute best WP will ever see in a political article, a balance of PoV. John C. Robinson 19:32, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Good approach. paul klenk ^talk

I didn't like some people at FR doing what the people at DU did. Directing people here to wear down editors doesn't do anyone any good. Dominick 22:25, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. In this case, it makes us (FR) look bad. John C. Robinson 23:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

What is Bryan up to?

Is Bryan still working for you guys? Eschoir (talk) 17:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)