It's simple. Don't donate to a website that has advertising.
It's okay to ask for modest donations with a quiet little button over to the side, but NOT if you also have advertising on the site.
When you see a site owner having a donation drive or fundraiser to pay the bills run for your life! Run even faster when you see the site owner only comes around periodically and is coincidentally always asking for money, as in the case with Kathy and Eric.
Perhaps too, it should be required of any site owner to make full disclosure of their finances if asking for money or donations. If they won't or refuse, then maybe they can't be trusted.
Well I think this is a little too much to ask. It wouldn't work at all for the following reasons.
1. If I had to disclose my finances to the community, I would just close the site - sims content be damned.
2. My disclosure wouldn't make any difference whatsoever - without proof it's so much demeaning hot air, and therefore I would have to show bills and pictures and proof.
3. All the creators who can photoshop well enough to *make* sims content, then they sure would be able to photoshop proof of ginormous bills.
4. The country barriers are too much - would anyone know what Optus is, or what Telstra is, or what direct debit company I pay my rent with, outside of those who live in Australia, and go through my real estate agent?
5. I'd have to post information about how much I earn and disclose my real name and personal details to the community in order to be sure that it was me actually earning, and paying that much.
6. I'd then be exposed to identity theft over sims content. TSR much?
7. What if I run a giant site, and have a small finite donation drive that seems fairly reasonable, but in order to get to that point, I defray costs with advertising.
Delphy, Pescado and Wicked Nouk have all run donation drives over the last year, as well as many smaller sites, including Sublime Sims (my kind hosters). The difference is that each time, it was finite, the goal was known to everyone, the ending of the drive celebrated, and most importantly, it didn't happen without warning and without regularity (apart from Wicked Nouk that do it monthly, it didn't happen more than once). They have the ring of truth to them because they are entirely predictable and fairly transparent while not disclosing personal information. They also finished, took down the notices to pay and promptly continued producing content. This is all that we should need in order to donate.
Must post this before my shadow catches onto what I'm doing.
PMBD
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