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Personally, I fail to see what bearing Alex's income has on the costs of maintaining a site that serves a large community. There's nothing about that fact that should prohibit him from asking for the help of those who benefit from the site he has created.

Yes this site is a great resource, and kudos to Dan and Alex for starting it. But if Alex's income is correct then he does not so desperately need donations. Sure donations would help offset any costs, but I also question how much it costs to run this site.
My own website has a hosting package that cost $400 a year, unlimited everything. Bandwidth, space, subdomains. WrongPlanet could easily be hosted on that. And some host companies will actually subsidise the cost of hosting if you advertise for them on your site. And with a site as popular and WP, advertising the host provider would be of huge benefit to them.

And throw in the fact this site is plastered already with advertising which has been stated to help offset the costs of running the site, any intelligent person would begin to wonder just exactly what Alex is doing with the donations.

BTW: Does he provide a receipt for tax purposes?

I also noticed that the Blog button at the bottom of people's posts shows the "Blogger" logo (which is copyrighted to Google), and I'm pretty sure this sites Blog system does not run off the Blogger system, as there is no mention of it on the Copyright Info page.

That would, then, be Copyright infringement, and illegal.

Alex has already covered the answers to those questions. If you know so much about the site, you must have read those answers so I don't see any reason to ask them again, besides making a thinly veiled assault on his character. Rumors are interesting creatures. They tend to grow into something wildly different from the seeds of truth from which they sprout.

Rumors are indeed interesting creatures, though I tend to avoid them due to their slippery nature. I much prefer to deal only in fact and hypotheses. His income is a fact, if one were to take Alex at his own word, considering he posted it on his MySpace page. So it's either accurate, or he is padding his online appearence for purposes unknown. Both are somewhat egregious acts for various reasons. The advertising on the site is also quite clearly a fact. As is the hosting package that I use, and is easily checkable through any number of hosting sites. I personally use Ix Hosting.

You basically ask me for proof, and yet it's ok for Alex to blithely stated that the site costs X amount to run, without providing any proof to back up his claim.

I like the service WP provides, and the resources it offers. It's a great site for what it does for the Autistic Community and their supporters, but the facts that I have presented all point towards Alex Plank using the site to make a profit for himself which not only muddies his own complexion, but also that of WP. All I'd like to see is some supporting documentation to back up the $280/month site costs, and exactly where the donations go.

It'd be nice to know how Alex makes $100-150k a year also.

Ask him without making personal attacks or ask him privately. I'd recommend the latter, since the malicious nature of the gossip you're spreading precludes the former. You're well aware that personal attacks are against site rules.

WrongPlanet doesn't even make 30k gross (you know the amount before costs). I don't know where you get your info but that's ridiculous.

also, I'm not rich and I'm in school.

Jesus, I can't even relax and enjoy Gossip Girl without coming back to find some completely bogus rumor about me being rich.

Um..I got the info from your own MySpace page, Alex. If that's incorrect perhaps you should edit it so as to avoid such "rumors", in the future.

I've not made any personal attacks. Only posted facts that have been presented to me and hypotheses based on those facts.

Ridiculous. The "income" field on myspace is a joke and most people put a bogus number there because that's just what you do on myspace. If you want to base your theories off of myspace data, that's not my fault because you should know better.

MySpace is a social networking platform based on connecting to people who share similar hobbies, past times, backgrounds and jobs. I doubt very much any field on that site was meant originally as a joke. Those fields are meant for accurate personal information if you so desire to post it. Of course MySpace being MySpace...

And even so, that doesn't rule out the cheaper hosting option. If WP is a financial burden to run, advertising and asking for donations are two options, but there is also the third and more logical option of looking for cheaper ways to run it. I've posted one such option.

What does rule out cheaper hosting is the fact that "unlimited bandwith, space, transfer, etc" does not include CPU! Do you have any idea how much computing power is required to handle 700 or so people browsing the site at once? Do you know how many database hits we have per second? Wrong Planet would kill a shared host in less than a second.

Last edited by alex on 11 Dec 2007, 10:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Please be aware, for future reference, that "hypotheses" containing direct and/or implicit attacks on someone's character will be treated as any other personal attack. Pretty wording doesn't change the nature of the act.

See that's the kind of information you need to up front about. Not everyone knows how websites work or even forums that utilise MySQL or other such databases. You should post something like this on your donation page. Or even post a "How does WP work" page. You need to be more transparent.

Have you approached your host provider about coming up with some way to subsidise the cost through advertising for them on the site?