I can't understand the objection to advertising, there aren't many sites that can exist without it. The BBC has to suck money from everyone in the country, even those who can't afford it, because it refuses to carry advertising whereas ITV and every other channel don't need to, they self-fund through advertising. And we all watch ITV/Sky right? We need to move with the times I'm afraid. You can just ignore the ads, surely that's easy enough, but they will still pay. I'd rather have to skip through a few ads than lose the site. Like it or not, commercialism is part of our everyday life and I think it's unrealistic to expect PHO to remain above that. People saying "we've always been free and always will be" need to wake up. Why should mods pay for it?
It is mostly because this site was set up as a not for profit organisation, we plainly don't want advertising or sponsorship from a pharma co as other P support forums have done as it compromises the independence of the forum and means you as members know that the Mods and the owner of the site are not in the pay of anyone so there is no bias when talking about meds etc.
I think also that we would prefer not to have advertising or sponsorship from any other commercial enterprise as there is usually a price as they usually want some say or control over content when sponsoring and if we can do without advertising it will maintain the not for profit status and keep admin to a minimum. The costs of running the site are reasonably modest so it should be possible to keep going via member donations as it is the simplest way to run the site and requires the minimum of admin to let us concentrate on support as all those involved donate their time for free and have job's families etc so cannot work here full time as it were.
PHO has survived thus far with it's original aims and integrity intact and hopefully we can continue to do so. IMHO that is worth trying to preserve in this commerce ridden world as P affects people regardless of income and support is better offered free from commerce as then there is no doubt as to the independence of that support.
Tim
