Cybert, I wouldn't turn down a donation right now. But let me take this opportunity (because it's on my mind) to tell you my thoughts around this, since it's on my mind.
First off, I want Betterhumans to be a self-sustaining community. At the same time, I don't want to overload it with advertising, and I want the advertising to be relevant and useful. Balancing all these needs isn't easy.
To this point, advertising currently supports just about 25% of my monthly costs with Betterhumans. It used to provide much more, but our move to more of a community format has had a (hopefully temporary) impact on revenue.
Ideally, if I did begin taking donations, I would like to do so with a goal to creating a self-sustaining community. For example, perhaps I could do a donation drive to (1) support our operating costs until we're self-sustaining and (2) support advertising and promotional activities.
For number 2, perhaps I could create a special forum area for "supporters/premium members" to vote on what advertising and promotional activities we should undertake.
I'd like to hear what other members think about this.
Simon, the main thing I want is to have the ads gone (on this site!). I'd pay a lot for this. A lot of what I'd pay is just donation that I'd want to give anyway (transhumanism is very important).