As for the subject of donations and the like - I won't say I've never given it any thought, and the unsolicited support offers are certainly appreciated, but there are a few concerns that have generally held me back in the past:
1) I'm not sure of the potential legal ramifications of selling WNFF merchandise. I would venture a guess that it'd probably be okay as long as any trademarked MLB symbols/logos/names/etc were avoided, but as I say that's just a guess. I wouldn't have the first clue where to go about validating that guess.
2) Conflict of interest. Someone donates, then becomes a huge jackass, gets banned, chews me out for banning them when they donated. Or even if they don't, I'd still be aware of it and probably feel bad about it. Or if donations were anonymous, ANYONE could play that card and I'd have no way of knowing the truth.
Right now the annual upkeep is $475. $39/mo for the server, $7/yr for the domain. I'm far from being rich or anything, but this place is my baby and 40 bucks a month isn't putting undue financial burden on me or anything. Most people pay more for their cell phones.
Maybe in the future if traffic escalates to a level where another server upgrade is needed (next step up is 59/mo, and it gets into the triple-digits after that), but right now I think we'll be fine until at least the 2012 season. I've got the server purring along nicely and we had no load-related issues to speak of in 2010, so I kinda doubt 2011 is going to pose much of a problem.
That said, if you guys wanna make mindfact shirts, I have no objection. But there's no need to turn it into a fundraiser just yet. PA's referral link idea is a decent one, and I really should look into it, but there will never be ads on this site. Just not going to happen.
