Everything you say makes sense - and we (AidpageTeam) have been through all these considerations and possibilities.
At this stage, with our limited resources, we decided that running the Sharing Program is not a good thing for Aidpage. And that's final.
Most participants in the Sharing Program already accepted our decision. I'm not saying that they're necessarily happy about it... but most replied in one-to-one messages that they understand our decision... and that they support Aidpage.
Let's close this discussion.
We really are stretched in terms of manpower in our work to keep Aidpage online and free of spammers - 24/7. On top of this, Aidpage is in need of fundamental reworking of it's technological backend and its user interface - which is a huge work ahead of us.
Let's stop talking about the Sharing Program.
And - a note to everyone(!) - we will not tolerate posting activity and spreading of rumors whose purpose is undermining the credibility of Aidpage and AidpageTeam. We will promptly remove from Aidpage members engaging in such activity.
in response to Schmidty...BTW... Schmidty... The search function on Aidpage is still not working. It was stopped by Google Adsense last Friday along with the stopping of the ad serving. We are still waiting for Google to restore it.
in response to mamashe/sheshe...Of course it is legal - Aidpage is a free service... and you don't have any material interest in telling other people about it.
It is not just "pages" of posted content - it's about "pageviews" - which means people visiting pages on Aidpage (just a technical correction). Aidpage must simply become a site known by much more people. And this is not an easy task.
We work very hard to grow Aidpage (why wouldn't we?). We are totally dedicated to Aidpage.
I was writing to Schmidty while you posted - so I didn't see your post immediately.
First - thank you for all the good words about Aidpage and the people who created it.
Second - we are NOT happy about the removing of the Sharing Program. We know that this will hurt some of our most dedicated members. And we know that this may make some of them leave Aidpage. We just had to make a hard choice.
Third - fortunately, the Sharing Program is far from being the main reason most people contribute on Aidpage. In fact, of all Contributors, just about 10 chose to participate in the Sharing Program. All other Contributors, including YOU (for most of your stay on Aidpage) are not here because of the financial incentive.
This is very important! Aidpage was never intended to be like one of those other self-publishing sites where people write "content" in order to make money. Nothing wrong with "making money" - we all need it - but Aidpage was always about talking to and helping each other. The satisfaction of doing this is the main reason for most members to stay on Aidpage.
Yes - we are really that paranoid about the possibility of Aidpage being taken down by the total loss of revenue in case Adsense decides to shut down our account.
And this possibility is very real because Aidpage is still not big enough to have a partnership with Google.
Just to give you an idea - Aidpage has about 15,000 pageviews (total) per day. The minimum required by Google Adsense for establishment of partnership is 100,000 pageviews per day.
Aidpage must grow 6 times larger before we get to have someone in Adsense to contact by email in case of problems. As of now, the communication with Google Adsense is one-way - they contact us in case of violations - we can't contact them. In fact, this latest crisis (this weekend) was resolved by a very prompt reaction by Catluv (one of our members). She was the one that got a notice from Adsense about the problems on WhoKnew's pages (because of the way we rotate Adsense IDs on Aidpage). Without the quick and precise actions of Catluv in response to the Adsense notice, the crisis could have been much longer and damaging. We (AidpageTeam) did NOT get a notice from Adsense.
When we grow Aidpage to become 6 times larger - we will reconsider having a Sharing Program (eventually managed through a partnership with Google).
We've had 2 crises recently - one with Nini and one with WhoKnew - all caused by "unhappy" participants in the Sharing Program.
There is no way for us to make sure that all participants in the Sharing Program will be happy. That would be contrary to human nature when it comes to distribution of money.
We can't have a third crisis with Adsense - they don't play around when it comes to closing accounts.
I may add more here... in response to your post - later today or tomorrow.
In the meantime - don't worry - unless you start using four letter words starting with "f" addressed to us... :) - as was the case with WhoKnew - you'll keep your account on Aidpage.
Just wanted to add something... We explicitely recommend against sharing personal contact info (real name, email, phone number, street address) - see this post...
One of the reasons is obviously to keep your personal identity and privacy protected from verbal threats and harassment.
That's a really unpleasant thing to happen. Filing a report with the police is exactly the right thing to do in such a case.
Don't worry about that person reappearing on Aidpage. If you recognize that person through his/her posts and messages on Aidpage, just report it to AidpageTeam.
You did good also by posting about this here. Members should be aware of the possibility of such things happening.
Generally speaking, we've been fortunate to have an amazingly small number of "bad apples" on Aidpage... considering what happens on the web at large. It is true also that we put a lot of effort in making sure that such people don't last on Aidpage.
Adsense is how you get paid... true... but first, you needed to give us your Adsense ID so that we can implement it on Aidpage.
This is clearly written in our instructions - once you get your Adsense ID, contact AidpageTeam through one-to-one message... so that they can implement it for you on Aidpage.
How in the world would you be able to add your Adsense ID to your homepage on Aidpage?
Again... why didn't you ask us about not having any results on Adsense? Why not talking to us?
I just checked your messages with AidpageTeam. You never contacted us about wanting to join the Sharing after we congratulated you about becoming a Contributor on Oct 28th, 2010. You did not reply to our message at all.
At that time, we also invited you to the non-public space about the Sharing Program where you could see all the necessary instructions.
Since taking part in the Sharing is optional for Contributors and you never sent us a message with your Adsense Publisher ID... or any message at all... we assumed that you were not interested.
Again... why didn't you ask us about this for so many months?
Please, give AidpageTeam your Adsense Publisher ID (in one-to-one message). We'll be more than happy to add you to the Sharing.
Posted in Discussing Aidpage on Feb 10, 2011... modified on Feb 10, 2011
Dear Aidmates,
I'm posting this in response to recent questions we received about our Sharing Program. It seems that members need a better understanding about how our Sharing works.
PLEASE, take the time to read this post slowly and carefully! And, if you still don't understand how the Sharing program works after reading this, please ask us questions directly. We are here to answer your questions.
Purpose of The Sharing Program
The Sharing Program is a way for our company to offer a small help (for paying a monthly bill or two) to some of our active members. Nothing more. No member should rely on a significant and/or steady income from Aidpage.
History of The Sharing Program
As you may know, we, at People Networks (the company that owns and operates Aidpage), decided back in 2006 that it will be a good thing to start helping out members of Aidpage who show up here everyday (or almost everyday) with small, almost symbolic, sums of money.
At first, it was just a test with a couple of invited members, then we opened it to other people as AID (Aidpage Income Distribution), and finally (July 2010) we re-conceived and re-started it as ARSP (Aidpage Revenue Sharing Program).
Before July 2010, our Sharing was based on the traditional Google Adsense logic where people would get a percent of the income generated on their pages. More visitors, pageviews, and clicks on your pages meant higher earnings. Everything looked fine and fair... until we noticed strange things.
Measured in visitors, pageviews, and clicks, the single biggest "star" on Aidpage became a member who posted a single post of one-sentence and stayed on Aidpage for a few days back in 2005! Most of you have seen this page - free-money-to-help-pay-bills.app-butterfly-1.aidpage.com.
We took a look at this and noticed that it was not an isolated case. Across Aidpage, there was little connection between a member's activity and the success of his/her pages according to Google's algorithms. Google's logic was probably good for it's own purposes on the web at large, but it did not reflect correctly who was doing what on Aidpage.
So we gathered data and experience - and came to the conclusion that traffic and pageviews should not be used as measures and basis for our Sharing Program. After a lot of thinking and research, in July 2010, we re-started the Sharing Program with a new setup and logic.
The New Sharing Program
All of the Aidpage revenue comes from the Google ads you see on Aidpage. This is a very difficult way of generating revenue. Despite the fact that Aidpage still doesn't cover our business expenses (it barely covers about 50%), we dedicate a portion of Aidpage's total revenue to be shared with active members. This portion is divided between participants in the Sharing Program according to a formula which calculates the "level of activity" of each member.
Less active members may get $5 a month, while those posting daily may get $20-$30 monthly. A few, super active members get monthly payouts of over $100. Shares are NOT calculated by counting pageviews and ad clicks. They are calculated according to level of activity on Aidpage, not visitor and pageview stats.
What is "level of activity"?
To calculate the "level of activity" of a member, we count the words from all her/his public posts and then we apply a correction for "quality". So, "level of activity" = "volume" x "quality"
How this "level of activity" translates into pageviews and ad clicks in my Adsense Account?
Our formula for "level of activity" produces your "share" as percentage of what is available for Sharing. This percentage defines how many times the system will serve your Adsense Publisher ID across ALL pages on Aidpage. We recalculate your share once a week.
I still don't get it. What are those other Adsense Publisher IDs doing in the source code of my pages?
As we explained above, the Adsense IDs of all participants are being served by our system across ALL pages on Aidpage. Everyone gets a number of "impressions" of his/her ID according to his "share" as calculated by our formula. All IDs are served across ALL pages randomly. If you look at the source code of any page, you may see the Publisher ID of any of the participants. Our software makes sure that everyone gets its calculated share of impressions over a period of time. Ask yourself - how come you see impressions and numbers in your Adsense account? The stats you see in your Adsense account show exactly the number of times your Publisher ID was served across Aidpage (according to our formula).
But how come I see the same Publisher ID (not mine!) every time I check the source code?
You probably see the Publisher ID that belongs to People Networks. As I said above, we dedicate a portion of Aidpage's revenue to be shared with active members despite the fact that Aidpage still doesn't cover our business expenses. What we can afford to dedicate for Sharing is still a small portion of the total revenue. That's why you see our Publisher ID most of the time. Don't forget that all the participants in the Sharing Program taken together make for only a part of the overall posting activity on Aidpage. There are many regular members and Contributors who are not part of the Sharing Program. Aidpage has also a large number of content pages (hundreds of thousands) posted automatically by our system. In other words, it is only natural that most of time the system serves our Publisher ID.
As a defined portion of our revenue, the money available for Sharing goes up and down as does the total Aidpage revenue. This means, unfortunately, that if we face a financial crisis, we may decide to lower the dedicated portion for sharing (as a percentage from our Aidpage revenue) or even suspend the Sharing Program without much warning. We may simply not have enough money to pay our own bills and we may have to shut down Aidpage. We never had to do something like this... and hopefully, we won't have to do it.
Hopefully, with the growth of Aidpage, we will be able to make a larger portion of our revenue available for Sharing. Remember, we still operate with negative margins as a business. We still function as a truly "non-profit" business.
Please, ask us questions! Again, if you still don't understand how the Sharing program works after reading this post, PLEASE ask us questions.
Posted in CATLUV on Feb 8, 2011... modified on Feb 8, 2011
Hi Sheshe,
Nini was removed because she violated our Terms of Service. In fact, Nini was exactly the person who started all the tensions you are referring to. She was the one who started spreading absolutely false rumors about Aidpage and AidpageTeam.
We spent enormous amount of time trying to explain things to her, but she refused to understand. We can't have Aidpage without a basic level of trust.
It's your choice to believe whomever you want, but don't forget that without basic trust in AidpageTeam, you can't feel "at home" on Aidpage.
If you only knew how much time I spent trying to get a picture that would make me look reasonably good... Not an easy task I must tell... :)
And yeah... you're right - you can say: as "private" as we can get... no matter online or offline. But still, we don't want people to be "shocked" when something leaks out. If US diplomats' conversations can be leaked out... anything can... :)
A member recently asked us (the AidpageTeam) about the privacy of one-to-one pages. More specifically - can other people access those pages?
The technical answer is - no, only you and the other person can access the one-to-one page you share. Other Aidpage members cannot access that page.
But the true answer is - yes, other people could eventually see the info you posted on a one-to-one page (without accessing the page itself). And it is simple enough to see how.
Anything you post on a one-to-one page... can be copied by the other person and later re-posted somewhere else (on the web or in email to other people).
But, remember... the same is true for any communication outside(!) of Aidpage. When you send a normal email to someone, you lose control over the information in your email. The content of your message is copied on the computer of that other person and stays there even you delete this email from your computer. And this is true for any other form of electronic messaging - instant messaging, AIM, chats, Facebook private messaging, etc.
Generally speaking, on the web, there is no way to have a guarantee for absolute privacy. Anything you share with another person might be shared with other people - by simple copy/paste, forward, etc.
That's why, we don't use the term "private" for the messages on Aidpage.
So... what does this mean?
It means that you should look at this as a question of trust between you and the other person.
It means also that we (all members of Aidpage) should frown upon re-sharing of info outside of the one-to-one page where it was originally posted. The implied trust of the one-to-one page should not be broken.
Exception to that rule would be when a member needs to notify AidpageTeam about cases of perceived offending language, spam/scam messages, etc. We strongly suggest to contact directly AidpageTeam in such occasions. Please, do NOT talk to other members in such occasions because you may spread a false accusation. We know from experience that people do not always understand correctly the intended meaning of written messages. This is the most common reason for tensions between members of online communities. Saying "sorry" after the fact may not heal the wound you may cause by incorrectly “outing” someone. Don't forget - most people on Aidpage are already feeling vulnerable for many good reasons.
We don't send these letters as emails to the elected representatives. Here is why:
They receive millions of such emails - mostly from campaigns by various advocacy and lobbying groups - and it is a public secret that their offices simply can't even read them all... or even less respond to them.
An email from an individual has even less of a chance to get any attention.
A private email can easily be dismissed and forgotten. No witnesses.
Instead, we decided to go for the "open letter" format because:
On the web, it gets a lasting public presence.
Search engines (Google) will index these letters. They will start popping up in searches with the names of the elected officials done by their own staff and by journalists.
The public character of the letters can potentially create more pressure on elected officials to react to them.
Each letter can be a start of a public discussion on an issue - everyone can add comments under each letter... thus adding to the value of the initial post.
"Open" letters were traditionally available to people with enough power and money to have access to big media (typically newspapers). We want to give the same capability to anyone. Aidpage has ~200,000 visitors (readers) monthly... and will get bigger... hopefully.
See below examples of how the letters aggregate under the keywords we add automatically to them (for better web exposure):
In the same way, letters will aggregate in Discussion pages dedicated to each elected representatives... so, it will be easy for them to read them all in one place... :) Also, the letters will appear in the Discussion pages dedicated to individual States.
The information about grant programs is offered free on the sites of government agencies and nonprofits... and is not copyrighted.
So, when a member of Aidpage (you in this case) knows about specific programs and websites, it is expected this information to be shared here on Aidpage - either as simple and quick web links or even as re-posting of the full text information taken from the original source (assuming it is not copyrighted).
This does not preclude you from offering paid grantwriting and consulting services to whoever might be interested.
But we definitely expect posting of the information itself. That's the minimum level of "helping" we expect on Aidpage - free information from other members. This is what other members do every day.
Please, take this seriously... if you want to maintain your Aidpage membership.
Good thing most people put their trust and faith in other people. That's why... and how... we still have families, friends, churches, nations, and sites like Aidpage (people helping people, remember!).
Just imagine all people distrustful of other people. Even God would not want to help such a sorry bunch of self-centered folk.
