>This is very important and I hope all of you take the time to heed it's >message: > >When we launched RootsWeb, we assumed that our users would prefer >to support us as much as they were able, in exchange for a site >open to all, without banners plastered all over everything and >without having resources locked up (as is done at other genealogy >sites), available only for fees on the order of $60 per year. >Instead, people can support RootsWeb for as little as $12 per >year. We thus hoped that a reasonable fraction of our users, >perhaps half of them, would support us in some way. And because >we expected support from the community, we made promises to >projects like USGenWeb that we would freely host them for the >good of the Internet genealogy community. > >We have no intention of reneging on those early promises, but it >has been difficult, because the community support we anticipated >has not been there. Although people use the site like crazy, >fewer than 7% of our users have chipped in to keep things going. >The other 93%? Perhaps they're busy, or they're broke, or they >won't pay unless they have to, or they don't think RootsWeb is >useful. Who knows? But it means that RootsWeb has run at a cash >flow loss. In simple terms, Karen Isaacson and Brian Leverich >have donated not only their time as system administrators but a >substantial part of their personal resources to provide the >genealogical community with RootsWeb. The rest of RootsWeb's >staff have also made substantial contributions. > >Because RootsWeb's costs exceed its income, we can't provide all >the genealogical facilities we'd like to support. These could >include online searchable databases of pension records, census >indexes, vital records, or countless other valuable genealogical >services that we could easily provide -- if only we could afford >the staff to support them. And, ultimately, RootsWeb can't even >continue to exist if we don't bring our costs and revenues into >balance, something we want to have under control before the >transition to non-profit status (as opposed to losing money >status) is completed. > >We are doing what we can to remedy the situation. For instance, >we are selling banner advertisements where we can. However, this >alone will never provide enough revenue to cover the costs of the >unbannered volunteer projects which consume most of RootsWeb's >resources yet by their very nature produce no direct revenue, >even as they provide invaluable content to the genealogical >community. > >The new communities, from their inception, will be fully >supported by advertising. They will be paying their own way. We >can shift some of the costs of maintaining the Web, mailing list, >GenConnect, and search engine servers onto the new communities, >so that the new communities will subsidize a genealogical >community that hasn't been supporting itself. > >Although we have been disappointed in the amount of financial >support of the genealogical community, we would like to express >our deep gratitude to the writer of the letter above and the >other 7% of our users who have helped make RootsWeb available to >the whole community. Without their support and encouragement, >there would be no RootsWeb. > >If you would like to join the folks who are making RootsWeb >possible and thus help us bring new genealogical data >online, freely available to all, please visit: > <http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html> >or send e-mail to: > [email protected]