Small print tells us, in smarmy marketer’s vernacular, “Typophile is a Punchcut gig.” (You can just feel the backwards baseball cap and last year’s sneakers.)
Who or what is a Punchcut? Why should we care who or what Punchcut is, or what its “gigs” are? Here is what we should care about:
Why are these facts not listed?
What does it matter? This is a community that is doing real good, fostering communication and education about typography. Your endless posts are quashing that dialogue and degrading the integrity of this site.
Also, notice that 'Punchcut' is actually a link. You *could* click it.
It's weird, but Joe is kind of right (about the missing details). I have utter respect for the work that Punchcut does in maintaining this resource - and for the community it fosters. It's truly invaluable to me. But the inner workings are unnecessarily mysterious - how does Typophile get funded? Can we really become members? I'd be happy to get a heart (or blood drop) - but how? Can I send Typophile money to keep it rolling?
For me, it's less about accountability than it is about ensuring continuity; see Zeldman's latest piece about the loss of content upon the loss of life.
Now, back to my ampersand.
Typophile is funded through the generosity of community donations and through sponsorships. These sponsorships come in the form of banner advertising (as seen on the right of every page), Featured Face sponsorships (showcasing typefaces from various foundries and designers), and Typophile Film Festival sponsorships.
Once upon a time, Typophile had a membership model in which we offered various levels of memberships at set costs. During this time we offered goody bags and gifts to paying members and even restricted access to particular forums for our "Uppercase" users. As the Typophile community grew into the thousands (currently 50,000+), and as Punchcut grew as a company, we were no longer able to support the tasks necessary to keep this system running in the same manner. We eventually simplified the model and now offer "badges" that we hope the community will wear with pride if they have made donations.
There is a link in the nav at the top of the screen labeled "Memberships" (admittedly this language is out of date) where one can make donations to Typophile.
http://www.typophile.com/membership
It has never been a secret that Typophile is run by Punchcut, and if anyone would like to learn more about who we are, you can click the link to our site in the footer (mentioned above) or read any of our bios in the TypoWiki or individual user profiles, which have been public information since the conception of this site (which is turning 10 years old soon).
And lastly, Joe, we have been through this before, on Typophile publicly and in private e-mails. If you would like to get to know us better, it might be helpful to show us your kinder side.
http://www.typophile.com/moderators
http://www.typophile.com/typowiki
http://www.punchcut.com
Zara, you haven’t solved the problem. All you’ve done – yet again – is bury an incomplete explanation of the ownership and management of Typophile in a comment thread. Gosh, that’ll be easy to find later, or in a crisis.
Seriously: Why isn’t there a nice big About link on every page that explains who owns and operates Typophile, who owns which content, where exactly to go with any concerns (including a generic address for any on-duty admin)?
Why is that so hard?
Zara, thanks for the explanation. I didn't get the Merchandise language previously but I do now: You can buy a badge there. I will do so later.
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