Disappointing and frustrating.

Only 3 more contributions since last week. That means only 15 people have made contributions. The amount raised has been $335. The goal, based on the expected costs, is $1200.

Those of you who have donated, let me say thank you, once again. I really appreciate the support and that you think enough of the site and what I’m doing to help me try to do more.

I’m not sure what to make of the rest. The site has been averaging well over 700 individual visits a day. I didn’t think it unreasonable to hope that maybe 10% would make a contribution.

Perhaps this is representative that a large majority of the daily visitors don’t place a high value on the site, or thinks it’s fine the way it is. I happen to disagree with the latter. Not just from the perspective of the hassles I’ve faced lately with blogger, but with what more I’d like to do.

In the past 12 months I’ve had offers from 3 different organizations to move to another site to do Pitt blogging. To this point, I’ve turned down the opportunities for different reasons. For the most part, though, the reasons can be summarized to these key points:

• Insufficient financial reward;
• Reduced independence — who and what I can link to and what I can say about certain things;
• Reduced public access.

So why haven’t I mentioned this? I don’t want to make it seem like a threat. And that is, afterall, what it probably appears to many of you to be by posting this. “Donate or else.”

Nothing will happen for a while. Nothing may happen at all. I am committed to moving to a new site, regardless. The result, though, might mean big gaps in posting when I travel, and not doing as much.

I just thought there would be more support.