by solveeczema | Dec 19, 2007 | Solveeczema.org
With my last post, I began a temporary experiment with fundraising. I’ve been thinking about doing something for awhile, because the domain name renewals for solveeczema.org and solveeczema.com come up in a few months. I’d like to renew for five or ten years, but it’s costly in such big chunks (even though the per-year cost goes down). Also, while I’m at it, I was hoping to transfer hosting to a better service, updating the site is just so arduous at the moment, I am rarely able to do it.
I have to admit that I have also wondered if I could duplicate some of the blogging stories I have read about lately, where bloggers have gotten enough donations to devote more time to their blogs.
However, I have also read that when a connection to a pay site like paypal links from your site, it’s standing in the search engines drops (for certain kinds of sites). Whether it’s true or just coincidence, visits to this blog dropped an order of magnitude when I put the donations button up. I also lost a subscriber. I put up the site in the first place to help people; the donations button came out of my considering how I could afford to keep doing that and maybe do more, but I seem to be bumbling that attempt.
I plan on removing the donations button in two or three months anyway, and leaving it off, especially if I am able to renew the domain name for several years. Please consider a small donation to support the solveeczema site and this blog. Given what has happened, I don’t think I will be putting a donations button on the solveeczema.org site after all.
by solveeczema | Dec 15, 2007 | Solveeczema.org, Uncategorized
I am experimenting with a temporary donations button on this blog – and hopefully soon, on the solveeczema website – to ask for support to renew the domain names and transfer the site to a better web hosting service in a few months.
If possible, I also hope to afford to devote more time to updating the site, answering emails and questions, and maintaining the blog on a more regular basis. (In the interest of full disclosure, I will not be able to spend full-time with this no matter what the level of support. But I will be able to do far more than the small, spare moments I can offer now.)
This is a small blog; small donations are welcome!
If, however, someone has the means and desire to be a major angel, I would add the following wish list:
1) Funds to subscribe to relevant online dermatology and microbiology scientific journals – to help me finish a scientific article sooner.
2) Support a study! In the past year, more than one doctor has offered to help conduct a study. I have had little ability to follow up. (If you can fund a study, please write to me through the “Feedback” heading/link on my home page. Rather than donating to me directly – solveeczema.org is a simple volunteer effort, not an official non-profit, so donations are not tax deductible – we could arrange for you to donate to the institution where the study would be conducted, where it would more likely be deductible.)
I have to admit that I am not very comfortable asking for donations, I hope it does not make my readers uncomfortable. The web site needs more than I have been able to give to it; I would like to do much more.
When I solved my son’s eczema, I was unable to keep up with questions and requests for help from friends and acquaintances, so I wrote a few articles. When the articles were published, I was inundated with requests for information, so I put up the solveeczema web site.
I can see from feedback that the site is doing a tremendous amount of good. I hear from people all over the world that the information helped them understand and eliminate a child’s or their own eczema. More than one doctor has told me that they refer patients to the information. I can see that this solution is consistent with a plethora of existing scientific literature.
I will take the whole thing to the next step sooner or later – a scientific paper, a study, etc. – thus I am experimenting with donations to see if I can make that happen “sooner.”
[Donation button disabled – please see side bar.]
by solveeczema | Dec 3, 2007 | About Products
I just came across another promising toothpaste brand: Urtekram. The products appear to be detergent-free, sorbitol-free, and organic. They make a children’s toothpaste! Tragically, I can’t seem to find a source in the US for less than $10 a tube, so I guess I won’t be rating it myself anytime soon. However, it appears to be more reasonably priced in Europe.
