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gratipay / gratipay.com

Here lieth a pioneer in open source sustainability. RIP
https://gratipay.news/the-end-cbfba8f50981
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should be able to give non-anonymously #236

Closed chadwhitacre closed 6 years ago

chadwhitacre commented 11 years ago

Gittip Gratipay does not divulge who exactly gives to whom. The reason we do this is to preserve the "no-strings-attached" nature of the gifts. You know how unfriending someone on Facebook can be a big deal? We wanted to avoid that kind of friction. We also don't want receivers to feel pressured by their larger donors. Like, "if I piss off so and so, I'll lose X dollars." Better not to know in the first place so you're not on eggshells.

Now, when we launched we were very focused on individual-to-individual giving, but since then we've started bringing groups onto Gittip Gratipay.

For giving to individuals, I expect us to always stay "anonymous in the particulars" to avoid the social friction mentioned above.

For giving to groups, I think we can relax the constraint, allowing it to be double opt-in. If you give to a company or organization or project, we should let you advertise that. If a company gives to another company, we should make it possible to see that.

Update 2017-01-20: And now as Gratipay 2.0 we are only for giving to groups, i.e., projects.

Original

Turicas in IRC:

why tips must be anonymous? I think it should be up to who donates to choose between being anonymous or not in a transaction

As a receiver, I don't really want to know who you are. I do of course have people telling me in person or by other means that they tip me. Maybe it would be opt-in on both sides?

Want to back this issue? Post a bounty on it! We accept bounties via Bountysource.

turicas commented 11 years ago

As I said, I think the option should exist: the default behaviour will be "anonymous mode on" (on both sides) but the user should have the option to disable anonymity.

thiloplanz commented 11 years ago

This strikes me as a feature to "make the donors feel good" (which is something that Flattr was accused of being primarily about). If it is just about increasing communication between donors and project owners, that can already happen off-site sufficiently.

Nothing wrong with it, though, if it motivates certain people to donate more. There would presumably be badges and leaderboards.

Care should be taken that this does not exercise undue peer pressure on the people that wish to remain anonymous.

Having this as an opt-in is okay, I guess. It seems that there is value (for the people involved) in the social graph this creates.

But would this be a single opt-in ("Show my donations publicly") for ALL of your donations? If not, you'd have to manually opt-in for every single one, and that is kind of weird / a lot of work.

Maybe it would be opt-in on both sides?

Having an additional "Show my donors publicly if they also opted in" for the recipient? This would severely limit the pervasiveness of these public donations, reducing the intended benefits (which are largely a network effect I believe).

Whatever you do, always keep this opt-in in some form or other. Do not suddenly turn the switch to have new users give publicly by default (Flattr did that in their drive to become more "social").

thiloplanz commented 11 years ago

Alternatives to consider:

a) apparently you can already opt-in to be shown with your total donation amount (but not to who it goes) on the Leaderboard. This should solve the "make donor feel good" part

b) About the "want to thank everyone who donated to me, but doing it via Twitter or my blog is not enough" part: Flattr has an option to send a Thank You email to your donors every month. You get to specify the message, but they send the mail, and don't tell you who they send it to. Slightly better than Twitter or your blog, because you can be sure that your donors really get the message (even if they are not following your feeds).

israelst commented 11 years ago

As a receiver, I don't really want to know who you are. I do of course have people telling me in person or by other means that they tip me. Maybe it would be opt-in on both sides?

Personally, I don't really care if the world sees my donations or not, but I would like to eventually show myself to receivers who accept indentified donations.

So, I think that the options "Accept indentified donations" and "Reveal myself" are pretty useful.

Btw, this project is awesome!

justinabrahms commented 11 years ago

On this topic, I'd like to know why the heck anyone would donate money to me. I have done some things: Unimpressive open source projects; moderately successful screencasts for vim; writing on my blog; Which of these things did people like? Which stuff should I continue doing to make people happy?

victorb commented 11 years ago

@justinlilly sounds like a different issue. Maybe a reason field should be added to donation.

tonylampada commented 11 years ago

@VictorBjelkholm: +1 to that

lyndsysimon commented 11 years ago

@justinlilly I believe your concern would be resolved by #7.

While I personally don't have a problem with non-anonymity, I believe it to be outside the mission of Gittip to reveal tippers to tippees.

At pyOhio, I brought up to @whit537 that companies could use Gittip as an alternative to hiring developers, opting instead to support the contributors to open source projects from which they've benefitted. In return, the companies might get some input (but no guarantee) that the developers resolve their issues with some priority.

I now see that this can't be done, for two reasons: First, Gittip doesn't allow substantial tips from a single tipper to a single tippee. Second, this would make the tippees somewhat accountable to the tippers, even if in an emotional way. This defeats the point of the "Hey, you do good work. Go do more cool stuff!" model that I've come to associate with the platform.

So, in short - I oppose revealing tippers to tippees through Gittip. If a tipper really wants the tippee to know, they are free to contact them through other channels.

chadwhitacre commented 11 years ago

I believe it to be outside the mission of Gittip to reveal tippers to tippees. [@lyndsysimon]

Agreed.

If it is just about increasing communication between donors and project owners, that can already happen off-site sufficiently. [@thiloplanz] If a tipper really wants the tippee to know, they are free to contact them through other channels. [@lyndsysimon]

Agreed.

Care should be taken that this does not exercise undue peer pressure on the people that wish to remain anonymous.[@thiloplanz]

Right. Having this constraint—tips are anonymous in the particulars—provides a certain character for Gittip. It simplifies the Gittip story, which helps in product development and subsequent marketing. Of course it's possible to communicate through other channels, but that's out of scope for Gittip. Trying to incorporate that into Gittip would muddy the product.

bruceadams commented 11 years ago

From IRC last night. I didn't manage to point shurcooL at this issue.

[shurcooL] What do you guys think about an optional (opt-in) ability to make it public who you give to (perhaps keep the amounts anonymous) on Gittip? [shurcooL] It seems to go against the original nature of Gittip (helping out strangers, anonymous tips, etc.) but Imo it would help connect people (ala that "Amanda Palmer: The art of asking" talk) and bring them closer, etc. [shurcooL] Personally, I wouldn't mind making it public who I tip to. It's not a secret. And I know who tips me lol. [shurcooL] The question is this: would I be the only one using that feature, or would others be interested in sharing their tipees also? [shurcooL] Also, it doesn't have to be completely public, perhaps just make it known to the people you tip.. I haven't thought too much about the details. [shurcooL] Also, what about an ability to specify an optional reason when you start tipping someone? So they know what they did to deserve your support. e.g. "I like the work you're doing on project X!" Hmm not sure if this is good or not.

dmitshur commented 11 years ago

Reading the discussion here has been very insightful. There are a lot of great points raised.

I just want to elaborate on this thing I said:

[shurcooL] Also, what about an ability to specify an optional reason when you start tipping someone? So they know what they did to deserve your support. e.g. "I like the work you're doing on project X!" Hmm not sure if this is good or not.

The way I imagined it would be similar to getting a new follower on Twitter. But, depending if they chose to use an optional message when backing you, you could see one of these two notifications in your Gittip account:

To be honest, I'd be vary of notifications (usually they're interruptions), but in this case it may or may not be a good idea so I wanted to mention it. The problem is that having this ability may provide benefits (like knowing why people are tipping you), but it may cause serious social issues...

P.S. I used the verb backing because I couldn't think of a better word... I took it from Kickstarter lingo.

abnor commented 11 years ago

It was suggested similarly that tips could be 'tagged' so that we can start a search engine based on those tags, and the people/projects associated with them.

abnor commented 11 years ago

For example, when you make a tip, an option box says, "Add a tag [reason] for tipping. Example: #art, #opensource, #python"

chadwhitacre commented 11 years ago

+1 from @rikai via Twitter (2, 3).

DamosDaze commented 11 years ago

+10000

Damien Michael Nichols nichols.damien@gmail.com 301.485.9232

Sent from my HAL 9000, Dave. On May 30, 2013 10:34 AM, "Chad Whitacre" notifications@github.com wrote:

+1 from @rikai https://github.com/rikai via Twitterhttps://twitter.com/RikaiLP/status/340109713331081216( 2 https://twitter.com/RikaiLP/status/340109944873422848, 3https://twitter.com/RikaiLP/status/340110119356465156 ).

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/236#issuecomment-18683914 .

chadwhitacre commented 11 years ago

Stirred the pot:

https://twitter.com/whit537/status/341932310570082307

ehmatthes commented 11 years ago

I like that you're checking in on this, especially as gittip continues to grow. But I feel that anonymity is one of the core characteristics of gittip, that could help it achieve its true mission: enable people to earn full-time income pursuing their open source passions, as they see fit.

The idea presented above that I think has the most merit, in keeping with the core mission, is to allow donors to specify a reason. That brings up interesting issues as well, though. Example: I donate to Chad, and say in my reason, "MyCompany really appreciates the work you do on gittip. Keep it up!" I'm not sure how you would keep people from slipping identifying remarks into their reasons.

Letting go of anonymity will not affect the fact that gittip support grows slowly and drops slowly. But I think it is one of the core characteristics that will help gittip achieve its mission.

dmitshur commented 11 years ago

@ehmatthes, Chad recently added a new feature where you can toot people's horn. Basically, say "thanks for doing awesome thing X" or whatever you want. It's independent from tipping as far as I can tell.

I haven't used it much yet, but so far I really like it in theory and it should solve the "cannot express what specifically you're thankful for" issue that was there earlier.

chadwhitacre commented 11 years ago

+1 from @barringer via Twitter.

chadwhitacre commented 11 years ago

+1 from @zmanring in private email.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

I'm beginning to warm to this, after talking to @workergnome (https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/1074#issuecomment-23435137) and now @bjorn (IRC), and thinking about how to help Gittip really take off.

What if we show who gives to whom, but don't show dollar amounts? Now that we have a one cent minimum, I can tip my whole social network for between $1 and $10 per week, on average. Perhaps that becomes a sort of baseline entry fee for Gittip. I think that's good for Gittip if it does. Then unfriending is no more dramatic than it already is on Facebook or Twitter.

We should only reveal your givers if you have more than a few of them, to pool the variability (if I'm the only one giving to you then you know for sure how much I'm giving). What's the right N here? Dunbar's number (150) is too high, because that's the average size of one's social network, so it would be hard for most people to get that many givers on Gittip. I like that we set the bar high enough with communities that some people aren't happy with it (#1316). It should be an achievement to have enough givers on Gittip that they're revealed, but it should be an achievement within reach of most people. Maybe 50? I'd like to see some numbers on the distribution of follower counts on Twitter and Facebook, as well as where we stand on Gittip right now.

It would still be possible to give anonymously. New accounts would default to this new public sharing plan. Current users would have to opt in.

mvdkleijn commented 10 years ago

@whit537 I agree with some of the previous comments that this feature just seems like making donors feel good. That should not (mostly) be what Gittip is about. Gittip should also raise awareness that receivers have just as much rights to decide on these matter as the donors.

If you're going through with this, rather than Gittip deciding an arbitrary number and since you want existing users to opt-in, I would simply set a default number and allow receivers to opt-out or, if they opt-in, set a value no higher than say 150 before the visibility is triggered.

tshepang commented 10 years ago

As already mentioned, I would rather this be opt-in. I do, however, prefer that this feature request be rejected... anonymous tipping is a good feature.

balupton commented 10 years ago

Reading through this, there seems to be a few possible implementations (A):

  1. Receivers can opt-in to know who is giving to them non-anonymously
  2. Receivers can opt-in to know who is giving to them non-anonymously and how much they are giving
  3. Receivers can opt-in to know some tags relating to what the donation is about
  4. Receivers can opt-in to know a message explaining to what the donation is about
  5. Givers can opt-in to let givers know who they are donating to
  6. Givers can opt-in to let givers know who they are donating to and how much they are giving
  7. Givers can opt-in to let givers know some tags relating to what the donation is about
  8. Givers can opt-in to let givers know a message explaining to what the donation is about

With the following considerations (B):

  1. Givers who opt-in know who their givers are, can only do so, if the giver also opts-in
  2. Receivers who opt-in to let the giver know who they are, can only know if the giver has also opted-in
  3. If a giver opts in, they can show who they are donating to on their own profile page, but not the receivers unless the receiver has also opted in
  4. If a receiver has opted in, they can show who they are receiving from (only if the giver has opted-in)

So the question then becomes which combination of things, and how can it be implemented.

Thinking of how it could be implemented, would probably be a form like this for receivers:

And for givers:

What are people's thoughts?

balupton commented 10 years ago

Here's my thoughts on the above combinations.

So for me, I would have the following checked as the receiver:

This way I can say thank you to them (my choice would be privately), send them a letter or something. As well as respecting their wishes for allowing them to mention they are donating to me.

And for me, I would enable the following as the giver:

I would actually turn off the following:

Because it seems more like bragging, and creating FUD for non-givers and superiority for myself, if I were to enable that.

However I like the idea of displaying on my profile who I'm donating to, as it is clear indicator of whom I really dig and support (providing they are okay with it of course, respect is important!). As well as being an amazing way for my followers/friends/supporters/etc/whatever to be able to discover awesome new people, kind of adding a great social and viral aspect in a way. For instance, I would be very interested in finding out who Chad supports, as most probably, I'd want to support them too!

A concern with this, would be, well what if I discover Chad donates to political party I hate. Oh well, have some maturity and get over it, or as well, it could also be a way for us to grow and expand our learnings and appreciation of one another. Also, I think that being able to opt-in, means that I could make it so donations to say "highly controversial party" or whatever, wouldn't be public unless I explicitly opted-in for it to be so. Eliminating that concern.

balupton commented 10 years ago

@whit537

We should only reveal your givers if you have more than a few of them, to pool the variability (if I'm the only one giving to you then you know for sure how much I'm giving).

I feel this is another case of it gittip thinking it is smarter than the people. I think even having your only sole giver displayed is awesome, as that is a huge win for them, and good inspiration for others to join onboard. Wow if that person donated, so could I!

Adding onto what I've posted above, I feel that in the non-anonymized wall listings, it should say at the end for both givers and receiver at the end of the listing "and X people anonymously". Perhaps as a sideline issue, we could even change that to something like "with 50 people to go to hit the goal (at $2/week each average!)"

I also feel it is important to have anonymous as the default, as that is the way donations have generally worked. If I donate to someone via paypal or even via cash on the street, only they know it, not the entire world.

Making non-anonymous donations the default would be an invasion of privacy I feel. Can anyone shed some more light on the concerns here?

If the concern is that they may not actually check the check boxes, when they may want to, that doesn't seem like sufficient enough reason to risk exposing a transaction that could have severe consequences. Think political party support.

It seems a better solution to people not noticing the check boxes would be better interface design, rather than imposing views.

domenkozar commented 10 years ago

At Kiberpipa (https://www.gittip.com/Kiberpipa/) we would love support of donators being able to reveal how much they donate us. That gives us ability to publicise those that want attention of being sponsors of our Hackerspace.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

Reopening. I think we need to revisit this for @kiberpipa's use case, which we're seeing more of on Gittip: companies funding groups. See also #1657.

dominictarr commented 10 years ago

I think that anonymous charity is more authentic altruism, but on the other hand, when you give publicly, you give twice; once for your donation, and once for your endorsement.

Also, there is an aspect about the connection between the giver and recipient. If some one appreciates my art (which is what open source created in free time is) Then any way they can communicate that to me is appreciated.

Now, there is a cynical interpretation that some party might donate just to get "advertising", and if you know who is donating to you, that might effect your behavior regards to their feature requests, etc. However, I think this kind of relation already exists in open source. People "pay" by helping with a project, or by endorsing projects or the author publicly.

Actually, I think open source is at it's best when a reciprocal relationship exists A is a user of B's project, and B is a user of A's project. The problem is that it's only possible for this kind of relationship to exist between developers. If gittip had tips that where public (or some degree of known to the recipient), then it may broaden the possibilities for relationships to form.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

+1 from @jedgar (DigitalOcean) via Twitter.

ahdinosaur commented 10 years ago

+1 to @balupton 's suggestion. if people ever support me, i'd love to know who they are if they are willing to share that information. i think more ways to connect with other people is a good thing.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

+1 via Twitter.

clintonpaquin commented 10 years ago

@whit537 thanks for the add via Twitter. My idea was to reward tippers by granting them web access to certain areas of my project (think ACL). I don't really care who they are (Ie. I don't need their name, info, etc...) all I want is to know that they have tipped and then I can grant them ACL privileges. Even an endpoint that I can hit to give me a list of users that have tipped me would be sufficient. Thoughts?

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

@clintonpaquin I think it's probably a good idea. I've wanted something similar to use to handle membership over on www.opencompany.org. Need to think through the double opt-in flow.

pjf commented 10 years ago

+1 from me, for the exact reasons that @justinabrahms gave. (Why are people donating to me?)

See also #2011 for the same intent, but a different mechanism.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

+1 from @szabgab over at https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/2396#issuecomment-43105059:

in my history all the people who gave me money are listed as "from someone". Can a "giver" opt in to be shown in the history of others? Let's say I'd like to hide the "total" I give but I'd like the people who receive money from me to know they how much they've received from me.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

+1 from @bwats via Twitter:

I'd be willing to share publicly the amounts and people I'm supporting — can I do that somehow?

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

Description updated w/ current status.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

I know @jdorfman (@MaxCDN) is +1 on this, not sure why that's not noted here yet (don't have src handy).

jdorfman commented 10 years ago

@whit537 We don't mind being public. We actually already tell the world who we tip: http://www.maxcdn.com/open-source/

open_source_projects_maxcdn_sponsors_

dsernst commented 10 years ago

If moving ahead on this, :+1: from me on double opt-in.

chadwhitacre commented 10 years ago

Talked about this with @galuszkak on the OCI call for July, 2014. We want to use Gittip to manage membership in the OCI. We need an API from Gittip that lists people who gave last week and what they gave.

chadwhitacre commented 9 years ago

+1 from @weallhave24hrs in private text message:

What if somebody wanted to give us a tip and wanted to make it public? Maybe have that as an option?

tripflex commented 9 years ago

+1 would be nice to at least opt in if wanted to

chadwhitacre commented 9 years ago

Big +1 from Drupal on Twitter:

@YesCT @DrupalCoreGT that's a #fail that it's anonymous, at least one should have the option, code contributions are never/rarely anonymous

techtonik commented 9 years ago

IMHO this should be opt-in for both givers and receivers.

chadwhitacre commented 9 years ago

+1 from https://gratipay.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/tickets/1439

rohitpaulk commented 9 years ago

From the retreat video (session 1)

Context: Anonymity as a weakness for the Individuals giving to Businesses use case.

Chad: In the Individual -> Individual case it's purely altruistic. You don't need to know how I am, I don't care what you do with this money. In the Individual -> Business case, it's not purely altruistic. We've been saying no-strings attached for a couple of years, but that applies to the Individual -> Individual case.

chadwhitacre commented 9 years ago

Thanks, @rohitpaulk! :)

chadwhitacre commented 9 years ago

I think there was another place where I suggested that the individual to individual case may not even be purely altruistic (your mom gives you money but she still wants you to visit). But we don't necessarily need to get into the philosophy of altruism. :)