Allow tips to be directed to specific activities

[ironchefpython]

Gittip is focused on giving money to individuals, rather than projects, corporations, articles, or products. This is a compelling niche, but as a giver, I might want to communicate exactly why I'm giving someone a tip. That reason could be expressed by identifying a particular github project, or a twitter hashtag. Not only does this provide the recipient with additional information from the giver (and more information is better), but it will also make features like tipping projects, and disbursing project tips easier

Here's a story to elaborate:

Jane Doe is a multi-talented individual who is involved in a number of activities. She is the sole developer for an emulator that allows execution of legacy Visual J++ applications, she runs a website advocating the return of the <blink> HTML element, she is an organizer for #occupyskidrow, a grassroots group that wants to raise taxes on the poor to pay for more cuts to the capital gains tax rate, and she wants to buy a brand new electric car to feel smug.

Jane creates a gittip account, and gittip will scan Jane’s twitter feed for frequently used hashtags, scan Jane’s github account for her projects, and present these items as a list. Jane can modify this list by (for example) removing github projects, adding new hashtags, or entering freeform text. So she chooses to add “bring back blink!” with a URL of bringbackblink.com, and “new prius for me” with a url of Toyota.com

I want to tip Jane, but I want to be specific about which of her activities I support. So when I go to initiate a tip, it will present a list possible choices. I can tip directly to her, to and/or any of her activities, or combination of these things. If I’m most interested in Jane’s activities as a reverse-Robin Hood, I can specify #occupyskidrow as the “subject” of my tip, communicating my desire to support these activities.

Jane logs into gittip, and sees that a number of people who are ideologically opposed to social justice have tipped her with the subject #occupyskidrow. She has the opportunity to allocate the tips with this subject. She chooses to re-tip 10% of that money to @JohnDoe, leave 40% to accumulate, and to re-tip 50% of the tip stream to herself, with the subject “New Prius”.

Later on, I can look at Jane’s profile, and see how this money has been allocated. Because I feel her allocation was brilliant, I can double my tip, and the new money is automatically allocated via the existing percentages.

[chadwhitacre]

How does this relate to #27?

[ironchefpython]

How does this relate to #27?

It allows people to tip projects through individuals. It is an alternative to creating project entities in gittip, and resolves the issue of how to allocate monies in a project.

By attributing your tip to a project, the recipient can see that the tips dedicated to a porject are seperate from their personal tips, and redistribute project tips to contributors or upstream projects.

[tonylampada]

Integration with FreedomSponsors could be interesting for this use case.

Maybe FS's issue view could have a "Gittip to this issue" button.

• GH repo owners would have to enable this behaviour for their repo's issues on FS.
• The button would be just a link to tip someone on Gittip.
• The target page on Gittip would have to allow the tipper to choose someone other then the repo owner if the user chooses to do so.
• The tipee would have to know that the tip is meant for that FS's issue.

As FS's dev lead I see Gittip as a partner and would welcome such a pull request.

Wdyt @whit537?

[ironchefpython]

@tonylampada While gittip and FreedomSponsors have compatible goals, it seems the mechanisms are different, FS pays out lump sums for resolved issues, while gittip is about providing contributors an income stream over time.

That being said, I think there's an easy way to turn a tip stream (collected via gittip) into a set of lump payments to contributors. If I want to contribute a set amount of money to the ongoing maintence of Jenkins, I should be able to go to the FS site, look up who are active with Jenkins issues. I might be able to look at the largest contributors, or the most active recipients. There might also be individuals selected by the Jenkins project members to curate and pioritize issues.

I should be able to tip any of these individuals:

• Giving a tip stream earmarked to Jenkins to someone who places bounites on issues would be my way of saying, "I appreciate your contributions, here's some more money to spend on issues you think are important".
• Giving a tip stream earmarked to Jenkins to someone who fixes lots of issues would be my way of saying, "Thanks for fixing all those issues, please carry on doing that".
• Giving a tip stream earmarked to Jenkins to someone from the Jenkins project who manages the issues list would be my way of saying, "I think bugfixes are important, thanks for keeping them under control".

Maybe FS's issue view could have a "Gittip to this issue" button.

It should probably have "gittip to this person" buttons associated with the people involved in the issue, making it clear that gittips go to people, and the people who recieve the money who would then choose what to do with that money.

[tonylampada]

@ironchefpython, great analysis. Thank you.
I agree with everything you said. Opened www.freedomsponsors.org/issues/57

[chadwhitacre]

Givers should give to project accounts on Gittip to support specific activities. Gifts given to an individual should be unrestricted.