Consider utilizing unclaimed tips

[timothyfcook]

• If you let tippers know that any unclaimed tips will still be billed, you can use those pennies to form a big pot and send it:

1. To Gittip's coffers to help pay for the upkeep of the service over time
2. To a non-profit project voted for with a simple 3-option poll on the Gittip mainpage. Could be a cool way to support new initiatives and, more especially, to help build the excitement over Gittip and encourage users to return to the page frequently.

TWO. could be a good way to go during this start-up phase in order to gain users.

ONE. could be implemented later on when there are more serious overhead costs.

[chadwhitacre]

Interesting idea. Similar to #83, "start a community chest." There I was thinking you'd contribute to it explicitly. Here I hear you suggesting that unclaimed tips would go there as well. Hrm ...

[timothyfcook]

You mean #84 community chest. I think these can be separate, linked ideas. I like the Community Chest concept as a standalone... like a super-duper "give-a-penny-take-a-penny" jar... but I think sending unclaimed tips to something more specific that users can advocate for (like a weekly gittip grant to a non-profit) could be excellent. It would build more interactivity into the site and keep people returning.

Folks could vote, once-per-week (or maybe they have more votes if they tip more) where the unclaimed tips go. Have 5 options:

1. Community Chest
2. "Bill Billingson" (an awesome, but under-tipped programmer)
3. "Sam Samingson" (an excellent, under-appreciated developer)
4. Non-Profit Organization with a great story
5. Non-Profit Organization with a great need

[chadwhitacre]

What if we just split the pot between all users, or all users who have made a statement?

We had about $40 go to seed last week. We have about 1,000 users and 200 with a statement. What if we gave 4¢ to all users? Or 20¢ to all users who have filled out a statement? We could do like we did for publishing giving levels and turn it on by default and have an opt-out button on the profile page--"Put unclaimed money in the pot." We could use a gittip account named "gittip" to collect explicit tips to the pot. This in particular would be something I'd want to enable tips in amounts greater than $1.28 for (see #76).

[chadwhitacre]

Or we take the pot, 50% goes to all users and 50% to users with a statement. Last week that would have been 2¢ to all users and an additional 10¢ (12¢ total) to users with a statement.

Why am I resisting the "vote for non-profits?" idea? I resisted it on #52 as well. Actually, that seems to be the same suggestion as here, "send unclaimed money to charity."

I think of non-profits as being in the same category as for-profit companies, in that they are not necessarily transparent. See my latest blog post on this. Non-profits are "just" collections of people. Now, according to the nature of abstraction, we gravitate towards these short-hands, these privilegings of the group over the individual. "Google" does this. Well, no. Some humans do this. "The American Cancer Society" does that. Well, no. Some humans do that. I want to privilege the individual (slightly) over the group. I want (is this possible?) to see the humans instead of the company ... and instead of the non-profit.

That said, there has to be some way to associate humans together who are working together (#27). I'm coming to see this as the big philosophical question of Gittip--the relation of individual and group. I want a slight controlling interest, even just 51%, for the individual over the group.

Which is to say that tips on Gittip are already "votes" for "non-profits." Instead of introducing a secondary voting system just for charities, we should solve #27.

[chmullig]

What if we just split the pot between all users, or all users who have made a statement?

This seems to welcome gaming the system with questionable accounts.

[thiloplanz]

If you let tippers know that any unclaimed tips will still be billed

Didn't we just have an understanding that gittip needs to be opt-in (#28) and that no money flows for unclaimed tips?

[chadwhitacre]

@thiloplanz Well, we're not talking about collecting money for @chmullig without his agreement. I believe @timothyfcook's suggestion is that we collect money that would otherwise go unclaimed by @chmullig and use it for something else. I agree that at the very least this muddies the waters. It would be non-trivial to explain to people where their tips to unclaimed accounts are really going. At best I think we could manage this with an explicit opt-in. "Donate otherwise unclaimed money to ______?" That would default to false.

[chmullig]

I don't understand this distinction in your mind. My understanding is that there would be just two states:

1. default - I don't exist on this site. You don't collect money for me, you don't list me except when someone searches and it says "I'm not on gittip." Then perhaps there's an option for the searcher to send them a message or something.

2. I opt in. In this case you collect money and send it to my account.

I don't see how there's any unclaimed money in that system.

However if the system is otherwise, please describe the the explicit set of states any account can be in.

[chadwhitacre]

Current states:

1. unclaimed (default) - You have neither opted-in nor opted-out. Gittip members can "pledge" tips to you. No money moves; they're just pledges. Here's a list of accounts in this state: https://www.gittip.com/about/unclaimed.html
2. opt-in - You signed into Gittip using GitHub. Money moves. Nermal.
3. opt-out - You clicked the "lock" button on your unclaimed (default state) account. E.g.: https://www.gittip.com/github/qbyt/

The suggestion on this ticket is that money pledged to accounts in the first state would be redirected somewhere else. I'm saying we would have to make that opt-in if we go that route at all.

There's another suggestion (#114) that accounts in the second state be able to opt-out of receiving tips.

[pjz]

I think it's very close to lying to the pledger and using the pledgee's name without consent as support for the whatever-the-redirected-site is. That said, maybe that pledged money could be spread out among the pledgee's other pledges? (with notification to the pledger, of course).

[chmullig]

I agree with @pjz. I would feel like you were scamming me.

I think in general the entire idea of both pledges and unbacked tips is overly complicated. Either there's money that's going to flow from one person's account to another, or there isn't. The distinction of backed vs unbacked, etc, is bizarre to me. As a user, these details are just confusing.

If you want to do pledges for unclaimed accounts (I assume as a way of gauging interest for other users), I think it should be enumerated in people, not in dollars. As in "4 people have pledged to tip @foobar, if @foobar wishes to claim it." Then it's clear that there isn't actually money changing hands.

[pjz]

ooh, I really like the 'measure pledges for unclaimed accounts in number of people'. Also if you don't give a dollar amount, you make @foobar curious about how much money he could be pulling in, so he's more likely to sign up :)

[chadwhitacre]

@chmullig Unbacked tips are never presented as such in the UI. That's an under-the-hood detail, that currently leaks out in certain subtle ways. The ticket for stopping the leaks is #112.

I've reticketed enumerating pledges in people and not dollars as #124.

[chadwhitacre]

Closing this as too contentious and distracting for our current stage of development. See #131 for a possible alternative.

[chadwhitacre]

See also HN suggestion:

"dont make people spend the whole thing - distribute the excess to the developers that others have chosen, in proportion to how popular they are. Or use it to highlight projects you like, or projects for people who contribute money, or something like that."