Gittip minimum raised from $0.25 to $1.00(gittip.com)
gittip.com
Gittip minimum raised from $0.25 to $1.00
https://www.gittip.com/about/me.html
7 comments
The American "I am obliged to give you a tip because minimum wage sucks" doesn't seem to be what gittip is about. In fact, it's much closer to the Australian idea "I am giving you more money because of your impressive performance, and I want to say thanks".
In Australia, I tip when service is awesome. In America, I tip when service isn't absolutely terrible.
Full disclosure: I am Australian
In Australia, I tip when service is awesome. In America, I tip when service isn't absolutely terrible.
Full disclosure: I am Australian
Could be some truth to this, especially after raising the minimum.
Love it, thank you. Noted here:
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/138
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/138
So to start, I am not a target user of this site (at least at the moment), as I am not very active on github and I don't follow open source projects very closely.
With that said, I have followed these discussions, and I think this may be the wrong approach. I think that you should implement a balance transfer feature. This would prevent a lot of the money from getting eaten up by processing fees. Once that is implemented, you should just leave the amount up to the user, no mins, no maxes. If someone thinks that $0.25/wk is too small, then they are free to tip more. But at $0.25/wk, that comes out to $13/yr. At $1/wk, that is $52/yr. I am a man of modest, yet comfortable means, and giving some people ~$10/yr to support their cause is well within my discretionary budget, but at ~$50/yr, that starts setting off my internal 'frugal' alarms, especially if I want to donate to more than one project.
With that said, I have followed these discussions, and I think this may be the wrong approach. I think that you should implement a balance transfer feature. This would prevent a lot of the money from getting eaten up by processing fees. Once that is implemented, you should just leave the amount up to the user, no mins, no maxes. If someone thinks that $0.25/wk is too small, then they are free to tip more. But at $0.25/wk, that comes out to $13/yr. At $1/wk, that is $52/yr. I am a man of modest, yet comfortable means, and giving some people ~$10/yr to support their cause is well within my discretionary budget, but at ~$50/yr, that starts setting off my internal 'frugal' alarms, especially if I want to donate to more than one project.
There's a distinction between truly supporting a person, and being part of a long tail of "oh well here's a few cents." I see us trying to feel out how to work with those two cases. My current thinking is that the long tail of support for an individual will come via their association with various projects, groups, companies, brands--whatever we want to call them. Here's the ticket where we're tracking this:
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/27
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/27
[deleted]
[deleted]
Gittip is a site for micro-subscriptions to fund open source developers. I got a lot of feedback this week on HN and GitHub that the minimum subscription should be raised from $0.25 to $1.00:
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/180
I rolled that out today, so if you wanted it, go use it. :^)
https://www.gittip.com/about/me.html
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/180
I rolled that out today, so if you wanted it, go use it. :^)
https://www.gittip.com/about/me.html
me.html is giving me a 302 redirect to the home page. Am I missing something?
If you're already authenticated then it redirects to your profile page.
Okay, should give you a message now if you're anon.
https://www.gittip.com/about/me.html
https://www.gittip.com/about/me.html
Nice, that's a little less confusing. :-)
Just as a heads-up: Google "gittip minimum raised from" or search Twitter for the same (http://twitter.com/#!/search/gittip%20minimum%20raised%20fro...) ... there's a collective audience of tens of thousands of people, any of whom could be seeing Gittip for the first time from this submission. Linking to a blog post, even a very brief one, might be better for picking up new interest in the future.
I feel like I'm being a pain in the ass between this and yesterday's grousing over needing a Github account. Sorry about that.
Just as a heads-up: Google "gittip minimum raised from" or search Twitter for the same (http://twitter.com/#!/search/gittip%20minimum%20raised%20fro...) ... there's a collective audience of tens of thousands of people, any of whom could be seeing Gittip for the first time from this submission. Linking to a blog post, even a very brief one, might be better for picking up new interest in the future.
I feel like I'm being a pain in the ass between this and yesterday's grousing over needing a Github account. Sorry about that.
If you're a pain in the ass then I'm sittin' on sunshine.
Definitely could do a better job of converting traffic. Don't feel like I have that nailed yet. :-/
Definitely could do a better job of converting traffic. Don't feel like I have that nailed yet. :-/
Just my 2 cents, but I did not/do not know what gittip is. The above link invites me to sign in using github, I'm extremely cautious of logging in using github anywhere as my personal account is also my work account.
Any page where I can land and be asked to log in should do a better job of saying what you do, especially where trust is involved.
Any page where I can land and be asked to log in should do a better job of saying what you do, especially where trust is involved.
Thanks for feeding back. I'll try to do better next time.
Just to add my 2c, a blog post on this and the reasons behind it are a really good idea.
As soon as I saw 'log in' I immediately returned to HN comments to find out what was going on. Many people won't have that luxury, or patience.
As soon as I saw 'log in' I immediately returned to HN comments to find out what was going on. Many people won't have that luxury, or patience.
Thanks for pushing through. I'll be more careful next time.
I know this sounds lazy, but it would be really nice to stream line the process of 1) Finding a project 2) Getting a list of the top contributors to a project.
For instance, I'd love to go to a site like this and give $100 to whoever is the most active contributor in glib who is accepting contributions.
I generally don't know people's github account names. Digging it up is a pain.
For instance, I'd love to go to a site like this and give $100 to whoever is the most active contributor in glib who is accepting contributions.
I generally don't know people's github account names. Digging it up is a pain.
Agreed. Working on it:
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/27
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/27
Gittip is well suited to use bitcoin (I even saw it mentioned a few times in issues https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/search?q=bi... ), bitcoiners can even fund that feature.
Here's the main ticket:
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/14
Basically I'm open to it if the bitcoin are transparently converted to dollars.
Code talks. ;-)
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/14
Basically I'm open to it if the bitcoin are transparently converted to dollars.
Code talks. ;-)
apologies for soliciting on hn, but i couldn't find a support line through the site.
must donations be recurring? why can't send one-off donations? also, at the risk of sounding vein, must the donations be anonymous? these things are keeping me from giving my money to people.
must donations be recurring? why can't send one-off donations? also, at the risk of sounding vein, must the donations be anonymous? these things are keeping me from giving my money to people.
As a counter-opinion, I prefer the way Gittip is set up so far. Small-but-recurring donations seem to be a better long-term model than larger-donations-in-bursts. (For examples of the latter struggling, there's Wikipedia and OpenBSD, both of which have to spend significant resources on collecting money on a regular basis, which is a distraction from what they would rather be doing.)
I'm a member of the Long Now Foundation, which charges a small amount to me every month. I've almost certainly donated more to them in this way than I would have in a one-time payment, and yet it still feels less painful to me. Win-win.
Gittip looks to me like it's trying to be more than just a reward system ... it's trying to be another way to sustain active contributors to open source.
Keeping the donations anonymous helps keep people from expecting to have leverage over open source contributors, which I think is a good idea.
I'm a member of the Long Now Foundation, which charges a small amount to me every month. I've almost certainly donated more to them in this way than I would have in a one-time payment, and yet it still feels less painful to me. Win-win.
Gittip looks to me like it's trying to be more than just a reward system ... it's trying to be another way to sustain active contributors to open source.
Keeping the donations anonymous helps keep people from expecting to have leverage over open source contributors, which I think is a good idea.
Gittip is designed to pay the mortgage for donees, and mortgages are recurring. I expect we'll mix in one-offs eventually. Here's the ticket for that:
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/5
Donations are anonymous in the particulars but public in aggregate on the homepage by default.
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/5
Donations are anonymous in the particulars but public in aggregate on the homepage by default.
Many devs don't have recurring income. It'd be good if i was able to simply say "10% of every invoice I send gets sent to gittip for me to distribute amongst the projects I used to generate the work in this invoice."
Freshbooks Integration?
Freshbooks Integration?
Ticketed with comments: https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/196
There is a way to cancel later right? I mean, even if you intend to give every week... eventually there will come a time where a person will need to stop doing that. We've all fell on hard times at one point or another and forced to make cut backs. Unfortunately, that often means being less "charitable".
If you can't turn off a recurring donation, then that just upped the giver's commitment level from "chicken" to "pig".
If you can turn off a recurring donation, then at least there is a work around for much shorter runs, like... 1 week. :)
If you can't turn off a recurring donation, then that just upped the giver's commitment level from "chicken" to "pig".
If you can turn off a recurring donation, then at least there is a work around for much shorter runs, like... 1 week. :)
You can set individual gifts to zero. They're collected together on your profile page:
https://www.gittip.com/about/me.html
You can also turn off gifts entirely without actually forgetting them by deleting your credit card:
https://www.gittip.com/credit-card.html
Is that satisfactory?
https://www.gittip.com/about/me.html
You can also turn off gifts entirely without actually forgetting them by deleting your credit card:
https://www.gittip.com/credit-card.html
Is that satisfactory?
Thanks. So it seems that if a person wanted to just give once, there is a series of steps involved that would allow them to do that in a roundabout way. Maybe that is using Gittip in a way not intended, but it would satisfy the OP's need of a one time gift option.
Correct. Thanks for pointing that out.
thanks for the answer! what is the point of forcing anonymity per-donation?
gittip is more like a recurring research grant than a traditional salary. if i'm not dictating the work i'm paying for, i think it makes sense to know who, as a maintainer, your supporters are.
gittip is more like a recurring research grant than a traditional salary. if i'm not dictating the work i'm paying for, i think it makes sense to know who, as a maintainer, your supporters are.
The idea is for gifts to be no-strings-attached. Not knowing who exactly your donors are means you're more free to pursue your own vision rather than someone else's. The idea is that you're being productive on your own terms, and "society" is rewarding you for your productivity.
Along with this, the ability to set start and end dates for recurring tips would be great. Build in notifications if a recurring tip is set to stop soon so I can reconsider my donations.
To the designers of gittip- I have refrained from donation on the two occasions I felt compelled to, because the tip is recurring, and I don't want to forget that I'm paying someone every week. That was my brief thought process. I speak for only me, but figured you would like to know. Good luck!
I like the speed that you're implementing feedback and new features.
I was curious about your payment processor since you're working as a marketstyle service. For reference on a project I'm working on, were there any hurdles to getting such an account? Also, how do you plan to handle chargebacks?
I was curious about your payment processor since you're working as a marketstyle service. For reference on a project I'm working on, were there any hurdles to getting such an account? Also, how do you plan to handle chargebacks?
Marketplace payments is the main purpose of our existence. We do our best to build a clean API on something that's rather complex to build.
Give it a shot with some test creds (see below). You can go live directly from the site: https://balancedpayments.com
# create a test marketplace
curl -X POST https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/api_keys
# retrieve and store the secret for subsequent commands
curl -X POST https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/marketplaces -u $SECRET:
Give it a shot with some test creds (see below). You can go live directly from the site: https://balancedpayments.com
# create a test marketplace
curl -X POST https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/api_keys
# retrieve and store the secret for subsequent commands
curl -X POST https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/marketplaces -u $SECRET:
I'm on my third payment processor. I started with FeeFighters' Samurai product but got burned pretty bad:
http://blog.gittip.com/post/25565694263/how-not-to-get-acqui...
I migrated to Stripe, who have an awesome product, but they asked me to leave because I'm running a marketplace and that's outside their bank agreements. I was casting about for options when Balanced came along and offered to contribute the integration with their product. They've been very respectful of Gittip as an open community and its turning into quite an interesting relationship. Hoping to do a write-up on the blog soon.
Truth be told I still have it in mind to vault cards over at SpreedlyCore or something like it just to be safe, but I haven't been able to prioritize that yet.
http://blog.gittip.com/post/25565694263/how-not-to-get-acqui...
I migrated to Stripe, who have an awesome product, but they asked me to leave because I'm running a marketplace and that's outside their bank agreements. I was casting about for options when Balanced came along and offered to contribute the integration with their product. They've been very respectful of Gittip as an open community and its turning into quite an interesting relationship. Hoping to do a write-up on the blog soon.
Truth be told I still have it in mind to vault cards over at SpreedlyCore or something like it just to be safe, but I haven't been able to prioritize that yet.
he's using https://www.balancedpayments.com/
hopefully the site will grow larger and he'll change that. They're taking about 1/3rd more than if he opened a real merchant account.
Until his service grows much, much larger he'd be paying more with most merchant accounts. And he'd be on his own for paying out to the donation recipients, which this company is handling as part of their transaction fee.
I've worked with 3 different merchant account providers over the past 8 years. All of them, in the end, ended up costing more than twice the rates they originally quoted when I applied. Downgrading most cards to higher fee schedules, having a dozen fees 3rd party processors simply build into their flat rate, and the ability to raise rates every month for years can add up to a very high effective transaction rate.
PayPal, once you pass $10000/mo for the 2.2% tier, is currently my cheapest processor when you factor in all the processing, gateway and monthly fees. I still accept credit cards directly for various reasons, so I'm trying to move off directly storing cards in Authorize.net's CIM to a service like SpreedlyCore that will let me switch merchant account providers without losing my current customer billing info.
I've worked with 3 different merchant account providers over the past 8 years. All of them, in the end, ended up costing more than twice the rates they originally quoted when I applied. Downgrading most cards to higher fee schedules, having a dozen fees 3rd party processors simply build into their flat rate, and the ability to raise rates every month for years can add up to a very high effective transaction rate.
PayPal, once you pass $10000/mo for the 2.2% tier, is currently my cheapest processor when you factor in all the processing, gateway and monthly fees. I still accept credit cards directly for various reasons, so I'm trying to move off directly storing cards in Authorize.net's CIM to a service like SpreedlyCore that will let me switch merchant account providers without losing my current customer billing info.
Good to hear from someone with experience, thanks.
1. twice the rates? That's outrageous. You do know it's SOP to regularly get quotes for your merchant account? First data will match those quotes. Think of their (typically) annual rate increases as motivation to do your job and get the quotes.
2. Read your contract. First Data (and every other processor I've ever dealt with) gives 30-days to withdrawl from the contract when they send their notice of rate increase.
3. Did you look over the interchange matrix first data gave you? It's pretty clear on what you need to submit to receive the qualified rate.
4. Authnet gateway? I like their gateway too... but it's an added and unnecessary expense. First Data has a gateway that you can get them to include for free (although you will have to do your job and negotiate for it).
5. authnet CIM? For a few thousand dollars in hardware, you can store the card data yourself... unless you're dealing with a small number of transactions, you're going to have to do this anyway.
Yes, I know dealing with credit card processing is a pain.. but the above? You're just tossing money out the window.
2. Read your contract. First Data (and every other processor I've ever dealt with) gives 30-days to withdrawl from the contract when they send their notice of rate increase.
3. Did you look over the interchange matrix first data gave you? It's pretty clear on what you need to submit to receive the qualified rate.
4. Authnet gateway? I like their gateway too... but it's an added and unnecessary expense. First Data has a gateway that you can get them to include for free (although you will have to do your job and negotiate for it).
5. authnet CIM? For a few thousand dollars in hardware, you can store the card data yourself... unless you're dealing with a small number of transactions, you're going to have to do this anyway.
Yes, I know dealing with credit card processing is a pain.. but the above? You're just tossing money out the window.
Interesting. I went out to the balancedpayments site to see who they are. Absolutely no information. Am I not seeing a link somewhere on their page? The fact that they are using Godaddy as an SSL certificate provider/reseller and the certificate says run by "unknown" just makes me cringe.
Edit: Apparently there are some staff bios on the Community Page. Founded 2010. Is anyone familiar with other start-ups using them as well?
Edit: Apparently there are some staff bios on the Community Page. Founded 2010. Is anyone familiar with other start-ups using them as well?
They're a YC company (W11 iirc?), and yes, the Community Page is the best source of info at present:
https://www.balancedpayments.com/community
That page was put up in the past week or so, and the whole thing was rebranded from PoundPay a month or two ago--right about the time I started talking to them. Here's an etherpad where a lot of our initial conversation took place, with some additional background and info:
http://sync.in/gittip-balanced
https://www.balancedpayments.com/community
That page was put up in the past week or so, and the whole thing was rebranded from PoundPay a month or two ago--right about the time I started talking to them. Here's an etherpad where a lot of our initial conversation took place, with some additional background and info:
http://sync.in/gittip-balanced
Thanks for sharing the etherpad doc.
the certificate says run by "unknown" just makes me cringe.
It says that because it is not an EV SSL certificate. go to amazon if you want to see the same message, but from a verisign (non EV) cert.
It says that because it is not an EV SSL certificate. go to amazon if you want to see the same message, but from a verisign (non EV) cert.
Actually you dont need an EV certificate in order to show the name of the society inside the certificate, you need the EV cert only if you want to show the name in the browser bar.
Just as an example (no affiliation with thawte):
this is a certificate that only validates the full domain name but has no info about the company: http://www.thawte.com/ssl/ssl123-ssl-certificates/index.html
this has also the company name inside the cert: http://www.thawte.com/ssl/web-server-ssl-certificates/index....
and this is the Extended Validation one: http://www.thawte.com/ssl/extended-validation-ssl-certificat...
Tipically the price of this certificate grows from one type to the other and also the required documents/paperwork changes (if you register a simple fqdn certificate many times the procedure is completely automated, if you register a certificate with the company inside, or an EV cert, you must send relevant documentation about your company)
Having said that, I would expect this kind of businesses to have at least a certificate with company details inside, or better an EV cert..
this is a certificate that only validates the full domain name but has no info about the company: http://www.thawte.com/ssl/ssl123-ssl-certificates/index.html
this has also the company name inside the cert: http://www.thawte.com/ssl/web-server-ssl-certificates/index....
and this is the Extended Validation one: http://www.thawte.com/ssl/extended-validation-ssl-certificat...
Tipically the price of this certificate grows from one type to the other and also the required documents/paperwork changes (if you register a simple fqdn certificate many times the procedure is completely automated, if you register a certificate with the company inside, or an EV cert, you must send relevant documentation about your company)
Having said that, I would expect this kind of businesses to have at least a certificate with company details inside, or better an EV cert..
no, the site validation AND the second link do NOT include the company name in the SSL cert when you click on the cert details. You need an EV cert for that.
The site seal with a popup that includes the company details is not what me nor the op are referring to.
The site seal with a popup that includes the company details is not what me nor the op are referring to.
Thanks. I'm curious why more processors aren't using an EV certificate for all their pages such as what WEPAY appears to be doing.
I'm at 2.9% + $0.30 with balanced. Can I really get 1.9% + $0.20 somewhere? For what minimum volume?
Of course, the fact that Balanced is contributing significant code and momentum to Gittip also has to be accounted for.
Of course, the fact that Balanced is contributing significant code and momentum to Gittip also has to be accounted for.
Also, I did have a "real merchant account" with FirstData when I was with FeeFighters, and I kept getting stupid opaque fees. The new wave of companies abstracting away that bullshit has not arrived too soon, imo.
I've got a conversation going with Braintree to get another "real merchant account," but with Balanced contributing code, and Braintree only half the solution (still need ACH), and getting burned by FirstData ... what's my incentive?
I've got a conversation going with Braintree to get another "real merchant account," but with Balanced contributing code, and Braintree only half the solution (still need ACH), and getting burned by FirstData ... what's my incentive?
Historically, Australians don't tip. During much of the the 20th century Australia had quite a strong (relative to the US) tradition of socialism and unionism, resulting in a strong set of minimum employment conditions. There was very much a view that a decent living wage was an entitlement and a matter of dignity, not something that a worker should have to stoop to collect. People didn't tip, since the common perception was that the potential tipee was as equally entitled to a minimum wage as the potential tipper. Indeed, I'd say that people actively didn't tip as an act of homage to equality.
Tipping is probably more common today than in the past, and the above is being eroded, but I think the above is still generally true. A tip is rarely expected, or let on to be expected, as that is a sure fire way not to get a tip.
I mention the above, in the supposition that it has connotations for a site like gittip that liberally uses the word "tipping". Some cultures don't do tipping. As an Australian, I'd be more inclined if the idea of compensation was being sold on a "equity" (as in fairness) basis rather than a giving basis. I know it's semantics, but semantics does influence decisions.
I hope the above is constructive.