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switch to opt-in #28

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chadwhitacre opened this issue Jun 7, 2012 · 40 comments
Closed

switch to opt-in #28

chadwhitacre opened this issue Jun 7, 2012 · 40 comments

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@chadwhitacre
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Gittip.com is currently opt-out, and that's not cool. See below for discussion.

Original:

We've got a fine line to toe. Kachinga pissed people off by collecting money on their behalf without explicit permission. We're a bit different (donor pays fee vs. cut to recipient, coop vs. corp) but it remains to be seen whether we're different enough.

Even if the world is okay with us being opt-out instead of opt-in, we still need an opt-out mechanism. This would involve claiming an account and then clicking a big red "Stop taking donations for me" button.

(This started as #26 but then got derailed. Reticketing.)

@thiloplanz
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I think it should be opt-in. Right now (please correct me if I am wrong), you are collecting tips even for unclaimed accounts. Same problem as with Kachingle (mitigated by lower fees). What happens if they remain unclaimed? The only proper thing to do is to return the money to the donors. Is there such a mechanism in place?

I like how Flattr is doing it: Unclaimed accounts can be "flattred", but no money is credited to them until the account is claimed. But everyone can see the number of people that would like to donate here (in your case, you could even add a monetary value, I suppose). And once it is claimed, the donations (for the current period, not for the past) becomes active.

So ideally, in Gittip, you could set aside an amount for unclaimed projects, but it would be greyed-out or something, and at the end of the week would not be actually paid out, becoming active automatically once the account is claimed.

@jefftriplett
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+1 to being opt-in only. I signed up only so I could make sure I can't be tipped.

@chadwhitacre
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Another data point: http://blog.readability.com/2012/06/announcement/

@chadwhitacre
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Regarding the question of unclaimed tips raised in the Readability link, with Gittip the straightforward option when someone opts out would be for unclaimed money to revert to the donor. So when you opt out, your balance would go to zero, and your donors' balances would increase in the amount of their gift(s) to you. Their positive balance would then be used to fund their other tips going forward.

@chadwhitacre
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@jefftriplett Sorry that's not implemented yet. I'll make that a priority.

@bokmann
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bokmann commented Jun 14, 2012

Collecting money using my name on my behalf without my knowledge or consent is unethical in any medium. Opt-in, or be prepared for backlash.

@jtauber
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jtauber commented Jun 14, 2012

Is there a distinction to be made, though, between allowing someone to pledge (for if/when the recipient does join) versus actual tipping? I have no problem committing to tip someone that isn't on the site (yet) if you aren't actually collecting the money.

@chadwhitacre
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From @mitsuhiko via IRC:

[1:48pm] mitsuhiko: whit537: i like the idea, but i think it's very intransparent right now
[1:48pm] whit537: What needs to happen to make it transparent?
[1:48pm] whit537: I want to be transparent. :-)
[1:48pm] mitsuhiko: whit537: opt-in only, if a user did not opt in an someone wants to tip him, 
         send him a message on github
[1:49pm] mitsuhiko: show exactly how money is transferred to people
[1:49pm] mitsuhiko: because that part is still something that does not make sense to me

At which point I linked to the billing module.

@bokmann
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bokmann commented Jun 14, 2012

a github message that said "Bokmann wanted to tip you but couldn't! Go opt-in at gittip.com" would be much better then default opt-in.

@jtauber
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jtauber commented Jun 14, 2012

@bokmann so the key there is: the tipper can still state their desire to tip, even if the person hasn't opted-in. and the question is: does that stated desire get recorded as a pledge for if/when the person does opt in?

@chadwhitacre
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Allow me to play devil's advocate: It's not your money. It's my money, and I want to give it to you anonymously as part of a crowd-sourced gift. Who are you to tell me I can't?

You're free to accept or reject the gift, of course. But Gittip isn't a corporation that is profiting off of your name. Gittip is (planned as) a cooperative for the escrow of anonymous crowd-sourced gifts. And the crowd owns Gittip--the members of the cooperative are those who aggregate their money through it. The fee a donor pays when they post money is their membership fee in the cooperative.

Gittip isn't just "Kachingle (mitigated by lower fees)" (@thiloplanz). It's a cooperative for the mutual benefit of donors.

Gittip isn't "collecting money on [your] behalf" (@bokmann). Gittip is aggregating money on its members' behalf.

@chadwhitacre
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So that's the hard line, and I'd like to not take it. :-)

I think you're right, @bokmann (et al.), that opt-out will result in a significant backlash, and rightly so. I'm committed to the cooperative model, but a cooperative that acts selfishly is no better than a corporation that does.

I'm editing this ticket to reflect a decision to be opt-in.

@jtauber
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jtauber commented Jun 14, 2012

@whit537 but what does that actually mean? (per my question above) Restated:

  1. can a tipper still state a desire to tip someone that hasn't opted in (yet)?
  2. if so, does that stated desire get recorded as a pledge for if/when the person does opt in?

@chadwhitacre
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How about these user stories?

Alice finds Gittip and is pumped. She signs up. She admires Bob's work so she looks him up on Gittip and finds that he hasn't claimed his account. She pledges to tip him $0.64 a week if he ever does sign up.

Bob hears about this Gittip thing and looks himself up. He sees that people are willing to give him $2.56 a week if he's willing to accept it. He's not sure he's ready to lend his name to this new site yet, but maybe he will be some day, so he just leaves it be for the time being.

A month later Bob checks in on his unclaimed Gittip account again and finds that people are now willing to give him $30 a week. He shrugs his shoulders for not having claiming the account a month ago, since he'd have an extra $100 or so in his pocket by now. He claims his account, and the next Friday $30 is posted to his account.

Eric hears about Gittip and looks himself up. He sees that people are willing to give him $10 a week if he's willing to accept it. Eric got totally burned by Kachingle last year and hates the idea of having a page on Gittip at all. He claims his account and clicks a big red "Cease & Desist" button. His Gittip page now says, "Sorry, Eric has requested that we not collect gifts on his behalf."

@chadwhitacre
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@jtauber Short answer: yes. :-)

Let's flesh it out ...

@jtauber
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jtauber commented Jun 14, 2012

Your user stories above are pretty much exactly how I'd like to see it work.

@chadwhitacre
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@jtauber Cool.

I would love to hear from @thiloplanz, @jefftriplett, @bokmann, and @mitsuhiko. Probably also @jacobian and @bartaz, since they opted out on #26.

@chmullig
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Definitely vote for opt-in only.

The reality of exactly how you handle it isn't too relevant, the idea of collecting money on my behalf without me agreeing feels dishonest and scammy.

@bokmann's suggestion about sending a message seems ideal to me. Don't collect any money for any reason until someone has opted in.

@jefftriplett
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I like your scenario better then what's implemented but I can't stress enough that it should not look like I've consented or endorsed the site by default. If you goal is true transparency then user pages should be more clear that someone has not agreed to accept tips.

chadwhitacre added a commit that referenced this issue Jun 14, 2012
Per #28, Gittip is now opt-in. This commit is the first step towards
implementing that. Next steps will be updating the leaderboard to
differentiate unclaimed accounts, and then of course modifying the
billing script to only process tips to claimed accounts.
chadwhitacre added a commit that referenced this issue Jun 14, 2012
chadwhitacre added a commit that referenced this issue Jun 14, 2012
This addresses #28. The opt-in message on the profile page was
harmonized with this.
@chadwhitacre
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@jefftriplett: I added this text to unclaimed accounts:

The pledged amount above is what the Gittip community is willing to give jefftriplett as a weekly gift, but only if jefftriplett accepts it. Gittip is opt-in. We never collect money on a person’s behalf until that person opts-in by claiming their account.

Here's what it looks like on your page:

https://www.gittip.com/github/jefftriplett/

How does that look to you?

With this implementation, "claiming your account" is the sign of opting in. Therefore I manually "unclaimed" your account, (@jefftriplett) and I've opened ticket #54 for providing a UI for that. In the mean time if anyone else wants their account unclaimed let me know here.

I also added opt-in messaging to the leaderboard.

I will modify the billing script before I run it tomorrow to ensure that Gittip delivers on the promises above.

@chadwhitacre
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This implementation doesn't support the "Eric" user story. If anyone feels strongly about that one please let me know.

@chmullig
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To me @jefftriplett's page isn't clear. It looks like he's just unloved, not that he hasn't opted in.

@chadwhitacre
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Okay, now it reads:

Gittip is opt-in.

We never collect money on a person’s behalf until that person opts-in by claiming their account, which jefftriplett has not done. Any amount above is what the Gittip community is willing to give jefftriplett as a weekly gift, but only if jefftriplett accepts it by opting in.

Any closer?

https://www.gittip.com/github/jefftriplett/

chadwhitacre added a commit that referenced this issue Jun 15, 2012
We now return claimed_time with the query behind payday, and filter on
that when computing the total to charge a tipper's credit card and how
to distribute their gifts. This addresses #28. We also now have that
info (claimed_time) available on the tipper's profile page. We should
indicate on their which of their tips are to people who have claimed
their account and which are not.
@chadwhitacre
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BTW, I released 9739baa as 2.0.0, since it's such a fundamental change.

@chadwhitacre
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@chmullig
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To me that's acceptable. It's clear enough that Jeff hasn't opted in, and clear enough no money is actually changing hands (yet).

On Jun 15, 2012, at 2:09 PM, Chad Whitacre wrote:

@chmullig: Is @jefftriplett's page clearer now?

https://www.gittip.com/github/jefftriplett/


Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/28#issuecomment-6362921

@chadwhitacre
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Thanks @chmullig. If @jefftriplett approves (or doesn't respond for a few days) I will consider this ticket closed. I've reticketed reverting money already in unclaimed accounts (#59) and sending notifications for pledged tips (#60). I'm dropping the "Eric" user story unless anyone wants to champion it.

Thanks to all of you for participating in this conversation and helping Gittip get off on the right foot! "Let's do more of those!" :-D

@jtauber
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jtauber commented Jun 15, 2012

@whit537 have any of the people who opted out expressed an opinion either way explicitly on the "Eric" user story?

@chadwhitacre
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No. Are you championing it? :-)

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 2:26 PM, James Tauber <
reply@reply.github.com

wrote:

@whit537 have any of the people who opted out expressed an opinion either
way explicitly on the "Eric" user story?


Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/28#issuecomment-6363288

@jtauber
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jtauber commented Jun 15, 2012

Nope. I'm +0 on it.

@chadwhitacre
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Word.

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 3:03 PM, James Tauber <
reply@reply.github.com

wrote:

Nope. I'm +0 on it.


Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/28#issuecomment-6364105

@jacobian
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I'm happy enough as things stand now — and super-impressed with how thoughtful and awesome @whit537 has been about getting this right — but were it an option I'd choose the "Eric" approach. To be clear that's not a value judgement on gittip itself; it's my own shit. I do think it's an important distinction ("Jacob hasn't signed up yet" vs "Jacob doesn't want tips.")

@toastdriven
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I also would be in favor of the "Eric" story. I'd like to tip others but don't feel like I should be accepting tips myself.

@chadwhitacre
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'Nuff said. Reticketed as #61, and scheduled for the Gittip #3 milestone (i.e., in the next week).

Thanks, @jacobian and @toastdriven.

@chadwhitacre
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Haven't heard from @jefftriplett, going to go ahead and close this out. Again, thanks all for the input. See you on #59, #60, and #61.

@jefftriplett
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Great job @whit537! I am amazed at how well you take feedback, your responsiveness, and your thoughtfulness. Thank you!

@chadwhitacre
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:-)

Thanks for closing the loop, @jefftriplett.

@mattbk
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mattbk commented Jul 25, 2016

Related: tip4commit/tip4commit#127

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