Please remove mitsuhiko/* #127
Comments
|
Now, we can't remove repositories from the list, but you can turn off notifications for your projects and put a message saying you don't like this way of funding on your projects pages. ( like here https://tip4commit.com/github/django/django ) Would it be enough? You can find your projects here https://tip4commit.com/projects/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=mitsuhiko&order=balance (nobody has funded them yet) |
|
I'm not at all okay with what you guys are doing, just for the record. The only reason I discovered this is because someone forked your project and on another website money was accumulated. They did find a way to disable it: sigmike#110
No. Not at all. Please add support for blacklisting projects. I do not want to be associated with this kind of thing. |
|
@mitsuhiko thanks for your feedback but you are not asociated with this (if some site publishes info about your projects that doesn't mean you are associated with it).
Could you please explain the motivation behind this requested feature? We are doing the following:
What is wrong with it? |
|
You are collecting money using the project's name. |
|
Furthermore you're notifying new contributors about the possibility to recieve money for their commit as soon as their pull requests are merged. In your current notification emails there is no implication that this might be a process not endorsed by the project maintainers -- in fact, your terse messages make people assume tip4commit was explicitly set up and endorsed by the maintainers, because nobody assumes an unendorsed third-party service would send such intrusive messages on their own. |
|
Thanks for your coments, @untitaker . I think I understand the problem now. The main problem is that some people might think that we organize crowdfunding process on behalf of project maintainers. But we don't claim we do, that is an unintendend consequence of how we designed the system, sorry if it caused troubles. Do you think it can be fixed by just explicitly stating that we are not affiliated with the project we collect funds for and that project maintainers might not endorse this practice? |
|
That would certainly fix one problem, but of course i can't speak for @mitsuhiko. IIRC it was also not obvious in those messages whether the user would recieve more emails for further commits, or if there is any action at all needed to opt out of all of this. But nevertheless i think tip4commit should be opt-in instead, because i consider the current tactic to be a very intrusive form of growth-hacking. |
|
Email notification happens only when contributor's balance hits the threshold of 0.005 btc (that is ~2$ at current rate). Recepient needs to know that s/he received money at least once so that s/he specifies his/her bitcoin address to receive them without notification in future. And of course it is easy to unsubscribe. See https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/blob/master/app/models/tip.rb#L115-L118 for details. |
|
Can you please remove the projects? Can't be that hard to do. I really do not see much that should be discussed about this issue. |
|
@mitsuhiko, everybody who visits pages devoted to your projects (https://tip4commit.com/github/mitsuhiko/werkzeug and https://tip4commit.com/github/mitsuhiko/flask) now sees a big red warning and hopefully understands that you are not affiliated with tip4commit. Somebody added your projects to our database, I don't see much sense in removing them since anybody can add them back. Perhaps there should be a "black list" that prevents certain projects from being added. But I am not yet sure if we should develop this feature since motivation is not clear to me. Why should we forbid people to send bitcoin donations to support open source project development or to receive donations for commiting to it? I agree that it would be nice to explicitly warn users that we are not affiliated with project maintainers (to prevent confusion as @untitaker said). But currently it is quite obvious for the mentioned projects due to the warnings. Are your concerns resolved? |
Because people don't want them. Any donation that comes to me for instance I need to declare in my taxes and I need to provide information about where that is coming from. Accepting money at random is not exactly making my life easier especially when it comes out of things like bitcoin. But aside from that, there are channels in which projects can be supported and those projects usually open them up themselves. Having random websites on the internet collect money on project's behalf is not okay in my book. Instead of just subscribing projects make marketing and let projects sign up. That's what gittip does, that's how patreon do etc. And they also come with support for dealing with the paperwork.
|
|
this sounds like a feature request to me - here are some suggestions for features that could be added to tip4commit
but regardless of any of these features - if the project source code is publicly available under a standard open source license than it is obviously not possible (not technically nor legally) to prevent someone from cloning such a project and giving tips for contributions to their clone - contributions from which the original repo would not benefit - unless the author crafts a more restrictive license that specifically discourages rewarding contributions they have not much to say on the matter keep in mind that tip4commit is itself an open source project and someone would need to take the time to implement these features - the OP is so far the only person who desires such features so perhaps the OP would care to implement some of them |
No, the OP isn't the only one, the Django project would be another one. And your suggestion that we should implement those features to not get spammed or affiliated with sites we don't want to be affiliated seems like a bad joke to me. |
|
im just saying someone has to do it and that wont happen unless it is clearly a desirable feature - i would work on it myself if i thought it would be generally appreciated - which is why i framed the issue as a feature request |
|
I think people should be free to organize themselves if they like to. Project maintainers' involvement shouldn't be required nor is expected. Project maintainers or developers don't really need to receive tips if they don't want to. If tips are unclaimed during 30 days, they get returned to the funded project's balance (i. e. back to the donations pool). That's already implemented. I agree that people souldn't be spammed. Notification threshold is also already implemented and can be raised if needed, users don't receive emails for microdonations anymore. What needs to be done is we should explicitly state that we are not affiliated with project maintainers in our emails and on the site. |
You still choose to ignore the fact that sending emails without prior consent in a system like yours is illegal in many countries. Treshholds or not, you are just waiting till someone is annoyed enough to sue you. |
|
Frankly speaking I am not quite familiar with laws of many countries nor I have enough money to hire a bunch of international lawyers. Do I need to learn all the laws of all the countries before publishing anything online or may I just use the common sense and conscience please? |
|
Frankly speaking you can publish anything (well, most things) online, but as soon as you send unsolicited emails you have to bother with laws. |
|
I don't think unsolicited email is the right term for the situation when somebody sent you a tip (otherwise that term would apply to any invitation to any social network, for example). AFAIK in my country there is no legislation of email. If you could point me to the particular law I should conform, I would be thankful. |
To be honest: when it comes to handling money I would assume so. If this website would be dealing with a real world currency you would have a bunch of problems on yourself at this point. Most people would avoid holding funds on their books for an unlimited amount of time. Don't build software you have to opt-out of and you have a lot less problems on your hand. Right now, this is dangerously close to being sued by someone. |
|
That's why this kind of project is hardly possible with traditional money. This project was created during a 48 hour rails rumble competition. The beauty of Bitcoin is that everybody can use it to create something during a weekend. This is not a commercial project, we don't have resources to hire lawyers and accountants. And of course we don't want to harm anybody. If we see that we are damaging somebody, we'll try to fix it. Update: It is already opt-out for everybody unless s/he receives a tip greater than threshold. Why would anybody want to sue us? Thanks for your warnings anyway (though I am not yet sure how to deal with them). |
|
opened #136 to address at least one of the problems so far |
|
I'll second everything that has been said by @mitsuhiko and @apollo13 in this thread.
While I'm sure you're doing this with the best of intentions, I have a great deal of difficulty finding anything about this program that isn't either offensive or laughably naïve. |
|
@freakboy3742 thanks for your feedback, every comment adds significance to this thread, but have you even read it before posting?
No, we are not collecting money on anyone's behalf. We are not affiliated with project owners. Sorry if it confused anybody, we'll fix it in #136
We are talking only to contributors that already got some tips.
That are small amount tips in Bitcoin, do they even need to be declared? If it were Linden dollars, would they need to be declared too? Recipients don't have to claim the money if they don't want it, I've mentioned it already.
We don't pay for work, we just distribute a little gratuity from people who want to support the project and possibly attract more attention to it. If the commit is uselsess - don't accept it. If it is useful - why would you care if the contributor received anything for it or not?
That's not what tip4commit does. We don't spam bunch of emails. It's pretty rear event when we send out an email, see https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/blob/master/app/models/tip.rb#L115-L118 for details.
This problem has been solved. No notifications about micro-cents anymore. Well, yes, this project might seem naive, but offensive? Perhaps we made some mistakes that offended people and are sorry for that. But we worked to solve that. It is normal that not all the people like the idea. But I hardly see how it can be offensive. |
|
@freakboy3742's last comment hits the nail on the head. I am sure that your intentions are good, that you want to encourage positive things and that you want to do engage with people in a respectful way. Unfortunately, the economics of this undermine that: being informed that I have earned a fraction of a US cent (not even a fraction of a dollar) for several hours' work is not actually encouraging, nor does it make me feel that my time or work are being valued. Finally, despite your good intentions, and while I think that the rewards we receive for participating in open source software are real and very encouraging, I don't think that small monetary rewards of this sort are amongst them. It seems to be missing the point, at least of my own participation. So sorry to pour cold water and discouragement on your good intentions, but I don't think that your programme works the way you hope, and I don't think it makes people feel the way you hope. |
|
@evildmp , thanks for your feedback, but as said above, we do NOT notify users on fractions of a US cent (or even US dollar). This was solved over a month ago. Min notification threshold is set to 0.005 btc, that is $1.75 at current rate, we might increase it if bitcoin continues to fall. Please accept apologies if you received such an email from us in the past. Even though not everybody likes this project, there are many developers who find it useful and claim the tips. |
|
This issue feels like listening to this again : https://soundcloud.com/ryan-block-10/comcastic-service (And it's not good) Please just respect people if they ask you to remove them from the project. Shouldn't be that hard. |
|
just FYI, this issue is currently on the front page of hacker news: |
|
@jugimaster - I agree about the opt-in part, I do not agree that it necessarily demonstrates ill intent. People should maintain good faith unless there is a sound basis to accuse them of fraud. |
|
@BLKSwan if I place my software under a FOSS license, I am giving my explicit consent to others to copy, modify and distribute my work according to that license. I have not given them any kind of permission to raise money for my project without my consent, especially not through channels I have by no means approved. |
|
@csvan - I didn't say "fraud", but I think they're probably trying to make money with this. Tip4Commit must have known that's exactly what the project owners would not want, which would explain why Tip4Commit didn't ask them. But when the project owners do notice, Tip4Commit can tell everyone they were just trying to help. I'm not buying it. |
|
@BLKSwan what's your association with Tip4Commit? Note that the "We are not affiliated with most of the projects, their owners might not endorse use of tip4commit" was only added in the past couple of hours in response to this. Perhaps some honesty from the beginning would've prevented this whole thing from blowing up. |
|
I don't want |
|
@csvan Under FOSS licenses, people generally have the right to profit from your work (e.g. Angry Birds had the right to make billions using zlib-licensed Box2D). This applies even to the (L)GPL (it is a common misunderstanding that the GPL forbids commercial use). I see no problem with this at its most basic. In concept, I would defend the right for third parties to place bounties on work they deem useful. I think the real problem is the side effects. The maintainer doesn't want to silence the annoying notifications because it's his advertising, so you can expect him to be unreasonably stubborn (Exposure = more tips = more 1% cuts delivered to him). Also, will people start bombarding maintainers with tiny commits if this takes off, in hopes of getting a cut? Will maintainers start to reject commits out of concern that they're just for bounties (I submitted a pull request to Mitsuhiko's Jinja2 to fix a tiny typo I happened to see reading the docs. I didn't do it for pay. With tip4commit around, I may now be eyed with suspicion for things like that) |
|
@BillyWM all very good and valid points. |
|
@rapilabs as for me, it was pretty obvious we are not affiliated with project creators... the issue #136 was created a week ago after @untitaker informed us about the issue. Uder the pressure of current attention I just deployed a temporary urgent fix to prevent further confusion before a better solution is developed. |
|
@arsenische wise actions, now go and implement that blacklist and show everyone that you aren't devious devs ;) |
This. |
|
@rapilabs I am still in doubts. I feel that my arguments against it are left unnoticed. Just updated the https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/wiki/FAQ , quoting from there:
|
|
@arsenische Not necessarily the project maintainers but when the project is a trademark then yes the trademark holder's permission might or might not be necessary depending on their trademark policy. And then raising money for certain individuals most certainly and absolutely requires their permission. You absolutely have no idea of the legal repercussions of what you are doing. |
|
@rapilabs my apologies, I did not notice that was a recent addition. As for my association, I am just someone that likes the service, I have no direct ties to Tip4Commit outside of commenting here and donating on the site. This is my profile on Tip4Commit: |
|
+1 on everyone pushing for this to be opt-in only. it is highly inappropriate to involve projects without explicit consent. |
|
@chx we are raising money to tip any individuals who contribute to the project, that's not about raising money to some particular individual. if contributor doesn't claim money, the'll be returned to the donation pool. what's wrong with that? |
|
@arsenische Yes, so an individual contributor can sign up claiming/showing his contribution to different projects? Why isn't that feature there? You are currently forcing all contributors in a project to get involved. Why can't you see that? |
This is not only about project maintainers. You don't have the consent of the individual contributors either. Make it an opt-in system and all concerns raised here will disappear. |
|
After looking at Flattrs business model, i now think that tip4commit doesn't necessarily have to become opt-in. Flattr offers to collect money too -- the main difference between it and tip4commit is that Flattr doesn't actually withdraw money until the project maintainer actually claims it. Another difference is that Flattr doesn't send any unsolicited mails. |
|
@arsenische: You're fighting a losing battle, here. The internet disagrees with your stance. That's not a good place to be for an internet-based service. Please just bow to inevitability and respect for the open-source community by making it opt-in, as very nearly everyone in this thread wants you to. At the very, very least, you must provide an easy way to opt-out. |
|
@arsenische If there's anything to take away from this experience, is that you should listen to the community. Fighting against it raises suspicions that there are ulterior motives. |
Much of the functionality of the service would also disappear. |
|
@arsenische I have been following this discussion from the beginning (in HN too). I feel both sad and angry about the arguments you make towards the people who are disagreeing with you. The problem is, you cannot use a developer's name, or any trademark to get people to pay you, without the actual person's consent. Whether it goes to the payee or not, is irrelevant. |
|
@BLKSwan then perhaps there's no need for it in this way and form...? See this #127 (comment) . |
|
@BLKSwan then site should not exist, that simple. |
|
@arsenische I will reiterate what I have asked for in #146. I am an individual developer making a request on behalf of my individual self. I do not want to receive "tips" from your "service". You do not have the right to attempt to list me/opt me in to your "service" without my consent. You do not have my consent. I do not want to receive emails about "tips" from your "service". I do not want you to collect money on my behalf. I do not know how to state it more clearly than this. I want my individual personal name out of your listings, I never want it to appear there again, and I want to be permanently removed from your "service". You are failing to display the good faith asked of you in #146. |
Edit: created #157 to address p.1 Edit2: replied to @ubernostrum 's #146 Edit3: removed mitsuhiko/* as requested |
|
I think it is a good idea to create a separate issue for each problem you see and continue discussion on that particular issue. We went too far from "Please remove mitsuhiko" and @mitsuhiko closed this ticket already. |
and others
Please remove my repositories from the website and do not add a way to add them again. I do not value third party websites gameifying my projects.
The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: