implement earmarking, distributors #327
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Here's how I'm interpreting this:
This could actually be really interesting. Somehow the last part feels right: that distributors would get a cut. They're native to Gittip. They play a role within the system and are valued participants. It feels different to me to give them a 10% cut than the profit that Kickstarter or Etsy takes. |
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I imagine that distributors would specialize. "I focus on the Python and Django ecosystems." Each community would have its distributors. I imagine receivers would end up in a relationship with one or a few distributors. This would be a personal relationship. You'd have someone to negotiate with. Your distributor can say, "things are drying up." You can say, "I broke my fingers and can't type for a month." Everyone's take via the distributor is public, informing the negotiations. |
@JustinLilly Good idea. :-) |
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nice use-case for and potential duplicate of #55 |
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It would be nice if a distributor account worked more like Flattr: allocating percentages rather than specific amounts. A percentage system would also allow distributors to choose their own cut. Those tipping distributors should also be notified when the distribution changes. Opting in to being a distributor also shouldn't prevent you from giving ordinary tips. |
I don't quite understand that part. If you are sending the $40 and you know who it should really go to (instead of the gittip account you are tipping), then why not just send it to that person directly instead? The "distributor role" seems to work differently in that the distributor (e.g. highly visible project owner who is likely to draw in donations) gets to decide where the money should go (because he knows the behind-the-sceners that most people on the outside don't) I don't think we need a special account type, just the option (available to everyone) to set up one or more other other gittip accounts that incoming donations should be redirected to. In its simplest form, as percentages. And of course, publicly visible. (Might end up creating a neat social graph). In particular, the "distributor" gets to set his own percentage, and no one has to choose between being a pure funnel and a producer. No need to take away any flexibility here. |
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Thinking more about the percentage cut part: Say a distributor has 1,000 people giving them an average of $10 per week. (I'm thinking that gifts to distributors are going to be higher like that. Would you give $12 per week to the {Python,Ruby,PHP} ecosystem as a whole?) Anyway, that'd be $12,000 per week. Let's give the distributor 10%, or $1,200 per week. That's $62,400 per year to manage this fund of $561,600, essentially. Where would the top distributors end up? Double that? Triple? Half? Actually, I would expect the amount people would want to put into an ecosystem to be more than $24 per week, in which case each patron would have to give to multiple distributors, preventing distributor monopolies. That'd be good. |
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm |
@thiloplanz I think the idea is that you don't know who it should go to. You want to give to whoever-builds-jQuery, but you don't feel qualified to decide the matter yourself. |
@ncoghlan Perhaps only gifts over $24 are non-anonymous? "Ordinary tips" at or under $24 could still look the same. |
Maybe. Does it make more sense for distributors than non-distributors? (BTW, If anyone wants to vote for/against the Flattr model in general, that's ticketed as #316.)
I'd rather see distributors compete on value than cost. "The people in my portfolio(?) have produced X, Y, and Z in the past year. I'm a good distributor," rather than "I only take 2%! I'm a cheap distributor." Seems like fixing the cut would line up the incentive in that direction?
"You entrust $24 to ncoghlan to redistribute, and he recently made some changes to his portfolio. Check them out here." |
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This is how it would work if implemented along the lines of #55:
Maybe a conceptual role, but not a special account type. Transition between "producer" and "distributor" is gradual and adjustable.
You become a "distributor" by designating one or more other gittip accounts to whom all or parts of your incoming tips will be redirected. Opt-in and opt-out again at any time (so for transparency's sake, probably changes should take effect only for the next billing period/week).
Incoming tips would be redirected instead of going to the "distributor". Nothing reverts back. Redirecting to unclaimed or deleted accounts is not possible.
Yes.
No special rules here. The "distributor's" quotas do not enter the picture. He does not touch the redirected donations.
No special rules here. See above.
The contributions would be anonymous or public depending on what the donor chose. How they are presented is mostly a UI issue. I suppose you usually want to show them aggregated by "distributor", but one could drill down to the individual donor (if non anonymous). This goes both ways: The donor can also see who ended up getting his money. (so as to maybe take a more direct interest in the individuals behind the product he uses).
Transition between "producer" and "distributor" is gradual and adjustable. One can keep 100%, one can keep 42%, one can distribute everything. Follows from "The distributor would be unfettered in their distribution of funds " |
I think that's a separate issue, #236. I'm assuming here that small gifts remain anonymous as usual, and it's only larger gifts that we are talking about making non-anonymous, which we would do across the board. I'm not introducing opt-in for non-anonymity of gifts here. |
Maybe. Instead of having a special opt-in to being a distributor, we could just say that any gift over a certain amount is no longer anonymous. Does that land us in corporate sponsorship (#106), though? Ah! Another characteristic of an explicit distributor role would be that they can't pay in with their own money. They can only give away money that others have given them on Gittip.
I'm seeing it as essential to the distributor role that they can give more than $24 per week per person. If I'm understanding you right, you're thinking the same. So if I have five people giving me tips and I "redirect upstream" then I essentially "rewire" those tips to a different Gittip account, right?
Becomes:
However, it seems like this makes the $24 per week per person cap somewhat meaningless, no? If anyone can give more than $24/wk simply by "redirecting" their tips, then what's the point of the cap? An explicit distributor role involves a tradeoff: yes, you can give more than $24 per person, but a) your gift is going to be fully public, and b) you're going to have to give away 90% of all your incoming gifts, and c) you're not going to be able to pay in with your own money even if you want to. An explicit distributor role is clearer for the original giver, too. If I give to a distributor, I know that 10% of my gift is going to them, and 90% is going to "behind-the-sceners," and I can see exactly where it goes. Under the "redirecting upstream" model I don't know whether a person is an implicit distributor, and I can't see where it goes without introducing opt-in non-anonymity for small gifts (#236).
Actually, I'm seeing the distributor as a role distinct from a project owner. @jnoller != GvR. |
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@thiloplanz I think that "redirecting upstream" shares some similar motivations, but so far it looks different to me than "distributors." |
No, you cannot. Because it is not you giving away $1000, it is 50 people each giving away $20 (you just "say" where it goes).
Actually, I think that is the characteristic of the "redirecting" account. You are not giving away your own $1000, you are only re-distributing fifty other people's $20 each (fifty people that have entrusted you to do so). You'd of course be free to chip in $24 of your own money, too. This is also why the settings should probably be in percents, not amounts, because you cannot control the amount that is coming in. Could be 10$ when you set up your gittip, and grow to 100$ by itself. You wouldn't want to reset this every week.
That why I said for example. The flexible model allows for all kinds of uses. My original idea was for "upstreaming": Giving back to the projects whose code you used to make your product. Things like apt-get or curl or gcc or gvim that the end user won't necessarily care about. But the basic idea is the same: You get some money from strangers on the Internet for some project you are involved with, and you think that part of that should go to others that helped you with that, others that are not as visible to the donating public as you are.
The user interface for the giver can be exactly the same in both scenarios: Either way, don't set 10% in stone, please. That should be up for every individual to decide. "The distributor would be unfettered in their distribution of funds "
I don't see how these two issues are related. If you want to allow large and/or public donations, that seems to be separate from being able to within the system of gittip re-distribute income to other members of the same team. (Which is what I think this ticket is about: Making this re-distribution visible in Gittip. You can already cash out the money and split it up out-of-band, but we can make it more transparent, convenient and inexpensive, while at the same time highlighting the network of behind-the-sceners and shoulders-being-stood-upon). |
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I like the interpretation that this isn't a new "role" or account type as an explicit distinction, simply any account can specify funds (in $ or % amounts?) to other accounts. Some questions. When tipping someone, do I get to decide if I want to send money to them or through their distribution? What if an account wants to distribute to more than one group of other users? Some people are active in more than one community, so I could see this coming up. |
sure, they just set up 98% of their pool to go out to others. I'm +1 on this because it would allow projects like Flask and Pyramid that depend on the development of other libraries to split out donations among dependencies. |
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Just brainstormed another way to approach this: network gifts (#372). |
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Subsumed by #449. |
@JustinLilly came up with the idea of "earmarking" as a way to aid in redistribution of funds (#216). It turns specific people / accounts into conduits for money and could be sufficient to address project tips (#27). Via Twitter:
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