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I wonder whether most donors actually understand this, with non-donors being the primary complainers. Randy Milholland, the webcomic artist behind Something Po

I wonder whether most donors actually understand this, with non-donors being the primary complainers. Randy Milholland, the webcomic artist behind Something Positive, quit his job and funded himself for a year with donations to spend more time on his comics. When his output was still less-than-daily, he got a flood of complaints. "We gave you money and you're still not updating as often as you promised!" When he offered to refund the donations of anyone unsatisfied, not a single donor took him up on it. Apparently most (or all) of the complainers hadn't donated, but still felt entitled to greater output. This is not to say that Rich is making a mistake by no longer accepting donations. Even if most complaints are from non-donors, their (unfounded) sense of entitlement comes from the fact that donations are happening. Still, I hate to think that people happy to donate can no longer do so because of the negative effects caused by non-contributing complainers.

sandGorgon 16y ago
interesting point - I think people who "donate" do it out of gratitude rather than creation of entitlement. By virtue of that, the complainers are less likely to come from the actual donor list. My empirical evidence comes from the Cyanogenmod Android project - where "when can I haz gingerbread" or "this sucks - why arent you spending enough time fixing <bug>" is always from non donors. NOTE: it is easy to see this trend on the CM forums, because your forum handle displays whether you are a donor or not. That I think is an easy way to lower the credibility of flamers (something that isnt possible on Clojure Google Groups). But then again, maybe that in itself give rises to the expectation that "if I donate, I can flame". I havent seen it happen on the CM forums though.
- access_denied 16y ago
  To your last point: I think this happens because when donating you put a "price tag" on your actions. You will not want to spoil that for a silly flame.

sandGorgon 16y ago

interesting point - I think people who "donate" do it out of gratitude rather than creation of entitlement. By virtue of that, the complainers are less likely to come from the actual donor list. My empirical evidence comes from the Cyanogenmod Android project - where "when can I haz gingerbread" or "this sucks - why arent you spending enough time fixing <bug>" is always from non donors. NOTE: it is easy to see this trend on the CM forums, because your forum handle displays whether you are a donor or not. That I think is an easy way to lower the credibility of flamers (something that isnt possible on Clojure Google Groups). But then again, maybe that in itself give rises to the expectation that "if I donate, I can flame". I havent seen it happen on the CM forums though.

access_denied 16y ago
To your last point: I think this happens because when donating you put a "price tag" on your actions. You will not want to spoil that for a silly flame.