Picking out a novelty gift would be fine, you could even have put some thought in to what it would be; acting like giving me the funds equivalent to a novelty g

Picking out a novelty gift would be fine, you could even have put some thought in to what it would be; acting like giving me the funds equivalent to a novelty gift is a reward tells me the precise dollar value you attached to my work, which is insulting. The funds are considerably more impersonal than simply giving a gift and demonstrate in a concrete way the low value it was given by Yahoo - not even worth a personal email to ask about tshirt size/style.