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Overall, that sounds like a very nice, basic solution. I assume that the buttons would be only for optional donations. The only flaw I can think of: what incentive do the readers have to donate to a (particular author and the codeproject) and not just the codeproject?
I can see where the controversy comes into place, but if done correctly most of the controversy could be avoided.
Regards,
Thomas Stockwell
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
Visit my Blog
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The issue we've always had with accepting donations is that you also accept the donators right to yell very loudly at you when the code doesn't work perfectly, when the author doesn't have time to answer questions, when the reader wants new features or when someone votes the donator's comment down.
Donators suddenly assume that their $5 entitles them to Royalty.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Yes, but don't the hamsters have some weasel friends who could write a EULA? 
Another idea was much better, of course, but went nowhere: black CP t-shirts (preferably with pocket).
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Yes, because *everyone* reads EULAs, right? 
Black T's: check out http://codeproject.cafepress.com[^]. I tried black and they turned out really, really crappy so I need to have the graphics redone. They are shaded, and the T-shirt came back with dithered and pixelated printing (even though I submitted a high-res image). 
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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That link doesn't seem to work for me, just googling it gave me this link that works: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store.aspx?s=codeproject[^].
Regards,
Thomas Stockwell
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
Visit my Blog
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They keep busting the links.
Bad overpriced, poor quality store! Bad!
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Just include a disclaimer similar to: Donations do not constitute an agreement for the projects' continuation or satisfactory customer service. Donations are strictly to show appreciation to the site and the authors work thus far.
Regards,
Thomas Stockwell
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
Visit my Blog
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Chris Maunder wrote: Donators suddenly assume that their $5 entitles them to Royalty.
There should be a strong sentence (Terms of Service) to indicate and clarify the stand and indemnify CP and/or the author against such (un)written agreements/bindings.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare
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Bad feelings are bad feelings, regardless of whether the person feeling bad can take legal action.
---- You're right.
These facts that you've laid out totally contradict the wild ramblings that I pulled off the back of cornflakes packets .
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Shog9 wrote: Bad feelings are bad feelings
If you want to talk about bad feelings, let's talk about the bad feelings I will have when CP needs rent money, or can't hire another editor, or can't replace a failing server.
Just saying "Bad feelings are bad feelings" is not being proactive. You're a regular site visitor, you would be impacted too. What are your ideas to help CP?
I can't think of any fund-raising activity that wouldn't be open to the kind of exposure that you're talking about. To paraphrase what you said, Unreasonable people are unreasonable people.
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Exactly.
What we're doing is working to provide services for the community that are useful, valuable, which are available elsewhere (or maybe not...) and which are something that someone who needs the service will be willing to pay for.
We pride ourselves on having on-topic and unoffensive advertising, and we've recently launched a job board. We have a few more ideas for things that Just Make Sense that will enable us to grow while providing good priced services. #1 for me is to build the community and the resources we have and to keep the CodeProject we all know absolutely free. Free for me means "not even donations". Dave sometimes rolls his eyes and mentions the new range of database servers out there but even he agrees it's not worth muddying the water.
We're doing OK and have fantastic sponsors who support us and who understand why we are so picky sometimes, and as long as we maintain those great relationships the electricty will stay on 
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Shog9 wrote: Bad feelings are bad feelings, regardless of whether the person feeling bad can take legal action.
But bad feelings already do exist. The percentage of people who have the mental makeup to make a voluntary contribution will hardly be the sort of people who will develop bad feelings because an author did not do a regular update of his code.
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So I should sue someone if they write me an abusive email after donating?
No.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: So I should sue someone if they write me an abusive email after donating?
I don't think that's what VDK is talking about - rather he's talking about the reverse scenario. He means that someone (a donor) cannot sue an author just because the author hasn't fixed a bug in an article.
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote: He means that someone (a donor) cannot sue an author just because the author hasn't fixed a bug in an article
True. That would ensure a safe and secure atmosphere for everyone.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare
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Chris Maunder wrote: The issue we've always had with accepting donations is that you also accept the donators right to yell very loudly at you when the code doesn't work perfectly, when the author doesn't have time to answer questions, when the reader wants new features or when someone votes the donator's comment down.
Donators suddenly assume that their $5 entitles them to Royalty.
Do you think this is something that can be done outside of CP? A 3rd party website run by a few regular CPians, that will have no official association with CP. It will just provide an interface via which readers can voluntarily contribute to authors, and the site will redirect a percentage of contributions to CP.
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I like it. If you want to take it further, let me know.
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Hans Dietrich wrote: If you want to take it further, let me know.
Yes, I would like to take it further. But I thought we should wait to see if Chris is alright with it.
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I like the idea as well. If you need a hand of an, uh, not-really-useful-as-web-developer guy, drop me a line.
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Chris Maunder wrote: The issue we've always had with accepting donations is that you also accept the donators right to yell very loudly at you when the code doesn't work perfectly, when the author doesn't have time to answer questions, when the reader wants new features or when someone votes the donator's comment down.
When I was writing software for my racing addiction, I had the following clause on my support web pages:
Please do not offer to pay me in any way for this software. I appreciate the sentiment, but that's not why I'm doing this. Quite frankly, I'm a lazy bastard and only work on the code when there's something drastically wrong with it, or if there's something that needs to be added. If I let someone pay me for this garbage, then they might feel like I owe them something, and that irritates the hell outa me.
What's even worse, since I'm more magnanimous than anyone here could ever believe, I might even lean towards allowing a certain level of transgressive behavior if a "paid" member were to step way out of line in the forums. Simply put, people would be paying for and expecting the privilege of being untouchable wankers.
However, I think if people really want to donate, you could put up a page that allows them to, with clearly stated text reminding them that their donations do not garner for them any special privileges. Of course, this could also present a tax problem, and so on and so forth, so maybe you should put this topic to rest permanently.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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As my sis describes that, "you bought a ticket, not the plane". 
Still, I like the idea. Might also be an incentive for really high-quality articles. *nudge nudge*
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If I provide a permalink to a message on any member's profile page, the message is loaded as an 'unclickable' item in the thread. If I click on another message on the page, I cannot again click-open the original message, which took me to the page. It appears as text, not as a hyperlink. Here ^ is an example. Fixed!
Adding the home page URL in profile page prefixes (does not show while entering the URL) the given text with http://
This is not desirable, because I might want something like: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Rajesh Fixed!
Ignore HTML tags option should not ignore the html tags in the signature area. Trust me, this is really annoying. Or give me an <ignore> </ignore> tag, or whatever. You know the bug now. Fixed!
- Setting an attribute and clicking search - this will produce an URL, which will not have the attribute filter enabled. If I enable it manually, then the right option is not selected (bob happens to like C#, no matter what). Occasionally, I want to search with a few attributes set and give the URL to someone.
Give me an option to "Pin" one or more particular blog messages on my profile page. Every new entry posted will go beneath the pinned messages and the pinned messages will stay on the top. Also, allow me click a check box that will decide if another user will be able to post a reply or not, to a particular blog entry. Fixed, the new options are fantastic! I appreciate it!
Links to C#, MFC/C++ board listed in Google search for "CodeProject" does not take to the respective boards, but take to the homepage instead. Fixed!
- Add a search box to the profile page of every member (may be next to "messages posted" by this user). This should perform a search on all the messages posted by this particular user alone. For instance, I know that someone gave a very good answer to a question like "How to programmatically achieve this X thing". Now, did not bookmark it, but if I know the user who answered it, I can search for it when someone asks the same question again.
- Deleting a bookmark - can't it be done without reloading the entire page? Some nice AJAX thingie there, may be? Or if this cannot be done, the reloading must take me back to the page where I was - it takes me to the first page. Also, there is a "First" and a Next and Prev links, but no "Last" link. Please, give us one.
Again, talking of bookmarks, I see the bookmarks are not grouped properly. There are two separate groups for the messages bookmarked from lounge alone. Please don't tell me this is a feature. Or am I missing something? Fixed!The Ajax widget in the top right of the Lounge, it shows the latest news items, jokes, etc., This post[^] was whacked[^] by the readers, but that still shows up in the widget. It must get off the widget too. I know this isn't the biggest of bugs, but I just found it. Fixed!
Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal - Friedrich Nietzsche
.·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·.
[Microsoft MVP - Visual C++]
modified on Thursday, April 30, 2009 6:46 AM
modified on Friday, May 28, 2010 3:13 PM
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Will add these to the TODO/Bug list
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Wow - that's a good list there, Rajesh
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Thanks Nish.
Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal - Friedrich Nietzsche
.·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·.
[Microsoft MVP - Visual C++]
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