Propster Tip Jar System

[frisco2]

Hi,

I made a site for collecting donations for all the awesome linux projects, and it is accepting Bitcoin.

EDIT: (domain changed from online-tipjar.com to propster.me)

http://www.propster.me/

Your bitcoin donations will help introduce these projects and others to Bitcoin, and improve the bitcoin ecosystem.

Boris

[killer2021]

Great idea!

[bcearl]

They should totally have their own bitcoin addresses published.



I see no point in having a third party in between - it just makes it more risky.

[frisco2]

Do you see a point in eWallet ?

[weex]

Presumably, you've contacted these projects to get their permission? What has been their response? Why don't they post their own addresses?

[kokjo]

I made a site for collecting donations for all the awesome linux projects, and it is accepting Bitcoin.

sometimes people are just stupid, and don't know what they are talking about...

GIMP, GCC, and mplayer, is NOT "linux" project, they are OPENSOURCE PROJECTS. GIMP and GCC, are gnu projects. and mplayer is independent(i think...). but they are not linux projects!

i am a huge fan of linux, gnu and opensource in general. but you are a incompetent noob, who don't understand a single thing that happens around you.

EDIT: ...and you is likely to be a scammer too, asking for donations on others behalf.

[thatbluedude]

I'm all for supporting open source project by donations, but if you want people to give you money you should also give them a reason to trust you. neither you post nor your sites faq reflect this so perhaps you should work on that.

[AngryCatfish]

Lazy scam is lazy.

[frisco2]

Well, I contacted Richard Stallman, and FSF approved it. Even put a link on their donation page.

https://my.fsf.org/donate/other/

has a link to:

http://www.online-tipjar.com/tipjar/free_software_foundation_1

Btw, I think FSF added Bitcoin to their donation page as a result of my communication, since I had to explain to Stallman about it. I think he passed the word on to the site admins on that too, and they added it.  It was during the same time of my communication (which was about two months long).

---

For the rest of the organization, I figured like this: The moment I get more than say, $10 in donations for an account, I will contact those people and make sure they are signed up to give it to them.  It is a much more convincing argument to get people to put a tip jar on my site, if there is already money coming into it.  I will add this bit into the FAQ.

--

What would you like to see in a Tip Jar system ?

--

What do you think about this idea: a mapping between identities and their tip jar accounts (be it Flattr, mine, Youtipit, or even Dwolla).  So you will know to go to this one site to figure out how to give a tip to someone. Something like an "Author database" for all content.  I think there are many people online that do good stuff, but don't know that they can receive money for that, so I want to give people a way to start a tip jar for them, and share with the community.

As for trust, I am willing to take as an Auditor one or two people from this community -- I will give access to the server, so they can inspect it on regular basis. Must be one of the regulars on this forum, who have shown they care about the bitcoin community.

[mokahless]

So, Boris Reitman, you claim this is a startup company from Israel. And, according to your website, it is based completely on the idea that we trust a random person on the internet to deliver funds to organizations who are perfectly capable of asking for donations themselves? And you only re-register your site for one year at a time? And you haven't even gotten your site verified with a Class 3 certificate in order to verify your identity?

Based on the above there is a 90% chance this is a scam and a 10% chance you are some guy with good intentions who executed this poorly. I HIGHLY recommend this thread pointing to a very obvious scam be deleted and this user's account suspended... I guess this kind of thing is why the newbies forum exists. Oh wait, you are more than a newbie member. Are newbies easier targets?

I apologize if you fall under that 10% chance. If you do, there are a LOT of things that need to be done for you to be trustworthy.

BTW, cool that you went so far as to sacrifice some of your funds in order to look more legit.

If you are that 10% chance, your business model is flawed. No one can trust you. You could make yourself even more legit than you look now, be virtually legit but still take a 90% or upwards cut for personal profit...

[frisco2]

Hi,

If you are that 10% chance, your business model is flawed. No one can trust you. You could make yourself even more legit than you look now, be virtually legit but still take a 90% or upwards cut for personal profit...

I don't register domain for a long time, since I may change the name of the site. It is a temporary name since I couldn't think of a better one.  Well, now I am changing the site from "Online-TipJar" to Propster.  In general, I don't register for a long time, because I don't know if the service will fly.

As for class 3 certificate, I could get it, but you said it yourself, that I could still be a scammer with a class 3 certificate. It really doesn't prove anything, unless I am a registered company. But even so, an Ltd company can declare bankrupt and have no responsibility. Finally, the govt is the biggest scammer, printing money and by that, stealing from your bank account. And they have all the certificates.

Therefore, forget about 3 class cerfiticates -- the real assurance is word of mouth, and a working product.

Why do you trust other bitcoin services such as First Pirate Savings Bank ?  or Silk Road ?

I have created a tool for the community, and the only way to gain trust, is to show that it works in action. Once money starts flowing through the system, receivers of tips will corroborate that they received everything to the penny.

I am adding a feature now to push all events onto a twitter stream. It would be possible to verify all transactions this way.

>> it is based completely on the idea that we trust a random person on the internet to deliver funds to organizations who are perfectly capable of asking for donations themselves?

Sure people can collect donations directly, and they do. But there is a reason for services like mine, Flattr, and Youtipit. And people on this forum has been asking for such a service. 

Finally, if you are so keen, a simple google search will find my resume and give you all my work history etc.

- Boris Reitman (aka frisco2)

[Meni Rosenfeld]

I would have done this completely differently. Well, different in two major aspects:

1. Don't require people to log in to donate. For every cause post a Bitcoin address, whatever goes to this address is added to the jar.

2. Don't require organizations to sign up to your service. Whenever there is enough in the jar, donate using their regular options (converting to USD as necessary), and add a note that the funds were collected by Propster using Bitcoin. With time you will be in a better position to convince organizations to add Propster as a formal option.

If there are funds in a jar and for a long time and they don't accumulate to an amount that is worth handling, move the funds to the jar of a similar project (preferably, note for each cause what will be its fallback cause).

[frisco2]

Meni: I will add this kind of option, thank you for your suggestion. I will post here once this is ready. 

The login was though off for the non-bitcoin users, since they can't make small donations.  But I will create instant tipjars, in the spirit of InstaWallet, and publish bitcoin address on the page. Anyone would be able to donate to this address directly and see the balance. Once the tipjar is claimed, however, the owner will have to announce it on his site, and will have an option to make the total balance in the account private. Right now, I only have one such claimed account, Free Software Foundation.

I have also changed the About Us page to include information about me.

http://www.online-tipjar.com/content/about_us.html

You will also see that my CV says that I am the creator of online-tipjar.com. This CV is cached by google as well as many recruiters and job sites that have my CV.

[frisco2]

Hello everyone,

I would have done this completely differently. Well, different in two major aspects:

1. Don't require people to log in to donate. For every cause post a Bitcoin address, whatever goes to this address is added to the jar.

2. Don't require organizations to sign up to your service. Whenever there is enough in the jar, donate using their regular options (converting to USD as necessary), and add a note that the funds were collected by Propster using Bitcoin. With time you will be in a better position to convince organizations to add Propster as a formal option.

If there are funds in a jar and for a long time and they don't accumulate to an amount that is worth handling, move the funds to the jar of a similar project (preferably, note for each cause what will be its fallback cause).

I have made the changes suggested by Meni.  Now you can give anonymous bitcoin donations, and I will deliver them to each project using their regular means. All the changes are documented here:

https://propster.hypervolume.com/content/news.html

Please note that the domain changed from Online-TipJar.com to Propster.hypervolume.com. It will be eventually Propster.bit.

I also addressed some concerns about trust issues. Already some time ago, I posted my resume on the About Us page. As well, I address trust concerns on the FAQ page.

How can I trust you?

When a tip jar is claimed by a project owner, we are officially authorized to collecting money for the project.

For unclaimed tip jars we accumulate a small amount ($5 in value) before it is donated to the project (using regular means) with a comment that it came from Propster. This is also announced on the Propster tip jar page. If the project has a forum, we will also post the announcement there. In addition, you can contact the project owner and corroborate that indeed such a donation was received.

As well:

- You can reverse Paypal transactions within 90 days if you are not satisfied with the service.
- All Bitcoin transactions can be audited through the blockchain. If you are not satisfied with the service, you can report us to the Bitcoin community.

Finally, about Class-1 certificate criticism.  I am working now on setting up Propster.bit domain and will get a Class-2 certificate for it.

[ripper234]

1. Props to you for the project, it's a great idea and I hope it goes well.
2. Your "News" page shows a date from 2010 ... give a feeling of a dead, stagnating project. Should be fixed ASAP.
3. How creating a Twitter account where you'll automatically post new projects that people create? Should be easy enough to implement.
4. The list of Tip Jars should include how much BTC was donated/claimed.
5. I get that you want to use Propster.bit, but I think you should also support a normal, something.org domain. The current setup (https://propster.hypervolume.com/) feels unprofessional, or just not ready yet ...
6. I guess you're aware of this, but in any case, I got SSL warnings when browsing some of the pages ... and I needed to re-login.
7. I would add a UserVoice or other feedback widget.
8. The help tooltip for status doesn't explain the status "escrow". E.g. LiteCoin is in escrow status, but only "new" and "verified" are explained in the tooltip.

Hoping to see this take off, will follow on. Also, consider opening a Twitter feed where you post status updates, or a blog (as opposed to the automatic Twitter feed I suggested above).

[frisco2]

Thanks for your feedback, many of your proposed changes are already in the works (twitter for example). I will update this thread.

[jixapori]

sorry but your project is lame... and even if well-intentioned one has no business collecting anything on "behalf" of a third party. Please figure out a way to shut this down gracefully.

also there is already flattr

[frisco2]

Hello Jixapori

Propster is not lame, because Flattr is not lame.  And, Flattr is not lame because people use it. I'm cloning Flattr, with perhaps extra features for Bitcoin community, and some more original ideas as they come up.

The goal is to allow people to make money *not through ads*. For example, I may have a great blog, with 1000 people who enjoy reading it every month. These people don't click on ads, and don't care about them. Even if they did, I wouldn't make much off of those ads -- 1000 people is not that much.  But, if those 1000 had an opportunity to give me 10 cents each, it would amount to $100 which is already something.  Have you read my "How it Works" page ? I have a bit about motivation and psychology there.

In the long run, my vision is that you could give props to any content on the net, even some comment in some forum.

Also, please note that I am not doing anything morally wrong. For example, say you worked in a company and decided to collect money for Katrina relief.  You would go around with a hat and collect it, then send it off in one chunk. It is true that each individual could have done it themselves, but by you being the middle man, you make it actually happen. The same essential example can be seen on a bigger scale in charity events, where a table costs 1500$.  The organizers make it actually happen.

However, the major difference between projects on Propster and charity is that the former don't need no help to survive.  But they would like to see some kind of "thank you".  What better way is there to say thank you, than with putting money where your mouth is.

[ripper234]

BTW, something with the login system is broken. I logged in 3-4 times with Google, and it seems to have created a new account each time.

Also, I tried to create an account using "use Propster account" instead of a 3rd party login, and couldn't find where to create the account ... all I saw is the login form.

[frisco2]

Hello Ripper,

You are right, the login was confusing -- I removed the second option, and just left the 3rd party login.

I tested it now with a brand new openid with 3rd party login, and it worked for me.  Which provider are you using ?  I use http://www.myopenid.com for testing. The first time you try to sign-in, it will tell you that it is about to create an account for you. Afterwards, it doesn't ask you that anymore, and you should end up straight in the dashboard.

Also, I added UserVoice feedback (thanks for the tip). It is at the bottom right corner, in all the pages, except the splash page.  You can use it to leave feedback, if you want.