[ANN] Tip4Commit.com - support opensource projects, contribute and earn bitcoins

[giszmo]

I think we're seeing some people submitting lots of tiny, trivial commits -- perhaps because they get more of the tipping pie.

I'm not sure how to combat that bad incentive....

Small commits are not always bad. Sure, fixing the code formatting one line at a time, putting each in a separate commit is improving the code but wasting much time of those reviewing it. Incentivizing to group code formatting fixes with functional changes is also bad as "fixed formatting" and "fixed bug" should be two commits.

Key should be to find a metric a computer understands, that is not too far from the goal of having a great product.

Do you know the Continous Integration Game? They put some serious thoughts on how to measure code in an automated way that is way better than just by commit (badbad) or by LOC (lines of code changed in a commit would only incentivize many commits if the developer edited the same lines multiple times) which would be the next best thing.

The idea would be to hook Tip4Commit not into the version control but into the CI and to have the maintainer define rules. Down side is that a CI is just one extra thing that is no high on the list of many projects.

[alexandrz]

I think that the easiest way is not to accept these dust commits and ask the author to squash them into one commit.

[GlobalBoost]

Hi!
Wanted to bump your ANN, and let you know that the team at GlobalBoost thinks you guys ROCK!!
We are really impressed, and we are working with possibly getting a tip4commit using BSTY & BST
If any contractors are interested in working on the project, please PM me! 

I was wondering if your Anonymous Ads is also open source? We have been looking for a good advertising platform like this. Or, maybe we can work something out. Let me know.

Keep up the good work guys!

https://BST.GlobalBoo.st Team

As services go out of service, here is my question how you will handle going out of service? Will you do an instawallet and keep the money for you? Will the maintainers get the money to continue the payouts at their own discretion? Will you get "hacked"? How much is in hot wallets? How much will you cover from your private money? Who are you?

Thanks for important questions. We are the developers of Anonymous Ads.

Frankly speaking I don't know yet how we handle the possible situation of a hack or service shutdown. I can only promise that we won't profit from such situation (though in bitcoin world promises are worthless). We are not bitcoin millionaires and can't guarantee to cover the losses with our private money. So, yes, this is a major risk and a weak point of the project.

This service started as a 48-hour project for Rails Rumble, so (unlike a-ads) all the funds are stored in a blockchain.info wallet. If the service gets traction, we will surely need to change it.

[arsenische]

I think we're seeing some people submitting lots of tiny, trivial commits -- perhaps because they get more of the tipping pie.

I'm not sure how to combat that bad incentive....

Do you believe this activity is related to tip4commit?

Perhaps we could reward for 1 commit per day only, would it fix the problem?

The idea would be to hook Tip4Commit not into the version control but into the CI and to have the maintainer define rules. Down side is that a CI is just one extra thing that is no high on the list of many projects.

Interesting idea, could reward contributors based on their score... But sounds complicated to set up and probably will severely reduce number of projects.

Wanted to bump your ANN, and let you know that the team at GlobalBoost thinks you guys ROCK!!
We are really impressed, and we are working with possibly getting a tip4commit using BSTY & BST

Thanks for kind words, but not everybody likes it, so think twice before doing it.

I was wondering if your Anonymous Ads is also open source?

No, it's not, sorry.

[arsenische]

We are being criticized for unsolicited email spam.

Just to clear the things out: we do not spam and never intended to. Perhaps in the early days of the project we sent out disturbing notifications about microdonations, but that was fixed long ago, just see the algorithm here: https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/blob/master/app/models/tip.rb#L115-L126

We send emails only to public email addresses of contributors who received tips for their contribution and only when ALL of the following conditions are met:

• contributor's balance is above the threshold
• contributor didn't specify his or her withdrawal address
• contributor didn't unsubscribe
• contributor wasn't notified during last 30 days -- btw if contributor doesn't specify bitcoin address during 30 days, tips will be returned to donation pool anyway
• project maintainer didn't disable notification for contributors of his or her project

Email recipient can explicitly unsubscribe or just ignore the message.

If there is any victim of our spam please create a ticket at github with facts. So far most of the criticism comes from people who never got a satoshi a single email from us!

Update: just placed this explanation here so that everybody could comment.

Update2: temporary disabled all email notifications, discussing fundamental issues: https://github.com/tip4commit/tip4commit/issues/157