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Gittip, Year Two

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Re: Gittip, Year Two

#81

Post by ta140604 »

tshepang wrote: post #22
pekk wrote: post #12

Gittip is a nice idea. But sadly, it has become a place for certain people to receive hefty monthly paychecks from anonymous patrons in exchange for incredibly aggressive and toxic trolling. Despite original intentions, this is not making an ecosystem of love and gratitude. So if its creator isn't even making money from it, it's probably better if it goes to sleep.

Do you have examples of the trolling you talk of?

I believe he was referring to the top two receivers, Shanley [1] and Ashe[2].

These two are a part of the group of very aggressive feminists; there's no official 'group' to speak of (AFAIK), just a network of people supporting each other.

Just to give a few names - Alex Gaynor (member of PSF board), Jacob Kaplan-Moss (yep, Django ex-BDFL), Coda Hale (HN/codahale, see his last messages here on HN [3], they're just about Shanley and Gittip), HN/steveklabnik, etc etc

A few highlights by Shanley:

"Men are rapists" [4]

HN's Sam Altman reaches out to women asking what he could do; Shanley reacts: "i'm not insulting you, i'm fucking EDUCATING you. so shut the fuck up and/or pay me, preferably both." [5], while refusing to do anything for HN, not even meeting anyone in person [6]

They've been either involved or voiced (shouted, actually) their support to whoever was involved in recent scandals with feminism - Adria Richards @ PyCon (I believe Alex Gaynor helped to make this event as public as possible), pronoun scandal (Alex Gaynor, again, was the author of RP that started the whole thing), Paul Graham misquote (Jacob KM speaks out [7])... I could go on.

But, basically, a bunch of very aggressive people, who claim to work on solving the problems women face, but actually (IMO) are just making the whole thing worse.

And, back to the subject, seeing them on top of gittip definitely doesn't help the project. Which is said, that's a great idea and I loved it when I saw it.

[1] https://twitter.com/shanley [2] https://twitter.com/ashedryden [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=codahale [4] https://twitter.com/shanley/status/451779905475186690 [5] https://twitter.com/shanley/status/446375139488186368 [6] https://twitter.com/shanley/status/446376327218622464 [7] https://twitter.com/jacobian/status/416719991963009024

PS Oh, this just in. Shanley on how companies can increase diversity: "Hire me to be your diversity consultant I will help you quickly close down your business to make room for better ones"

https://twitter.com/shanley/status/474013765252292609

Re: Gittip, Year Two

#82

Post by luxpir »

whit537 wrote: post #59
po wrote: post #37

I would suggest one thing that may be controversial, and I hope you take it as constructive criticism: Change the name of Gittip. Maybe you've discussed this before somewhere but… The name suggests two things that I think hinder the service: - This is a service for software developers only (git) - A tip is a small amount of money in exchange for quality service There is no reason to tie yourself only to software deve…

Thanks for the feedback! We actually had a loooong bikeshed on this a month into Gittip. Here's the thread: https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/138 Maybe someday we'll rebrand, but that would be a fair bit of work at this point and would distract us from more pressing concerns such as better discoverability and usability.

While I suspect the name isn't the most important thing to be spending time on at this point, it is good fun.

'Opengrant' was a good suggestion from that thread not only because of its 'monetary grant giving' meaning but also its original permission-giving roots: "With these resources I hereby grant you the ability to work on this for the betterment and embiggening of my interests".

On an even lighter note, 'adoptadev' seems pretty open for the taking...

Re: Gittip, Year Two

#83

Post by nbouscal »

rb2k_ wrote: post #74

While the discussion is mostly about Gittip vs Patreon, I never quite understood why they could grow despite flattr(.com) being around since 2010. I like flattr's model of having 1 fixed monthly donation that gets split among all of a user's flattr clicks from this month. It somehow removes a true monetary value from a click and allows to spread them more freely. For whatever reason, it's pretty big in the German pod…

Gittip and Flattr have fundamentally different models and focuses. Perhaps ironically, Flattr is more focused on tipping. It's about signaling one-time appreciation for a specific piece of work (an article, a video, etc). Gittip, on the other hand, is about providing a sustainable income for a person, hence the subscription giving model.

Also worth mentioning that all of these companies (Gittip, Flattr, Patreon, others) seem to be on exceptionally good terms with each other, which is really nice to see.

Re: Gittip, Year Two

#84

Post by ta140604 »

ta140604 wrote: post #81
tshepang wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have examples of the trolling you talk of?

I believe he was referring to the top two receivers, Shanley [1] and Ashe[2]. These two are a part of the group of very aggressive feminists; there's no official 'group' to speak of (AFAIK), just a network of people supporting each other. Just to give a few names - Alex Gaynor (member of PSF board), Jacob Kaplan-Moss (yep, Django ex-BDFL), Coda Hale (HN/codahale, see his last messages here on HN [3], they're just abo…

PPS Sorry for screwed up formatting in links. Edits do not go through for some reason - here's a better formatted version:

[1] https://twitter.com/shanley

[2] https://twitter.com/ashedryden

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=codahale

[4] https://twitter.com/shanley/status/451779905475186690

[5] https://twitter.com/shanley/status/446375139488186368

[6] https://twitter.com/shanley/status/446376327218622464

[7] https://twitter.com/jacobian/status/416719991963009024

Re: Gittip, Year Two

#85

Post by whit537 »

alexandros wrote: post #78

I guess the issue being raised here by many is this: You need to justify why the non-standard moves you've made are necessary for you to achieve your mission. If there is a story, it's not coming out. If they're not necessary, then your mission doesn't align with your actions. Perhaps your true mission is 'make all our dreams come true at the same time' but you have to be conscious of the fact that the conditional pr…

> you have to be conscious of the fact that the conditional probability of everything working just right at the same time is orders of magnitude smaller than something like gittip being executed with better understood tools and structures.

Sure, that's why I'm encouraged that Gittip has grown as well as it has! We paid out $41,000 our first year. We paid out $300,000 our second year. The best justification I can offer will be a strong year three. ;-)

Re: Gittip, Year Two

#86

Post by po »

whit537 wrote: post #59
po wrote: post #37

I would suggest one thing that may be controversial, and I hope you take it as constructive criticism: Change the name of Gittip. Maybe you've discussed this before somewhere but… The name suggests two things that I think hinder the service: - This is a service for software developers only (git) - A tip is a small amount of money in exchange for quality service There is no reason to tie yourself only to software deve…

Thanks for the feedback! We actually had a loooong bikeshed on this a month into Gittip. Here's the thread: https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/138 Maybe someday we'll rebrand, but that would be a fair bit of work at this point and would distract us from more pressing concerns such as better discoverability and usability.

I suspected that there was already a PR where what I'm suggesting was discussed. :-)

Now you've learned more about the people who are interested and the words/terms they use, you are more in a position to make that decision now. So, in some sense it was good to wait.

However, I think that if your growth has been relatively flat and you have evidence of other platforms clicking with consumers in a big way, then it may actually be time to think bigger than incremental improvements on what you're doing now.

One thing you could do is run a set of ads with 10-20 different names along with a catchphrase like:

    Gittip
    An economy of gratitude, generosity, and love
- or -

    NameIdea
    An economy of gratitude, generosity, and love
And then see how well you perform. It would be a fairly affordable way to determine if you have a problem or not.

Re: Gittip, Year Two

#87

Post by ckluis »

whit537 wrote: post #66
primigenus wrote: post #63

I love Gittip. I don't love the homepage. When I visit the homepage, I see "Sustainable crowdfunding: inspiring generosity", followed by a call to action input asking me to enter someone's username, and finally three groups of lists of people. None of these things mean anything to me if I'm new to Gittip. The headline at the top describes your company mission statement, not what the product does. Instead of telling m…

Thanks! Awesome feedback, especially on the homepage! I've added your comments with a +1 to https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/1074 . Re: the name, that's mentioned a couple other places on this thread. Do you think it's important enough to focus on in the next year? Do you think it's the crucial missing link to making Gittip itself sustainable? Or is that something we tackle once we've demonstrated that…

@whit537 - marketing guy's opinion

I would have the front page tell a story. Something like. OpenSSL Heartbleed bug affected millions of users because millions of software developers use this free software. The team behind it only received $2,000 a year in donations prior to the bug being found. There are 10,000s of software projects that you use every day building your tech stack. You should be investing in the development of those tools by helping to sponsor those projects and "tipping" the developers directly for their work.

I might then put a table that lists server projects, language based projects, database projects - that dives people into the next layer. For instance Lua -> Lua page with some of the big Lua projects listed.

Tell a story. You don't have to pay "enterprise licenses" for free software, but the tools you use need constant development. Anything you give helps those tools get better.

Re: Gittip, Year Two

#88

Post by ronilan »

whit537 wrote: post #68
ronilan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. But it is also the wrong thing to be doing. "Gittip’s mission is to enable an economy of gratitude, generosity, and love". In order to affect such a thing one needs leverage. That is, one needs a lever and a place to stand on. If two years in and after several times at the top of HN, Chad still can't make a living - then he has neither. The mission will fail. It is better to let go. Just my own meandering expe…

Taking three to five years to reach profitability is normal. In the mean time, we paid out $300,000 in no-strings-attached gifts this past year. That does not feel to me like the wrong thing to be doing. :-)

Chad, the passion and effort you've put into your project are clear. I hope it will eventually become beneficial to you, if not directly, then down the road through the doors it must have opened to you. That being said, I think I'm not the only one who would have advised you to let go of something that is half dead (edit: meaning "vegetative" by comparable standards). Also, wouldn't the mission be better served as a project at github rather than a profit seeking enterprise? Wouldn't Reddit gifts arrangement be the right model? After all once you put a link at the place where people go magic is possible. Just something to think about. Sunk cost is tricky but it is never too late to make the right decision. Ok. Almost never....

Re: Gittip, Year Two

#89

Post by whit537 »

ckluis wrote: post #87
whit537 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! Awesome feedback, especially on the homepage! I've added your comments with a +1 to https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/1074 . Re: the name, that's mentioned a couple other places on this thread. Do you think it's important enough to focus on in the next year? Do you think it's the crucial missing link to making Gittip itself sustainable? Or is that something we tackle once we've demonstrated that…

@whit537 - marketing guy's opinion I would have the front page tell a story. Something like. OpenSSL Heartbleed bug affected millions of users because millions of software developers use this free software. The team behind it only received $2,000 a year in donations prior to the bug being found. There are 10,000s of software projects that you use every day building your tech stack. You should be investing in the deve…

Thanks! Want to join our marketing team? :-)

One way or another, I've added your comments with a +1 to https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/1074.

Re: Gittip, Year Two

#90

Post by whit537 »

po wrote: post #86
whit537 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback! We actually had a loooong bikeshed on this a month into Gittip. Here's the thread: https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues/138 Maybe someday we'll rebrand, but that would be a fair bit of work at this point and would distract us from more pressing concerns such as better discoverability and usability.

I suspected that there was already a PR where what I'm suggesting was discussed. :-) Now you've learned more about the people who are interested and the words/terms they use, you are more in a position to make that decision now. So, in some sense it was good to wait. However, I think that if your growth has been relatively flat and you have evidence of other platforms clicking with consumers in a big way, then it may…

Good idea on testing names with ads. If/when we decide to rebrand I'll keep that in mind.

Our growth has only slowed in the past few months. We doubled three times in the 16 months before that.

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