Donation requests - What could be done?!

Discussion in 'Community Discussion' started by Hasorko, Mar 19, 2012.

?

Do you think donation request post must be handled somehow since there are to many.

Yes 9 vote(s) 90.0%
No 1 vote(s) 10.0%
  1. Hi Community,

    I just, as so often, went to the forum "community creations" and looked for some interesting creations. And once again I didnt reach them, because it took me so much time to scroll through the massive amount of donation requests.

    Those threads usually introduce a wild minecraft construction idea. The person mostly doesn't have started the project, has not prepared anything like a single player version (sketch) or if it is really a wild idea has not even an idea of what to build just a blurry topic.

    But what it sure has is a list of donations. Now why does this bug me?

    For many reasons... First of all if you are looking for nice posts you have also to deal with those posts. Since it doesnt say [I'm begging for material here so dont read] in the title. So naturally I waste time there.

    Also they spam the recent active thread posts with repost such as "Hey anybody?" "REALY NEET HALP PLXPLXPLX" and so on. So I also miss really interesting posts again.

    But especially I'm annoyed to think about how those donations probably get missused. Espescially if I see how people set up such a wild idea post once a week, with a project idea they wont finish in one week. But they sure make another post next week. So what happend here. Obviously they didnt receive enough donations. But in many cases it can be observed that they DO get some donations. But since this is not enough they just keep the donated rescources and probably missuse them for other stuff. This is the reason I don't donate to anybody anymore. I was giving away some rescources once in a while to promissing projects. And I dont think any of those missused them. But I kind of want to stop to make donations so usual. I dont want to encourage people to think they can do a project just by donations. I cant stand that.

    I really loved to see some regulations for donation requests. Therefor I made this post, so people can add ideas what should be considered if something like this comes up at staff discussions.

    This is what I think should be considered:

    - You must have at least a single player sketch for what you want to build. (something what shows about how detailed/ how big aso it gets)
    - You must have a clear donation list
    - Item donations must be refunded if the project does not get finished -> this must be done by the constructer without further notice. If he does not do so he must get a punishment for that.
    - Rupee donations need special attention since ruppe might be spend at that time for items so it is hard to repay (have no solution for that at this moment)
    - A post with a donation request must add [donation request] in the title

    What do you think what should be added to that, what should be changed or shouldnt be considered in a theoretical staff discussion.

    Greetz Hasorko
    copherfield likes this.
  2. I hate the ones asking for donations for something that would benefit their income. I asked for donations on one occasion, for my huge COMMUNITY farm - costing me 150k and it's free to use. Otherwise it should be banned.

    Although, I have noticed several features being disallowed on the forums recently..
  3. I agree with you Hasorko, it is starting to get out of hand , i recently donated a ton of rails to a player who said they were finishing a large project, I went offline and it later turns out that they were selling them in there shop, No project in sight, just a small shop selling saplings and MY rails. Probably should have done research first but your right, there dose need to be a way to control the donations so players who are feeling a little bit generous don't get screwed over in the process.
  4. I totally agree with you (also), there are loads of projects that get started and never end, people are just scaring away from donating to anything, and scaring from helping others just because there are too many that ask for donations...
    I personally have asked for donations twice, for the same project. Right now i get donations from the Delta Team members only, and my project (our, because they are the ones that support it via donations) it's now growing big.
    Most things i get on donations are (because i asked for) cobble, coal and stone... I do get some valuable stuff (like iron, gold, diamond and even slime balls) but those are from people that really want to help and don't really need those.
    I am planning making a full detailed list of donated goods and rupees (yeah i got tons of rupees also) and i believe anyone with any project, as soon as it ends should do so.
    How we manage donations inside of the Delta Team it's a bit different, because we have a 'vault' where if someone else has any kind of project (inside Delta Team) we could as a team help out, giving from that 'vault' which has been filled by members itself.

    Donations for projects should totally get moderated, and i believe that spammy or bumpy posts should be punished also.

    +1 into this great idea.
  5. I think maybe there should be a seperate catagory for donation requests and the community creations catagory for things that have already been built. I think this alone would solve many of the problems you talk about.

    I agree with you about the single player sketch, if you're serious about building some massive project you should show it by making a start such as this.

    I don't like donating to people's shop, so I don't.
  6. Yeah also adding that the 'recent topics' section doesnt contain any of this threads, or maybe they have another place for...
  7. I think that might be going a bit far, some people are interested in these topics - perhaps an option to disable some sub boards in your preferences, I don't know if that's possible, sounds like a bit of work.

    It would be solved by Haskaro's idea of adding "[donation request]" to the topic, but I don't think it would work, I mean look at the community market place forum. There's clear rules for creating a topic with regards to the title, but almost no one follows them, they were enforced a few days, but I imagine the massive amount of topics that made by people who don't read rules posts (or dont care) made enforcing it impractical.
  8. The "donations needed for project" threads don't really bother me, but admittedly, I've never been one to make huge donations and then feel disappointed when the promised project never materializes. What really irritates me are the flat-out panhandlers who are just asking for free money. Something should be done about them as well -- like abolishing the practice and banning repeat offenders from the forums...
    mattdaspak and apamment like this.
  9. The way I like to think of it is how I think of it in real life. You should only be donating to a player or residence if you believe:
    1) They will use your donation for the good of whatever they are creating, and not for personal profit
    2) The residence or player will be practical and beneficial to the community (Community Farms, Parks, Server Museums, etc.)
    3) You see that they have already made progress and sacrificed their own rupees to start the job
    4) If the residence or idea is something that YOU think is a good idea and would use or that the whole community could benefit from

    This also reciprocates to the posting for donations. Everyone posting "Help I need Donations Big Project" should provide proof that all of the points above are covered. If someone just says "I'm building a big zoo on smp3 please donate" and there is no physical proof that they are actually building a zoo on their res or any proof that they will use their donation to help build the res, then no need to donate. Also, any of these posts should be allocated to their own special Donation-Begging forum.

    All that being said, your rupees are YOURS and YOURS only. There is no written rule saying that you have to donate to ANYTHING or EVERYTHING. It is perfectly understandable not to donate to someone for any reason whatsoever and they have no right to bug you or try to punish you if you do not donate to them.
    margaritte likes this.