More Transparency on Donation Levels and Spending

[MalteseWolf]

I would very much like to see some more transparency as regards to donations and how the money made from them is being spent. This is not out of any lack of trust towards the management of the community, but I think it would help give people a clearer picture on the current situation and even potentially serve as an additional bit of encouragement for more people to donate their hard-earned cash.

 

Now the level of transparency I'm asking for is not a complete balance sheet of how every dollar is spent, when and why. I understand that some things like how much is being spent on the server itself or other ancillary services could be confidential. But even a simple up-to-date view of how we are doing this month would be very nice. Some sites and communities use something like a "donation meter" (e.g. https://wordpress.org/plugins/donation-thermometer/) to display at least as a percentage where the current month's donated money lands in relation to the total cost of keeping the community running for that month, or maybe a couple or three months in advance. With something even as simple as that, willing and able members of the community might notice that we're still behind on making the "monthly goal" and be more inclined to donate to help keep this thing running. Currently, there is no way of knowing if we're even making enough money to cover all the costs (although I both suspect and hope we are).

 

This suggestion is of course open to further feedback, thoughts and refinements both by the community and the staff and management.

[Orcaninja]

I agree with you. I wouldn't support having advertised monthly goals though without something showing that it's really behind. The reason for that being that websites like Wikipedia do a similar thing where they imply that if you don't donate they'll probably shut down. When the reality is... They're well above their costs.

[Nervous]

I'm always very transparent about it when asked on Discord, but I would rather not share any public numbers to avoid any future problems with Rockstar/Take 2 in a mid or long term future. (It would be really easy for them to calculate donations that way and claim damages that we would never be able to refund since it was used for server upkeep)

I'll always answer you on the discord or in private DM regarding our different costs, and I already did (even linked the exact server we're using).

 

GTMP EULA forbids us to use any of your donation money for personnal use anyway, and we currently don't make enough to cover all costs (server, licenses) without even paying developers / graphists etc..

Courgette and I have been using the money from our pockets since May to pay for the whole server and will keep doing it, the donations are helping a lot and I expect to receive enough to cover the cost once our playerbase will x2-x3.

 

As for a specific goal bar status / goals, we did not want to implement it because I feel that It's pushing towards the player a feeling of "donate because we need it to run efficiently". We do not want to force anyone to donate or to make any player feel that they need to donate for the server to keep running. While we welcome all donations and really appreciate it as it shows that you trust us and support our crazy amount of work, we do not need it to keep the server running or to keep the updates going. Many servers or communities will lie to you about this and this is not our goal, we're not developing or running this server for the money so such feature will not be added either as it doesn't match our mindset.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Nervous

[MalteseWolf]

20 minutes ago, Nervous said:

As for a specific goal bar status / goals, we did not want to implement it because I feel that It's pushing towards the player a feeling of "donate because we need it to run efficiently". We do not want to force anyone to donate or to make any player feel that they need to donate for the server to keep running. While we welcome all donations and really appreciate it as it shows that you trust us and support our crazy amount of work, we do not need it to keep the server running or to keep the updates going. Many servers or communities will lie to you about this and this is not our goal, we're not developing or running this server for the money so such feature will not be added either as it doesn't match our mindset.

Whilst I appreciate the generosity, I do not agree that having an honest "goal bar" is any worse than offering perks for donators to "buy". It is not fair that any group of people, particularly those working the hardest for the community, end up paying for it out of their own pockets too. And a goal bar or donation meter or whatever you wanna call it could help titillate more people who enjoy playing here to help out in keeping the wheels turning. But that is just my opinion, and I can appreciate that you guys might see it differently. Thanks for the response and explanation, though.

[Orcaninja]

Are you still interested in these being implemented?

@MalteseWolf

 

 

The suggestion requires more input from community members. 

[MalteseWolf]

Yes I still think having a goal bar of some kind could encourage players to donate when they are most needed. Looking forward to more feedback from other members of the community.

[JimmyCZ]

I am not going to support this suggestion mainly because Nervous' reply. I feel it's better for us not to share that much of an information publicly for said reasons, however, I do support fact that people should be given that information upon request but that is already happening as per Nervous' reply.

[Notbond]

This has been addressed, archived.