Improving Donation Visibility
I don’t get a lot of money from people through my existing PayPal donation link (£46 since 2011), despite millions of downloads of BOSS and LOOT. It’s not an issue, because the donations aren’t funding, they’re a way for people to say that they value my work. A way that gives me warm fuzzies and an excuse to pass the donations on to others whose work I value (or rent that film I wanted to see).
That said, I don’t do a very good job of informing people that the donation option exists: there’s a PayPal icon in my site header, and a donate link in my Bethesda Softworks Forums signature. Maybe there are people who would quite like to send me money, but don’t know they can.
Given the above, I’ll be making donation options more prominent. The PayPal link on my site will be shifted over to the right, and I’ll add donation info to my About page and the site footer.
I’m also going to be adding a PayPal link to LOOT. Adding a donation link to LOOT is a moral conundrum I’ve wrestled with for a while, because more that just my work has gone into it. At the end of the day though:
- I did create it
- I do maintain it
- Almost half of the commits that go into LOOT and its masterlists are mine
- I still won’t be charging for it
- Donations will continue to have no conscious impact on my work on it
So I’ve finally made up my mind to go ahead with adding a link. Don’t worry though: I haven’t decided where to put it, but it won’t be obtrusive or nagging, and hopefully it won’t look out of place either. I’m considering entries in the first-run dialog and the about dialog.