Marathon Donation App - Call for testers

Edit history:

Mystery: 2011-01-18 03:06:29 pm

2011-01-18 02:23:43 pm

We should consider what happens if information about a donation is written to the database before we know the donation succeeded. How do we know it's a valid donation? The easiest solution I see is to write the donation before paying with the status pending. Once we get acknowledgment, we simply update the status to complete.

Regarding parallel bids, I can't remember what I was thinking of then. Maybe it'll occur to me later.

...But we could handle that later, I suppose.
Anyway, before going forward with this system, we should ask ourselves this: do we need to be able to handle refunds?
Potential situations I can see are:
- Someone donates too much by mistake.
- Someone wants to retract their donation.
- They donate for something, but someone else donates over them. These donations are done in parallel, so the lower donor couldn't have anticipated it. What if that lower donor wants to increase his/her bid? Do we enable/allow incremental donations that ups their total donation towards something or give them a refund so they can donate a higher sum?
- What if someone donates for something that isn't possible or the runner rejects? Like playing on a too high difficulty? Should we manually have to approve these or offer a refund?

I think this is a important question. If we don't need refunds, we can use the current system. But if we do, then this system is probably not enough.
After that, I think, it is appropriate to discuss what exactly we want the script to do before starting to implement everything.

We should consider what happens if information about a donation is written to the database before we know the donation succeeded. How do we know it's a valid donation? The easiest solution I see is to write the donation before paying with the status pending. Once we get acknowledgment, we simply update the status to complete.

Regarding parallel bids, I can't remember what I was thinking of then. Maybe it'll occur to me later.

...But we could handle that later, I suppose.
Anyway, before going forward with this system, we should ask ourselves this: do we need to be able to handle refunds?
Potential situations I can see are:
- Someone donates too much by mistake.
- Someone wants to retract their donation.
- They donate for something, but someone else donates over them. These donations are done in parallel, so the lower donor couldn't have anticipated it. What if that lower donor wants to increase his/her bid? Do we enable/allow incremental donations that ups their total donation towards something or give them a refund so they can donate a higher sum?
- What if someone donates for something that isn't possible or the runner rejects? Like playing on a too high difficulty? Should we manually have to approve these or offer a refund?

I think this is a important question. If we don't need refunds, we can use the current system. But if we do, then this system is probably not enough.
After that, I think, it is appropriate to discuss what exactly we want the script to do before starting to implement everything.

Rakuen

2011-01-18 03:29:46 pm

Weegee Time

I firmly believe you can't donate by accident, especially as there's several ways to back out. If someone makes a mistake in what their donation should go toward, we should probably have some way to manually change it (an admin panel). As we don't have control over a charity's PayPal to begin with (nor should we ever for security reasons), refunds are a non-issue in my opinion. If someone donates too much, there's a PayPal dispute process for that, the same as when someone wants to retract their donation. This does bring up the problem of someone potentially gaming the system by making a donation and then immediately filing a dispute. If this happens, a blacklist might be useful as well.

Quote:

Do we enable/allow incremental donations that ups their total donation towards something

Use a SUM aggregate query. You'd have to anyway, because several people can donate toward the same thing.

Quote:

- What if someone donates for something that isn't possible or the runner rejects? Like playing on a too high difficulty? Should we manually have to approve these or offer a refund?

This is why several have suggested a challenge submission process. Viewers submit a proposal, and the marathon people approve or deny it. If you donate toward something that hasn't been approved, it's on the donater for making the mistake, and that's something we should make clear.

I firmly believe you can't donate by accident, especially as there's several ways to back out.  If someone makes a mistake in what their donation should go [i]toward[/i], we should probably have some way to manually change it (an admin panel).  As we don't have control over a charity's PayPal to begin with (nor should we ever for security reasons), refunds are a non-issue in my opinion.  If someone donates too much, there's a PayPal dispute process for that, the same as when someone wants to retract their donation.  This does bring up the problem of someone potentially gaming the system by making a donation and then immediately filing a dispute.  If this happens, a blacklist might be useful as well.

[quote]Do we enable/allow incremental donations that ups their total donation towards something[/quote]
Use a SUM aggregate query.  You'd have to anyway, because several people can donate toward the same thing.

[quote]- What if someone donates for something that isn't possible or the runner rejects? Like playing on a too high difficulty? Should we manually have to approve these or offer a refund?[/quote]
This is why several have suggested a challenge submission process.  Viewers submit a proposal, and the marathon people approve or deny it.  If you donate toward something that hasn't been approved, it's on the donater for making the mistake, and that's something we should make clear.

SMK

Edit history:

SMK: 2011-01-18 03:47:41 pm

SMK: 2011-01-18 03:40:37 pm

SMK: 2011-01-18 03:40:16 pm

SMK: 2011-01-18 03:38:01 pm

SMK: 2011-01-18 03:37:37 pm

SMK: 2011-01-18 03:37:15 pm

2011-01-18 03:36:13 pm

Damn it Rauken, you beat me to it. Wink

Anyways, to confirm this, NO REFUNDS (at least not through us), because we're putting the money into the charity's account, not ours. We're just giving people incentive to pass their money onto a good cause, and hence have no control over it.

To add to the last point: I wholeheartedly agree that people be required to get all bids pre-approved through a separate form, i.e. actually submit a form on a page and then we add or reject it at our discretion. Once it has been added, it will become an option available in the donation form, and personally I feel this should be the only way to make suggestions. *Maybe* we can do it through comments as well, but they should be aware that their idea may be rejected entirely.

I think that we should also have some admin tools to be able to re-assign donation bids if a user requests it through IRC or whatever; if we do it right, the IRC admin should be able to make such a change from their machine without going through somebody else.

Damn it Rauken, you beat me to it.  ;)

Anyways, to confirm this, NO REFUNDS (at least not through us), because we're putting the money into the charity's account, not ours.  We're just giving people incentive to pass their money onto a good cause, and hence have no control over it.

To add to the last point: I wholeheartedly agree that people be required to get all bids pre-approved through a separate form, i.e. actually submit a form on a page and then we add or reject it at our discretion.  Once it has been added, it will become an option available in the donation form, and personally I feel this should be the only way to make suggestions.  *Maybe* we can do it through comments as well, but they should be aware that their idea may be rejected entirely.

I think that we should also have some admin tools to be able to re-assign donation bids if a user requests it through IRC or whatever; if we do it right, the IRC admin should be able to make such a change from their machine without going through somebody else.

Mystery

Edit history:

Mystery: 2011-01-19 11:43:48 am

2011-01-19 06:24:38 am

Alright, so no refunds. That means we should have our payment system.

Now, as for donations...
To me, it seems like a good idea to make categories for donations. The reasons I see for are these:

- It makes it easier to automate donations. We can simply put an area where we can see the highest bid for a certain thing.
- It makes it easier for viewers to see the max bid for something, like renaming a character.

Also, it seems like a good idea for admins to be able to add/remove categories. If a category does not exist, it might be prudent to add a feature for viewers to suggest a new category. Then the admins can manually review the suggestion and add a new category, if plausible.
We might also add an option that allows admins to control whether donations added to a certain category must be manually verified or not.

What do we think of this?

Rakuen

2011-01-19 10:13:34 am

Weegee Time

We had categories in the app, it seems prudent to keep them.

Mystery

2011-01-19 11:45:59 am

Right. But what of the other things I mentioned? Should we do this? Or should we do it some other way?

Rakuen

2011-01-19 11:59:56 am

Weegee Time

Admins create the bids. I see there being two types of bids.

1) Naming bids. For these, there should be a dropdown box for the list of already submitted names, and a text box for custom name entry. Making an admin approve a new name kind of complicates the process, most notably, it makes it a bit confusing to the donater. Therefore, I'd say keep it the way we had it this year. You can donate if you want, but if it's inappropriate, we have veto power. A disclaimer on the page would pretty much take care of this.

2) Challenge bids. These would be things like difficulty levels, tricks, etc. For these, a simple description of what the bid entails should suffice.

This leaves the question: What situation do you think would arise that would need admins to manually verify bids?

Mystery

Edit history:

Mystery: 2011-01-19 12:25:22 pm

2011-01-19 12:21:49 pm

I think you said it. If the bid is inappropriate, we have veto power. That basically means that certain bids, such as tricks need to be checked before approved. If not approved yet, it might not be listed. It might be bad if it says somewhere that something should be done, then suddenly removed?

Although, basically if you bid in a well defined category, it's automatic. If it's something new, for which no category exists, then it might need to be manually approved. Tricks are basically such a category, since all tricks suggested will probably be unique.

Rakuen

2011-01-19 12:42:33 pm

Weegee Time

Quote:

This is why several have suggested a challenge submission process.

So yes, something like that should definitely exist for challenges.

Mystery

2011-01-19 02:12:52 pm

Allowing admins to create moderated categories would solve that. It also would allow for some flexibility depending on what future needs they might anticipate. Though what categories should exist and if they should be moderated or not might have to be based on experience.
Anyway, I should take a look at the donation app again to figure out a draft for how to enter and handle donations. I'll probably sum up my ideas after that.

Arrow

2011-01-19 03:23:05 pm

Now a hit show on the CW

The problem here is that naming bids and challenge bids have different stipulations. If someone wants to put money down on an existing or new name, that's something they would pay for in advance, and thus should be able to choose at the time of donation (we could still veto the name if it was inappropriate of course). On the other hand, bids for completing a certain trick, playing on a certain difficulty, beating a certain time, etc. are things that the donor shouldn't have to pay for until the runner actually accepts and/or completes the challenge. I think we need a dedicated chat moderator account that people in chat can PM challenges to, where they can then be assessed and passed along to the runner if they are deemed acceptable.

Rakuen

2011-01-19 03:44:59 pm

Weegee Time

Yeah, that was basically my interpretation. Naming a character is something we already plan to do. Playing Gears of War on Insane isn't. That's the difference.

Mystery

Edit history:

Mystery: 2011-01-19 03:55:18 pm

Mystery: 2011-01-19 03:54:49 pm

2011-01-19 03:52:40 pm

Quote from Arrow:

The problem here is that naming bids and challenge bids have different stipulations. If someone wants to put money down on an existing or new name, that's something they would pay for in advance, and thus should be able to choose at the time of donation (we could still veto the name if it was inappropriate of course). On the other hand, bids for completing a certain trick, playing on a certain difficulty, beating a certain time, etc. are things that the donor shouldn't have to pay for until the runner actually accepts and/or completes the challenge. I think we need a dedicated chat moderator account that people in chat can PM challenges to, where they can then be assessed and passed along to the runner if they are deemed acceptable.

Then they can either
a) Donate a trifling amount, say $0.01, and wait until it's approved or declined, and then donate some more to increment that sum, or
b) Submit a proposal, which is either accepted or rejected, and the donor might be notified of such, through, say email. Posting it in the chat might also be possible, but it is also possible that it might be drowned in a flood of messages.

Other possible options (which we cannot achieve with the current payment system) are:

a) The donation is refunded if the proposal is rejected, or
b) The payment is carried out only after the proposal is accepted, or not at all if rejected. This would, of course, require them to actually do the donating in the first place, but the money is moved only after the proposal is accepted.

[quote="Arrow"]The problem here is that naming bids and challenge bids have different stipulations. If someone wants to put money down on an existing or new name, that's something they would pay for in advance, and thus should be able to choose at the time of donation (we could still veto the name if it was inappropriate of course). On the other hand, bids for completing a certain trick, playing on a certain difficulty, beating a certain time, etc. are things that the donor shouldn't have to pay for until the runner actually accepts and/or completes the challenge. I think we need a dedicated chat moderator account that people in chat can PM challenges to, where they can then be assessed and passed along to the runner if they are deemed acceptable.[/quote]
Then they can either
a) Donate a trifling amount, say $0.01, and wait until it's approved or declined, and then donate some more to increment that sum, or
b) Submit a proposal, which is either accepted or rejected, and the donor might be notified of such, through, say email. Posting it in the chat might also be possible, but it is also possible that it might be drowned in a flood of messages.

Other possible options (which we cannot achieve with the current payment system) are:

a) The donation is refunded if the proposal is rejected, or
b) The payment is carried out only after the proposal is accepted, or not at all if rejected. This would, of course, require them to actually do the donating in the first place, but the money is moved only after the proposal is accepted.

Rakuen

2011-01-19 04:08:47 pm

Weegee Time

Quote:

a) Donate a trifling amount, say $0.01, and wait until it's approved or declined, and then donate some more to increment that sum, or

Confusing and complicated.

Quote:

b) Submit a proposal, which is either accepted or rejected, and the donor might be notified of such, through, say email. Posting it in the chat might also be possible, but it is also possible that it might be drowned in a flood of messages.

Bingo. It could also be announced over the stream.

Mystery

2011-01-19 04:14:10 pm

Quote from Rakuen:

Quote:

a) Donate a trifling amount, say $0.01, and wait until it's approved or declined, and then donate some more to increment that sum, or

Confusing and complicated.

Yes, it is. But it is also the only way of making sure it isn't drowned in a flood of replies.

Quote:

Bingo. It could also be announced over the stream.

And maybe drowned in a flood of replies.
But perhaps you could dedicate a channel for these sort of announcements. I guess that could work.
That, or email the donor once it's been accepted or not.
You could do both, if the donor wishes the receive an email with the decision.

Flip

Edit history:

Flip: 2011-01-19 04:18:50 pm

2011-01-19 04:17:45 pm

1-Up!

It might be worth our while to have someone log in to IRC as SDA_Challenges or something and direct all challenge proposals to that user. (Somebody perma-op'd can op that account) Have somebody in the room with us (somebody like moooh this year) man that laptop and be more focused on relaying challenges than communicating with the chat.

Edit: of course this all relies on a) our ability to tell the chat to direct challenges to SDA_Challenges and b) the chat's ability to follow instructions (lol we can dream)

Mystery

2011-01-19 04:22:43 pm

Quote from Flip:

It might be worth our while to have someone log in to IRC as SDA_Challenges or something and direct all challenge proposals to that user. (Somebody perma-op'd can op that account) Have somebody in the room with us (somebody like moooh this year) man that laptop and be more focused on relaying challenges than communicating with the chat.

I think it would be easier if they submit proposals in a form, though? That way, you can view all proposals that are pending and process them in order (no forgetting).
Then you can announce it. But the question is if you should just dedicate some specific channel to it or something. This relies on the chat working properly so you can see. Make it stand out, so to speak.

Quote:

Edit: of course this all relies on a) our ability to tell the chat to direct challenges to SDA_Challenges and b) the chat's ability to follow instructions (lol we can dream)

Meh. That's going to be a problem whatever we do.

Rakuen

2011-01-19 04:31:14 pm

Weegee Time

Quote from Mystery:

Quote from Rakuen:

Quote:

a) Donate a trifling amount, say $0.01, and wait until it's approved or declined, and then donate some more to increment that sum, or

Confusing and complicated.

Yes, it is. But it is also the only way of making sure it isn't drowned in a flood of replies.

That unfortunately sidesteps the issue that if something isn't intuitive, people won't bother to use it, or they'll use it improperly. Also, we cannot in good faith ask for any amount of donation for something that can be declined later, at least in my opinion.

Quote:

That, or email the donor once it's been accepted or not.

Well, you're making the assumption that the donor is the only person who's going to chip in towards it and that they have a dollar amount in mind. What about people who just want to suggest something? Or perhaps someone suggests too low of a donation point? Maybe the money required is a large sum that would be covered by several people who are all willing to chip in?

This is why I was saying it should be announced over the stream. E-mailing the originator isn't a bad idea, but you can't do only that and assume it's taken care of.

[quote="Mystery"][quote="Rakuen"][quote]a) Donate a trifling amount, say $0.01, and wait until it's approved or declined, and then donate some more to increment that sum, or[/quote]Confusing and complicated.[/quote]Yes, it is. But it is also the only way of making sure it isn't drowned in a flood of replies.[/quote]
That unfortunately sidesteps the issue that if something isn't intuitive, people won't bother to use it, or they'll use it improperly.  Also, we cannot in good faith ask for any amount of donation for something that can be declined later, at least in my opinion.

[quote]That, or email the donor once it's been accepted or not.[/quote]
Well, you're making the assumption that the donor is the only person who's going to chip in towards it [b]and[/b] that they have a dollar amount in mind.  What about people who just want to suggest something?  Or perhaps someone suggests too low of a donation point?  Maybe the money required is a large sum that would be covered by several people who are all willing to chip in?

This is why I was saying it should be announced over the stream.  E-mailing the originator isn't a bad idea, but you can't do only that and assume it's taken care of.

Mystery

Edit history:

Mystery: 2011-01-19 04:37:49 pm

Mystery: 2011-01-19 04:37:35 pm

2011-01-19 04:37:18 pm

Quote from Rakuen:

That unfortunately sidesteps the issue that if something isn't intuitive, people won't bother to use it, or they'll use it improperly. Also, we cannot in good faith ask for any amount of donation for something that can be declined later, at least in my opinion.

Agreed.

Quote:

Well, you're making the assumption that the donor is the only person who's going to chip in towards it and that they have a dollar amount in mind. What about people who just want to suggest something? Or perhaps someone suggests too low of a donation point? Maybe the money required is a large sum that would be covered by several people who are all willing to chip in?

This is why I was saying it should be announced over the stream. E-mailing the originator isn't a bad idea, but you can't do only that and assume it's taken care of.

I get you. I don't really see any better ideas. I'm just worried it might be drowned.
I think it will just have to do.

Flip

Edit history:

Flip: 2011-01-19 04:47:05 pm

2011-01-19 04:46:24 pm

1-Up!

Emailing probably won't work well because we had plenty of donors who donated from a parents / somebody else's account. Although it may be the case we cant assume that if they have their parents Paypal login that they have access to the email account tied to that paypal account.

edit: I also agree with rakuen in that i don't want us telling them they have to donate to make a suggestion, even if it is only $.01

Mystery

2011-01-19 04:49:48 pm

Quote from Flip:

Emailing probably won't work well because we had plenty of donors who donated from a parents / somebody else's account. Although it may be the case we cant assume that if they have their parents Paypal login that they have access to the email account tied to that paypal account.

We COULD ask for an email they want notification delivered to, and remember it too, if they wished it, by cookie. But I think we've agreed on that it might not be such a good idea, at least by itself.
It might be nice for convenience for those who propose it, however. Especially if they don't monitor the chat.

UraniumAnchor

2011-01-19 11:30:16 pm

Not a walrus

If people want a name added to the list, they can just PM it to SDAMarathon (the stream's ustream account). If they can't even manage that, well...

Just have it say something on a timer (maybe five minutes during peak hours) to PM all challenges and naming suggestions to it. Not the most elegant solution but probably the least confusing and not difficult to implement.

Mystery

Edit history:

Mystery: 2011-01-20 12:44:50 am

2011-01-20 12:44:19 am

Wouldn't it be better to have a list of proposals, so you can tick them off one-by-one?
I mean, getting a suggestion probably means
a) You have to ask the runner if he/she is okay with it.
b) You have to add a category so people can donate for it.
c) You have to announce it.
If we take proposals via PM, you might have to write it down somewhere and process it later. This could happen, for example, if the runner isn't awake / not in the room when the proposal is made.
It also allows for easier filtering, like prioritizing games that are coming up soon.
A proposal form could allow for better automation.

I haven't heard any good arguments against it?

UraniumAnchor

2011-01-20 01:15:06 am

Not a walrus

Harder to implement, test, and secure.
PMs allow for actual discussion with the proposer. Good for challenges or names that don't work.
I don't see why having to announce things is in any way a bad thing. This is the case for challenges anyway.

Also, why write it down? It's not like the query windows close on their own. If somebody else needs to take over then we can say 'make sure to ask about this one' or whatever.

Unless we get really huge next year (which I admit is possible but I think it's unlikely) then it's not like these kind of things come in so fast we can't deal with it. The only real concern is having somebody on hand to add in new name suggestions.

Mystery

Edit history:

Mystery: 2011-01-20 01:24:56 am

2011-01-20 01:24:46 am

Implement, test and secure I could understand, but since we're pretty much doing a whole system anyway, I don't think THAT is going to be a problem. At least we can try, if we want it.
The only problem with challenges is that announcements can be lost among a flood of other messages and people not monitoring the chat are going to miss it. Otherwise I don't see any problems with it.
The concern with doing it manually is that people cannot be trusted. People forget. People miss things. People screw up things. It's our nature. I mean, how many problems were there with having someone at the front of the donation computer, answering comments this year? I think that is a good example of what might happen if it is done manually.

These are simply my concerns about doing anything manually. It is error prone.