Gittip minimum raised from $0.25 to $1.00

Historically, Australians don't tip. During much of the the 20th century Australia had quite a strong (relative to the US) tradition of socialism and unionism, resulting in a strong set of minimum employment conditions. There was very much a view that a decent living wage was an entitlement and a matter of dignity, not something that a worker should have to stoop to collect. People didn't tip, since the common perception was that the potential tipee was as equally entitled to a minimum wage as the potential tipper. Indeed, I'd say that people actively didn't tip as an act of homage to equality.

Tipping is probably more common today than in the past, and the above is being eroded, but I think the above is still generally true. A tip is rarely expected, or let on to be expected, as that is a sure fire way not to get a tip.

I mention the above, in the supposition that it has connotations for a site like gittip that liberally uses the word "tipping". Some cultures don't do tipping. As an Australian, I'd be more inclined if the idea of compensation was being sold on a "equity" (as in fairness) basis rather than a giving basis. I know it's semantics, but semantics does influence decisions.

I hope the above is constructive.

With that said, I have followed these discussions, and I think this may be the wrong approach. I think that you should implement a balance transfer feature. This would prevent a lot of the money from getting eaten up by processing fees. Once that is implemented, you should just leave the amount up to the user, no mins, no maxes. If someone thinks that $0.25/wk is too small, then they are free to tip more. But at $0.25/wk, that comes out to $13/yr. At $1/wk, that is $52/yr. I am a man of modest, yet comfortable means, and giving some people ~$10/yr to support their cause is well within my discretionary budget, but at ~$50/yr, that starts setting off my internal 'frugal' alarms, especially if I want to donate to more than one project.

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/180

I rolled that out today, so if you wanted it, go use it. :^)

https://www.gittip.com/about/me.html

For instance, I'd love to go to a site like this and give $100 to whoever is the most active contributor in glib who is accepting contributions.

I generally don't know people's github account names. Digging it up is a pain.

must donations be recurring? why can't send one-off donations? also, at the risk of sounding vein, must the donations be anonymous? these things are keeping me from giving my money to people.

I was curious about your payment processor since you're working as a marketstyle service. For reference on a project I'm working on, were there any hurdles to getting such an account? Also, how do you plan to handle chargebacks?