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The issue with tipping

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• knircky

  

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  Location: Philadelphia PA

  What if I could tip the ltb coins I will receive at the eow or in future?

  What a nice discussion we have started here!

  Posted on July 9, 2014 at 11:35 PM
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• rotalumis

  

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  @william I don't think that the idea of running a tab is a good one. Tips should be final and immediate, just like when you put change in a busker's guitar case. You can't tip if you don't have the quarters (LTBcoin).

  My thoughts precisely. I'm copy/pasting a summary of my earlier comments from the google doc, @deweller, to push the discussion to the community:

  "The more I think about the "invoice" model, the more it seems to break the idea of a spontaneous tip.

  Tipping is up there with the impulsive actions marketers want to make happen before the impulse dies. Something gave you a good feeling and at that moment you tip happily. Any amount of time later and your memory of that good feeling is just not there the same way and you're starting to feel like meh... Maybe there's something else you want to spend your tips on now -- something else has caught your attention and it seems 100 times better than that other thing you wanted to tip before because it's what is real and vivid for you right now.

  If people had any chance to reconsider, they will probably end up tipping less or maybe not tipping at all.

  Escrowing away pledged tips and clearing later could help save on transactions and fees, but then we're keeping funds (which may end up being necessary)."

  Posted on July 10, 2014 at 3:32 AM
  Last Edited: July 10, 2014 at 3:34 AM
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• rotalumis

  

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  Everyone and @Knircky @coinfire @william @mjroncone:

  On the subject of holding funds (if we go that route) and reducing risk, one idea is that tipping funds over a certain amount would automatically get flushed out to the tipbot user's Counterparty address. The threshold can be user-customizable, probably with an upper limit

  What sort of amount makes sense for the average user to hold in their tipping account? The equivalent of $15? $25? $50?

  Posted on July 10, 2014 at 3:47 AM
  Last Edited: July 10, 2014 at 3:48 AM
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• William

  

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  I know that holding the funds is a bit of a downer -- more security needed, more coding, etc. Keeping low amounts would minimize risk. As people suggested, there could be auto-withdraws when your balance meets certain parameters. It sounds like a dust BTC address will also be needed to be kept too in order to offset counterparty fees on withdraws.

  Somebody mentioned taking a percentage of each tip in transactino fees. I don't think that's a good idea. It would deincentivize tipping. Transaction fees should only be assessed to coins within the LTB platform when they are withdrawn in order to encourage tipping.

  It is actually possible to think is another way to think of this. In reality it could actually be a "good" thing to have a sizable number of coins sloshing around within the LTB ecosystem, between users, etc. Seems like having the LTBcoin slosh around within the system would make LTBcoin something that is actually used. I mean, what makes gold valuable in online games is that it can be used. That is why there are external markets for game objects and currencies in the first place. But of course, there are tradeoffs.

  Also, paying people to the platform LTB address and then making them deposit dust BTC to cash out would also solve the counterparty transaction fee issue.

  Posted on July 10, 2014 at 8:06 AM
  Last Edited: July 10, 2014 at 8:10 AM
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• dpc

  

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  What if tips were a different centralized "token" that could be exchanged for LTBcoin at users expense?

  Borrowing from Adam's bootstrapped wishing well idea:

  LTBcoin gives each active forum member 100 LTBtips at the beginning of each month. Members could give out those tips as they see fit. If they run out of tips and want to buy more, they could buy more LTBtips for LTBcoin/bitcoin... and give those out as they see fit. On the flip side users who receive LTBtips could store them until they become a significant value and trade them for LTBcoin. The price could be market based or Fixed to LTBcoin (I recommend fixed).

  Users would then incur the cost of fees of trading coins. If they want to run to the bank every time there is a penny in their jar, they can. If they want to wait until there is enough to buy a round of drinks they can do that as well.

  This does two things:

  1. Outsources the job of validating which posts are useful to the conversation and giving those more participation credit. (I actually think this will become more and more important as LTBcoin grows)
  2. Minimizes fees as much or as little as each individual user wants.

  If you were considering tracking tokens outside of counterparty anyway this might make more sense.

  Posted on July 10, 2014 at 10:29 AM
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• knircky

  

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  @rotalumis Everyone and @Knircky @coinfire @william @mjroncone:

  On the subject of holding funds (if we go that route) and reducing risk, one idea is that tipping funds over a certain amount would automatically get flushed out to the tipbot user's Counterparty address. The threshold can be user-customizable, probably with an upper limit

  What sort of amount makes sense for the average user to hold in their tipping account? The equivalent of $15? $25? $50?

  Yes. I would put maybe $100 on the site.

  I think the idea of having auto withdraw option is not bad at all. But also keep it simple (it would be more functionality)

  I think allowing me to deposit and then use it at ltb.com would be fantastic and simple. You could also put the ltbcoin distribution into these accounts and we could use those then for tipping or withdraw. This would likely lead to much ltbcoin tipping. Have a ticker that displays the ltbcoin price in btc, USD and XCP and we will use ltbcoin more and more as the currency on here.

  If you sent them to my counterparty account i won't use them for tips, way to complicated (and expensive).

  We also need to come up with a way to reward tippers for tipping. think of a strip club: people tip because they except a reward. very few tip just because they are nice. They tip the pretty girl in hope of some attention. but the rewarding of tippers is different topic and with the ltbcoin distribution might be covered already. We just need to make it simpler to tip i think.

  Posted on July 10, 2014 at 11:00 AM
  Last Edited: July 10, 2014 at 11:02 AM
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• knircky

  

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  @dpc What if tips were a different centralized "token" that could be exchanged for LTBcoin at users expense?

  Borrowing from Adam's bootstrapped wishing well idea:

  LTBcoin gives each active forum member 100 LTBtips at the beginning of each month. Members could give out those tips as they see fit. If they run out of tips and want to buy more, they could buy more LTBtips for LTBcoin/bitcoin... and give those out as they see fit. On the flip side users who receive LTBtips could store them until they become a significant value and trade them for LTBcoin. The price could be market based or Fixed to LTBcoin (I recommend fixed).

  Users would then incur the cost of fees of trading coins. If they want to run to the bank every time there is a penny in their jar, they can. If they want to wait until there is enough to buy a round of drinks they can do that as well.

  This does two things:

  1. Outsources the job of validating which posts are useful to the conversation and giving those more participation credit. (I actually think this will become more and more important as LTBcoin grows)
  2. Minimizes fees as much or as little as each individual user wants.

  If you were considering tracking tokens outside of counterparty anyway this might make more sense.

  Yes i think thats a great way to encourage people to tip. If you give everyone 100tips every month this would make a great way to gauge which stuff they like best. However I think this is better for voting. This could be a great way to determine who (authors) should get how much ltbcoin rewards. Also we must make sure to keep it simple and not confuse the users.

  We want people to actually give away money whenever they feel like. So giving them money to tip is a bit different I think.

  Posted on July 10, 2014 at 11:07 AM
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• dpc

  

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  @knircky Yes i think thats a great way to encourage people to tip. If you give everyone 100tips every month this would make a great way to gauge which stuff they like best. However I think this is better for voting. This could be a great way to determine who (authors) should get how much ltbcoin rewards. Also we must make sure to keep it simple and not confuse the users.

  We want people to actually give away money whenever they feel like. So giving them money to tip is a bit different I think.

  Agreed. I'm seeing tipping and voting as essentially the same thing. I tip the posts I want to see more of and don't tip the posts that just add noise. This encourages thoughtful comments rather than "First!" or "Fail" comments that will come with a purely count based participation model.

  Posted on July 10, 2014 at 11:09 AM
  Last Edited: July 10, 2014 at 11:19 AM
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• dgiors

  

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  Is there an ETA on comment tipping?

  Apologies if this was answered already. I didn't read the entire thread.

  Posted on July 17, 2014 at 4:40 PM
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• adam

  

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  Location: California, USA

  @dgiors Is there an ETA on comment tipping?

  Apologies if this was answered already. I didn't read the entire thread.

  its going to be a little while.

  Posted on July 17, 2014 at 5:02 PM
  Last Edited: July 17, 2014 at 5:02 PM
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