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- add a button on the author's article list page next to an unlisted article that will "list" it
- color the heading of unlisted articles something different, e.g., poofy pink, so the author will realize it's unlisted
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The "This is an unfinished article" isn't enough.
(I'm just not sure I want poofy pink on the site...)
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: The "This is an unfinished article" isn't enough.
That's on the article list, not on the article itself. When you're looking at an article, there's no indication that it's unlisted. A different color header would be in keeping with the other colored headers - and besides, the public would never see the poofy pink. Whatever color, I think it should be different - maybe a poofy green? 
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Ahhhh....
Gotcha.
But we're not having poofy anything.
It'll be manly red or something. Rare T-bone steak red.
[Both suggestions on the TODO]
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: I'm just not sure I want poofy pink on the site
Good answer. Don't want to have to take away any man points 
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon
"Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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I know this will be controversial, so I ask you please read to end before making up your mind.
In the past some have suggested a membership fee to assist CP in its future growth. I think there is a middle ground between mandatory fees and the present everything-for-free.
My idea is this: each author will be able to optionally choose whether to have a Paypal button appear on his/her article. Clicking on the button will again be entirely optional. If a reader clicks on the button, some percentage (example: 20%) of the amount donated will go to CP, the rest to the author. I suggest to keep this simple, and have fixed amounts like $1 - $2 - $5 - $10 selectable by reader. [From what I understand of Paypal, it is possible to have this set up so that Paypal automatically sends the 20% to CP, and the rest to the author, so there would be little bookkeeping involved on CP's side.]
This idea could also give people another reason to write quality articles for CP. The main reason, of course, is to ensure that CP has revenue to keep growing, offering new services, and hiring great people.
We all want CP to be even better in the future, and this is my idea.
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Overall, that sounds like a very nice, basic solution. I assume that the buttons would be only for optional donations. The only flaw I can think of: what incentive do the readers have to donate to a (particular author and the codeproject) and not just the codeproject?
I can see where the controversy comes into place, but if done correctly most of the controversy could be avoided.
Regards,
Thomas Stockwell
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
Visit my Blog
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The issue we've always had with accepting donations is that you also accept the donators right to yell very loudly at you when the code doesn't work perfectly, when the author doesn't have time to answer questions, when the reader wants new features or when someone votes the donator's comment down.
Donators suddenly assume that their $5 entitles them to Royalty.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Yes, but don't the hamsters have some weasel friends who could write a EULA?
Another idea was much better, of course, but went nowhere: black CP t-shirts (preferably with pocket).
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Yes, because *everyone* reads EULAs, right? 
Black T's: check out http://codeproject.cafepress.com[^]. I tried black and they turned out really, really crappy so I need to have the graphics redone. They are shaded, and the T-shirt came back with dithered and pixelated printing (even though I submitted a high-res image). 
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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That link doesn't seem to work for me, just googling it gave me this link that works: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store.aspx?s=codeproject[^].
Regards,
Thomas Stockwell
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
Visit my Blog
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They keep busting the links.
Bad overpriced, poor quality store! Bad!
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Just include a disclaimer similar to: Donations do not constitute an agreement for the projects' continuation or satisfactory customer service. Donations are strictly to show appreciation to the site and the authors work thus far.
Regards,
Thomas Stockwell
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
Visit my Blog
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Chris Maunder wrote: Donators suddenly assume that their $5 entitles them to Royalty.
There should be a strong sentence (Terms of Service) to indicate and clarify the stand and indemnify CP and/or the author against such (un)written agreements/bindings.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare
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Bad feelings are bad feelings, regardless of whether the person feeling bad can take legal action.
---- You're right.
These facts that you've laid out totally contradict the wild ramblings that I pulled off the back of cornflakes packets .
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Shog9 wrote: Bad feelings are bad feelings
If you want to talk about bad feelings, let's talk about the bad feelings I will have when CP needs rent money, or can't hire another editor, or can't replace a failing server.
Just saying "Bad feelings are bad feelings" is not being proactive. You're a regular site visitor, you would be impacted too. What are your ideas to help CP?
I can't think of any fund-raising activity that wouldn't be open to the kind of exposure that you're talking about. To paraphrase what you said, Unreasonable people are unreasonable people.
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Exactly.
What we're doing is working to provide services for the community that are useful, valuable, which are available elsewhere (or maybe not...) and which are something that someone who needs the service will be willing to pay for.
We pride ourselves on having on-topic and unoffensive advertising, and we've recently launched a job board. We have a few more ideas for things that Just Make Sense that will enable us to grow while providing good priced services. #1 for me is to build the community and the resources we have and to keep the CodeProject we all know absolutely free. Free for me means "not even donations". Dave sometimes rolls his eyes and mentions the new range of database servers out there but even he agrees it's not worth muddying the water.
We're doing OK and have fantastic sponsors who support us and who understand why we are so picky sometimes, and as long as we maintain those great relationships the electricty will stay on 
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Shog9 wrote: Bad feelings are bad feelings, regardless of whether the person feeling bad can take legal action.
But bad feelings already do exist. The percentage of people who have the mental makeup to make a voluntary contribution will hardly be the sort of people who will develop bad feelings because an author did not do a regular update of his code.
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So I should sue someone if they write me an abusive email after donating?
No.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: So I should sue someone if they write me an abusive email after donating?
I don't think that's what VDK is talking about - rather he's talking about the reverse scenario. He means that someone (a donor) cannot sue an author just because the author hasn't fixed a bug in an article.
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote: He means that someone (a donor) cannot sue an author just because the author hasn't fixed a bug in an article
True. That would ensure a safe and secure atmosphere for everyone.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare
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Chris Maunder wrote: The issue we've always had with accepting donations is that you also accept the donators right to yell very loudly at you when the code doesn't work perfectly, when the author doesn't have time to answer questions, when the reader wants new features or when someone votes the donator's comment down.
Donators suddenly assume that their $5 entitles them to Royalty.
Do you think this is something that can be done outside of CP? A 3rd party website run by a few regular CPians, that will have no official association with CP. It will just provide an interface via which readers can voluntarily contribute to authors, and the site will redirect a percentage of contributions to CP.
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I like it. If you want to take it further, let me know.
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Hans Dietrich wrote: If you want to take it further, let me know.
Yes, I would like to take it further. But I thought we should wait to see if Chris is alright with it.
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I like the idea as well. If you need a hand of an, uh, not-really-useful-as-web-developer guy, drop me a line.
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