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Comments:
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 01:55:47 PM UTC
wot donations
i believe wot is affiliated to google and probably does not need donations.i believe the people who work for what are more than likely paid employees.we inadvertantly work for wot on a non paid basis as we need wot and wot needs us in that without us contributing there would be no wot.we may not cotribute money but i think of wot as a global neighbourhood watch.we who are a part of what look out for each other like good neighbours.if people start to donate money to wot i think it would change its whole ethos as a community looking out for each other.there is a old adage.if it aint broke dont fix it.i have only recently joined wot and think it fine the way it is.plus if you bring in donations wot would become more commercial and could go down the slippery slope of supporting advertisers or other entitys who could contribute seeking favour.wot to survive must stay inependent to remain a trustworthy organisation.
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 01:57:27 PM UTC
Agree, but . . .
Yes, I agree, but . . . the success of it has a lot to do with how it's designed. For example, a lot of sites that want donations have a big ugly "donation" button that greats you on the home page and is a likely turn off and makes it seem as though the site is begging for donations (which may be true).
On the other hand, some sites have a donation button buried on a page and it's likely not noticed very much.
So, the optimum design seems to be a happy medium. But I'm no expert in site design or the psychology of placing donation buttons, so I don't know what a "happy medium" would be. For me, it's much like how the US Supreme Court described "pornography". Can't define it, but I know it when I see it.
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 02:06:39 PM UTC
wot donations
my main thread is i do not believe wot need our financial donations and i hope it never does.i suppose if someone bequethed a chunk of money to wot i would have no problem with that.but if living people or groups started to make large donations i would be affrid of them trying to obtain favour.
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 02:33:34 PM UTC
Affiliated with Google??
That's the first time I ever heard that WOT was "affiliated with Google". I don't think so, but is there any evidence for that?? If WOT indeed is affiliated with Google, and Google is sending some of their billions WOT's way, then yes, donations are an absurdity. But again, I really don't think that's the case, and the idea that Google billions are going WOT's way is itself an absurdity.
Furthermore, if that were the case, then WOT is already contaminated with the bias of paying advertisers.
If WOT doesn't need donations, then I assume they already have a revenue stream. What is it from??? None of us pay for it, so is there a "sugar daddy" involved?
Sami???
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 03:54:30 PM UTC
Re: Affiliated with Google??
No, we're not affiliated with Google.
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 03:12:09 PM UTC
Example
As an example of a donations request that I DIDN'T find intrusive see http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/ and scroll halway down the page.
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 03:14:35 PM UTC
wot donations
well someone must be behind a large infastructure like wots.i believe a friend told me google owned wot.if that is or not true i do not know.i have avast anti virus and that is good freeware but avast also sells some stuff and makes some money there.wot must be supported somehow as i dont believe it sells advertising.if it is a charitable foundation then it should have charity status and then donations would be fine.i would have no problem with peope donating money if indeed wot is a charity.but wot ever wot does work and it has millions of users who would agrea with that.and thats my last word on wot donations.
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 04:11:20 PM UTC
LIES LIES LIES
First off, your friend is purposely spreading false rumors. WOT IS NOT IN ANY WAY AFFILIATED WITH GOOGLE OR OWNED BY GOOGLE AND YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SUPPORT THAT! Your friend came up with that randomly just to spread lies! Look at the bottom of the page! Copyright Against Intuition! Plus if it was google, there would be a link to WOT through google, Not only that, if WOT was affiliated with google, they wouldn't support other search engines such as yahoo!
A while ago, I made a forum post a while ago asking how WOT gets paid--THEY DONT! THEY ARENT "AFFILIATED" with google! I'm shocked someone would say that as an excuse to say WOT doesn't need donations! Here's the forum post where I asked that http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/1483-how-does-wot-ma...
As for your point about us working for Wot: I guess you can claim that in a WAY we "work" for WOT, but let me ask you this: Did you make the add-on? Did you spend months working on the code for WOT 3? Did you make the WOT newsletter? The WOT blog? Have you been with WOT since the day it started and always answered every question on the forum? Do you pay for the hosting of this website? Did you pay for the IPods given out in the WOT million download contest as well as others? Or did you help to moderate the users, and topics on this forum? You didn't. You don't "work" for WOT in that sense. The WOT staff are the real people who work for WOT, and they offer this completely free!
Take Wikipedia. Many of the articles are edited and made entirely by users. But there is still a staff of workers working hard to update the website, mark articles failing to meet the neutral status, and constantly checking the content of all new articles to make sure the content is appropriate. That's why they ask for donations, even though the users do help the website as well.
As for seeking favor, honestly, what would WOT do? Secretly bump them up 3000 points without you noticing? Obviously not....
They currently DONT make money and do this all for free.
Heres the link again to the forum post where i asked how wot gets paid http://www.mywot.com/en/forum/1483-how-does-wot-ma...
I can't even describe how mad I am right now because of this absurd rumor! DON'T respond to this if you want to continue to spread your lies about WOT being affiliated with google, it's completely untrue.
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 06:00:17 PM UTC
Re: Wikipedia
Now that you mentioned Wikipedia, does anyone know of other web services that are funded by donations? I personally don't remember ever seeing donations really work for anyone else but Wikipedia.
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 06:22:53 PM UTC
Not a service (or even in
Not a service (or even in required scale) perhaps but I do believe CastleCops computer security forums rely heavily on donations. They might even have some corporations providing donations in form of hardware etc. Just a rank-and-file member there myself so I can't of course be sure.
"Men make good pets."
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 07:08:43 PM UTC
There are some
Recuva, noscript, download statusbar, fanlistings.org, newsdesk.org, elgin radio, straydog.org and other animal shelters, There's quite a few
WOT ROCKS!
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 08:27:26 PM UTC
Cod head: "well someone
Cod head: "
well someone must be behind a large infastructure like wots"Just exactly what is the "large infrastructure" you are referring to?? The Against Intuition server in Finland, the WOT staff (only three that I know of . . . Sami, Timo, and Esa S., though I'm sure there are a few others that don't post on these boards), or the multitude of users of WOT that are NOT WOT employees (or if they are, I haven't gotten a check yet).
Aside from the users, that's hardly a "large infrastructure".
I need a little more than a hunch like "well someone must be behind a large infrastructure like wots" or a conspiracy theory to make a connection between WOT and a revenue stream. WOT would be risking charges of fraud and the collapse of what they've worked to build if there was a hidden revenue stream and they claimed there was none. They are sensible people and that risk/reward equation I just gave is WAY out of balance so I don't think they would take that risk.
There are plenty of Internet startups that have no revenue stream at all, just a business plan and some unpaid employees. If I'm not mistaken, I think Amazon started that way. If the service catches on, then they may get some venture capital and eventually get bought (like McAfee bought the SA guys)..
But right now I think WOT is still in it's infancy, though it is catching on fast.
While I may not be as upset as wehavetail, I am nevertheless angry that you would make accusations with something as flimsy as "a friend told me" or "well someone must be behind". If you can be a little bit more precise than rumor or innuendo, then maybe your discussion would be a little more rational.
But until you provide some concrete evidence of a hidden revenue stream, I expect your . . . "discussion" . . . will be met with NO credibility!
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- on Mon 03 Nov 2008
- 08:27:31 PM UTC
wot donations
i said some time ago that i had said my last word on what donations.but i followed the link that we have it all kindly provided.he is right and wot is in no way connected to google.so i would like to appologise to wehaveit all and the wot team for my inaccuracies.i did not mean any harm and am big enough to admit whn i am wrong.if indeed wot is in financial difficulty could it not apply to the e.e.u.for grant status or apply to someone like the national lottery that is supposed to sponser good causes.
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- on Tue 04 Nov 2008
- 08:23:41 PM UTC
WOT and Google..?
Cod head: "i believe wot is affiliated to google and probably does not need donations."
Let's not mix knowledge and beliefs. Yes, I know the old phrase "There's no smoke without some fire somewhere" - I also think that makes more sense if we speak of literal smoke/fire. Of course all rumors cannot be true; as some of them contradict each other. But it would still be useful to know how the rumour originated; it's easier to correct a mistake if one knows how it got started. And maybe it was like this:
I use NoScript and therefore I'm often asked if I want to allow this or that. If I trust the site I allow it. And if I really trust the site I allow it, without checking the details. But some of them might linger on for a while, in a corner of my mind. I have a vague memory of NoScript mentioning Google and WOT, but where..?
I looked at the code (of this page) and found two lines referring to
"google.com/jsapi" and "/misc/google.js?cache-23"
Two javascripts mentioning Google, but what they do I don't know. Most likeiy these triggered NoScript. And I would not be surprised if this could be the origin of the 'smoke'. Perhaps WOT could tell us more about their purpose..?
Back to donations: I don't think donation will solve all financial problems. But I can't really se why the possibility should be problematic. I agree with BobJam: if it is not intrusive, why not? It doesn't even have to be present on the frontpage, as long as people can find it when they search WOT. So, why not..?
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- on Tue 04 Nov 2008
- 09:08:56 PM UTC
WOT and Google..?
We do use Google's services like almost every website in the Internet. There are actually two javascripts that are loaded from Google. The other one is Google analytics that is used to keep track of site traffic. The second one is jQuery library. It's the one that phantazm is referring to.
Google has a service that provides popular javascript libraries to be added to a website. We use it because Google takes care of the updates and the library is loaded faster from Google.
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- on Wed 05 Nov 2008
- 01:50:51 AM UTC
Thanks for your answers
Thanks to Timo for replying about Google (and for reminding me of Ajax...)
And now back to topic:
Regarding donations: I'm sure it would work, one way or another.
And I can't really see any disadvantages, as long as it's unintrusive.Furthermore, such a model is already employed by other small companies offering a free service, like NoScript, Spybot, InterClue to mention a few but quite different examples...
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- on Tue 04 Nov 2008
- 11:42:03 PM UTC
That's it I guess . . .
So that's this "mysterious affiliation" with Google. Not really an affiliation but rather a use of some of their services.
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- on Wed 05 Nov 2008
- 01:53:30 AM UTC
It could be...
I don't know if that was the "mysterious affiliation" -
but at least it's a possible candidate. In any case
let's hope rumors will cease now ...BobJam: "rather a use of some of their services."
Well, don't we all use some..?
;-) -
- on Thu 06 Nov 2008
- 12:50:28 PM UTC
wot donations.
looking back at the old thread wehaveitall kindly gave me.esa.s.suggestion of advertising security could be a good one.look at how many people ask for advice for security on our own website.and with logicmans suggestion of a seperate section for paid adds could work.you could have a seperate wot approved security tab at along with the other tabs.at least wot could send people to reputable companies whose products work.wehave it alls suggestions idea of donations along with bobjams little non obtrusive button does not seem so bad.as a donation is volantary it should not offend anyone.people dont like the nagger requests but bobjams little button sounds o.k.p.s.i have in a way plagerised these ideas as they are other peoples so if you use any of them give them the credit.
Wot donations?
Two years is long enough, it's time for WOT to allow donations.
WOT has been a non profit organization and hasn't made any money at all from what they do for years. They help a good cause, and have a great community who can support them. I think that now is a good time to allow for donations. Although me, and probably some others may not be able to donate right away, I think that having the option to donate is something WOT should look in to.
We rate the websites, the WOT staff creates, and advertises the add-on, and together, we make it all happen.