Originally Posted by
munk
I don't force donations and for that vast majority of users I don't have any contact with them. If they don't donate within 90 days, they lose ingame IRC and auto-def button in war room -- nothing else -- most donate within these days a small amount and are never met with this limitation. After 90 days I point out that it's >90 days and ask if they can consider a donation.
When people come and ask me to spend >30mins on implementing a feature for them I either ask if they'd consider donating to cover my time spent on their specific wish. Other times I don't ask, and as you say, they donate on their own -- or they don't, and next time they ask for me to spend my time helping them I might not prioritize it as high.
I'd argue that people are getting value from the site, and that begging implies that people get nothing in return. I provide a service which takes a lot of time -- I've opted for a flexible payment/donation system because I want to accomodate the users who barely wants to donate (or not at all) as well as those that want to support the development to a larger degree.
In my mind, I use ".DONATE!" more as a joke around the players I often interact with (mostly my own KD), while that might be seen as begging, I expect most people understand the "humor" of it. For outsiders I understand that this might be misunderstood -- especially by douchy people like Protector who is a major loser douche for which I have no respect, who might also might want to fuel the misconception because he is such a douchy turd-like person.
