[Deanrover]

Hi all,

        I know that Fred is averse to charging for BBO, as he wishes there to be a high quality online bridge site for free. Whilst this is extremely generous of him, I think that he should receive some sort of remuneration for his two years of graft. I would like a system whereby users are asked to make a voluntary donation, and are giving a list of possible alternatives (one of which would be $0). Do you think this would be fair, and how much would you give in such a situation.
        A supplementary question is: Do you think that the amount people give should be listed, or simply whether they gave or not, or not at all. The advantage of this is that it would encourage people to give, the possible disadvantage would be poor users being shunned because they did not donate.

[hrothgar]

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Hi all,

        I know that Fred is averse to charging for BBO, as he wishes there to be a high quality online bridge site for free. Whilst this is extremely generous of him, I think that he should receive some sort of remuneration for his two years of graft. I would like a system whereby users are asked to make a voluntary donation, and are giving a list of possible alternatives (one of which would be $0). Do you think this would be fair, and how much would you give in such a situation.
        A supplementary question is: Do you think that the amount people give should be listed, or simply whether they gave or not, or not at all. The advantage of this is that it would encourage people to give, the possible disadvantage would be poor users being shunned because they did not donate.

Dean, let me first say that I am extremely grateful to Fred for the enormous amount of time and effort that he has devoted to providing this bridge site.

With that said and done, I think that your suggestion is highly problematic, if not flawed, on multiple levels.  

I find any suggestion regarding adding display fields describing the amount that players "voluntarily" contributed to be highly offensive.  Most noteably, this suggestion has an explicitly assumption that "All Dollars are equal".   A $100 contribution would be ridiculously expensive to many of our foreign members, noticable to me now that I'm in grad school again, rather trivial to many of our members.  I doubt that Bill Gates could be bothered to take the time to write a check for that small an amount.  Were someone in that income class to donate, I would expect them to donate much more.  In any case, the main thing that your donations tag would measure is people's income, not their willingness to contribute.

If, at some point in time, it becomes necessary to transition to business model in which players need to pay for the BBO service, then this should be done so openly and unapologetically.  However, trying to design mechanisms by which players are shamed in making donations is deeply distasteful.

For what its worth, I think that it is highly admirable if players want to help Fred out financially.  However, potentially, a better way to accomplish the same goal is by purchasing any of the many fine products educational products that Fred has been developing.   All the necessary financial infrastructure is already in place, and the marginal cost of producing/shipping a CD is quite low.

[uday]

(Disclaimer: I "work" at BBO)

A donation system is troublesome for the reasons H. mentions and others besides.  

For the moment, the best thing to do if you feel the urge is to check out Bridge Master and the refill deals.  

uday

[Mike]

We have to be grateful to Deanrover for initiating this delicate subject. Better to discuss it openly (but I tend to forget fast his proposals).

As the proverb says "Even corpse of Christ was not garded  for free" (Roman soldiers were paid).

We benefit from Fred's generous solution Uday pointed to. For us that means like hitting two birds with one stone.

It is hard to immagine that the present situation can last forever. New servers do not not grow on trees.

Unless some miracle happens, I expect some financial consequences to participate in my favorite passtime. And I think it is perfectly normal.

[Deanrover]

OK, how about a completely voluntary, no sums suggested, anonymous donation system?

[uday]

I love putting words in Fred's mouth, so I will.

http://www.bridgebas...ine/truth.shtml

[keylime]

Something to be considered about donations to the service...some states do not allow monies to exchange hands online for bridge playing services (Florida is one with others). This was part of the reason the e-bridge pay site didn't take off at all.

[hrothgar]

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Something to be considered about donations to the service...some states do not allow monies to exchange hands online for bridge playing services (Florida is one with others). This was part of the reason the e-bridge pay site didn't take off at all.

Dwanye

Any chance that you could provide more information about this.  In particular, what precisely caused problems for E-Bridge.  The reason I ask is two fold:

1.  I know for a fact that OKBridge had paying members from the state of Florida.

2.  My understanding is that there is no uniform regulatory code governing most forms of internet commerce.  In particular, it is completely unclear what set of legal structures should be used to govern this type of exchange.  Some people have advocated a system in which the local laws from end users geographical location have precedence, however, this is typically considered to be unworkable.  

If we consider this issue purely within the context of the United States, online bridge would clear appear to fall within the scope of interstate commerce and be subject to federal rather than state jurisdication.

[keylime]

After consultation from one of my lawyers, my understanding is that in the state of Florida it is illegal to pay for a service that offers a payout back to its participants, except for the state lottery and Indian casinos.

However it is legal to pay for a service that offers a product (e-bridge falls into this, but not e-bridge for prizes).

[hrothgar]

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After consultation from one of my lawyers, my understanding is that in the state of Florida it is illegal to pay for a service that offers a payout back to its participants, except for the state lottery and Indian casinos.

However it is legal to pay for a service that offers a product (e-bridge falls into this, but not e-bridge for prizes).

Hi Dwayne

Thanks for the clarification.  I can easily believe that some form of competition for monetary prizes might run into some type of problem.

Unfortunately, I misunderstood your original point and thought that you were referring to "simple" card fees.