Lemmy - Donate
join-lemmy.org

This is a follow-up to my previous post asking for design suggestions for the new donation dialog. It gave a lot of valuable feedback which is why I’m making another similar post.

This time it’s about the donation page on join-lemmy.org (linked above). What can be done to improve the texts and design? For a start I already changed the text to the same one from the donation dialog. Here more space is available, so a longer text with more details could be written (possibly below the donation buttons).

What do you think about the available donation options? Do they work for you or would you prefer to donate through a different platform? On the other hand it is possible that the number of available options is already too confusing. Would it help to add a short description for each button?

Below are lists of contributors, translators and sponsors. They haven’t been updated in two years and no one complained, which indicates that they don’t serve as motivation for people to contribute or donate. So I would remove that whole section which will leave a lot of free space. What else can we put there, maybe a list of reasons why people should donate?

By the way I plan to make a recurring series of posts like this. The next ones will likely cover onboarding for new users, the reports page and more. If you know a catchy name for this series you can also comment it below.

Edit: The changes are now deployed, but you are welcome to make further suggestions.

  • .DonutsEnglish
    5•6 days ago

    0.6 / 3 devs funded*

    Currently the information is shown when hovering over (“Based on a median European €50,000 software developer salary from developersalary.com”), which is behaviour expected when you hover over an (i)-icon (or a question mark). If you put in an asterisk, there should be somewhere on the bottom of this element that refers to said asterisk to indicate the extra info. It’s not intuitive to having to mouse-over an asterisk, imo.

    4 months remaining

    I imagine this is referring to current balance. I’m not saying there should be a sense of urgency communicated but it might hurt donations if there’s is shown that you’ve got 4 months left anyway.

    • @[email protected]OPMEnglish
      2•6 days ago

      Right, I removed the asterisk and added a dotted underline instead to indicate hover text. The text with 4 months left is an old leftover, Ive removed it. Also made the text bigger and changed the button layout (though it looks too green now).

  • @[email protected]English
    3•6 days ago

    Short and simple is always better, people stop reading if it’s too long.

    Thanks to the generosity of our users we are able to develop Lemmy as an open source platform free of tracking and ads. Making a donation will allow us to continue maintaining and improving the platform. To make a one-time or recurring donation click the button below. Thank you for using Lemmy.

    Here’s a good listicle about donation pages. https://wpforms.com/donation-page-examples-to-inspire-your-online-fundraising/

    • @[email protected]OPMEnglish
      2•6 days ago

      That is true, but not so easy to do. To make donation pages like those in your link would require setting up some kind of nonprofit and directly handling credit card payments with some payment processor, and probably various legal requirements. By relying on existing donation platforms we have much less hassle.

      • @[email protected]English
        1•5 days ago

        That is true, but not so easy to do. To make donation pages like those in your link would require setting up some kind of nonprofit and directly handling credit card payments with some payment processor

        Shouldn’t it be a good idea anyway to set up a limited liability company at some point anyway? in case you will get sued.

        • @[email protected]OPMEnglish
          1•4 days ago

          AGPL specifies that everything is provided without liability or warranty, so I dont see how anyone could have reason to sue. Besides Lemmy is not a company, if anything a nonprofit would make sense.

          • @[email protected]English
            1•18 hours ago

            IANAL , but theoretically a judge could decide that part of the AGPL is “unreasonable” and a case could go to trail which could be expensive.

            Also you are still running the lemmy.ml instance which could theoretically lead to a lawsuit. its why lemmy.world created the fedihosting foundation which reportedly functions as a limited liability company.

            Also a cooperative (what you want to set up), where some of the profit in the form of a salary go to the “owners” which are the workers as far as i can tell can’t be a non profit

      • @[email protected]English
        2•6 days ago

        Sorry, I meant just the text as examples. Maybe a cute picture with the devs all together would help.

  • @[email protected]English
    1•6 days ago

    The patreon page sucks. You can and should show the tiers without requiring people to become members first.

      • Brian (he/him)English
        3•6 days ago

        All of the tiers show for me too, without me being a member or being logged into Patreon.

        • DessalinesEnglish
          4•6 days ago

          Okay I looked at it, and on mobile, if you’re not logged in, it always shows that join for free button regardless of your tiers. They want you to join patreon first.

          I really hate patreon, and wish ppl would just use liberapay, as its more focused on developers anyway.

          • @[email protected]English
            3•6 days ago

            Switched to LiberaPay. Though I dislike the way they try and guilt you into making lump-sum payments.

          • @[email protected]English
            1•6 days ago

            You can view the tiers without doing so however on mobile.

            Edit: viewable without joining by tapping here:

    • DessalinesEnglish
      1•6 days ago

      I’m not too good at patreon, but I’ll take a look at that one.