Mission v2

[Changaco]

The current official mission of the Liberapay organization is to "provide an international computer service easing monetary donations between persons" (article 2 of the bylaws). This is relatively broad, but not enough: "donations" is both too strict and too imprecise.

In 4 weeks I will be at an event organized by @MarionRousseaux and others. We'll work on figuring out if what they want to do fits into the scope of Liberapay, and if so how our mission should be reworded to allow it. In the meantime if you have suggestions or other thoughts feel free to post them here.

Related issue: #12.

[aggsol]

Why is "donation" too strict? Liberapay is not for buying or selling anything. It is not to provide a paywall for things or services. In what cases is "donation" not precise enough?

[Changaco]

Relevant: https://mastodon.rocks/@Liberapay/98890540440886249

[aggsol]

That is a quiet interesting dialog there. There is destinction that I did not realize before: Patreon is more about the content. If you explore Patreon you are presented a selection of content (e.g. comics, films, games) While Liberapay is more about the people. If you explore Liberapay then there you are shown people, teams and oranizations.

I donate to people or organisation but I fund content. The line is blurry of course. But I want to side with the people not the content. That is the fine difference that makes Liberapay great (IMO better). The money Liberapay transfers is not for liberating content but to liberate people to do what they think is important or of value.

[mattbk]

The money Liberapay transfers is not for liberating content but to liberate people to do what they think is important or of value.

This was my main attraction or Gratipay and Liberapay. If I want to support what someone is doing, it's because I already get value from them. I don't want to give them extra overhead (creating content for different Patreon levels) as a result of giving them money--I want them to keep doing what they want.

[Changaco]

What @mattbk recently said in Gitter about GoFundMe got me thinking this morning: Liberapay was always meant to fund work, not help people who are going through a tough time. There's nothing wrong with the latter of course, it's just not really what we set out to do.

Maybe the v2 mission should introduce a notion of "public interest work", i.e. work which improves the situation for "everyone" as opposed to benefiting only or mostly the people funding it.

[Zatalyz]

The difference with GoFundMe is necessarily present because we are a recurring payment, not to fund one goal. Second difference : they emphasize these social goals, when we speak of "creators and projects".

Now, if people use Liberapay to pay recurrent medical treatment, is this a problem ? I give you a personal example to show the limits of this way. I am in this case : I would need a treatment (expensive). As long as I don't have it, my state of health does not allow me to work. The day where I have enough money, I could work full time on my projects. Where the medical cause and the cause of the work ? Of course, this is not what I wish to put forward on the platform, because my final goal is only "work on my project" : the money is just the medium that allows me to pay my health, so my time and my energy, so my ability to work.

However, in my projects, there are Khaganat, a project of MMORPG free. Is it an MMORPG, even free, is in the public interest ? I think yes, but I know a lot of people don't see it like that.

The notion of "public interest work" is dangerous, it is judging what is acceptable or not on our platform. For some, finance the assistance to the sick is of general interest, and fund free software is not because "the software carrying on a normal line of business", as the IRS has notified the foundation Yorba. In USA or in France, I know people who make good things for all, but they do not have the official recognition of work of general interest ; can we judge better than the authorities which is of general interest ?

For me, the basis of Liberapay is a convergence of factors that target :

• It is persons who are funded, not "projects" (even if the projects are funded through the involvement of people, grouped in teams)
• the recurring payment, which limits precisely these effects "help us on this specific problem" : it is to finance over time.
• the anonymity of the donors , who warrants that it is not hiring hidden, and that limits the influence that a donor can have on someone's work.

Now, each of these parameters can be questioned... but, for me, not in the core of Liberapay. We could put in place, in addition to the recurring payment, the ability to manage bounties, or the patronage (and this will also be used as GoFundMe probably). We could lift the anonymity in certain conditions, for example for legal persons having a licence, so that they can deliver to their donors certificates for tax exemptions. But each of these choices is complicated, because the consequences are important. I'm not against it ; simply I like a lot the basic principle of Liberapay and I don't want it to silk led astray because we are trying to filter with whom we wish to work. And is that it does not go in conflict with the page of the sponsors ?

By contrast, here's what we can do to encourage a certain type of profile (typically all Commons), at the expense of others that seem questionable (people that just seem to work to their personal interest, or controversial subjects) : create a page "Liberapay like them", where we list the teams and/or peoples we like. This would mean to define a good charter on who may appear on this page (profile well filled, some of the themes excluded like "politic, sexuality"...) and internal management, for the members of Liberapay, to offer teams/people and have it validated by the other members before it is pushed into the public sphere.

[Changaco]

After many iterations I finally have a concrete proposal for the v2 mission. The pull request: #26.

[mattbk]

I agree with @Zatalyz.