Keep microPledge open

Hi Guys,

Hope all is well, and you are staying in good spirits as you face the challenge at hand.

I believe Micropledge is a good project, and everyone should commit to making sure it stays open, Lot of good things can come out of the initiative of an open source portal.

I propose you look into online escrow accounts as an option, or communicate what options you are looking at as an alternative solution to paypal.

Ben & Bryan, you are amazingly great people to work with, and you always find time out of your busy schedules to respond to queries and in great details.

I pledge $10, and if more is needed will consider topping up the pledge.

Wishing you continued success!

With regards, Jeff Makana

[editor: Great idea, Jeff. We’re currently talking with Google Checkout, AlertPay, and have other options. Feel free to make suggestions - admin]

I haven’t used micropledges much but really like the idea and the service; who know one day I may need to open a pledge drive too!!

One of our users asked a fair question:

How exactly are we to donate if we can’t deposit at all (because of Paypal)?

Your micro-pledge is simply a dollar-value way of saying “I’m keen to help”, and you don’t have to pay up until we “call in” the pledges – that is, when we go ahead with the work. If we don’t reach our target, you pay nothing.

In this case, it’s a bit tricky to “call in” the pledge money before we’ve implemented the changes for the new payment service … so we’d do that first, and then call in the pledge money.

Hope that helps, and thanks for your interest.

—Ben Hoyt (microPledge developer).

I also love MicroPledge. But I have to ask this question: what is the $4000 for?

Good question, ivanpope.

The pledged money will pay for developer time to convert to a different payment system. Software development is what brings home our bacon, so it’s a very real cost to us.

microPledge has been largely a free gift to the community. We’d like it to remain so as much as possible – but to be valuable, it needs to be operating!

Also, thanks makjap and sprevrha for your supportive comments.

Will people still be able to use Paypal to pledge?

I havent used your system yet. But i do believe in it. Perhaps you could use www.ProPay.com. They have a great system. And though i understand little how this works overall, they do allow you to send an invoice via email for easy payment with credit cards. Once the pledge is due to be paid, you can simply send the invoice via the www.propay.com platform.

Now im sure you want an automated system, and im not sure theres works for that. Although I do know they have an xlm setup available that may be worthwhile for this as well.

Good luck and hope my lil $10 helps.

Thanks for the comments, guys.

Vadim, at this stage it’s only a pledge – when we finish the new payment system, people will have to pay the real money for their pledge. It’s unlikely we could use PayPal, except perhaps if it’s in some kind of non-escrow way.

I’m also pondering why it’s going to take $4000 of development time to implement the change? I presume with plenty of research and lots of testing, of it the current system wasn’t designed with change in mind and so a lot needs re-writing? Or whether the amount includes some other updates related to the payment?

I’d be interested to see a (rough) breakdown of what you have in mind? And if the target isn’t reached, is there a safety net target which will get us a less thought out solution? (which would be better than nothing!)

Hi Patabugen,

The answer to your question is that there are more details involved in a financial link that appears at first look. And testing is a huge element: we can’t be caught off guard with inadequately tested finances. We arrived at the $4,000 figure based on how long stuff like that has taken before.

This website is ridiculous. They are asking for money in order to be able to hold your money in an account so they can make money off of the donations. If they had a marketable idea, then online solutions would be jumping head over heels to get micropledge’s user base/money. Since they aren’t jumping at it, it means the micropledge idea has failed. Time to go back to your other ventures.

Also, you can delete/remove my account, btw since you didn’t provide an unsubscribe in your emails.

Hi Raize. We haven’t made money off of the system to date. We want to keep it running purely to provide what many have said is a good service to the world.

So you are right only in that we do not see the current incarnation of microPledge.com as a commercial venture.

Also: sure, we’ll unsubscribe you (as well as adding an unsubscribe link to future emails to make that easier).

problem : it is not possible to pledge if we have a negative account. I just pledged 35$ for CB Jdirectory plugin, and coming to pay, i have not been able to do so. Then I read this surprising story and … want to pledge… but I get an error message saying that my account need to be at least 0$ to be able to pledge. may be this explain that your own pledge is not raising up fast enough?

Yes, stepson, you are right that you can’t pledge if you have a negative account. Normally that is to encourage people to keep their account positive. But in this case since you can’t top up your account, it is awkward.

Don’t worry about it. We don’t have many users with negative accounts, so the total pledged to this project is unlikely to suffer much. As for putting money into your account, that is obviously something that will have to wait for another payment provider.

Has work even started on this migration to a new payment system?

Or will my projects pending donations be in limbo for weeks and months while you wait for pledges to come in and then complete the migration work?

Personally, I don’t want to have to sign-up with another payment provider (since I only use PayPal) just to be able to take receipt of my project donations.

Hi technopuzzle … we’ll have more information on Friday about what’s happening, and when. Cheers! :-)

i am also looking for similar online pledge system. do let us know how we can help.