Crowdfunding: Trial By Error: [David Tuller] Reporting on ME, CFS, "medically unexplained symptoms," and related stuff, 2020

Andy

Andy

Senior Member (Voting rights)
This is obviously a terrible time to be crowdfunding.

As in previous years, Berkeley had designated April as a month for campus projects to run campaigns on the university’s online crowdfunding platform—the last opportunity for the current academic year. Given the situation, the university has shortened but not cancelled the campaign. Some projects need to seek support before the next crowdfunding opportunity during the fall semester. In my case, the money I raised last year covers my salary and benefits through the fiscal/academic year ending on June 30th, so I am in the unfortunate position of having to crowdfund during a global pandemic.

As a result, I'm planning a more modest campaign now and a more robust approach during October's crowdfunding.
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Read more, and donate, at https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/20159
 
ETA - Update - It appears that the thanks to the efforts of @dave30th that Berkeley have changed the donation page, which have been redesigned and now work as a rational person would expect.

ETAA - Berkeley have now 'refunded' the excess in my donation.

Other than the initial problem, in dealing with an untested donation page, this has been handled perfectly by all involved. The website was fixed once they were made aware of the problem, and the 'overpayment' corrected as fast as could be reasonably expected given it was over Easter.

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Not wishing to be uncharitable, I believe in the cause, but people need to watch out for the unorthodox way the donation page is set up.

Normally I would select a donation amount from a list by checkbox and ignore everything else.

I did this, I selected the $10 box and proceeded - only to find I had donated $100.

I did click the right box, but those click boxes have absolutely nothing to do with the donation amount.

The amount donated is in the text field at the top, for entering a user specified amount, and $100 by default.

If you don't want to donate $100 then this MUST be changed, or you will.
 
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Of course, I will refund any money personally if it comes to that. The $10 button was added specifically at my request. I don't have access to the back workings but I will alert the administrator. It went up automatically at midnight in California, so I assume any issues won't get taken care of till Friday morning our time.

Edit: I have alerted the administrator of the issue. Stay tuned. Anyone who over-donates will over course get reimbursed.
 
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Wonko said:
Not wishing to be uncharitable, I believe in the cause, but people need to watch out for the unorthodox way the donation page is set up.

Normally I would select a donation amount from a list by checkbox and ignore everything else.

I did this, I selected the $10 box and proceeded - only to find I had donated $100.

I did click the right box, but those click boxes have absolutely nothing to do with the donation amount.

The amount donated is in the text field at the top, for entering a user specified amount, and $100 by default.

If you don't want to donate $100 then this MUST be changed, or you will.
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I've not visited the site yet this time around, but presumably from what you are saying, whenever someone clicks on a check box the web page should automatically populate the text field with the amount you just clicked on.
 
ETA - Update - It appears that the thanks to the efforts of @dave30th that Berkeley have changed the donation page, which have been redesigned and now work as a rational person would expect.

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When I clicked on the link in Andy's first post in this thread the only button I could see was 'give now', I clicked on it and got taken to

https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/20159/donate

This page has a text box at the top, with a greyed out 100 in it, below that are a series of radio boxes giving amounts you wish to donate - with text like

Contribute $10
Unlimited
Thank you for your gift of $10!

so I clicked on one, got through the payment process, only to be told I had donated $100

Normally on donation pages the text box is for those who want to donate a specific, or large, amount, and it is overridden by the radio boxes.

I have no idea what a 'perk' is in this context, and Berkeley have in the past done things 'differently' than anywhere else I have ever donated to - so as far as I was concerned I'd selected the $10 donation, filled in the card details, it should have taken $10.

Why on earth would they have almost all of the page for 'perks', whatever they are, when the point is to raise money?

@dave30th did tell me in PM that the front page had amounts to donate, and these did work correctly, but due to the screen resolution I am using none of these were visible, just the 'give now' button was visible - so I clicked that.
 
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Done. It still seemed to leave $100 as default in the text box at the top. Then the selection amounts below. Selecting a default amount didn't amend the $100 in the text box.

I just selected No perk and put the amount I wanted to donate in the text box instead.

As a result, I'm planning a more modest campaign now and a more robust approach during October's crowdfunding.
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Can you remind people maybe at the start of September @dave30th. Just so they have a heads up the opportunity to donate is coming soon. I bought myself a new skirt as a treat a few weeks ago and if I had the wit to remember the crowdfunding I would have used the money for this instead.
 
Barry said:
I've not visited the site yet this time around, but presumably from what you are saying, whenever someone clicks on a check box the web page should automatically populate the text field with the amount you just clicked on.
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yes, this is what's supposed to happen but for a couple of people it didn't--one other person besides Wonko had the same thing happen. --Berkeley is trying to figure out where the glitch is and fix it. Of course, anyone who over-donated will get reimbursed--either by the system or by me personally.

Edit: Ok, the problem seems to have been fixed. There were references to "perks" that have been removed. Most crowdfunding campaigns offer different gifts for different levels of donations. I'm not doing that. Removing that somehow resolved the other problem. Another person besides Wonko touched base with me. Both will of course get reimbursed for the over-amounts. Thanks for alerting me to this! Sorry for the problem.
 
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The glitch seems obvious.

The buttons on the front page set the amount in the text box, and also select the appropriate 'perk' radio box.

The radio boxes do absolutely nothing, they should be linked to the amount to donate, as a primary function.

However - they seem to have changed the donation page, and are no longer using radio boxes.

It seems that the new system works, at least to select an amount directly.

So it seems that @dave30th's communications with Berkeley have at least fixed the interesting feature in their donation pages.

:thumbup::thumbup:
 
dave30th said:
Edit: Ok, the problem seems to have been fixed. There were references to "perks" that have been removed. Most crowdfunding campaigns offer different gifts for different levels of donations. I'm not doing that. Removing that somehow resolved the other problem. Another person besides Wonko touched base with me. Both will of course get reimbursed for the over-amounts. Thanks for alerting me to this! Sorry for the problem.
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yes I can confirm it's working ok now, no mention of perks.
From the link in the OP I clicked on the 'give now' button on the right hand side, then it came up with a box saying $100 (I so wish I could afford to give that much!) but then underneath options for different amounts, & when you click them the amount in the box at the top now changes & stayed changed, taking the correct amount, confirmed by email.

Sorry the 'times' are so awkward for you in this but i'm thrilled to be able to support you. Pls make sure you remind us when -as I understand it? - sorry I bit slurry today couldn't quite understand the write up but I understand Berkelty will be doing another crowds fund later in the year? pls make sure you alert su for that.
 
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