Page comparing Snowdrift.coop to other platforms

Sorry to bring this up so late: but are we set with the selection of platforms?

The triggering issue is that the layout (especially in small sizes) does not account for 6 platforms to be compared.

On one hand I see the benefit of having a more sensible comparison the bigger the chart – on the other hand we should weight the extra amount of data we confront people with.

  • I think Kofi and Flatter are not necessary.

The compared platforms should be established and well known to position ourselves in the crowdfunding space. Lesser known platforms shouldn’t even be given a platform here :yum:

On a side note I also think we could maintain and link to a more complete overview in the wiki for the extra benefit of having well known but also smaller but relevant projects covered. Historically this seems to be of value for many interested people after all…

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Some reasons to prominently compare to more than the most known:

  • hint at the depth of our understanding of the market
  • avoid implying that we’re exclusive where we aren’t
    • specifically, if we keep the no-fee entry, I’m uncomfortable implying that we’re the only no-fee option out there

I’m not insisting we keep the larger list. I’m just wanting the take-away to be that we’re the only platform that does all this stuff. We want it to be clear that we’re trying to be honest and helpful in the comparison rather than overly exaggerate our uniqueness.

I could imagine the wording of the sentence that links to the wiki doing a good enough job at addressing these concerns, so it’s okay to not fully capture them in the chart.

This is a concern overall, not an objection.

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Agreed. I hadn’t even heard of Kofi outside of maybe seeing it in the wiki page. Flattr does have a different model than the others, but not in a way that’s represented in this chart, so I think it doesn’t add much beyond showing we’ve done our research. And I think that’s handled well enough already, since the current draft in the related gitlab issue includes the names of some other projects with its link to our wiki page.

Agreed, and I think that makes it more useful to compare to platforms that are more like us. Once you know how we’re different from OpenCollective, it’s obvious how we’re different from GitHub Sponsors. I think we definitely still want Kickstarter and Patreon, since they are the most popular, but I’m not sure we need GoFundMe (it could replace Kofi in the sentence above).

To that end, I think it might make sense to include Liberapay instead of GoFundMe (or OpenCollective); it’s probably the closest to us — ongoing, no-fees (self-funded), non-profit, and itself FLO — so I imagine that’s the first question anyone familiar with the space would have (the other entries are for people not as familiar).

That’s actually very true.

OpenCollective probably more significant Liberapay, probably more total fund processing (didn’t review the stats), more well-known.

I’m fine with dropping Kofi and GoFundMe. I think adding Liberapay makes sense as it fixes the issue with showing who else is closest. Liberapay is certainly closer, and we can check off that it is FLO and no-fee.

So, I’d go with 4 besides us (5 total): Patreon, Kickstarter, OpenCollective, Liberapay

FWIW, those are the ones that I’ve ever had anyone ask about, like explicitly say “how do you compare to X?” and never had that for GoFundMe or Flattr or most others.

Updated:

Kickstarter Patreon OpenCollective Liberapay
Mutual-assurance :heavy_check_mark: :x: :x: :x:
Ongoing support :x: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark:
Specifically for public goods :x: :x: :x: :x:[1]
No fees :x: :x: :x:[2] :heavy_check_mark:
Co-op and/or non-profit :x:[3] :x: :x: :heavy_check_mark:
FLO itself :x: :x: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark:

  1. Liberapay has a FLO focus but doesn’t limit or curate the projects. ↩︎

  2. OC is self-hostable to avoid fees ↩︎

  3. Kickstarter is at least a certified B-corp with an explicit social mission alongside profit ↩︎

I really like the update I just posted above. It’s cleaner and does a better job of trying to show what we are closest to (thus making a better comparison).

Experimenting with using a different character for the footnote spots…

Kickstarter Patreon OpenCollective Liberapay
Mutual-assurance :heavy_check_mark: :x: :x: :x:
Ongoing support :x: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark:
Specifically for public goods :x: :x: :x: :heavy_multiplication_x:[1]
No fees :x: :x: :heavy_multiplication_x:[2] :heavy_check_mark:
Co-op and/or non-profit :heavy_multiplication_x:[3] :x: :x: :heavy_check_mark:
FLO itself :x: :x: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark:

  1. Liberapay has a FLO focus but doesn’t limit or curate the projects. ↩︎

  2. OC is self-hostable to avoid fees ↩︎

  3. Kickstarter is at least a certified B-corp with an explicit social mission alongside profit ↩︎

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…and with putting the footnotes at the top instead of in the table…

Kickstarter[1] Patreon OpenCollective[2] Liberapay[3]
Mutual-assurance :heavy_check_mark: :x: :x: :x:
Ongoing support :x: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark:
Specifically for public goods :x: :x: :x: :heavy_multiplication_x:
No fees :x: :x: :heavy_multiplication_x: :heavy_check_mark:
Co-op and/or non-profit :heavy_multiplication_x: :x: :x: :heavy_check_mark:
FLO itself :x: :x: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark:

  1. Kickstarter is at least a certified B-corp with an explicit social mission alongside profit ↩︎

  2. OpenCollective is self-hostable to avoid fees ↩︎

  3. Liberapay has a FLO focus but doesn’t limit or curate the projects. ↩︎

…and with putting the footnotes on the side.

Kickstarter Patreon OpenCollective Liberapay
Mutual-assurance :heavy_check_mark: :x: :x: :x:
Ongoing support :x: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark:
Specifically for public goods[1] :x: :x: :x: :heavy_multiplication_x:
No fees[2] :x: :x: :heavy_multiplication_x: :heavy_check_mark:
Co-op and/or non-profit[3] :heavy_multiplication_x: :x: :x: :heavy_check_mark:
FLO itself :x: :x: :heavy_check_mark: :heavy_check_mark:

  1. Liberapay has a FLO focus but doesn’t limit or curate the projects. ↩︎

  2. OpenCollective is self-hostable to avoid fees ↩︎

  3. Kickstarter is at least a certified B-corp with an explicit social mission alongside profit ↩︎

Curious what @msiep will think, but I don’t like the footnotes being outside the actual relevant spot in the chart.

I’d prefer a different but still red symbol, maybe a - instead of x. We don’t want a skimming look to mistake it for a check-mark. And really, the footnote being in the right context is enough to make it clearly distinct from a check-mark. So, I like the first variant you did.

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Footnotes on the side is the cleanest alternative in my eyes: it does notfiddle with the parts that you actively use when evaluating visually.

I also like the set of platforms as it shows:

  1. we are in the same ballpark as the big ones
  2. there are alternatives with “Libre” and “Open” backgrounds
  3. we are closer to the alternatives but blow them out of the water still :wink:
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@mray’s mockup actually has blank squares for “no” rather than X’s…

…which is visually cleaner to start with, but also might allow for putting footnote indicators in those blank squares in a way that would work visually. It would need to still be very clear that the squares with footnotes in them had more in common with the blank squares than with the squares with the checkmarks in them.

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Awesome idea. You mean like this?

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Yes! How would it look with the footnote numbers vertically and horizontally centered? To me they look a bit odd at the top right as if they’re trying to be superscripts but there’s nothing for them to be a superscript to.

First, I would want to put them where they can stay in case of a check mark. (For that it would actually be better in the bottom right corner.) There should also be no confusion about footnotes being used as “some sort of checked” or “even partially checked”.

I’m not sure about the future, but in the case of these 3 particular footnotes, it actually is a “partially checked” situation — these are places where we acknowledge that the platforms have “better than nothing” in those categories even though they don’t match us fully.

In that case we might want to adjust styling and positioning to reflect that.

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I have to say, I really prefer the red Xs. (Or perhaps a red dash, or a red background.) The blank spaces are just a bit too subtle, putting the focus on the checkmarks instead - and we don’t want to highlight what those platforms do have, here, so much as what they don’t have.

The footnote-markers being anywhere but in the spaces they refer to, definitely makes them less intuitive, I’d say. But maybe we could give them a much lower contrast so that they don’t stand out and disrupt the visual organization as much.

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The purpose is to compare & contrast ourselves with the others. It’s okay if we highlight the upsides of those platforms when we do that. Unlike commercial organizations, we’re not competing with them, per se. Rather, we’re trying to do something they’ve been unsuccessful at. If one of those other platforms succeeded at funding public goods to the extent we want to see, we wouldn’t really have a reason to exist any more. This would be a good thing — we’d love it if someone else succeeded here!

(that got a little rambly. oops. The perils of forum-ing at night :stuck_out_tongue:)

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