Lazyweb: Centralized "wish to contribute" list

Lazyweb: I'd like a place to register my desire to support a given cause monetarily, even if I don't have the money. I can't give $5 to Doc right now (for his stolen powerbook), but darn it! I'd like to at least say "I wish I could" somewhere my vote will be counted at.

This would also be useful for noting my intent to register shareware; I use shareware apps until I can pay for them, and I'd be totally thrilled to list that I use them in the meantime.

It bothers me that I have to actually have the money in order to express that I'd like to give the money. It's important to express support in some form, even if I happen to be temporarily unable to, monetarily.

A liveTopics-like list of software applications attached to a per-user public or private application and amount list would cover it. It'd probably be best if it was a web-app, or maybe a MovableType blog with Categories (links into specific liveTopics) and the intended amount in the Subject (and NNW displays categories, so we're set there for subscribing).

This also solves the problem where I forget to register donation-ware, because I cannot track them all. If there's a centralized place to look for the list, and it was really easy to add more to it, I'd be quite happy to post them as I find them.

As for once they're registered, I don't really have any ideas what to do there. Perhaps change the subject to "(paid)" or "(paid $2 of $5)".

PayPal donations to comics would also be easily tracked by this, I suppose. It'd be nice to give a few bucks to Something Positive again, they've been so much fun. Perhaps I could add support for entries that wake up after a period of time.

The RT ticket tracking system would, quite amusingly, work out well for this. An entry for liveTopics category would group the tickets properly. It's not the closest thing to how RT is right now, but a lot of the functionality is there.

Comments

[Michael Fagan]

Well you could set up a channel on the Internet Topic Exchange. Doesn't get much easier than that. http://topicexchange.com/

[floating atoll]

That'd be a good way to list individual entries, with categorization. I've got a possible route to twisting MovableType to do this:

Integrate liveTopics with a blog's category selection list.

Provide a short form that gives a client From:, Software:, Amount: , Paid: (both $0 or more)

Save From with a cookie (optionally), link a new post to the livetopics category (for instance, "NetNewsWire Pro" or "Help replace Doc Searle's laptop")

Translate Amount and Paid into a Subject line, as above -- donated $7, paid $3 of $5, paid $7 of $5, paid $0 of $5.

[A Non]

It's not really the same, but you could try registering with Affero - http://www.affero.com/ - then other people can contribute to your chosen causes on your behalf whenever you do something nice. Keep a counter of how much has been donated on your behalf somewhere on your site, if you need to.

[floating atoll]

Hrm. That's a nice idea, signify my support for donationware and shareware products by listing them on Affero -- and I can keep track of the purchased products much more easily than I can track the unpurchased products.

I think that might just work.

It also gives me the benefit of being able to list the products I support to others; perhaps an RDF feed of some sort would be useful here.