James Salsman wrote:
Are there any reasons not to allow donors to earmark categories? I am not saying that those are the only earmarks which should be offered, but I am certain that at least those five should be included.
What are other problems which might be solved by donor earmarks? There are ten rejected GSoC projects which I feel strongly about because they were scored positively by the mentors but rejected because of the number of slots requested. Could those be funded by donor earmarks?
Regards, James Salsman
GSoC projects and specific bugs would be really easy, since nothing stops you from offering a bounty right now for fixing bug X.
Other issues are different, since you would need an employee (or otherwise someone with shell access) to fullfill it. And if you want WMF to have its employee do X, the pay would be 'I give Y money to WMF if they fix this first'? That seems a bit awkward.
The idea of earmarking for minor donations is good, but it should not be readily available (we don't want to not being able to pay anything), while not completely hidden, either.