Themes bounty changing

[denise]

As many of you know, we offer a bounty of DW points for themes and styles! This has worked nicely as a way to reward people for their work in creating themes and styles both. Unfortunately (from our business standpoint), since people tend to make themes in huge batches, it also results in a large liability to us in terms of outstanding points -- we're giving away thousands of points at a time with some pushes, and accountants get nervous about things like having that much in the way of unredeemed obligations kicking about.

So, starting 1 July, we're (regretfully) going to be capping the number of points you can receive through themes bounties to 510 points per calendar year -- that's 17 themes worth, and it's a slightly odd number to reflect that it's the closest multiple of 30 points past 500, which is the cost of 1 year of premium paid time. (We may adjust this upward a bit in the future if too many people hit it too often, but it seemed like a good number to start with.)

This will be partially retroactive -- you'll get the points for any themes you've submitted up to 1 July, even if you've gotten more than the 510 points for the year, but after 1 July, points you've already earned this year will be counted against the total.

This doesn't mean we don't appreciate all the people who make tons and tons of themes! And I really hope people won't find this discouraging. We just need to limit the amount of free-floating points that are out there to limit our exposure, and after thinking about it a while, we figured this would be the best way to do it.

Comments

[ex_rising236]

<3 You guys still rock. And the ability to be able to have the premium paid time from the theme bounty has, in our theme making experience, made a lot of the ability to make themes (and in large batches, for that matter) possible. (And while I have to admit, it briiiiieeeefly crossed my mind to make a huge batch of themes and submit them this week, that's not at all what contributing to Dreamwidth is about. At least, certainly not for me.)

[ninetydegrees]

I don't make big batches so my opinion doesn't count as much but this seems fair to me, especially since I guesss the other alternatives would have been to lower the number of points one gets or to limit the number of submissions,

[ninetydegrees]

One question (because I'm updating the spreadsheet): do points for styles count for this?

you'll get the points for any themes you've submitted up to 1 July, even if you've gotten more than the 510 points for the year, but after 1 July, points you've already earned this year will be counted against the total.

Also, to make sure I got this right: does that meant that if you got 510 points or more as your 'before July 1' bounty, you won't get any until next year?

[denise]

Points for styles are separate, and you are correct in your understanding.

[ninetydegrees]

Cool! Thanks.

[gone_fishing]

*nods* As someone who has made big batches, I still think this is fair, y'all have been very generous with the bounty for themes and this is still fair enough and I understand the reasoning behind it. I'll probably submit some more themes eventually even though I know I've passed the total, just because I like making teh pretteh.

[musyc]

Sounds fair to me. The bounty in itself is more than a lot of places do, so it's generosity to have at all. Adjusting for business sense is only logical.

I do have a question about the 'calendar year' bit, though. Will that be for the year the themes are submitted or when they are committed? I ask because I have fourteen submitted from last year that haven't been patched, and I'd be bothered to see almost all of my bounty cap for this year gone when I haven't submitted anything FOR the year yet. (I haven't had coffee yet; maths and days are still beyond me at the moment.)

[ninetydegrees]

That's a very good question because a) we don't track submission dates b) points are only distributed when themes are committed.

[denise]

It's easiest for us to do "when they're committed", since it's very very hard to keep track of things otherwise!

[musyc]

Hmmm. While I see the sense in counting a submission in a year as when committed to the servers on the business side, I find that a little unsettling on the user side of things. My last submission was in November, and it's now June. Now, while the odds are pretty small that I'll submit any themes this year, I'd be peeved to only be able to submit three to be "paid" as it were for 2013, when the vast majority of the work was done the previous year. And should another six months go by before those previous fourteen are committed, then I'm using up 2014's bounty cap for 2012's themes.

[denise]

I'm sorry that it doesn't work for you, and if you're really upset about it, we can maybe work something out. Counting by date submitted adds a pretty significant work burden on the people who tally things up, though, since they'd have to cross-reference a bunch of stuff at the time of push instead of just working from the bug -- we don't track "date submitted" in the admin docs that lead to points being given out. The process is tedious enough already that we already do tend to procrastinate because we dunwanna; adding more would just make it worse :(

[momijizukamori]

I'm going to chime in with a vote for 'fiddle with it in this instance, but in the future, we will try to do more timely patching instead' - we're at the point where we shouldn't be that badly backlogged (and I will see about tracking down aforementioned themes).

[musyc]

Heh, procrastination. I'm a weeeeeee bit familiar with that. *quietly shoves fest deadline notifs under the desk*

I understand it's a tough balancing act, and all things considered, I would far rather things come out on the easier and/or more cost-efficient side for y'all - DW is one of the best homes I've ever seen on the net and anything that helps/encourages/lightens things on your end, I'm generally all for. Like I said, odds are pretty small that I'll submit anything else this year (I can theme or I can fic, and right now, fic is winning the attention stakes), so it may end up being a moot point entirely for 2013, but the idea that I could potentially end up using up a full year's bounty without having even done anything in that year, well. That bothered.

All that said, I do think the bounty cap is a good idea overall and I totally support it. If by some wild chance, I end up having time/inclination for theming this year, I'll likely hold myself to a teensy bit so I can roll them over to next year. :D

[momijizukamori]

I did some poking, and there was a little bit of lag before it got filed, and then some more lag in the spring before someone claimed it (coinciding with the period where I was not doing much dev stuff and we hadn't gotten some new theme patchers on board), and then it got marked as being blocked by something else - basically a whole bunch of sort of unfortunate things kind of piled up.

But D gave me ~POWER~, so I can do filing and entry tagging as well as 90d, and I'm going to try to grab things that haven't been picked up within two or three weeks, particularly now that the backlog is very nearly gone!

[musyc]

That is awesometastic and peachy keen. XD Thanks so much.

[momijizukamori]

No problem! I had this moment of 'we let it sit for six months? D:'.

[musyc]

Heh. Normally I wouldn't have been bothered (and probably wouldn't have knocked on the patching door, sad hat in hand, for another couple of months), because there are loads of things that need doing backstage and an uncommitted theme won't set the site on fire. I'll admit I was starting to think "well, if they're so hideous no one wants to touch them just TELL ME I'LL FIX IT", but I knew that busybusycodebusy was the more likely culprit. I appreciate you looking into it very much.

[momijizukamori]

Nah, you do lovely stuff ♥ Organization on the code end of things can just be a little lacking because there aren't a lot of us doing styles stuff (though I have been recruiting more minio- I mean volunteers >_>), but I will see about making that better.

[momijizukamori]

Nah, you do lovely stuff ♥ Organization on the code end of things can just be a little lacking because there aren't a lot of us doing styles stuff (though I have been recruiting more minio- I mean volunteers >_>), but I will see about making that better.