You know, I don't usually go to F!S because it violates my poor dial up, but I accidentally stumbled across
this thread while seeing if there was any charity aspects I missed for the wrap up.
(First, learn to photoshop. That text is killing my eyes.)
You're only giving your time.I currently have 16 commissioned things for charities. I already had a full plate of stuff to do. I have many WIPS that I could be doing, many kink meme fills or video gaming I could be doing. But I am okay with this and happy to write to help out in any way I can. I don't resent my buyers at all, and hope to get to them at asap.
The notion that by doing fandom charity you're doing 'less' than other more local charities is ridiculous. Not all of us have access to local charities, or even agree with them. I've run into plenty of other people who didn't want to go through certain charities, especially religious ones due to their beliefs. Local charities often don't have that choice, and not everyone has a church to donate through, or a work pool of that sort.
Charity scams are a legit concern. While fandom has been hit by charity scams, the larger community based ones for disasters have been very thorough in researching and ensuring that the charities donated to are valid, and actually helping the cause at hand. I'd put online charity action higher than local charities, because researching them is just a click away. There's no saying that the person going door-to-door is a legit charity, but when donating online, all you have to do is check charitywatch.org to check and see if this charity has a bad rep, is a scam, or has the same values that you do.
And for people bitching about charity fic? To me, I see it as less bitching that they have to write for charity, but bitching about the writing process itself. Us writers, we're a bitchy lot. Sometimes things don't go like we want and sometimes the muse wants to go write kink meme fills instead of doing what you're supposed to. Sometimes the sex scenes won't go right, or like this pinch I was doing earlier which made me late by two weeks, the story refuses to get in line and makes you want to throw shit.
Just because we're bitching doesn't mean we're bitching about the fact that we have to do it. We just like to bitch, okay. Deal with it.
You spent money on ___, thus you must be well off.Not necessarily. You never know. I was able to give more to Japan this year than say, Brazil, or ThePurpleDove because I still had some Christmas money left over. Usually I'm only able to buy maybe one or two people–often defaulting to my friends, because I don't have a steady income. Just because one of us got X CD doesn't mean we had money that week of the charity. There's the influx of paychecks, sudden medical/school/whatever bills. Or maybe it was a game someone had been waiting for months for. You really don't know.
Basically? We can buy a damn CD without having to apologize for it, okay. Quit acting like you know every little thing about us.
And even if someone didn't give money but gave fic, or whatever,
they're still helping. Their contributions don't suddenly become null because they didn't bankrupt their account.
For the record, I've raised something like $60+ between what I bought and what I commissioned for Japan. That's a whole lot more than I would've been able to do by myself. That isn't even counting any I helped organize, because if we count that, it's probably in the hundreds.
I'm not bragging–I'm merely pointing out here that even if I hadn't given over 29$ myself this round, that doesn't invalidate the working, plotting, pimping and every other cent I helped organize. Helping is helping, whether it's your money going or someone else's you helped raise.
You're selling fanfic, and that's infringing on copyright!I personally see it as less as selling fanfic, than bribing someone to give up extra expenses (like say, that cup of Starbucks during lunch) for a little extra charity. Maybe these are people who otherwise, might not have donated because they're busy and they're college students/have student loans/credit card bills but OOH, 1K OF X/Y PORN? I REALLY DON'T NEED TO EAT THIS WEEK.
You aren't seeing any of that money, thus it's hardly 'selling' it in the conventional sense of the term. Fandom charities are one of the biggest things to prove that we aren't all baby raping whores, like Diana Gabdelon would have us think.
and to address this thread's judging and 'concerns' which a little research could've dispelled, for fuck's sakeI've never been a fan of these communities. While I understand the need and want to help in any way you can, I just don't understand how people expect to help with these auctions. There is no guarantee that the places will see the money; wouldn't you rather spend your time and energy helping a more legitimate cause?-You can't cheat via v-gifts, because LJ notifies you outright, and I'm not sure it'd even be possible to fake it without hacking the site itself, and that'd be a whole lot of trouble for $2.99. I like v-gifts for this reason, and tend to default for them. It also doesn't mean that yahoo doesn't eat my notifications again, and I get notified automatically. I know that it was sent directly to a charity doing that particular issue of the moment, and I get a shiny v-gift to boot. LJ doesn't take any processing fees during disasters, and it's a very secure way of ensuring that the money gets where you want it to.
It's also lower than some of the other minimum donations (most have it set only as a minimum of $5 or $10) which means people who have less to spare can participate as well.
-Most all charities require screenshots, often to be verified by the mods themselves. You could feasibly falsify a screenshot, however, the emails sent back aren't just LOL THNX FOR THE DONATION. They're often quite long company emails which would be hard to duplicate unless you've already given to this particular charity, and in cases where you go through mod verification, a mod who's seen dozens of screenshots of donations would smell a rat and boot the person trying to falsify it. It's possible, though certainly not easy and pretty damn hard to pull off without getting caught.
And more legitimate, how? As I pointed out above, with offline charities, you're more likely to be scammed and have less chance to ensure that it does go to the right place. That isn't to say that there's never been charity fraud–just check around the Fandom wank wiki and you're sure to find it, but charity fraud usually comes in one user saying they're sick and need medical bills, or auctions for stolen laptops–things of that ilk. I've been in about at least ten or more of fandom charities, and they're all very well moderated in that respect. So this argument is really null and void–as you would've found out, dear poster, had you actually taken ten seconds to
look into the issue before judging it and us.I honestly think that these kinds of things do little help when help is so desperately needed.Write for Relief, small as it was, raised something like 600+ dollars. Help_haiti raised 115,000+.
One round of my freelance charity raised over 20$. Every bit helps. If 115,000+ dollars isn't helping, then I don't know what is.
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