Hmm, I'm not sure I will be able to express what I'm thinking properly, but I'll try anyways, even at the risk of being misunderstood.
I think that your gesture raises some interesting questions.
If I have understood correctly, the tasvideos.org managers have got a surplus of donations, in other words, more money than what they really need for the (thankfully quite little) expenses needed to keep the server up, and thus decided to award this excess as awards and encouragement for people who have contributed to the site with excellent runs and great achievements. Moreover, if I remember correctly, someone even donated some money for this sole purpose (ie. to be given as awards).
Now, not taking the money and "donating" it right back raises a bit of a dilemma: There's still a surplus of money which was now not given as award. Most importantly, potentially part of the money which was donated for the sole purpose is now being recycled to the donation funds rather than being used for their intended purpose.
This could become even more "problematic" if other people, being inspired by this altruism, started doing the same thing and "donating" also their price money right back to the site.
So the site might end up having a surplus of donations which it actually cannot get rid of, even though the purpose is good in principle. What should be done with this surplus?
One possibility would be to increase the other prices by the amount (although this could potentially cause some problems of its own). Another possibility would be to stash the money for next year's awards, or for surprising expenses.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Incorrect.
We got enough money to keep the server going for this year. There's next year, there's the year after, and so on. Also, as we get more popular, we'll need to improve our server. Some also requested that we buy special software for the server if we have the funds.
The money towards prizes this year ($100) was donated solely for the purpose of the prizes. Anything given back to the site by winners will be welcome.
However, for future fund raising, we would like to set aside 15% of the income towards award prizes if possible.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.