New Trinity feature for NeoOffice donors

[pluby]

The NeoOffice project is funded entirely by the time and money donated by our users. While only about 1% of our users make a donation or volunteer their time, without the generous amounts of time and money donated by those small portion of users, many of the things that make the NeoOffice project what it is today would not exist.

To show our appreciation of our donors, we recently added a new feature to our forum software: users will see between 0 and 5 stars next to their name in forum lists, posts, and their user profile.

These stars will help Fran, I, and the small group of Trinity moderators to more easily recognize Early Access Program members and other NeoOffice donors so that we can respond to their questions with the same responsiveness they have come to expect.

To ensure user privacy, only the few users that are Trinity moderators will be able to see stars for other users. No details for individual payments will be displayed.

What benefit do I get if I have donation stars next to my name?

Because NeoOffice donors are so critical to the NeoOffice project and the NeoOffice project would not exist without them, Fran, I, and the small number of Trinity moderators will handle any questions from users with stars next to their name before we handle questions from other users.

We expect a big increase in the number of support requests after NeoOffice 3.0 is released on 31 March 2009. We are preparing ourselves for the possibility that the number of support requests may far exceed the number that Fran, I, and the small group of support volunteers can respond to.

If the number of support questions exceeds our ability to answer them, we will answer questions from donors first. However, anything that is a problem that causes NeoOffice to crash or hang will always be taken care of immediately, even if people are experiencing other issues.

More details on how we calculate the number of stars for each user are in this forum topic.

What if I am a donor and there are no stars next to my name?

If you have made donations to NeoOffice within the last two years but you see no stars next to your name, the most likely cause is that the e-mail address that you gave PayPal is different from the e-mail address that you use for your Trinity account.

To link your Trinity account to your PayPal donation payments, go to the Edit Profile page, go to the Donation Preferences section, fill out the fields in the "Link account to PayPal donation payments" block, and press the Submit button at the bottom of the page.

What if I am a donor and I do not want anyone to see stars next to my name?

To hide the number of stars from Trinity moderators for your user, go to the Edit Profile page, go to the Donation Preferences section, set the "Hide donation level from moderators" preference to "Yes", and press the Submit button at the bottom of the page.

Patrick