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Donate for Reviews FAQ

Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 4:23 pm
by MikeC
This is a suggestion that came out of a lengthy forum discussion in March 2010, in response to Ars Technica's article on Why Ad Blocking is devastating to the sites you love.

The facts:

1) SPCR's revenue (mostly from ads) is modest and prevents full-time work on content creation by editorial staff.
2) SPCR reviews maintain a high standard of comprehensiveness and accuracy, especially in the core concerns around noise, thermals and power. The content is unique, and it serves a relatively niche community, although mainstream web sites and computer users also benefit.
3) Reviews cost much time and effort, which is money.
4) If readers "vote" for products to be reviewed with donations, the funds would go directly towards reviews of those items, which hopefully, will be a win-win situation for both SPCR content creators (outside the forums) and for the readers. It's a popular vote system, but also one in which your money talks, much like in the rest of life.

This FAQ is going to be pretty short because this is the start, and no questions have been asked yet. Here are a few that can be anticipated. They will change as this experiment evolves.

Q1: How do I donate for a product review? Send a donation via Paypal to [email protected] with the header, "Donate: Review Tesla Roadster" -- if that is the make /model of the item you want to see reviewed. ;) Also start a thread in this forum with the same headline, indicating your proposed product.

Q2: Is there a minimum donation amount? Yes. $10, to keep the management of donated funds from getting complicated when there are many products on the nominated list and many donations. The base currency is US$; AUS$ and CA$ will also be accept at par at this time.

Q3: When will my nominated product be reviewed? When the total amount of donations for that product review reaches or exceeds the required total.

Q4: What is the total value of donations needed before a product is reviewed? The idea is not for donations to cover the entire cost of our review, but to subsidize them. The total donation targets for these various product categories are based roughly on real costs:

fan: $50
heatsink: $120
hard drive: $120
motherboard: $200
case: $200
power supply: $200
complete computer: $200

Q5: Where and how will the review sample be acquired? There are several options:

a. You can send us the product you want reviewed. This is obviously a bonafide donation for review, and the value of the donation will be set at typical market value. But we need to be able to determine that the sample is typical and representative of the product in the marketplace. Ideally, it should be new and sealed in the box; alternatively, it should be new or hardly used, with good documentation. Use the address at the bottom of this post.
b. We may turn to the manufacturer or some other organization in the distribution stream if it is an expensive product for a free sample or loaner.
c. SPCR may buy the item locally or online; naturally we'll seek the best price.
The source and manner of acquisition will be accounted in the review. As with all reviews at SPCR, the source of the sample will have no bearing on our published qualitative / quantitative review.

Q6: What will you do with the reviewed sample? If is deemed to be a "reference" class item, we'll keep it in the lab to be used in comparisions against other review products in future. Otherwise, it will be sold off, as is the norm, in our usual lab clearance cornerat heavy discount.

Q7: If I am really keen on having a product reviewed by SPCR, can I try to "sell" it to the forum members so that they will donate more (and more quickly) to that product review? Of course. We anticipate that some competition might arise. Links to the product promotional details, other reviews, or even discussions on forums about the product are all fair game here.

Q8: Will my donation for review count toward anything else? If they meet or exceed donation requirements for SPCR Friend, Patron & Lifetime Patron status, then the appropriate tags will be awarded to your forum ID. These status ranks will have other value in the near future.

Q9: What if I don't want to use Paypal? There is no other simple and quick way for funds to be donated to SPCR. You can mail a personal check (which must wait to clear), travellers check, money order or bank certified check to the following name/address. Keep in mind that this will take time to reach us, and for your donation to be attributed to the product review of your choice:

Silent PC Review
361-6417 Fraser St
Vancouver, BC V5W3A6
Canada

Re: Donate for Reviews FAQ

Posted: Fri Apr 09, 2010 6:51 pm
by spookmineer
The link for donation doesn't point to PayPal...
MikeC wrote:Q8: Will my donation for review count toward anything else? If they meet or exceed donation requirements for SPCR Friend, Patron & Lifetime Patron status, then the appropriate tags will be awarded to your forum ID. These status ranks will have other value in the near future.
That sounds a bit mysterious...? What value is implied here?

Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2010 3:32 am
by lm
What is the $ target for a GPU? Specifically I'm interested in a combo with both Sapphire Vapor-X 5850 and 5870 - there would be so much in common between the two that I guess it wouldn't be 2x as much as a single GPU review?

Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 9:55 am
by psyopper
Mike,

Have you considered the "selling price" of the review item as part of the cost to review?

For instance... If the cost of a heatsink is $200...

$50 for a donated heatsink

+

$30 anticipated selling price of the reviewed product

=

$120 in donations to review the product?

Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2010 10:33 am
by MikeC
psyopper wrote:Mike,

Have you considered the "selling price" of the review item as part of the cost to review?

For instance... If the cost of a heatsink is $200...

$50 for a donated heatsink

+

$30 anticipated selling price of the reviewed product

=

$120 in donations to review the product?
That doesn't really make accounting sense. In terms of value to spcr, the donated heatsink is worth only the post-review selling price.

Re: Donate for Reviews FAQ

Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2010 2:18 pm
by aristide1
MikeC wrote:To [email protected] with the header, "Donate: Review Tesla Roadster"
And what will be the post review price on this item?

:mrgreen:

Re: Donate for Reviews FAQ

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 2:15 pm
by spookmineer
aristide1 wrote:
MikeC wrote:To [email protected] with the header, "Donate: Review Tesla Roadster"
And what will be the post review price on this item?

:mrgreen:
Moreover, can I test it? 8)

Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 9:18 am
by oakdad
Do you have a posting of items you already have and want to test somewhere?

Is it better to just donate the money and have you buy the item/items or would it be better if we sent them to you for testing? If the later please put up some links of quality Online Places that will ship the items straight to you, thus saving us a step and some shipping cost.

Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 12:22 pm
by MikeC
oakdad wrote:Do you have a posting of items you already have and want to test somewhere?

Is it better to just donate the money and have you buy the item/items or would it be better if we sent them to you for testing? If the later please put up some links of quality Online Places that will ship the items straight to you, thus saving us a step and some shipping cost.
No list of reader-interested potential review items on hand -- except for the Titan Fenrir donated by Tzupy. (That review is done; just needs to be posted -- soon. Tzupy donated the entire target amount --$200!)

In general, its better to donate $ toward the review of your choice, because chances are, we can get the item of interest cheaper than you can -- often free directly from a supplier. If we go to a company and tell them that readers have donated a couple hundred bucks for a review of their product, I think they'd delighted to donate a sample!

Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 1:08 pm
by dhanson865
Woohoo, glad to know the ball got rolling. I hope you'll consider giving this a quick link from the main article section of the front page as I'm afraid others might be like me and be too busy to have noticed the new forum.

Re: Donate for Reviews FAQ

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:13 am
by klankymen
MikeC wrote: Q4: What is the total value of donations needed before a product is reviewed? The idea is not for donations to cover the entire cost of our review, but to subsidize them. The total donation targets for these various product categories are based roughly on real costs:

fan: $100
heatsink: $200
hard drive: $200
case: $300
power supply: $300
complete computer: $300
How about Motherboards?

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 8:31 am
by MikeC
adjusted the "donation list" --

fan: $50
heatsink: $120
hard drive: $120
motherboard: $200
case: $200
power supply: $200
complete computer: $200

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:12 am
by CA_Steve
You shipped Lawrence to Mumbai to lower labor costs, eh? :D

Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 6:34 am
by lm
So how much for a GPU?

Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 7:34 am
by MikeC
lm wrote:So how much for a GPU?
probably need different targets for fanned vs fanless -- the latter is always more complex to test. say... $150 & $200.

Re: Donate for Reviews FAQ

Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2015 12:13 pm
by Rhino
The send a donation via PayPal link isn't working.

Also, it would be easier to find if you just put a link in the header or footer for the site.