Dear Ganiman, (op updated)

[Tomiko]

You people complaining about the price of the mousepads and shirts need to realize that they were sending those out as they got donations, not all at the end (correct?). You don't go getting a deal for 100 items for [xx] price when you're not really expecting to need that many, or you'll end up with wasted items and even more wasted money. I mean, perhaps they were expecting that many donations, and if so, it would have been smart to bulk up, but it's possible that's not the case (or that they didn't think about it).

I like Ganiman's response, I think it's fair. Anyone who is still ragging on them is just looking for something to complain about. The only problem I can forsee with Wing of the Goddess giveaways is if they have them sent to some central place after the release, and they send them out themselves. If I happened to win one, I would not want to wait a week or two to get my copy, I'd sooner go to EB games and buy my own the day of release. If they can get them directly shipped to each person through Amazon or POL, then more power to them.

I have a small suggestion some people here might dislike but might be fair: Have the raffle include all the people who donated to the wiki, as well as decent wiki contributers (ie: people who edit it at a decent rate to try to keep info updated). I'm biased towards this suggestion though because I edit the wiki often enough that I'd qualify. <_<

I didn't donate, but I agree with the above post. If the raffle is done, it should only include those who donated and regular contributers. One thing though if contributers are included though is to decide a way to make it fair so favorites won't be chosen and enemies won't have less of a chance.

[Beckwin]

How about a lottery for a Mandau? That'd still leave a few hundred leftover, runners-up could get mousepads.

[Khamsin]

How about a lottery for a Mandau? That'd still leave a few hundred leftover, runners-up could get mousepads.

What if IGE is out of stock? Someone should email them and find out.

[Ryko]

How about a lottery for a Mandau? That'd still leave a few hundred leftover, runners-up could get mousepads.

What if IGE is out of stock? Someone should email them and find out.

http://www.consumer-guides.info/cons...on_mcmahon.jpg

Hiyoooooooooooo

[Beckwin]

How about a lottery for a Mandau? That'd still leave a few hundred leftover, runners-up could get mousepads.

What if IGE is out of stock? Someone should email them and find out.

Well fucking played

[Rocl]

How about a lottery for a Mandau? That'd still leave a few hundred leftover, runners-up could get mousepads.

What if IGE is out of stock? Someone should email them and find out.

You had me when you made that Corsair sig

[aurik]

It's as I expected, extremely poor management of funds rather than actual dipping into the pot for personal reasons. And extremely poor handling of responding when this subject did come up.

[Khamsin]

How about a lottery for a Mandau? That'd still leave a few hundred leftover, runners-up could get mousepads.

What if IGE is out of stock? Someone should email them and find out.

You had me when you made that Corsair sig

SE needs to hurry up and release info on the WotG jobs so I can make another one.

[Rena]

Had they used the money for the mousepads/t-shirts on the servers instead, they could have had the servers for another four months, totalling... 11 months. Pretty close for the one-year target that I recall they set. I don't get the choice of pads/shirts, seriously. ~_~

[jaryk]

^
|
|

What Spider-Dan said. It just baffles me that people who didn't donate a single cent to FFXIclopedia are so emotionally invested in this that they're willing to resort to grasping at straws to this extent after almost everything has been clearly laid out on the table.

No one's grasping at straws, there have been a multitude of legitimate complaints that overall really haven't been addressed except "poor management of funds". I think it's quite hilarious that people are defending criminals, god forbid any of you are involved in a rape or murder trial, you'll just say "the guy just wanted to get laid" or "that person really pissed him off so he had to shoot him". Get a fucking clue.

[Khamsin]

^
|
|

What Spider-Dan said. It just baffles me that people who didn't donate a single cent to FFXIclopedia are so emotionally invested in this that they're willing to resort to grasping at straws to this extent after almost everything has been clearly laid out on the table.

No one's grasping at straws, there have been a multitude of legitimate complaints that overall really haven't been addressed except "poor management of funds". I think it's quite hilarious that people are defending criminals, god forbid any of you are involved in a rape or murder trial, you'll just say "the guy just wanted to get laid" or "that person really pissed him off so he had to shoot him". Get a fucking clue.

Because rape is just mismanagement of one's penis.

[Weeks]

Pedia's defenders are right in that once they promised the premiums they had to deliver them. Where this went wrong was in the planning stages. Premiums like the mousepads and t-shirts are a common offer in fundraisers, but it's just terrible planning for over a quarter of the funds raised to go directly to paying for them. It's very much up for debate whether they generally lead to larger donations, and given this community's reaction to them, plus the fact that some people donated enough to qualify but didn't even bother to give a name and address, they almost certainly did not pay for themselves here.

[Kylen]

No one's grasping at straws, there have been a multitude of legitimate complaints that overall really haven't been addressed except "poor management of funds". I think it's quite hilarious that people are defending criminals, god forbid any of you are involved in a rape or murder trial, you'll just say "the guy just wanted to get laid" or "that person really pissed him off so he had to shoot him". Get a fucking clue.

There's only one person mentioned in this thread whom we know for a fact has done something illegal. Making bad business decisions and buying overpriced mousepads is not criminal behavior.

[Koga]

Buy World of Warcraft Accounts with the remaining money.

[Ishido]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but T-shirts were given to people who donated $50 or more, and mousepads to people who donated $25 or more. Assuming the people who got T-shirts also got mousepads...

110 x 50 = $5,500
75 x 25 = $1,875
Total of $7,375.

That's the amount of money from people who "paid" for mousepads and t-shirts. It seems strange to me that 110 people donated over $50 and only 75 would donate in the $25-49 range. Before anyone says "well it's obvious they got 185 people in the mousepads range and 110 people in the t-shirt range" well, donations from that alone would equate to over $10,000, so no go.

Also I just did a quick google for bulk-ordered t-shirts and saw prices ranging from $1.50 to $6 for T-shirts (range comes from number of colors, quality of shirts, etc) in the quantity listed here. And yeah, they do custom patterns and all of that. I then did a search for mousepads in bulk, and the only mousepads I found over $5 were the ones with special gel, or foam, or other similar features. Most I found were $2-$3 on average.

It seems like they either inflated their prices while giving the public numbers, or there was a gross misuse of their funds.

Edit: Like I think Malaquist said a long time ago in this thread, they probably would have been better served hiring someone with some PR skills using some of the leftover money.

[VZX]

Also I just did a quick google for bulk-ordered t-shirts

How many units?

[Ishido]

74-144 was the range for those prices (roughly, but I made sure 110 fit into it on every check). There are other people who have come up with the same fact that I did, it's pretty clear that they overspent on either T-shirts or Mousepads, or both.

[Correction]

74-144 was the range for those prices (roughly, but I made sure 110 fit into it on every check). There are other people who have come up with the same fact that I did, it's pretty clear that they overspent on either T-shirts or Mousepads, or both.

They admitted to as much when Mierin posted Ganiman's complete inability to shop around for silkscreener prices and just went with 'this dude he knew.'

Next thing you know they'll overrun costs on the WotG giveaway because Ganiman drove to GameStop and bought 200 Collector's Editions.

Edit: Found the quote

Hey, I don't know why the t-shirts and mousepads cost that much. We're not businessmen. Gani went to a guy he knew who could do the screens, and hired him. He didn't price shop around. It sounded like a reasonable price to all of us. In addition, Gani actually ordered too many.

Moral of the Story: Stop giving money to idiots.

[Remyo]

Hey, I don't know why the t-shirts and mousepads cost that much. We're not businessmen. Gani went to a guy he knew who could do the screens, and hired him. He didn't price shop around. It sounded like a reasonable price to all of us. In addition, Gani actually ordered too many.

Moral of the Story: Stop giving money to idiots.

even junkies know to shop around.

[Spider-Dan]

So after all this, we're supposed to be morally outraged because... wiki admins didn't shop around and get The Best Possible Price. Even though the only difference it would have made is more raffle money (wiki raised nowhere even remotely close to enough money to support the site long-term, especially with massively ballooning bandwidth). Yeah, that's the same raffle money that you're still aimlessly bitching about now.

"Grasping at straws" is precisely the right term to use for this thread. After every single legitimate question was asked and answered, we're left with absurd garbage like, "i could have gotten much better deals on t-shirts!!!!" and "why didn't they post all this stuff to BG from the start?!?!" (yet, amazingly, no one seems to feel that alla, KI, ffxionline, etc. innately deserved such a courtesy).

Nice work.