Thankyou Ogre
I’m constantly amazed by how freakishly judgmental this forum can be.
My thanks to everyone who has donated to any charity ever, whether anonymous or on TV, whether $1 or $1 billion, pocket change or your last dollar, religious or non, for human or animals or buildings or trees. I am grateful.
They aren’t being judged for giving, they’re being judged for boring the rest of us with their self-congratulations.
A little (true story) fable.
Many years ago as a young pup I visited New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Not having much cash but possessing a harmonica I stood on the corner with my hat on the curb and played a few tunes. Though I drew a small crowd not many coins found their way to my hat.
I gave the few quarters I had to my buddies and asked them to pitch them into my hat at the end of my first song. My buddies proceeded to do this and lo and behold others in the crowd followed their lead.
It seems that some people are reluctant to part with their money until they see others are doing it.
If the braggers in the other thread convinced at least one person to join in and help the victims of Katrina I’m willing to put up with their vanity.
What evidence is there that anyone is actually giving the money they’re boasting about giving?
People are donating money and you’re accusing them of being liars? Nice.
I asked a rhetorical question.
And more to the point, “people are boasting about donating money.”
I subscribe to the notion that it’s not charity if you seek recognition…it’s buying recognition. Granted, most of the folks in that thread weren’t necessarily seeking recognition when they actually made the donations, but I still think publicizing what you gave is tacky. Not really enough to get fired up about, but definitely something I’d never participate in.
I’m sure most people’s reasons for participating were perfectly innocent: it’s interesting to wonder how much the readership of the SDMB has contributed in total. It just happens to be an interesting question that’s impossible to answer, given some of our ideas of what’s acceptable to talk about.
To me it didn’t look like boasting, it looked like listing. And I have no reason to mistrust anybody in that thread. It costs me nothing to take people at their word.
This is a boring digression.
This is a boring question, so I retract the comment and return you to your regularly scheduled pitting.
Yes. You will be amazed at what gets accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit, eh?
But coming in here so everyone will be sure to know that you are the type of morally perfect person who would never dream of disclosing your selfless acts is, of course, completely different.
Jesus also said something about a first stone.
I’m not sure if you’re being facetious or not. You could make the argument that less giving occurs if you don’t give people the opportunity to get a little recognition for what they give. I just want to make it clear that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with buying recognition; I just don’t think it’s truly charitable. Both parties get something they want, and everyone leaves happy.
I too am grateful.
Btw, at first, I felt shocked and amazed about how judgmental people feel they have a right to be. However, I then felt comforted when I realized that of the 94 posts in this thread, only 13 people replied that they though that they were the least bit disturbed by the (non-existent) bragging. Not only that, but this thread has been viewed 2,002 times, and the vast majority of those viewers didn’t feel the need to chime in their “offense”
Thus, I feel pretty dam good about this board! 
I was going to let this thread go, but Scott’s last post is just disingenuous, and it’s difficult to let that sort of thing go.
You’re not comparing like to like. You are comparing number of posters bothered to total number of posts. These are not the same thing at all. In order to get a (relatively) meaningful comparison, you must compare number of posters bothered to number of posters not bothered. I’m still outnumbered in the latter, but not by nearly as much as your post seems to indicate.
Oh, and the 2000+ page views? Yeah, that was me.
Same here, but because I finally felt there was hope for you. I was a :wally putz for ever thinking that.
The true way of finding how outnumbered you are would be to compare just what I said, the number of posters bothered, number of posters not bothered, and the number of potential posters who don’t feel bothered to post, since they feel you have no case. True, it is nearly impossible to find out how many are in the last category. So? Big deal. I am not so anal retentive as you.
Uh, that’s not what you posted, Einstein. You compared total posts to posters bothered, and there’s no possible way to know the composition of page views. Your post makes no sense.
And “rational”=“anal retentive”? You should be so anal retentive.
Its the actual donation that is important…whether the donator bragged about it to 3000 people or if the dontion came anonomously.
Who cares? I’ll take a braggart donator any day to a non-braggart non donator.
I would not be surprised if many of the dopers who are offended by the bragging donators did not anonymously give a plug nickel to the cause.
Surprisingly, you can choose not to keep reading a thread which disinterests you. Imagine that.