Donor line too linear.

[cjhowe]

Hmmm...The donor line is too linear to be the actual donation rate. The CC processor must only be able to take so many per minute. This would suggest there is a backlog...but how much of one? Start speculating :D

[jake]

backlog as in delay in the donations being reflected? I hope that all the donations are actually going through!

[Starks]

Don't fret.

[cjhowe]

As in delay in being reflected. The total reported through the widget likely doesn't increase until the CC confirmation comes back. Lots of donations waiting for their turn to get confirmed?

[Hook]

I was thinking that this morning. There is no way it could be that perfectly straight with this many people. Further evidence is that the campaign keeps putting out numbers that are ~500,000 higher than the current widget.

[Mandrik]

I know when I donated earlier it took about 1.5 minutes until my name showed up. Back during the rush at the end of the 3rd quarter, my name appeared about 5 seconds after hitting the DONATE button. That has gotta say something pretty awesome!

[bambbrose]

it's not as linear as it may seem.

All graphs when they zoom out far enough look like a line. It's such a large total that bumps in cash flowing in aren't as dramatic.

[Lord Xar]

interesting, so you believe that its minutes behind? That is possible..

[cjhowe]

I suppose only one way to find out....keep donating till midnight eastern and see if it drops to 0 :D

[Exponent]

it's not as linear as it may seem.

All graphs when they zoom out far enough look like a line. It's such a large total that bumps in cash flowing in aren't as dramatic.
Indeed. Here is what the rate of donations looks like (from http://paulcash.slact.net/):
http://paulcash.slact.net/today-paulflow.png

If the line was truly linear, then this line would be completely flat and horizontal. Instead, its a nice rollercoaster ride, but it stays reasonably close to an imaginary flat rate of roughly $200,000 per hour.

[Ra_]

Rocket ships maintain a trajectory very similar to this.
That's what the Ron Paul Peace Train is.

[cjhowe]

Indeed. Here is what the rate of donations looks like (from http://paulcash.slact.net/):
http://paulcash.slact.net/today-paulflow.png

If the line was truly linear, then this line would be completely flat and horizontal. Instead, its a nice rollercoaster ride, but it stays reasonably close to an imaginary flat rate of roughly $200,000 per hour.

That's not true. Credit Card processing isn't a timepiece machine. There are several opportunities for lag. You have communication to the gateway, from the gateway to the clearinghouse, from the clearinghouse to the bank and then back again. Each segment being a message/response pair. By the data collected by ronpaulgraphs, you're getting about 1 round trip response every two seconds. Some could take 1.3 seconds, some could take 2.2 seconds, depending on the efficiency of the trace that could skew a perfectly linear rate. The graph models pretty closely an operations management model of automated messaging where there's a constant demand (read backlog)

[Hook]

They probably only wrote their webapp with a single-threaded model. So each transaction must wait in line for the previous one to handshake and finish. Maybe they could change it to like 10 threads or so to keep things moving along.

[Hook]

BTW, those huge dips in the rate would show up in the cumulative graph more than they do.
It makes it much less exciting when it is smoothed out to a boring old line. Much funner to see it tapering out and then taking off again.

[NewEnd]

it took them hours to get my confirmation number. Sent in about 7 am EST,

[Hook]

I'll bet the backlog doesn't clear up until 3:00 AM tomorrow. I hope they still count it as the 5th.

[gjdavis60]

It took 5 hours for my 11:00 AM EST donation to be acknowledged.

From http://dailypaul.com/node/5817


Just had a visit from a director of the Ron Paul Campaign headquarters here in Alabama. He stopped by to pick up a donation I made to sponsor OUR delegates to the Republican National Convention and we had a good little talk. One thing he said that sticks out is that from his communications with National HQ, the credit card companies are staggering the contributions to keep from crashing their computers. This is why you don't get such rapid notification of your contribution. (mine took about 8 hours to come) The other result is a delay on the donation being credited. He indicated this could mean that the contributions may be delayed as much as 8-12 hours in being credited and that the current donation rate could extend well past midnight for the same amount of time.

Sounds like payment processing could be significantly delayed, but I have no idea how that might affect the graphs.

[BLS]

VIsa must be f'ing happy as a clam today.

[Hook]

It means that we might make another 3 mill after midnight.

[cjhowe]

VIsa must be f'ing happy as a clam today.

$0.30 / transaction
2.1%

$70,000 in processing fees?

[Mortikhi]

It took mine a couple hours and I donated this morning CST
Thank you very much for your donation of $100.00 to the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign.

Your donation will allow us to expand and grow our campaign.

We depend on donors like you to help us spread the message of freedom, peace and prosperity through Ron Paul’s candidacy.

Thanks for being a part of the campaign!

Your confirmation number:
T81552-99891627

[FreedomLover]

$0.30 / transaction
2.1%

$70,000 in processing fees?

The price we pay for convenience. :)