<rapidcitychess> is right: it's up to your donor to let you know. If somebody wants to be an "anonymous benefactor" ala Charles Dickens, that's their right to do so.

Well, the Gift Membership page doesn't actually give us any choice about it... :D

Srsly, anon donation is all very nice, but I have once been on the receiving end of a membership gift myself, as you may recall, ;) and I <know> how badly one wants to know whom to thank... so I'm not a great fan of it.

But as things stand, if I'm not already privately in contact with the recipient (and they rarely think to open their forums first thing...), all I can do is wait until they start asking around, to know where I can leave them a message.

But let me try to explain why I don't think anonymous membership gifts are the greatest idea...

When you get a gift like that, and you don't know who your benefactor is, you feel that you have to be nice to <everybody>, all the time, on the off chance that they are the one. Educational? Well, it certainly sounds like it should be. There's only one little problem... it doesn't work that way. See, nobody really enjoys being nice to everybody all the time. This just takes most of the fun out of the site for you! ;s

And then what happens is, you see people simply dropping out. The same thing that has happened to many of the recipients of the annual Santa gifts - have you kept track of them? I have checked up on them a few times. Many of the gift recipients have left the site - not later, after their membership ran out, but <in the same year>. And some have even been around for years, previously. Why? Most likely because they felt obligated to be on their best behavior all the time, and that just wasn't so much fun anymore.

By letting people know who helped them out, you are setting them free from these unpleasant constraints. They can thank you, and move on, and feel free to enjoy the site. This, IMO, is the better way.

I know you are joking, but I think the most appropriate course of consduct when you get an anonomous gift is to immediately give a gift of chess to someone else.

This is a problem. One way to deal with this is to give the anonymous benefactor a way to anonymously warn the recipient that he/she isn't being sufficiently nice to the benefactor.

Congratulations to both teams. We'll merge the kibitzing and open it up shortly.

<Annie K.: It would be nice to be able to choose, somewhere on the Gift Membership page, whether or not the recipient is to be informed of the donor's identity> Absolutely--there is no problem with a checkbox that says "Anonymous?". As things stand, you have to chase the person down and get their attention, which is a bit awkward for both parties.

Thanks, sounds good. :)