PA Childs Play Charity ticker

I was reading the latest Penny Arcade news post, where Tycho makes a reference to watching the earnings ticker on ChildsPlayCharity.org -

Child’s Play has, as of this second, raised $34,327,046 over its lifespan. I could refresh the official page and there is every chance that it would be more than that; I’ve refreshed it several times while writing this and it has been true at every juncture.

So I followed the link to share in the good feels. I love PA and I think the ChildsPlayCharity is one of the greatest things the Internet has ever given the world.

And for a minute, I got the warm fuzzies when the dollar amount ticked up. Except...it's a very regular, dollar-by-dollar tick. Something didn't feel right. So, being a web developer, I decided to take a sneak peek at the page's source code.

And....of course, it's a javascript timer. A very elaborate one, but at heart it simply calculates a number of ticks since a starting date, then adds that to a constant embedded in the code to update the total every 7 seconds.

Spoiler:

<input type="hidden" name="currentDollars" id="currentDollars" value="34129000" />
<input type="hidden" name="targetDollars" id="targetDollars" value="36000000" />
<input type="hidden" name="startDate" id="startDate" value="2015-10-13" />
<input type="hidden" name="targetDate" id="targetDate" value="2016-01-01" />

So how am I to take this? I understand that it may not be practical to query the up-to-the-moment actual totals on every pageload, and it's just a negligible phantom hat on top of an enormous real sum of money raised for a very good cause.

But at the same time, Tycho's comments about getting giddy over refreshing the page sound shallow, almost manipulative. Of course you want people to feel good about your charity being successful, and I can totally believe that, as of 10/13/15, they'd raised $34,129,000, so why the subterfuge?

If their rolling estimate makes a few more guilty souls drop shillings for sick kids, is that proof enough that it's worth it? Or is there a responsibility on the charity to presenting itself accurately? Especially considering how this figure is deliberately expressed by one of it's principals?

What do you think about the illusionary nature of their charity ticker? Harmless showmanship or shady manipulation?

Harmless showmanship for the ticket itself IMO, but Tycho's statement that you quoted really gets under my skin:

I could refresh the official page and there is every chance that it would be more than that; I’ve refreshed it several times while writing this and it has been true at every juncture.

That just brings the foul taste of cynicism to my mouth.

It's entirely possible that Tycho is just ignorant of the fact that it's a fake number.

complexmath wrote:

It's entirely possible that Tycho is just ignorant of the fact that it's a fake number.

That seems the most likely scenario.

They've only wanted to be accountable for their words and endorsements when it's convenient to them.

Shady manipulation. If you can't update it in real-time, that is fine. Don't fake it.

I agree that Tycho probably has no idea it is not real.

That kind of 'just the average dollar per hour' counter is pretty common. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has had a population counter that works the same way on the front of their site for years. www.abs.gov.au

Mermaidpirate wrote:

That kind of 'just the average dollar per hour' counter is pretty common. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has had a population counter that works the same way on the front of their site for years. www.abs.gov.au

Sure, but the post is pretty clear that Tycho seems to believe the ticking is directly correlated to actual gains. Or at least he's stating such.

I love CP and I love what it does, and I hate that I can't fully embrace it because of jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik.

I would say email PA or post to their forums. As others have said, this is quite possibly lack of knowledge rather than fraud.
For the issues PA has, I do like that I can more or less ignore them since they just link to the specific hospitals wishlist. Note : I am only talking about donating that way.