[Phanx]

I never donate money to addon authors, but I also not ask for donations from users of my addons, and I do not accept donations when they are offered. I write addons as a hobby, and publish them to benefit the WoW community, not because I want money.

It actually bothers me when I see addon authors asking for donations by saying things like "my kid needs new shoes, please help out!" -- if you are so broke you can't buy your kid some shoes (you can find perfectly good shoes for $5 at a thrift store, for example) you should probably be spending your time looking for a better job, or teaching yourself new job skills, or downsizing your lifestyle, instead of playing WoW and writing WoW addons.

I don't mind addon authors who ask for donations in a less guilt-inducing way, like "donate to my cookie fund!", but I still don't give them any money. Everyone here is (I hope) participating in the community because they enjoy participating in the community, not because they want money. This is a hobby community, not a marketplace. Plus, I use about 150 addons (excluding my own)... donating to all of them would get very expensive, very fast!

Edit: I guess I should mention that I do accept money from the Curse.com author rewards program, but that comes from other sources like ad revenue and premium subscription fees, not from user donations.

Edit #2: I also do donate money to actual causes I care about, and sometimes to the creators of other software, like TortoiseSVN or DropboxPortableAHK. I just don't feel that money should be involved in the relationship between WoW addon authors and WoW addon users.