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Comment by OJFord | Hacker News Reader

> Top donors this month

Is the (admittedly quite small) heading.

Also I noted that Brin (only one I clicked on) is in last place/#29 at $0 this month. So (and to find out was the reason I clicked) this is 'how much have these 29 billionaires donated this month'; not 'who are the top billionaire donors, all listed are big donors'.

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This almost seems like a metric chosen specifically to get Dorsey on top since he recently made a single massive donation while people like Gates have contributed a much larger amount over a much longer period of time.

Donations this month is a meaningless metric.

Total % of net worth would be the obvious metric, wouldn't it?

Is this only US billionaires? There are 614 billionaires in the US according to Forbes[0], there are only 29 listed here, ~5% of the total.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

Yeah, %net worth would be more meaningful, but I still think monthly is odd. Why should it look bad if you donate nothing for 11 months and then drop a big one, because that's what you do every Christmas or something.

Assuming accurate monthly data is even available, I think a 12mo moving average would make more sense. In addition to the %net worth you suggest.

Admittedly the scoring just highly multiplies donations for this month. It still gives some weight to donations and giving before hand, but less so.

Larry Ellison is #21, having donated $0 this month.

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