i think what starman is forgetting when he suggests that its only small amounts. but what maybe $1 today, maybe $1000 next year, and with it taking a noob miner maybe a couple of days to earn such amount of dust from a single GPU, they are reluctant to just hand it over without some idea as to the reason.
there are a few of us that don't simply hand over £$3 a month to oxfam purely on the observation of a TV advert requesting funds. we do like to research where or what the funds will be used on.
this should not be new to anyone. go to any social network and just make a comment/shoutout/post asking for a dollar in actual fiat. you will get the same responses. its not just a bitcoin thing, its a human thing. everyone wants to know a bit about other people they dont already know before handing them money.
Good points all of them. I do understand this, and again, why my original intent was to try and get multiple people to donate small amounts that combined would add up to $1.00, thus each person would be risking a minimal contribution of say $0.20 worth of BTC.
I will also point out that I am collecting quite a bit of information on the human nature aspect as you point out. I just did not expect it to be quite so, well vocal, at the start. I am finding it very hard to keep myself separate from the experiment due to the overwhelming suspicions of being a scammer. So while it is fun and exciting to see all the different reactions, in my desire to keep the experiment on-track and reassure people enough that I can get enough participants to work with, I am also risking breaking one of the first parts of the experiment.