Frequently Asked Questions

What is The Loathing Foundation?

Great question, in fact we have a whole page to answer it!

Is this a Bank?

This is not a bank; it is a self sustaining charity. The only beneficiaries are randomly selected players who are given a chance to buy discounted Items of the Month.

Proceeds from trades are used exclusively to fund additional Items of the Month. Items of the Month are stored in the Foundation's Display Case and saved until they are made available for trading.

How do you decide what standard items are available for trade?

When a standard item's mall price has reached at least 2x the price of a Mr. Accessory for a month or more, it becomes "mature" at which point it starts to become available for trade.

Each month some number of EACH mature item is set aside as "available" for trade. If more than one item is mature, some number of EACH would be available.

We don't make all copies of a given mature item available right away, which helps them stay available for longer. If you really want to know, the formula is max(1, round(CopiesOfTheMatureItem / 12)).

Here's an interactive to help explain.

The Loathing Foundation has some amount of a very real Item of the Month...

copies of Baby Streganonasaurus

This IotM has been selling for over 2x the price of a Mr. Accessory for at least a month, so it's mature.

How many copies of it will be available, and over what time period?

Month	Qty.
1	2
2	2
3	1
4	1
5	1
6	1
7	1
8	1
9	1
10	1
11	1
12	1
13	1

Are there different processes for older items?

Legacy items (those that are no longer in standard) that are worth over 2x a Mr. A are made available in a more controlled way. This is because we have fewer copies of them and they arrive in unpredictable quantities / through donations:

Legacy items are made available in batches of 3 (three)*.
Batches are distributed over several months.
Only 1 (one)* legacy item will be distributed each month.
You cannot obtain more than one legacy item from the same pool.

* these amount may eventually change.

Here's a simulation to help explain.

What if I get a non-binding item from this project?

If you obtain a non-binding Item of the Month from The Loathing Foundation, we ask that you maintain the spirit of The Loathing Foundation as your relationship with the item develops over time.

This means you should use it (or stash it with a clan that will share it), rather than treat it as an opportunity to make meat from a re-sale. If you find yourself tired of owning it, please find a way to get it to someone else, at an affordable price.

You are, of course, always welcome to donate a non-binding Item of the Month back to TLF, and we will make sure it gets re-distributed!

How do you pick the players who get to make a trade?

Each month TheLoathingFoundation (#3580284) will send a k-mail to everybody who has registered announcing the pool of available items for the month.

Players will have 7 days from the announcement to respond with a ranked list of any available items they would like to be able to purchase at a discount. Any player who replies will be entered into that month's drawing pool.

Do not indicate interest for items that you already own.

Do not indicate interest for items that you don't actually want.

Players will be randomly selected from the pool. The first player picked will receive their first choice; the second will receive their first choice if it is still available and will otherwise receive their second choice. This will continue until each item has been allocated to somebody.

What happens if you're picked?

Congratulations! Here's the process:

TheLoathingFoundation (#3580284) will send you a k-mail letting you know you're been picked and asking you to respond with an up to date inventory snapshot for your account.
Once you reply TheLoathingFoundation will send a trade request for the item allocated to you.
You should respond to the request with 1 Mr. A and 3 Uncle Bucks (or 13 Uncle Bucks).
You use your item, send an updated inventory snapshot, and have fun!

What if I'm picked and can't afford to make a trade?

Not a problem. You can write back saying that you intend to use your option, but need some time. Just let us know which item it is you wanted to trade for and we'll "reserve" it for you for up to three months (including the month you were eligible for the original trade).

What if I'm picked and no longer want (or already own) the item?

Thank you for being honest! You won't be expected to make the trade; just let us know, and then the item that had been set aside for you will just get added back to the availability pool for the next month.

How do you decide how many items to buy from Mr. Store?

We have a Minting Pool which is a pile of Mr. Accessories that we've obtained either through trades of donations. Every month we mint a minimum of 5 copies of the new Item of the Month. If the minting pool is large enough we will buy more than 5.

The formula is: max(5, ceil(SizeOfMintingPool / 6)

Here's an interactive to help explain.

The Loathing Foundation has Mr. Accessories.

This means we will buy 5 copies of the current Item of the Month from Mr. Store

We would then have 15 Mr. Accessories left for future months.

How is this sustainable?

This project actually manages to fund itself! Each time a player buys an item it adds 13 Uncle Bucks to the minting pool, which can be used to buy future items.

This means that we only need to have 4 available items in a given month in order to be able to sustain the next month's baseline purchase of 5 items.

The Loathing Foundation has items that are available for trade this month.

This would sustainably fund 5 copies of the current Item of the Month from Mr. Store.

There would also be 2 Uncle Bucks left over to be added to the minting pool for future months.

What if you run out of funds?

We can't ever truly run out of funds since we buy items directly from Mr. Store for 10 Uncle Bucks and sell them for 13 Uncle Bucks, and funds are never sent out of the foundation.

That said, it's possible that the minting pool will temporarily run dry if players have not been making trades.

If that happens we wouldn't be able to purchase that month's Item of the Month and so that month's Item wouldn't be available through The Loathing Foundation.

Who is behind this?

This project is maintained by a few members of the KoL community (primarily slifty #17040367). If you have any questions feel free to kick off a discussion.

Can I help support this?

We accept donations, but first let's be clear about a few things:

donations are NOT required or expected. You can participate in The Loathing Foundation without ever donating a thing.
donations provide no benefit to you aside from warm fuzzy feelings. You won't get priority access to make trades, for instance.
donations are not an investment. Don't expect donations to be returned; this is NOT a bank.

You can send donations via kmail to TheLoathingFoundation (#3580284)

Please note: We do NOT deal with meat, only Mr. Accessories, Uncle Bucks, and items that you have bought from Mr. Store.

Do you prefer donations of Mr. As or IOTMs?

If you donate a Mr. Accessory it will be added to the Minting Pool, which impacts the ability to buy new Items of the Month over time.

If you donate an Item of the Month it will added to the number of copies of that item on top of the items that are minted. For example if The Loathing Foundation was going to mint 5 copies of an Item and then received a donation copy of that item it would then have 6 copies total at the end of the month.

If you are donating a copy of the current Item of the Month we ask that you purchase the donated copy from Mr. Store directly, rather than purchasing one from the mall (and therefore removing it from the market).

(You are also welcome to donate past copies of Items of the Month).