Who Pays in Groups

Every change of a group is a transaction on the blockchain, and a transaction costs gas. During the beta the gas is test SUI, which is free.

#The Short Version

Google account: group actions are paid by the Logbook treasury, within daily limits. You pay nothing
Wallet: you pay your own gas, a few thousandths of a SUI for most actions. Test SUI is free: use "Get test SUI" on the Account page
A group is changed the way it was created. This one rule decides who pays for everything an owner or an admin does later

#Members

What you do as a member is paid the way you signed in: joining, applying, withdrawing an application, writing or removing your card, leaving, and responding to a campaign. With a Google account the Logbook treasury pays; with a wallet you do. This holds in any group, whoever created it.

One exception for Google accounts: the very first person to join a new part of a group's member list opens that part, and the treasury does not pay for that in a group created with its creator's own gas. The join page says so and asks you to join from a wallet with a little SUI, or to ask an admin to prepare the group.

#Owners and Admins

A group remembers how its creation was paid, and every later change by its owner and admins must be paid the same way:

The group was created	Changes to it are paid
With a Google account, through the Logbook treasury	By the treasury, whoever signs: also for an admin who uses a wallet
With a wallet, on its creator's own gas	By whoever makes the change, on their own gas: also for an admin who uses a Google account

The site follows the group, not the way you signed in. An admin with a wallet who changes a sponsored group signs, and the treasury pays. An admin with a Google account who changes a group created on own gas needs a little test SUI in that account; the Account page has a "Get test SUI" button.

"Changes" are: details and visibility, how people join, the list, invitation links, admins and ownership, links to other groups, archiving and deleting.

#Why This Rule

Storage on Sui is paid with a deposit that is refunded when the data is deleted. If the treasury paid for a group's storage and the owner could then free it on their own gas, the refund would go to the owner. Paying a group the way it was created sends every refund back to whoever paid. The smart contract enforces it. Campaigns have had the same rule since before groups (see Creating Campaigns).

The same reasoning gives one more rule: what the treasury paid for, the treasury frees. An application or a card sent from a Google account was paid by the treasury, and is decided or removed only in a transaction the treasury pays for.

#Applications in a Group Created from a Wallet

So in a group created on its creator's own gas, an application is decided the way the application itself was paid:

The group was created	The application was sent	Approving, rejecting, ending the wait
Through the treasury	From a Google account or a wallet	The treasury pays, whoever signs
On own gas	From a Google account (the treasury paid for it)	The treasury pays, whoever signs, although the group is paid otherwise
On own gas	From a wallet	The admin pays

The Applications screen does this for you. An application the treasury paid for is marked "paid by the Logbook sponsor"; when you approve or reject several at once and they are of both kinds, the page sends them in two parts and says so, and you confirm each. If an application still waits after an approval, the page says why: a required card is missing, a check ended, or an admin removed the address after it applied.

The applicant's side follows the same rule. Withdrawing an application, or applying again after one was not accepted, is sent through the treasury when the treasury paid for the stored record, also from a wallet.

One case cannot be approved at all, and the screen says so on the application before you try: in a group created on own gas, an application sent from a wallet with a card, from an address that already has a card in the group which the treasury paid for. The admin's gas may not replace that card, and the treasury does not pay for an application it did not pay for. The person removes the old card on the group page (My card), or the admin rejects the application. The site does not lead anyone into this state; it can arise through the SDK, whose client and the agent tools built on it also name such an application before anything is signed, and leave it out of the approval.

Choosing how to create a group

The two ways of paying meet in one place that the site cannot smooth over: the first Google account to join a new part of the member list of a group created from a wallet is refused (see Members above), until somebody with a wallet has joined that part. If your members will sign in with Google, create the group with a Google account.

#Campaigns for Groups

Creating a campaign for the members of groups is paid the way the chosen groups were created, not the way you signed in:

every group you chose was created through the treasury: the treasury pays
one of them was created on its creator's own gas: you pay, also with a Google account. The form says so before you publish

Deleting such a campaign is paid the way the campaign was created. Responding is paid like any response.

#Daily Limits

The treasury's help has limits per UTC day. When one is used up, the action waits until the next day, or you send it from a wallet where the rule above allows.

Creating groups: 2 per account, and 100 for everyone together
Per group: 100 sponsored applications, and 60 transactions of its owner and admins
Per account and group: 4 joins, applications and leaves
Per account: 100 units of group actions. Most actions cost 1 unit; joining costs 2, taking a seat on a list 3, creating a group 3, and a campaign 1 plus 2 for each of its groups. A sponsored campaign therefore reaches at most 49 groups; a larger one is created from a wallet
Asking a group to be a parent: 4 requests per group, 6 per account
Everything together: 5 SUI of group actions per day for all users, apart from responses

The limits of every sponsored transaction apply as well (see API & SDK): 30 sponsored transactions and 3 SUI per account, and limits per IP address.

A change to a sponsored group cannot be paid from your own gas while a limit is used up: the contract would refuse it. It waits until sponsorship is available again.

#On Mainnet

Who pays for memberships and storage after the beta is not decided. The beta rules are described here; they will change with the move to mainnet (see Beta Testing).