WikiWork
I think Evan Prodromou's weblog post about paying for Wiki content is excellent, and if I were in his shoes, or that of anybody working at the back end of a Wiki based company, like AboutUs, I would not be very motivated to pay for Wiki content.
Anybody that has spent any time with people in the Wiki community realizes there is an almost religious zealotry and passion for “Wiki ways” – no problem with that! Take a trip to the back end operations at such companies and you will see highly motivated and passionate people with a day job they love, and that puts food on their table.
These few people that start up Wiki based companies, and their back end employees, are like the “chosen few”, able to do work they like and get paid for it.
What about the rest of the populace? The rest of the populace reads all the upside “stuff” about Wiki and sees the happy faces of those involved, and wonders, “is there any way that I can leverage this phenomenon to put food on my own table – because I currently hate my day job?”
So it should be no wonder that within this warm and embracing Wiki culture there are content providers that are not employed by the Wiki companies, having thoughts about how they might make some money in the process, just as do the “insiders” at the Wiki company.
There are many in the Wiki community that want to make the world a better place – I commend them for this attitude. It is not a stretch to say that if a lot more folks had decent paying jobs they liked, again like the folks on payroll at Wiki companies, the world would be a better place. The problem is the current Wiki processes are not addressing such work related issues, and may never do so. Sharing and editing “content” is a lot different problem than “how can I make money to put food on my table?” – and so far I see no novel solutions to the latter problem, that have a chance to impact a large percentage of the populace.
So for those of you with day jobs you hate, or no day job at all, suck it up – and when you have some free time, contribute to some Wiki pages. MartinPfahler
MartinPfahler, I actually had a day/night job that I loved for many years, while I worked on my passion for wiki. I left that job, much better paying than an internet start up job, for a vision of something that might be better, not in terms of money for me, but in terms of benefit for the larger world. Utopian I know, something that I have always had to contend with, "am I being utopian (read, mental masturbation) or am I really doing something?" I know that my work has benefited many people in my life. I hope this wiki endeavor does also. As a union organizer, I am interested in work and the organization of work. My excitement about wiki comes from one of the basic ideas, whoever shows up builds it and we never know what ideas will emerge. I believe that wiki is truly an emergent experience. What ideas about money and work will emerge from these interactions... MarkDilley
MarkDilley you make some great points! There is a difference between leaving a job that pays more, to take on a job that pays less, and having a job one hates, or having a job that pays so little one cannot feed themselves.
Evan states a reason that one should not pay for Wiki content:
- Low payment a disincentive. When people work for a noble purpose, they are told that their work is highly valued. When people work for $0.75/hour, they are told that their work is very low-valued. Which kind of work do you want to do?
Most of us still have to live in the market economy where ones day job pay is reflected by market place conditions. In such regard in effect Evan admits that using ones time to add Wiki content is viewed by the market place as “low value” work. There are only so many hours in a person’s day, and to put food on ones table they are often faced with having to decide if their limited time should be spent on activity that the market place views as higher value – its simply tough to feed yourself at $0.75/hour (assuming this number that Evan states is a true reflection of Wiki content value in the market place).
When one factors in a person’s day job hours (lots of folks have to work two jobs just to make ends meet), and perhaps other activities such as spending time with children, doing chores around the house, etc., many people find themselves in situations where they simply have little or no time for “online” activity. In the future such folks can find themselves increasingly marginalized and disenfranchised.
I also think there is exciting stuff going on in the Wiki community. That said I think addressing such work issues as related to online activity is still outside the solution range of current Wiki modes – and I realize one can make a good argument that Wiki’s never had this intent in the first place. Personally I’m hoping somewhere along the evolution of the Internet a better “day job” mechanism is invented because I think that would be very empowering for lots of people.
One thing that still amazes me is how few smart minds involved with the Internet or R&D or intellectual pursuits spend time trying to gain better day job mechanisms for the populace (if we can put a man on the moon why can’t we - - - - ). Perhaps it is because these folks already have their good day job.MartinPfahler
What a great point you make, Martin. I agree that building more of a commons-based economy is really important. It's really hard to get paid to work in Open Content or Open Source software today. You pretty much have to spend hundreds -- thousands -- of hours working for free, in your own spare time, and maybe somehow that will translate into a job that will pay your bills. Then again, that's not an infrequent pattern in the world of arts, anyways. And typically you're doing it because you love it and care about it, so it's not such a bad thing.
It would be great to discuss some ways to make it easier for people to either work full-time or supplement their income with work they do for the commons. --Evan 20:22, 17 July 2007 (PDT)
Evan, thanks for your great feedback. In terms of your, “It would be great to discuss some ways - - “ I am wrestling with the nature of the environment that exists for most day jobs, meaning where they exist in a market place economy based on supply and demand. When lots of people can supply the demand the market place values their work lower, when fewer people can supply their value goes up. This seems to butt heads with the Wiki mode were the culture in effect states “everybody can do it and participate” – which in some ways is reflective of lots of people able to supply the demand so their market place value goes down. Perhaps today’s Wiki mode within our market place economy has people (especially content providers) inherently stuck in a low market value position?
MarkDilley working with union organizing surely knows that unions often deal with this situation by forming large groups that try to control the supply side of the equation, so as to drive up their market place value (anybody trying to break a union picket line as a scab worker will realize this control of supply side phenomenon can get intense).
Also in the market place is another "day job" income earning dynamic. People that take higher risk, have potential to earn more money – yet on the flip side lose more. Lots of folks don’t have the stomach for this entrepreneurial mode, or have so many life burdens they cannot take on such risk, so choose more secure forms of earning income, typical of employee status. Seems to me the ideal mechanism(s) for financial compensation would enable risk taking for those willing, and more secure income opportunities for those that don’t take high risk.
So the problem remains, what type of mechanism(s) can be "invented" to enable folks to gain a decent days pay? MartinPfahler.
SamRose has some notes on this.
The above link to Sam's page offers a great "short" summary and models such as based on a cooperative, meaning where all that contribute to a Wiki are in effect sharing any monetary value that is built up, and then Sam following with:
:Biggest issue, how do you fairly account for roles and what they are worth in revenue shares?
I think Sam's above statement is the "Very" tough question where the rubber hits the road.
Sam's above statement brings up the problems that Evan mentions, such as making subjective decisions about the monetary value of each person’s Wiki contribution. On one end of the extreme, such as with a cooperative model, one might say, “everybody gets an equal share of value growth” – which will leave some people saying that is communism and does not motivate folks that work harder than others. On the other extreme is open market supply and demand dynamics where “anybody” can contribute so the supply side is so easy to get that the market place values the labor as trivially cheap.
I really wish some much smarter minds in the community (than my small one) would give this sticky issue more thought. If the community could figure out something between these two extremes it might provide a window of opportunity for a novel pilot project, to test the resulting dynamics. MartinPfahler
Hello all. i've read through this discussion, and I'm pretty fascinated with the insights and the problem that it is confronting.
I think Evan is likely right about the low market rate for wiki contribution. For instance, http://wikimmunity.org pays $1.00 for an article that is a minimum of 200 words or more. I don't know how much people are making by contributing to wikimmunity, because I can't seem to find anything online that describes anyone's experience actually using wikimmunity.
Basically, though, I agree with the direction that Martin is headed in above, when he talks about:
:When lots of people can supply the demand the market place values their work lower, when fewer people can supply their value goes up.
This is also compounded by the fact that wiki content itself is released under a license that makes it non-rivalrous (or "Anti-Rival"[1]public good, in economics terms. That means that anyone can come along and see it, benefit from it, and re-use it. So, this means of course that potential sources of revenue do not include the wiki cotnent itself. Typically, revenue sources are from some form of advertising or marketing activity. The community generated content is the "attractor" that brings people who will hopefully click on ads, folow links, etc. Generally, the amount of revenue that can be generated from advertising is not enough to sustain contributors at a "living wage". Wikimmunity's 1.00 per 200 word article is darn close to Evan's suggested .75 per hour. And, there is not really an equitable way to track the value of wiki contributions, so a "flate rate" fee is offered, as seen in wikimmunity.org.
So, I've started to think about other ways that people might generate revenue from the creation of public goods, like the knowledge commons here in aboutus.org and ither wiki communities. One of the conclusions that I am coming to is that it is possible for people to make money by Doing Something with the public goods.
Right now, there are huge and rapidly growing volumes of content, knowledge, software code, designs, and more that are released under license that effectively makes them a public good. Very rarely are people paid to create these public goods. But, increasingly, I am finding that I am able to be paid to Do Something with them. If I can put together a package of knowledge/information/tutorial/research for people that helps them understand how to solve a problem they care about, they are willing to pay me to do that. Many times, they don't care whether the resources used for their solution were public goods or not, so long as the solution works well, and so long as I can support it when needed. One of the steps that I've tried to actively take is to "tithe" money back to the sources of the public goods I am using when possible. Donating to Wikipedia, to Open Source software projects, etc., when I make money using their creations.
- It seems to me that this rapidly growing volume of public goods involves stuff that can be shoved through a digital pipe. For all manner of reasons that prevents a large segment of the populace from getting paid to do something with it, whereas the Internet has potential to help them get paid to do things with “stuff” that can’t be pushed through a digital pipe.
Martin, we are on the same page about having the goal of people getting paid to do things with the internetby employing "stuff" that can't be pushed through a "digital pipe". Now, everything on the internet is "stuff that can be pushed through a digital pipe", of course. But I think I get the gist of what you are saying. Although it would be neat to see you describe an imaginary, plausible scenario (to create a story) that walks us through what you are envisioning. Just to help anyone who comes across this understand. Or, I can try to create a story of what I think you mean, and you can then change and re-arrange it as needed?
Great input Sam! - hope we get more of it!
I started to produce a scenario/story as you suggest above, but after my third page of text I realized to gain understanding of the issues, it is simply too long, and likely few if any would read it – so I try a different approach - by trying to answer some questions my “too long story” would raise.
The answer is: There is needed a new on-line service. People that spend lots of time on-line (I do) can go there, and post their project or need. A huge army of socially minded (make the world a better place) folks read postings at this site. If they think, “this project or request for help is worth my time and effort”, they go off-line, and go “door to door” in their local area to verbally explain the nature of a project or service to people that typically spend little or no time on-line. They might also communicate this with paper flyers they leave at the front door, or similar techniques.
This “face to face” communication also tells “off-line” people what web site to visit to engage the project or get help, and if they have no computer, where they can go to get on-line (library, etc. – or this liaison person might even offer their own computer to give the off-line person a peek at what they need to see on-line).
This “off-line awareness gaining service” might also have the liaison people that knock door to door, requesting some form of payment. This mechanism has potential to gain the attention of a lot of people, at much lower cost than other forms of media or advertising. In this way on-liners can make off-liners more aware of “stuff” that could gain them uplift and improve their personal lives (such as novel work opportunities). Today this Internet service does not exist. If it does exist, it is of limited value, because so few people know about it - which exposes that they are not themselves very good at gaining public awareness.
The answer is: A huge army of (make the world a better place) on-line folks lobby the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and in that effort also request that the SEC clarify relevant issues with “No Action” letters. It is to in effect force the SEC to make an exemption or new investor classification. It would allow one to make some type of project posting on the Internet. The nature of the postings is that if a reader has passion, they can put some of their money, most often via credit card transfer method, into a virtual money collection pot. The amount contributed is typically less than $100. People are contributing money to the project with the expectation that if the project is successfully executed, it will gain them a new opportunity to add their labor to “something”, and get paid for it (work opportunity).
The downside of this dynamic is that a person's "labor applied" payment rate might be diminished if lots of other people do the same thing (which may or may not happen - supply/demand economics). This is a “free rider” problem. Many people will resist making a money contribution in the first place, having the attitude, “why should I risk my money to gain this or that, when people that do not take this money risk, will also gain access or the same opportunity?” To overcome this problem, people that take the early stage risk, by contributing their money to the virtual collection pot, will be in a position to also earn (in addition to payment for their applied labor), passive income, every time a free rider person does the same thing. If there are lots of these free riders, there is potential to gain a lot of passive revenue stream. Realizing this potential passive revenue stream is an upside, more people will contribute to the virtual collection pot in the first place, thus a project is more likely to collect the large dollar amount needed for its execution.
Explaining this process to people on the Internet, and having the virtual collection pot, is illegal today. Any time people put their money into a pot with some expectation of a passive return on their money, based on explanatory content they read at a web site, the people putting up this explanatory information for the general populace to read, face potentially big legal problems. This SEC “illegality” is today preventing the Internet from being leveraged to efficiently share risk, by people that have no wealth, which greatly limits their work and income earning opportunities.
Also there are a lot of people in the public that would invest less than $100, in what they feel is a good cause, if they would not lose the value of their $100, at least maintain its value (note a non profit donation causes a monetary loss). Today such people, again, cannot be told about the passive return opportunity via an Internet posting, read by the general populace. Today only accredited investors (must qualify as having high wealth, such as over a million dollars) can legally read about passive return money opportunities, which of course excludes the majority of the populace.
The SEC reasoning is that they do not want a zillion scam artists posting “make money” opportunities on the web. The counter argument is that while existing laws are intended to prevent this fraud, “white collar” scam artists (Enron, etc.) have fleeced the public for a lot more money than these small time crooks (SEC you are too worried about the small fries, and let the big fish go). Also better than adding layers of government regulators and laws ($$$$$) to prevent fraud, to instead require extreme transparency of money flow, then in exchange allow new forms of Internet money pooling. Extreme money transparency combined with reputation economy and trust dynamics on the Internet, have potential to flush out quality money contribution opportunities, where one can have passive returns. Folks on the web (Internet/computer savvy people) could do more to lay out how such systems would actually work, and then lobby the SEC to read the “how to”, and to allow testing of these new systems.
To date the SEC has already allowed (no action letters) private investment companies to solicit high wealth people on the Internet, using special procedures – so why not also low wealth people using special procedures?
I apologize – even these answers are long. You can imagine how long is the story that raises the questions, to which the above are the answers. In general the stories deal with, “how can on-line folks do more to help people that do not want to, or cannot, add value to stuff that can be shoved through a digital pipe – so they too can have a better day job and gain increased wealth?” Feel free to move this content to a new page(s)if you think not ideally located in this space. MartinPfahler
- Also lots of high tech “stuff” is not a public good, so one is not able to do something with them and get paid for it. For example we pay taxes that fund R&D projects at universities and federal labs. But try to get access to most of these, so you can do something with the results worthy of payment in the market place, and you will discover you cannot gain access – which is actually a public goods social injustice, because your tax money paid for this R&D.MartinPfahler
I totally agree with you, there is only a very infant effort to create a science and design commons. User:Sam_Rose
Sam, “Do good” internet efforts with potential to make a big public impact, can run into “business as usual” political pressures that can squash the Internet effort. Try to unlock the hold that academia as an institution, and large corporations have, on R&D efforts that are really funded by Joe and Jane’s tax dollars, so that Joe and Jane actually gain access and direct benefit (so Joe and Jane get better uplift for their R&D tax dollar) – and you will discover that you are an ant with a large foot quickly coming down to squash you. I don't think creating a science and design commons gets at the real underlying process problems. In contrast I think the rot lies in today's money collection and control mechanisms - they need changing.MartinPfahler
See RiskSharingPassiveReturn MartinPfahler
So, I am effectively using a public goods knolwedge commons as a basis for for-profit market exchanges. I now have a vested interest in helping to make sure those commons of knowledge and public goods remain healthy and useful, so I will likely contribute to them on an ongoing , both monitarly and via code or writing, or with feedback, which most of the projects find quite valuable.
This helps deal with the issues of Externalities:
The goal here being to increase the "Positive" externalities, and decrease the negative ones.
So, as mentioned in the "Notes from Conference call" below, it seems to me that the direction that wiki communities can go in to "replace the day job" is to provide the tools and support and resources that people need to DO something with the public goods. To combine them together in ways that create value for people who would be willing to hire the group of people to solve problems. Also, the system of AboutUs.org could act as an attractor both of problem solvers, and of people with problems.
Example scenarios edit
A group of people with problems could show up here and pool money, and groups of problem solvers could propose solutions. A reverse auction, for instance, could be used to connect these groups. Groups could submit themselves to trust metric systems taht apply to these transactions, but they could also submit themselves to being rated on indexes that show that they are actively increasing Positive Externalities in different ways. Examples of ways they can increase Positive Externalities include:
- investing time in mainatining the Knowledge commons and public goods, by helping to make sure they are high quality and useable. Offering feedback to the communities
What about this slight process twist on the above scenario.
A group of people with the problem show up here. Assume problem solvers having the capability to gain the needed solution are already found, in place, and eager to do the needed work. Then from both the people with the problem, and also the problem solvers, comes the question, “who will pay for our problem solver time and resources, so that we can do the labor, etc., needed?" In such regard a common process problem is that at the current stage of problem awareness there are still too few “problem having” people in their group, so they can’t pool enough money, so their problem does not get solved, so the tiny group falls apart.
Seems to me this boils down to “how does one get more awareness of the problem/project efficiently so the tiny group can grow much larger quickly. Anybody have ideas as to how to overcome this process barrier? MartinPfahler
Notes from Conference call edit
SamRose, LionKimbro, MattisManzel, MarkDilley
Seed ideas:
Community brokerage
When groups or individuals of groups come in and looking for x, librian of communities / businesses.
How to share revenue with groups rather than with individuals
- reason to share with groups, to encourage group formation - this is why they are there in the first place, interested in helping people solve problems.
Question: "How do we identify groups?'
Why are we here, what are we doing here
Contributing "dues"?
Instead of weblog or blog, a face.
Getting on stage, showing a face.
Feedback by being rewarded by writing is being read.
When you join most groups, slightly formal - dues would be writing and WikiWork - this is why revenue can go to the group. (?)
Think of folks as Co-investors.
a share of the advertising - agreement, legal or informal, give people voice - if we can figure out how to do this. that would be great.
We offer: resources: training, shares, services, custom programming,
Earn things together.
Open up RevenueCreation, RiskSharing, WikiWork.
