It's called gamification. You start counting points/upvotes etc and suddenly everyone wants to collect more of that. Quora has two more twists: It allows you to post to social networks so your friends know that you are helping people with your knowledge (oh - I'm sorry - it just does that by default). Quora also has ties to online versions of some known publications where they post popular answers. So suddenly you are "published" bonafide writer in likes of Business Insider, Info World etc. I know of people who perhaps spends ~2 hours a day writing beautiful answers to stupid questions like "why this actor is so popular" complete with screenshots, trailer videos, dialog transcripts and so on.
The same gamification strategy works on sites like StackOverflow, Reddit and HN. The most successful ones have some twists like Quora, like StackOverflow throws in bonus of putting your points in your resume. I once saw the top points earners on StackOverflow was Jon Skit who had earned 700k+ points. I looked at count of his answers, length of average answer and estimated that he must have spent 4hr per day each working day for past 4+ year to get that many points. This was on minimum side. If you convert this to hourly rate, it's same as he donated about half a million to StackOverflow.
Now if you can upvote this answer, that would be great ;).
It doesn't look zero-sum, looks more of a win-win game than a win-lose game, until we don't count the number of hours lost trying to assemble a long answer etc...But time/money/energy seems priceless when you seem to love/like what you do!So its poised to be a win-win for the source gets reputation/credits and publisher gets visits too!
So from another perspective , it seems ones likes and dislikes can be used in more ways than one!But guess transition from use to abuse occurs when priorities change!
I once saw the top points earners on StackOverflow was Jon Skit who had earned 700k+ points. I looked at count of his answers, length of average answer and estimated that he must have spent 4hr per day each working day for past 4+ year to get that many points.
That's interesting.Doesn't this defeat the very purpose of having reputation points mentioned in CV?
This was on minimum side. If you convert this to hourly rate, it's same as he donated about half a million to StackOverflow.
So that's how this so-called zero-sum-game looks but its more driven by priorities than perspective.We don't know how many people were saved from excess time and energy spent on understanding the same because of one persons generosity.
Now if you can upvote this answer, that would be great ;)
Comments
It's called gamification. You start counting points/upvotes etc and suddenly everyone wants to collect more of that. Quora has two more twists: It allows you to post to social networks so your friends know that you are helping people with your knowledge (oh - I'm sorry - it just does that by default). Quora also has ties to online versions of some known publications where they post popular answers. So suddenly you are "published" bonafide writer in likes of Business Insider, Info World etc. I know of people who perhaps spends ~2 hours a day writing beautiful answers to stupid questions like "why this actor is so popular" complete with screenshots, trailer videos, dialog transcripts and so on.
The same gamification strategy works on sites like StackOverflow, Reddit and HN. The most successful ones have some twists like Quora, like StackOverflow throws in bonus of putting your points in your resume. I once saw the top points earners on StackOverflow was Jon Skit who had earned 700k+ points. I looked at count of his answers, length of average answer and estimated that he must have spent 4hr per day each working day for past 4+ year to get that many points. This was on minimum side. If you convert this to hourly rate, it's same as he donated about half a million to StackOverflow.
Now if you can upvote this answer, that would be great ;).
It doesn't look zero-sum, looks more of a win-win game than a win-lose game, until we don't count the number of hours lost trying to assemble a long answer etc...But time/money/energy seems priceless when you seem to love/like what you do!So its poised to be a win-win for the source gets reputation/credits and publisher gets visits too!
So from another perspective , it seems ones likes and dislikes can be used in more ways than one!But guess transition from use to abuse occurs when priorities change!
That's interesting.Doesn't this defeat the very purpose of having reputation points mentioned in CV?
So that's how this so-called zero-sum-game looks but its more driven by priorities than perspective.We don't know how many people were saved from excess time and energy spent on understanding the same because of one persons generosity.
wish i could do it twice :)