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On our framework team, we are looking into ways to encourage contributions from our users. Often our users will all need to solve the same problem and if we can work with the users to package their solution in a flexible way, other users can benifit. This means that we will need to set some code standards and work closely with the user to make sure that the code is of high quality and follows conventions of the framework. 

A member of our team came across an internal article from a developer who needed to solve the same problem and had an interesting proposal. This proposal suggested that these contributions could be solicited easier if there was a community established that works to spread the word about contributing and provides incentives for the user’s effort. The user would be rewarded with some sort of a paper certificate at a public ceremony. After giving this some thought, I think this article makes some good points about community management, but falls short in the incentive. Awards programs seem to always be the default incentive idea in proposals to motivate communities but with so many out there, so few chances to win, the (lets be honest) low value of the prize, and the time that would need to be put into selecting a winner. Not to mention that this takes peoples focus off of the passion for their craft and puts it on a pointless contest. I don’t think it is a good option. 

I think we should take the advice about community management and look at other successful community managers around us. One that comes to mind is Yelp. They were able to get real hipsters in real cities to write reviews for them; FOR FREE. These are quality reviews. Their success can be attributed to their Elite Member program. If you write enough highly rated reviews to where the community manager takes notice, you get to be part of an exclusive club. This club has a special mail list and events at posh lounges and restaurants. 

If I were to translate this model too our contribution cause, I would recommend that we start a program where a user could get the prestigious designation of a Framework contributer. They would have to have proven their skill by contributed one piece of code and shown an ability to support their code in the community. Call me optimistic but I think there are a lot of people that are passionate about what they do and we could use that passion as an incentive.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Java Script, Libraries, Web Interface Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.