October 21, 2012 at 00:23Fails of a three-year exposure crowdsourcing project or Why I almost stopped believing in myself and people
Hi, Habr, More
than three months ago, I was lucky to publish an article on the project "Nepofigizm" in the respective hubs . Due to the specifics of the hubs, the article, as it was intended from the very beginning, was a touch of self-PR (this is exactly the occupation, which I don’t feel at all and which I don’t know how to do).
In a previous article, I mentioned, among other things, that the second part is planned in the future, without blackjack and girls of facilitated behavior, but with a detailed listing of files, breaks, flaws and just fakaps, not all of which we heroically overcame (which really there, most of them I personally didn’t heroically “let go of the brakes”).
Apparently, the time has come, though belatedly, to publish a long-written and well-seasoned article, which I dare recommend to people who believe in crowdsourcing, optimism, people, mutual assistance and kindness.
By the way, I still consider myself to be; I’m only afraid that I have very little left of faith in all of the above.
Based on the results of the analysis of each problem and provided that it has been resolved, I will risk publishing information on how I succeeded; respectively and vice versa.
Problem: cooperation and partnership
Status: unsolved
Forecast: extremely negative
A year ago, I first learned the buzzword “crowdsourcing”. It was a surprise, I tell you, when I found out that what I am doing is what it is.
There is something in this word in the spirit of a clumsy phrase a la “a program of innovative and technological modernization of regions within the framework of implementing a strategy to minimize dependence on the resource-mining industry for up to two thousand one hundred and fifty years”: it smells not just like cuts and kickbacks, but “ with a soap bubble "- how else.
So, when I found out that I'm doing forgive-me-all-gods-existing-crowdsourcing and that there are a lot of people like me, I can say it’s on fire: the idea is to join forces and do something really cool lay on the surface.
Exchange and barter are so attractive: two sites, two sites - this is exactly twice as many opportunities for discussion, integration, joint projects, publications, finally, disputes and disagreements!
But all the authors of crowdsourcing-government-two-zero-projects are all primarily people who are sick of living in a country where they do not put out fires, where grandmothers are not taken across the road, where the guards are rude, where the police do nothing, where they do not close up pits, where they do not repair roads, where sellers, cashiers, employers and just officials cheat.
Ohrenit, how cool it would be for all of us to unite. Only for sure - not in this life.
Apparently, I turned out to be a very naive person. Not that I was an egoist or an egocentric (but certainly no more than any normal person), but you would see replicas of some leaders of crowdsourcing projects ...
Every second interlocutor on cooperation issues, every third remark was reduced to “what personally will I have from this?”. Some verbally honestly said that it was important for them to “get the grant,” some explained that “we are not up to you, we are too cool”, someone on a proposal for voluntary cooperation “and you make a post about us with us - beautiful, self-serving, we don’t need anything for that, ”they drove for a couple of months, and then honestly said,“ well, we are too lazy, let us publicize ourselves, or we will cross-post, and in general we only work with the press, we will not waste time on you. ”
I don’t even want to talk about cooperation with big uncles, whose ideas I personally find a lot of constructive and from whom I expected at least a polite refusal - a well-known fighter with cuts, apparently, is not interested in friendship and cooperation in principle (and after all, “ Nepofigism ”at a certain stage could perfectly fit in there).
In short, the situation is from the category of yat-mockers: everyone likes to go to conferences, hang out among the same crowdsourcers and enjoy talking about themselves, as well as exchange business cards and drink coffee with sandwiches; nobody wants to cooperate, although ready-made and mutually beneficial options for cooperation were offered to a wide variety of people.
In general, dear friends, crowdsourcing in Russia is such a fashionable thing that few people need for their own sake, but for the sake of money ... Stop, but then it's not crowdsourcing anymore, it's already a startup, no? Wait, oh shi ...
Problem: interesting up-to-date content
Status: partially resolved
Forecast: indefinite
When the project was not a very cozy cover, in which I posted something solely for self-development, self-realization and satisfaction of the graphomaniac’s carefully hidden instinct, I was almost happy: I am writing a topical post in the spirit of “if you break the law like this - you have to act like that”, people come in, leave comments, start a discussion, during which the problems of those who apply are resolved and, as a result, everyone is fine.
When "Nepofigizm" outgrew the blog format and almost naturally turned into an almost-very-real-social essence with an audience of as many as ten people, I became a little less happy: I counted on the fact that there are maniacs like me who it’s interesting to write articles in the spirit of “but look what can be done” or “the other day I defended my rights like this, check out how cool it is.”
It is obvious that such articles are interesting not only to write, but also to read.
The problem was that I could not interest such people at that time, and the almost-real-social-network with a dozen articles in which the author was your humble servant looked sad.
Then I decided that it would be nice to highlight the section with requests for help: the content problem was solved naturally, it was interesting to answer the questions, the small audience was rather a plus - there was time to help everyone, and to do it very efficiently, well, after a couple of months (facepalm.jpg) there will be people who are interested in writing something themselves, something constructive, useful and at least remotely similar to what I wrote a couple of paragraphs above.
A couple of months stretched over several years, during which the bulk of the load fell on me, and only in the last few months (or maybe even a year?) I began to feel that the project had become social: a sudden qualitative leap occurred, a lot of interesting things appeared people who not only participate in legal advice (not only as consultants, but also as consultants), but who also share their experience, practice and knowledge with all of us.
So how was the problem solved?
Firstly, donkey stubbornness (in the spirit of ME Saltykov-Shchedrin - “to be firm and not to look”), patience (where to rush something?) And fanaticism.
Secondly, by the simplest and obvious methods for everyone (except me): exclusion from the main page of posts from sections that are similar in meaning to the “q & a” section of our beloved Habr (why did I guess this only after the year’s start from the start?), By searching people with polite requests "I've read about you, write how you could do this?" and polite reminders a couple of months after they forgot about it.
Thirdly, for the sake of the experiment, 2 (two) articles were deliberately bought that seemed interesting to me and which I dared to publish, but the experiment showed exactly what was expected - you can’t try to artificially stir up the audience if you do not know how to do it.
Fourthly, I never found anything to interest the authors in: the option with money cannot be implemented for the reasons mentioned below, and the pluses in karma, alas, do not excite anyone properly.
Problem: principle gratuitousness
Status: partially resolved
Forecast: rather negative
The most painful topic for me: a public story about what the harsh truth of life does with integrity and conviction in its ideas. In general, trifles, but all the same - it’s unpleasant, because you feel like a deceiver (and you yourself are in the role of a deceived one).
In short, the essence is this: from the very beginning, the project was positioned as non-profit.
Non-profit means “free as free speech, not free as free beer”, because the so-called “free legal advice”, which sooner or later have to pay, is very, very, very much in our wonderful country, but it was interesting for me to try to implement the concept of completely free consultation: asked a question - got an answer; money was not foreseen in this chain (and it is not foreseen, and will not be foreseen), unless in the form of donations; Advertising, as I was sure, was also not needed - why place banners if all costs are offset by donate?
The problem is that you have to pay for everything. As long as the project is small - you can do it yourself, but sooner or later you need someone who would expand the functionality of the site, someone who would make a decent design, someone who made it up, but about those who moderate, rule and govern with a banhammer, and it is not necessary to speak - and so everything is clear.
Mysterious, but so necessary “someone” can be recruited from regular members of the site who could work for persuasion, only for all three years I have not found a zappumpote in the form of a web programmer under such conditions, and therefore I need someone someone who could work on compensatory terms.
I'm not talking about paying for hosting, domain and other things.
I was sure that there would be many people wishing to make microdonate; I was mistaken - in the entire history of the project, the total amount of donations is approximately equal to two thousand rubles.
As a result, I had a choice: either I advertise or spend money on everything that I can’t do myself (I’m a lawyer, I’m not a web programmer, not a web designer, I don’t have a sysadmin or even a sweater and beard) from your pocket; there was no hope for donate.
The problem has not been solved: now a banner is posted on the site and a block is leased for those who want to buy links, this is enough for the hosting and domain, but this is not enough for the purchase of the services of a normal web programmer, and even more so for the purchase of the services of those who can realize a long time conceived.
The situation is partly facilitated by the fact that one of the LiveStreet community members named netlanc helped a lot with their knowledge and skills, for which I personally am grateful to him.
In any case, this is only the beginning: I’m afraid that I will have to devote some more places for ad units, but I parted with my principles and concept of an open-source online consulting center.
Maybe next time.
Problem: loss of motivation
Status: cannot be solved in principle
Forecast: uncertain
If the project is truly crowdsourcing, then (obviously) its main goal is to do something big and friendly (the option with a friendly, but not big, is quite possible, and theoretically likely the option with a not too friendly and not really big) team.
A team is when there are some people who are united by a common goal for the sake of something: they go to the bathhouse on the thirty-first of December together, drink beer, walk around the city or just chat.
There are no problems with the team and cannot be, the main thing is that it be, because any project, even remotely similar to a social project, should have a core audience; strictly speaking, there is no team - there is no project: will not the author (he is the leader, coordinator, moderator, system administrator, webmaster and a little programmer) be one in one hundred people?
The problem of small communities is that either they don’t have that very “core” (fortunately, this stage has passed), or it exists, but, like the Schrodinger cat, it’s kind of vague - you can’t say for sure that Ivan Ivanovitch is he almost always answers such questions, Pyotr Petrovich loves such discussions, and Marvanna is the same troll. Everything is somehow a little bit everywhere, and everything seems to be there, but it is almost impossible to isolate permanent “community-forming” people.
Honestly, in the project, there are a hundred of those out of all over two thousand people, with the strength of one hundred, and this composition often changes, and the best ones suddenly leave, limiting themselves to slurred explanations.
In general, when you bang your head against a wall, sooner or later motivation falls; sometimes it happens so hard that fighting self-destructive instincts becomes quite difficult.
The result - I don’t even want to go to the site, and to participate in discussions and in general to be the center of the community - I don’t even want to. And since in a small community the team is relatively heavily dependent on the author, a lot of it breaks down and a lot has to be started almost anew.
In general, it seems that the first part of the second part (sorry for the idiotic pun) has been completed; if it is interesting, there will be a final. Thanks.
PS Dear UFO, in the article there is not a single link to the resource, please do not transfer it to "I am PR." Thanks.
than three months ago, I was lucky to publish an article on the project "Nepofigizm" in the respective hubs . Due to the specifics of the hubs, the article, as it was intended from the very beginning, was a touch of self-PR (this is exactly the occupation, which I don’t feel at all and which I don’t know how to do).
In a previous article, I mentioned, among other things, that the second part is planned in the future, without blackjack and girls of facilitated behavior, but with a detailed listing of files, breaks, flaws and just fakaps, not all of which we heroically overcame (which really there, most of them I personally didn’t heroically “let go of the brakes”).
Apparently, the time has come, though belatedly, to publish a long-written and well-seasoned article, which I dare recommend to people who believe in crowdsourcing, optimism, people, mutual assistance and kindness.
By the way, I still consider myself to be; I’m only afraid that I have very little left of faith in all of the above.
Based on the results of the analysis of each problem and provided that it has been resolved, I will risk publishing information on how I succeeded; respectively and vice versa.
Problem: cooperation and partnership
Status: unsolved
Forecast: extremely negative
A year ago, I first learned the buzzword “crowdsourcing”. It was a surprise, I tell you, when I found out that what I am doing is what it is.
There is something in this word in the spirit of a clumsy phrase a la “a program of innovative and technological modernization of regions within the framework of implementing a strategy to minimize dependence on the resource-mining industry for up to two thousand one hundred and fifty years”: it smells not just like cuts and kickbacks, but “ with a soap bubble "- how else.
So, when I found out that I'm doing forgive-me-all-gods-existing-crowdsourcing and that there are a lot of people like me, I can say it’s on fire: the idea is to join forces and do something really cool lay on the surface.
Exchange and barter are so attractive: two sites, two sites - this is exactly twice as many opportunities for discussion, integration, joint projects, publications, finally, disputes and disagreements!
But all the authors of crowdsourcing-government-two-zero-projects are all primarily people who are sick of living in a country where they do not put out fires, where grandmothers are not taken across the road, where the guards are rude, where the police do nothing, where they do not close up pits, where they do not repair roads, where sellers, cashiers, employers and just officials cheat.
Ohrenit, how cool it would be for all of us to unite. Only for sure - not in this life.
Apparently, I turned out to be a very naive person. Not that I was an egoist or an egocentric (but certainly no more than any normal person), but you would see replicas of some leaders of crowdsourcing projects ...
Every second interlocutor on cooperation issues, every third remark was reduced to “what personally will I have from this?”. Some verbally honestly said that it was important for them to “get the grant,” some explained that “we are not up to you, we are too cool”, someone on a proposal for voluntary cooperation “and you make a post about us with us - beautiful, self-serving, we don’t need anything for that, ”they drove for a couple of months, and then honestly said,“ well, we are too lazy, let us publicize ourselves, or we will cross-post, and in general we only work with the press, we will not waste time on you. ”
I don’t even want to talk about cooperation with big uncles, whose ideas I personally find a lot of constructive and from whom I expected at least a polite refusal - a well-known fighter with cuts, apparently, is not interested in friendship and cooperation in principle (and after all, “ Nepofigism ”at a certain stage could perfectly fit in there).
In short, the situation is from the category of yat-mockers: everyone likes to go to conferences, hang out among the same crowdsourcers and enjoy talking about themselves, as well as exchange business cards and drink coffee with sandwiches; nobody wants to cooperate, although ready-made and mutually beneficial options for cooperation were offered to a wide variety of people.
In general, dear friends, crowdsourcing in Russia is such a fashionable thing that few people need for their own sake, but for the sake of money ... Stop, but then it's not crowdsourcing anymore, it's already a startup, no? Wait, oh shi ...
Problem: interesting up-to-date content
Status: partially resolved
Forecast: indefinite
When the project was not a very cozy cover, in which I posted something solely for self-development, self-realization and satisfaction of the graphomaniac’s carefully hidden instinct, I was almost happy: I am writing a topical post in the spirit of “if you break the law like this - you have to act like that”, people come in, leave comments, start a discussion, during which the problems of those who apply are resolved and, as a result, everyone is fine.
When "Nepofigizm" outgrew the blog format and almost naturally turned into an almost-very-real-social essence with an audience of as many as ten people, I became a little less happy: I counted on the fact that there are maniacs like me who it’s interesting to write articles in the spirit of “but look what can be done” or “the other day I defended my rights like this, check out how cool it is.”
It is obvious that such articles are interesting not only to write, but also to read.
The problem was that I could not interest such people at that time, and the almost-real-social-network with a dozen articles in which the author was your humble servant looked sad.
Then I decided that it would be nice to highlight the section with requests for help: the content problem was solved naturally, it was interesting to answer the questions, the small audience was rather a plus - there was time to help everyone, and to do it very efficiently, well, after a couple of months (facepalm.jpg) there will be people who are interested in writing something themselves, something constructive, useful and at least remotely similar to what I wrote a couple of paragraphs above.
A couple of months stretched over several years, during which the bulk of the load fell on me, and only in the last few months (or maybe even a year?) I began to feel that the project had become social: a sudden qualitative leap occurred, a lot of interesting things appeared people who not only participate in legal advice (not only as consultants, but also as consultants), but who also share their experience, practice and knowledge with all of us.
So how was the problem solved?
Firstly, donkey stubbornness (in the spirit of ME Saltykov-Shchedrin - “to be firm and not to look”), patience (where to rush something?) And fanaticism.
Secondly, by the simplest and obvious methods for everyone (except me): exclusion from the main page of posts from sections that are similar in meaning to the “q & a” section of our beloved Habr (why did I guess this only after the year’s start from the start?), By searching people with polite requests "I've read about you, write how you could do this?" and polite reminders a couple of months after they forgot about it.
Thirdly, for the sake of the experiment, 2 (two) articles were deliberately bought that seemed interesting to me and which I dared to publish, but the experiment showed exactly what was expected - you can’t try to artificially stir up the audience if you do not know how to do it.
Fourthly, I never found anything to interest the authors in: the option with money cannot be implemented for the reasons mentioned below, and the pluses in karma, alas, do not excite anyone properly.
Problem: principle gratuitousness
Status: partially resolved
Forecast: rather negative
The most painful topic for me: a public story about what the harsh truth of life does with integrity and conviction in its ideas. In general, trifles, but all the same - it’s unpleasant, because you feel like a deceiver (and you yourself are in the role of a deceived one).
In short, the essence is this: from the very beginning, the project was positioned as non-profit.
Non-profit means “free as free speech, not free as free beer”, because the so-called “free legal advice”, which sooner or later have to pay, is very, very, very much in our wonderful country, but it was interesting for me to try to implement the concept of completely free consultation: asked a question - got an answer; money was not foreseen in this chain (and it is not foreseen, and will not be foreseen), unless in the form of donations; Advertising, as I was sure, was also not needed - why place banners if all costs are offset by donate?
The problem is that you have to pay for everything. As long as the project is small - you can do it yourself, but sooner or later you need someone who would expand the functionality of the site, someone who would make a decent design, someone who made it up, but about those who moderate, rule and govern with a banhammer, and it is not necessary to speak - and so everything is clear.
Mysterious, but so necessary “someone” can be recruited from regular members of the site who could work for persuasion, only for all three years I have not found a zappumpote in the form of a web programmer under such conditions, and therefore I need someone someone who could work on compensatory terms.
I'm not talking about paying for hosting, domain and other things.
I was sure that there would be many people wishing to make microdonate; I was mistaken - in the entire history of the project, the total amount of donations is approximately equal to two thousand rubles.
As a result, I had a choice: either I advertise or spend money on everything that I can’t do myself (I’m a lawyer, I’m not a web programmer, not a web designer, I don’t have a sysadmin or even a sweater and beard) from your pocket; there was no hope for donate.
The problem has not been solved: now a banner is posted on the site and a block is leased for those who want to buy links, this is enough for the hosting and domain, but this is not enough for the purchase of the services of a normal web programmer, and even more so for the purchase of the services of those who can realize a long time conceived.
The situation is partly facilitated by the fact that one of the LiveStreet community members named netlanc helped a lot with their knowledge and skills, for which I personally am grateful to him.
In any case, this is only the beginning: I’m afraid that I will have to devote some more places for ad units, but I parted with my principles and concept of an open-source online consulting center.
Maybe next time.
Problem: loss of motivation
Status: cannot be solved in principle
Forecast: uncertain
If the project is truly crowdsourcing, then (obviously) its main goal is to do something big and friendly (the option with a friendly, but not big, is quite possible, and theoretically likely the option with a not too friendly and not really big) team.
A team is when there are some people who are united by a common goal for the sake of something: they go to the bathhouse on the thirty-first of December together, drink beer, walk around the city or just chat.
There are no problems with the team and cannot be, the main thing is that it be, because any project, even remotely similar to a social project, should have a core audience; strictly speaking, there is no team - there is no project: will not the author (he is the leader, coordinator, moderator, system administrator, webmaster and a little programmer) be one in one hundred people?
The problem of small communities is that either they don’t have that very “core” (fortunately, this stage has passed), or it exists, but, like the Schrodinger cat, it’s kind of vague - you can’t say for sure that Ivan Ivanovitch is he almost always answers such questions, Pyotr Petrovich loves such discussions, and Marvanna is the same troll. Everything is somehow a little bit everywhere, and everything seems to be there, but it is almost impossible to isolate permanent “community-forming” people.
Honestly, in the project, there are a hundred of those out of all over two thousand people, with the strength of one hundred, and this composition often changes, and the best ones suddenly leave, limiting themselves to slurred explanations.
In general, when you bang your head against a wall, sooner or later motivation falls; sometimes it happens so hard that fighting self-destructive instincts becomes quite difficult.
The result - I don’t even want to go to the site, and to participate in discussions and in general to be the center of the community - I don’t even want to. And since in a small community the team is relatively heavily dependent on the author, a lot of it breaks down and a lot has to be started almost anew.
In general, it seems that the first part of the second part (sorry for the idiotic pun) has been completed; if it is interesting, there will be a final. Thanks.
PS Dear UFO, in the article there is not a single link to the resource, please do not transfer it to "I am PR." Thanks.