Does anyone know the literature on intrinsic motivation well enough to comment on whether paying users to post is liable to undermine other sources of motivation?
The registration fee idea is interesting, but exacerbates the chicken and egg problem inherent in online communities. I also have a hunch that registration fees tend to make people excessively concerned with preserving their account’s reputation (so they can avoid getting banned and losing something they paid money for), in a way that’s cumulatively harmful to discourse, but I can’t prove this.
As one might expect, money is often a deterrent for actual habituation.
EDIT: Additional clarification:
The first link shows that monetary payment is only effective as a short-term motivator.
The second link is a massive study involving almost 2,000 people which tried to pay people to go to the gym. We found that after the payment period ended, gym attendance fell back to roughly pre-payment levels.
Metafilter has continued to be a pretty good site even though it requires a small fee to join. There’s also a requirement to post a few comments (you can comment for free but need to be a member to do top level posts) and wait a week after sending in money. And it’s actively moderated.
Does anyone know the literature on intrinsic motivation well enough to comment on whether paying users to post is liable to undermine other sources of motivation?
The registration fee idea is interesting, but exacerbates the chicken and egg problem inherent in online communities. I also have a hunch that registration fees tend to make people excessively concerned with preserving their account’s reputation (so they can avoid getting banned and losing something they paid money for), in a way that’s cumulatively harmful to discourse, but I can’t prove this.
Yep!
See here and here
As one might expect, money is often a deterrent for actual habituation.
EDIT: Additional clarification:
The first link shows that monetary payment is only effective as a short-term motivator.
The second link is a massive study involving almost 2,000 people which tried to pay people to go to the gym. We found that after the payment period ended, gym attendance fell back to roughly pre-payment levels.
Yes it will probably cause people to devalue the site. If you pay a dollar it will tend to “feel like” the entire endeavour is worth a dollar.
I was talking about paying people to contribute. Not having people pay for membership.
Metafilter has continued to be a pretty good site even though it requires a small fee to join. There’s also a requirement to post a few comments (you can comment for free but need to be a member to do top level posts) and wait a week after sending in money. And it’s actively moderated.
http://www.metafilter.com/about.mefi
I was talking about paying people to contribute. Not having people pay for membership.
So charge $50 =)