Failures of a three-year crowdsourcing project or why I almost stopped believing in myself and people
Hi, Habr,
More than three months ago, I had the good fortune to publish an article on the project “Non-refusalism” in the respective hubs. Due to the specifics of the hubs, the article, as was conceived from the very beginning, was with a slight touch of self-praise (this is exactly the occupation, the inclinations towards which I absolutely do not feel and which I do not know how to do at all).
In the last article I, among other things, mentioned that in the future the second part is planned, without blackjack and girls of lightweight behavior, but with a detailed listing of files, breaks, flaws and just fakapov, not all of which we heroically overcame ( there, most of them, personally, I am not at all heroically “let down on the brakes”).
')
Apparently, the time has come, albeit belatedly, after all, to publish a long-written and well-groomed article, which I dare to recommend to people who believe in crowdsourcing, optimism, people, mutual help and kindness.
By the way, I still attribute myself to this; I am only afraid that I have very little left of faith in all of the above.
According to the results of the analysis of each problem and provided that it was solved, I would venture to publish information about how I managed it; respectively and vice versa.
Problem: cooperation and partnership
Status: not resolved
Forecast: extremely negative
A year ago, I first recognized the buzzword "crowdsourcing." That was a surprise, I tell you, when I found out that what I was doing - this is it.
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 the strategy to minimize dependence on the resource industry in the period up to two thousand and one hundred and fiftieth year”: it smells not only cuts and kickbacks, but “ bubble "- even as.
So, when I found out that I was engaged in forgive-me-all-gods-being-crowdsourcing and that people like me, like so much, I could say, caught fire: because the idea to combine efforts 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, and finally, disputes and disagreements!
But all the authors of crowdsourcing projects are two-zero projects — they are all primarily people who are tired of living in a country where they don’t put out fires, where grandmothers do not drive across the road, where 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.
Oh, how cool it would be for all of us to unite. But that's for sure - not in this life.
I, apparently, was a very naive person. Not that I was an egoist or an ego-centrist (but certainly not more than any normal person), but you would see the remarks of some of the leaders of crowdsourcing projects ...
Every second interlocutor on cooperation issues, every third remark was reduced to "and what personally will I have from this?". Some orally honestly said that the main thing for them was “to master the grant”, some explained that “we are not up to you, we are too cool”, someone is on a proposal for voluntary cooperation “and you make a post about you with us - beautiful, self-friendly, we don’t need anything for that ”a couple of months, and then they honestly said,“ well, we’re lazy, let’s give us PR or do it, and we generally cooperate with the press, we won’t spend time on you ”.
I don’t even want to talk about cooperation with big uncles, whose ideas I personally find in many constructive ones and from which I expected at least a polite refusal - a well-known fighter against sawing, apparently, is not interested in friendship and cooperation (and Nefigigizm "at a certain stage could perfectly fit there).
In short, the situation is from the NI-Izdets category: everyone loves to go to conferences, hang out among the same crowdscorers and enjoy talking about themselves, and also exchange business cards and drink coffee with sandwiches; Nobody wants to cooperate, although ready and, ay, mutually beneficial options for cooperation were offered to a variety of people.
In general, dear friends, crowdsourcing in Russia is such a fashionable thing that few people need for themselves, but for money ... Stop, and then this is not crowdsourcing, this is a startup, no? Wait, oh shi ...
Problem: interesting actual content
Status: partially resolved
Outlook: Uncertain
When the project was a not too cozy blok, in which I posted something solely for self-development, self-realization and satisfaction of the carefully hidden graphomaniac instinct, I was almost happy: I write a current post in the spirit of “if you violate the law like that — you need to act like that ”, People come, leave comments, start a discussion, during which the problems of the applicants are solved and, as a result, all are well.
When Nefigizm turned into a 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 expected that there would be people like me, freaks It is interesting to write articles in the spirit of "but see what you can do" or "I recently defended my rights like this, check it out as cool."
It is obvious that such articles are interesting not only to write, but also to read.
The problem was that I was not able to interest such people at that time, but a near-real-social network with a dozen articles in which your humble servant was the author, looked despondent.
Then I decided that it would be nice to highlight a section with requests for help: the content problem was solved naturally, answering questions was interesting, a small audience was more of a plus - it was time to help everyone, and to do it very well, but after a couple of times months (facepalm.jpg) there will be people who are interested in writing something by themselves, something constructive, useful and at least remotely similar to what I wrote a couple of paragraphs above.
A couple of months stretched for several years, during which most of the burden 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: there was a sudden qualitative leap, many 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, practices and knowledge with all of us.
So how was the problem solved?
First, as a donkey stubbornness (in the spirit of ME Saltykov-Shchedrin - “to be firm and not look”), patience (where to rush, then?) And fanaticism.
Secondly, the simplest and most obvious (except for me) methods are: the exclusion from the main page of posts from sections similar in meaning to the “q & a” section of our beloved Habr (why did I guess this only through the year from the start?) people with polite requests “I've read about you, write how you could do it?” and polite reminders a couple of months after they forgot about it.
Thirdly, for the sake of experiment, two (2) 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 the audience if you don’t know how to do it.
Fourthly, I still could not find what the authors were interested in: the money option cannot be realized for the following reasons, and the pluses in karma, alas, do not excite anyone properly.
Problem: principal free
Status: partially resolved
Forecast: rather negative
The most painful topic for me: a public story about what makes the harsh truth of life with principledness and conviction in their ideas. In general, little things, but all the same - it is unpleasant, because you feel like a deceiver (moreover, in the role of a deceived one, you yourself are a member).
In short, the essence is this: from the very beginning the project was positioned as a non-commercial one.
Non-commercial means “free as free speech, not free as free beer”, because there are so-called “free legal advice” that you have to pay sooner or later, in our wonderful country there is very, very, very much, and it was interesting for me to try to implement the concept of completely free counseling: asked a question - got an answer; money in this chain was not provided (and it is not provided, and it will not be provided), except perhaps in the form of donations; advertising, as I was sure, was also not needed - why place banners, if all costs are compensated by donate?
The problem is that you have to pay for everything. As long as the project is small, you can do it on your own, but sooner or later you need someone who would be involved in expanding the functionality of the site, someone who would make a decent design, someone who made it, well, those who moderate, rule and wield a banhammer, and there is no need to say - and so everything is clear.
Mysterious, but such necessary "someone" can be recruited from the regular members of the site who could work for persuasion, only for all three years I did not find zapmpotek in the form of a web programmer under such conditions, and, therefore, someone is needed who could work on compensable terms.
I'm not talking about paying for hosting, domain and other things.
I was sure that there would be a lot of people willing to make a microdate; I was wrong - 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 place an advertisement, or I spend money on everything that I can’t do myself (I'm a lawyer, I'm not a web programmer, not a web designer, not a sysadmin, and I don’t even have a sweater and beard) out of pocket; there was no hope for donate.
The problem did not dare: now a banner is placed on the site and a block is rented for those who want to buy links, this is enough for hosting and domain, but this is not enough for buying the services of a normal web programmer and even more so for buying the services of those who can realize a long time conceived.
Partly, the fact that one of the members of the LiveStreet community named netlanc helped me a lot with my knowledge, skills and abilities, which I personally thank him from the bottom of my heart, helped me a lot.
In any case, this is only the beginning: I am afraid that I will have to allocate a certain number of places for advertising blocks, but I broke up with my own principles and the concept of an open-source online consulting center.
Maybe next time.
Problem: loss of motivation
Status: can not be resolved in principle
Outlook: Uncertain
If the project is truly crowdsourced, then (obviously) its main goal is to do something big and friendly (the option with a friendly but not large is quite possible, and an option with a team that is not too friendly and not large at all).
A collective is when there are some people who are united by a single 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 simply communicate.
There are no problems with the team and there can be no, the main thing is that it should be, because any project, even remotely similar to a social project, must have a core audience; strictly speaking, there is no team - there is no project: will not the author (he is the manager, coordinator, moderator, sysadmin, webmaster and a little bit a programmer) be one in a hundred people?
The problem of small communities is that either they don’t have that very “core” (fortunately, this stage has passed), or it does, but, like Schrödinger’s cat, there’s some kind of indefinite - you can’t say for sure that Ivan Ivanitch is almost always answers such questions here, Petr Petrovich loves such discussions, and Marvanna is still a troll. Everything is somehow a little and everywhere, and everything seems to be there, but it is almost impossible to isolate permanent "community-forming" people.
To be honest, in the project there are a hundred or so people out of all over two thousand people, while the composition often changes, and the best suddenly leave, confining themselves to vague explanations.
In general, when you beat your head against a wall - sooner or later, motivation falls; sometimes it happens so hard that it becomes quite difficult to fight with self-destructive instincts.
The result - I don’t even want to go to the site, and I don’t even want to participate in discussions and generally be a community center. And since in a small community, the team is relatively heavily dependent on the author - a lot of things break down in it and much has to be started almost anew.
In general, it seems that the first part of the second part (sorry for the idiotic pun) is completed, if you're interested - there will be a final. Thank.
PS Dear UFO, the article does not contain any links to the resource, please do not transfer it to "I am promoting". Thank.
More than three months ago, I had the good fortune to publish an article on the project “Non-refusalism” in the respective hubs. Due to the specifics of the hubs, the article, as was conceived from the very beginning, was with a slight touch of self-praise (this is exactly the occupation, the inclinations towards which I absolutely do not feel and which I do not know how to do at all).
In the last article I, among other things, mentioned that in the future the second part is planned, without blackjack and girls of lightweight behavior, but with a detailed listing of files, breaks, flaws and just fakapov, not all of which we heroically overcame ( there, most of them, personally, I am not at all heroically “let down on the brakes”).
')
Apparently, the time has come, albeit belatedly, after all, to publish a long-written and well-groomed article, which I dare to recommend to people who believe in crowdsourcing, optimism, people, mutual help and kindness.
By the way, I still attribute myself to this; I am only afraid that I have very little left of faith in all of the above.
According to the results of the analysis of each problem and provided that it was solved, I would venture to publish information about how I managed it; respectively and vice versa.
Problem: cooperation and partnership
Status: not resolved
Forecast: extremely negative
A year ago, I first recognized the buzzword "crowdsourcing." That was a surprise, I tell you, when I found out that what I was doing - this is it.
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 the strategy to minimize dependence on the resource industry in the period up to two thousand and one hundred and fiftieth year”: it smells not only cuts and kickbacks, but “ bubble "- even as.
So, when I found out that I was engaged in forgive-me-all-gods-being-crowdsourcing and that people like me, like so much, I could say, caught fire: because the idea to combine efforts 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, and finally, disputes and disagreements!
But all the authors of crowdsourcing projects are two-zero projects — they are all primarily people who are tired of living in a country where they don’t put out fires, where grandmothers do not drive across the road, where 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.
Oh, how cool it would be for all of us to unite. But that's for sure - not in this life.
I, apparently, was a very naive person. Not that I was an egoist or an ego-centrist (but certainly not more than any normal person), but you would see the remarks of some of the leaders of crowdsourcing projects ...
Every second interlocutor on cooperation issues, every third remark was reduced to "and what personally will I have from this?". Some orally honestly said that the main thing for them was “to master the grant”, some explained that “we are not up to you, we are too cool”, someone is on a proposal for voluntary cooperation “and you make a post about you with us - beautiful, self-friendly, we don’t need anything for that ”a couple of months, and then they honestly said,“ well, we’re lazy, let’s give us PR or do it, and we generally cooperate with the press, we won’t spend time on you ”.
I don’t even want to talk about cooperation with big uncles, whose ideas I personally find in many constructive ones and from which I expected at least a polite refusal - a well-known fighter against sawing, apparently, is not interested in friendship and cooperation (and Nefigigizm "at a certain stage could perfectly fit there).
In short, the situation is from the NI-Izdets category: everyone loves to go to conferences, hang out among the same crowdscorers and enjoy talking about themselves, and also exchange business cards and drink coffee with sandwiches; Nobody wants to cooperate, although ready and, ay, mutually beneficial options for cooperation were offered to a variety of people.
In general, dear friends, crowdsourcing in Russia is such a fashionable thing that few people need for themselves, but for money ... Stop, and then this is not crowdsourcing, this is a startup, no? Wait, oh shi ...
Problem: interesting actual content
Status: partially resolved
Outlook: Uncertain
When the project was a not too cozy blok, in which I posted something solely for self-development, self-realization and satisfaction of the carefully hidden graphomaniac instinct, I was almost happy: I write a current post in the spirit of “if you violate the law like that — you need to act like that ”, People come, leave comments, start a discussion, during which the problems of the applicants are solved and, as a result, all are well.
When Nefigizm turned into a 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 expected that there would be people like me, freaks It is interesting to write articles in the spirit of "but see what you can do" or "I recently defended my rights like this, check it out as cool."
It is obvious that such articles are interesting not only to write, but also to read.
The problem was that I was not able to interest such people at that time, but a near-real-social network with a dozen articles in which your humble servant was the author, looked despondent.
Then I decided that it would be nice to highlight a section with requests for help: the content problem was solved naturally, answering questions was interesting, a small audience was more of a plus - it was time to help everyone, and to do it very well, but after a couple of times months (facepalm.jpg) there will be people who are interested in writing something by themselves, something constructive, useful and at least remotely similar to what I wrote a couple of paragraphs above.
A couple of months stretched for several years, during which most of the burden 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: there was a sudden qualitative leap, many 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, practices and knowledge with all of us.
So how was the problem solved?
First, as a donkey stubbornness (in the spirit of ME Saltykov-Shchedrin - “to be firm and not look”), patience (where to rush, then?) And fanaticism.
Secondly, the simplest and most obvious (except for me) methods are: the exclusion from the main page of posts from sections similar in meaning to the “q & a” section of our beloved Habr (why did I guess this only through the year from the start?) people with polite requests “I've read about you, write how you could do it?” and polite reminders a couple of months after they forgot about it.
Thirdly, for the sake of experiment, two (2) 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 the audience if you don’t know how to do it.
Fourthly, I still could not find what the authors were interested in: the money option cannot be realized for the following reasons, and the pluses in karma, alas, do not excite anyone properly.
Problem: principal free
Status: partially resolved
Forecast: rather negative
The most painful topic for me: a public story about what makes the harsh truth of life with principledness and conviction in their ideas. In general, little things, but all the same - it is unpleasant, because you feel like a deceiver (moreover, in the role of a deceived one, you yourself are a member).
In short, the essence is this: from the very beginning the project was positioned as a non-commercial one.
Non-commercial means “free as free speech, not free as free beer”, because there are so-called “free legal advice” that you have to pay sooner or later, in our wonderful country there is very, very, very much, and it was interesting for me to try to implement the concept of completely free counseling: asked a question - got an answer; money in this chain was not provided (and it is not provided, and it will not be provided), except perhaps in the form of donations; advertising, as I was sure, was also not needed - why place banners, if all costs are compensated by donate?
The problem is that you have to pay for everything. As long as the project is small, you can do it on your own, but sooner or later you need someone who would be involved in expanding the functionality of the site, someone who would make a decent design, someone who made it, well, those who moderate, rule and wield a banhammer, and there is no need to say - and so everything is clear.
Mysterious, but such necessary "someone" can be recruited from the regular members of the site who could work for persuasion, only for all three years I did not find zapmpotek in the form of a web programmer under such conditions, and, therefore, someone is needed who could work on compensable terms.
I'm not talking about paying for hosting, domain and other things.
I was sure that there would be a lot of people willing to make a microdate; I was wrong - 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 place an advertisement, or I spend money on everything that I can’t do myself (I'm a lawyer, I'm not a web programmer, not a web designer, not a sysadmin, and I don’t even have a sweater and beard) out of pocket; there was no hope for donate.
The problem did not dare: now a banner is placed on the site and a block is rented for those who want to buy links, this is enough for hosting and domain, but this is not enough for buying the services of a normal web programmer and even more so for buying the services of those who can realize a long time conceived.
Partly, the fact that one of the members of the LiveStreet community named netlanc helped me a lot with my knowledge, skills and abilities, which I personally thank him from the bottom of my heart, helped me a lot.
In any case, this is only the beginning: I am afraid that I will have to allocate a certain number of places for advertising blocks, but I broke up with my own principles and the concept of an open-source online consulting center.
Maybe next time.
Problem: loss of motivation
Status: can not be resolved in principle
Outlook: Uncertain
If the project is truly crowdsourced, then (obviously) its main goal is to do something big and friendly (the option with a friendly but not large is quite possible, and an option with a team that is not too friendly and not large at all).
A collective is when there are some people who are united by a single 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 simply communicate.
There are no problems with the team and there can be no, the main thing is that it should be, because any project, even remotely similar to a social project, must have a core audience; strictly speaking, there is no team - there is no project: will not the author (he is the manager, coordinator, moderator, sysadmin, webmaster and a little bit a programmer) be one in a hundred people?
The problem of small communities is that either they don’t have that very “core” (fortunately, this stage has passed), or it does, but, like Schrödinger’s cat, there’s some kind of indefinite - you can’t say for sure that Ivan Ivanitch is almost always answers such questions here, Petr Petrovich loves such discussions, and Marvanna is still a troll. Everything is somehow a little and everywhere, and everything seems to be there, but it is almost impossible to isolate permanent "community-forming" people.
To be honest, in the project there are a hundred or so people out of all over two thousand people, while the composition often changes, and the best suddenly leave, confining themselves to vague explanations.
In general, when you beat your head against a wall - sooner or later, motivation falls; sometimes it happens so hard that it becomes quite difficult to fight with self-destructive instincts.
The result - I don’t even want to go to the site, and I don’t even want to participate in discussions and generally be a community center. And since in a small community, the team is relatively heavily dependent on the author - a lot of things break down in it and much has to be started almost anew.
In general, it seems that the first part of the second part (sorry for the idiotic pun) is completed, if you're interested - there will be a final. Thank.
PS Dear UFO, the article does not contain any links to the resource, please do not transfer it to "I am promoting". Thank.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/155503/
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