Wikipedia talk:WikiMoney/Archive (initial reactions)

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Simply put, shouldn't this kind of topic be discussed in meta-wikipedia? Otherwise, I like introducing some kind of rewarding scheme to wikipedia. I know a lot of people fix my Engrish and I don't have much way to appreciate them. -- Taku 23:23 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

Oh dear, are we witnessing the dawn of WikiCapitalism? ;) -- Oliver P. 23:28 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

Only if WikiPedia would start to charge for contributing -- Skysmith 09:41 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

Only when my supermarket starts to accept WikiMoney .. --Eloquence

Capitalism should induce incentive, thus, improve productivity! -- Taku

Great! but there should be a warning:

Warning: WikiMoney is not real money!, this may lead to major wikiholism that may disrupt your personal life. By joining this you are acknowledging the risk of getting hooked on wikipedia to the point of no return!

Rotem Dan 23:37 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

Well, if it succeeds .. ;) Rotem Dan 00:19 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry about the robbery, that was the result of a three way edit conflict. Time to implement that feature suggestion .. --Eloquence

Well, I have succumbed to the lure of money, and become a WikiCapitalist. And I've decided to adopt the WikiEuro; it seems the WikiPound is worthless here anyway. Just one question - what's the exchange rate between WikiDollars and WikiEuros? According to XE.com, a real euro is currently worth 1.14660 US dollars. I think we should apply the same figure here, don't you? ;) -- Oliver P. 06:22 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

No! At 65c to the dollar, we Australians will be financially challenged, and the New Zealanders impoverished. :) Tannin

A capital idea, truly. ;) But what if we've come from a gaming background, and would rather conduct our transactions in WPP or WGP? -- John Owens 07:47 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

Hmm, would I be out of line to offer WikiDollars in exchange for cash? :) --Brion 08:13 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

This looks interesting- reminds me alot of LETS, which me and a handful of other people are trying to revitalise here in Southend on Sea http://www.seelets.org.uk/ quercus robur 10:16 May 11, 2003 (UTC)


Hey guys, I don't edit much. I write articles and try to leave some misteaks so that all you editors have plenty of material to work on. How meny articles are worth the same as 100 edits? And Tannin, keep your eye on the $NZ, its creeping up, might soon be on a par with the Wiki$ Ping 10:59 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

How much can I get for:
Hey guys and ladies, I don't edit much. I write articles and try to leave some mistakes so that all you editors have plenty of material to work on. How many articles are worth the same as 100 edits? And Tannin, keep your eye on the $NZ, it's creeping up, might soon be on a par with the Wiki$. Ping 10:59 May 11, 2003 (UTC)
 ? ;) -- John Owens 11:08 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

You have 102 edits to your name Ping, that's enough for an account :) -- sannse 11:15 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

Can there be wikibankrobbers ;-) ? -fonzy

Money should never be a quantification of Love. Such an association gives me the willies. I suggest removing the the association. :) Kingturtle 16:04 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

Eh. good point. (expects rapid adjustments of totals). Koyaanis Qatsi

Also, I realize this is all in good fun, but the wikimoney concept bugs me. We already do favors for each other, out of benevolent reasons. How about changing the word from WikiMoney to WikiFlowers or WikiKisses or WikiServicePoints or WikiCandy or WikiVoltage. Kingturtle 16:17 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

In thinking about it more, I am coming closer to why WikiMoney bugs me. Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians in order of arrival very careful and exactly explains that "This list is not intended to create some sort of hierarchy. In other words, we Wikipedians abhor the idea that the amount of time spent working on this website is any sort of indication of how well one can write an encyclopedia article. Indeed, we distinguish ourselves by our ability to write good articles, which is what really matters. We ought to do our best to underemphasize seniority, which can be used, often illegitimately, as a way of deciding who to accord how much respect." As I see it, WikiMoney creates hierarchy, because it is based on how many posts you've made. In the spirit of underemphasizing seniority, I oppose the WikiMoney system as it stands now, and I recommend that the system be reworked to reflect the above exerpt. WikiCandy to all of you, Kingturtle 16:24 May 11, 2003 (UTC)


I'm a tadlet concerned about replacing the whole benevolence aspect. It could show our overworked small set of developers which features we want the most ... but then again, someone could force the issue by offering more money. And I don't like that possbility. :( we're supposed to agreee on things, not use individual power to get what we want. that is NOT wikilove -- Tarquin 16:27 May 11, 2003 (UTC)~

Tarquin, you bring up an interesting point. What would happen in an edit war if one side had 1,000,000 wikibucks and the other side had 300 wikibucks? Kingturtle 16:31 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

I just signed up, but I feel a little uneasy about it, for more or less the reons that Kingturtle outlines. I'll sleep on it. Maybe I'll cross my name out again in the morning. Tannin


What about Brownie Points? I don't think they're ever taken seriously. Koyaanis Qatsi
everything about chocolate would be perfect
American Cultural Imperialism! No brownie points for me, thankyou! (Stops shouting, takes deep breath, swallows heart pill.) We use .. er ... I'm not sure what we use. Elephant stamps, I think.  :) Tannin
Elephant stamps, then, fine.  :-) Koyaanis Qatsi
Didn't you know? The international symbol for "Wiki elephant stamps", based on "elephant" starting with the letter 'e', is "W€". ;) -- John Owens 21:22 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

I second you on most of your points Kingturtle, in particular the necessity to have made at list 100 edits to receive cash is weird. But, I will go on offering my euros to anyone who will ease an edit war, apologize to someone for having hurt him, or globally speaking behave nicely to others :-)

We already have an article dedicated for this very purpose. It is called Wikipedia:Pages needing attention. Work should be done to clean that article up. And I will not offer anyone WikiMoney to do it. Do it out of your own benevolence. :) Kingturtle 16:55 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

I'm speaking only for myself here, but I don't use that page because I find it both long and impersonal and, therefore, boring. Koyaanis Qatsi
Then that article should be revamped. I'll start right now. :) Kingturtle 17:14 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a healthy vibrant community, with hundreds of people working for a common cause. People working together on articles and ideas already happens. I don't see how WikiMoney improves that. But I do see how WikiMoney could potentially harm Wikipedia.

I recommend rather than posting job offers on WikiMoney, you go to Wikipedia:Wikipedians by fields of interest, find people interested in your desired topic, and then ask them directly on their talk pages. I'd much rather get a message on my talk page saying "We are short on articles on North American birds-any interest in doing a couple?" than going to WikiMoney and reading a post that says "I'll give 20 wikibucks to anyone interested in creating articles on North American birds." There is a difference.

Lastly, the notion of providing credits or currency to volunteers who help their own community is not needed in Wikipedia. Wikipedia surpassed 100,000 articles without such incentives. :) Kingturtle 17:14 May 11, 2003 (UTC)


Interesting concept, but status here seems to correlate better with "reputation" which is based on judgement of peers, rather than number of tasks performed. For instance, if someone were to write just one new article a month, but each of them was brilliant prose, that person would be very highly regarded and highly trusted, even though he/she had not done any task that had a WikiMoney price put on it. I've been pondering how to do a scoring system based on reputation, don't have anything to write down yet though. Stan 17:22 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

Kingturtle, I understand your criticisms and agree in part. Whenever you create an economy, things can go wrong. I think what Axel really meant when he wrote "WikiMoney is the quantification of WikiLove" is that it should be that, and that its use for any other purpose constitutes abuse. Please note that if we define abuse, we can do something about it simply by editing the WikiMoney page and removing inappropriate offers. We could, for example, state that WikiMoney should not be used for resolving NPOV disputes.

As for the minimum edits requirement, I think the main reason for that is to avoid people like Lir coming along under 400 different accounts and screwing with the system just for the fun of it. By having at least some condition for playing here, we can reduce abuse to an acceptable minimum. However, how about this: Even those who do not qualify for the free W$ 100 could accept any of the offers at any time and earn WikiMoney. There's no risk in that, the only risk is of fake accounts withdrawing the W$ 100.

Other than that, I think WikiMoney is benevolent. The Jean Marie Le-Pen offer is the only one I've seen so far that might be considered problematic (because it explicitly offers W$ for "positive facts"). Please consider that systems similar to WikiMoney are used in many poor regions of the world successfully to get people to do volunteer work -- because they can actually get something for the "time cash" they earn. Similarly, if WikiMoney works, it allows us to do something about issues we are concerned with, while concentrating on those we consider fun. It's a "motivation exchange", so to speak. I think the W$ 100 initial value is a bit high, though, because you can buy quite a lot with that without doing anything.

WikiMoney also prioritizes issues of concern much better than the "Pages needing attention" page. It is a rating system, but rating tasks is not free: You lose WikiMoney by doing so, so you will be careful not to rate something highly which you do not think really deserves it. In the long term, I think we can also get real money involved in funding development activities, which are especially in need of such funding, but for now, WikiMoney is a nice extra incentive.

Your argument that we do not need WikiMoney because Wikipedia already works is flawed -- of course it does, but we can always make it work better, can we not? --Eloquence 17:29 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

I agree 95% with Eloquence, I propose that new/short-term/busy users would be able to join the program with an initial credit of 0$ - 10$ (or any other low quantity), the 100$ grant will be given the way it is now (as a sign of gratitude for active contributers). With wikipedia's open acceptence policy for writers I think welcoming anybody to the program would go along naturally with the aim of the project, and would be nicer as a community.
I don't think the 100$ grant is "too high", becuase if it was 10$ then I was giving offers with 0.3$, 0.1$ etc. so it doesn't really matter, I think. Rotem Dan 18:43 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

I think it very interesting that most offers are about soft improvments :-) ant

that's because editor time is plentiful. developer time is scarce. -- Tarquin 17:57 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

re: "people like Lir" screwing the system: (A) many "people like Lir" have well over 100 edits (B) without wishing to invoke Godwin's law, only the Swiss are willing to accept Nazi gold... ;-)

We may wish to consider seperating offers from rewards (Wikipedia:WikiBank?) if the page becomes popular. It'd also be nice to have a list of transactions so we can get a warm glow by seeing all the things we've rewarded each other for doing.

I agree with kingturtle about the name, so I've been bold in inventing new currencies ;-) Martin

Anyway,

How about renaming the whole thing to WikiSmilies or WikiKarma, to get more positive connotations? AxelBoldt 00:50 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

Why sure, then we could have WikiKarmaWhores. We'd be joining the grown-up websites, like slashdot. :) --Brion 03:45 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

This is such a bad idea it's hilarious. But hey, people need something to goof with. --The Cunctator

My wikiturtles will be given out as rewards for acts supporting or defending Wikiprinciples, for beautiful prose, and for wikiwork beyond the call of duty. I hate this :) Kingturtle 01:52 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

Isn't it obvious that the symbol for WikiMoney should be either ψ or Ψ? I vote for ψ. Kingturtle 01:56 May 12, 2003 (UTC)


What's a &psi? That's how it displays for me.
Do I get a turtle for stopping a revert war on Hizballah earlier this week? ;)
~ender 2003-05-11 19:44 MST

I gave Evercat a wikiturtle, so he has 1 on the scoreboard. But he is entitled to his first 100. Should I change it to 101 for him, or does he claim the 100 on his own? Kingturtle 05:22 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

I suggest the name WikiWishes and the symbol W* (wish upon a star :-). After all, we're dealing with granting and getting wishes here.

But I won't convert my own currency yet -- while I think all the little variations are nice, real world currency exchange is bad enough. Let's agree on a name and symbol and be done with it. So I suggest you add your vote to the below (only one vote, please): -- Eloquence

I like the variations, and as they are all worth the same I don't think it matters. At the moment I have WikiFlowers, which look remarkably like WikiWishes, but I have no real preference. -- sannse
I like the diversity of it, too. I wouldn't mind having a few wikiturtles, some wiki flowers, a few wiki bows (but not the elaborate, knees-on-the-floor kind)--it's all just a token of appreciation. wikiGoldStars would even do. Koyaanis Qatsi
I like Wikitridents (ψ, lowercase psi). They're just one simple symbol (not two or three letters) that isn't used by anything else comparable. Of course, KingTurtle wants them to be Wikiturtles, but that seems somewhat arrogant. LittleDan
first past the post, Eloquence? I'd complain more strongly about the idiocies of that method, were it not for my intention to ignore the vote if it doesn't go my way... ;-) Martin
I don't care particularly for any theoretical advantage that preferential voting may offer -- simple preferential voting is a bad thing, because it does not allow for any weighting whatsoever, and in reality, it's usually just a few users who make use of the option. Voting systems should above all be one thing: easy to understand, easy to tabulate. Without help from the software, FPP or average voting are both reasonable options. --Eloquence 00:46 May 13, 2003 (UTC)
OK, which was that "one thing" again? ;) -- John Owens 09:48 May 13, 2003 (UTC)
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