<h1>The Problem</h1> <p>For background on this issue I will refer people to the following discussion:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/53743/141911">Should we "Sympathy Commit" to a site proposal?</a></li> </ul> <p>The team is on record several times as having said that this is <strong>not</strong> how Area 51 is supposed to work, that the only people who commit to a proposal should be people who <em>actually</em> intend to <em>participate</em> in the site.</p> <p>Needless to say that many people (in fact, the vast majority) either missed <em>all</em> of the memos or simply don't care. My objective isn't to single people out, but I just saw this comment in a random proposal I looked at the other day:</p> <p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/JSbkT.png" alt="Well-wisher comment"></p> <p>Now maybe I misinterpreted this comment, but it certainly reads as though this person has no actual <em>interest</em> and certainly no <em>expertise</em> in the area, he just wants to push it one step further toward beta.</p> <p>I like to call these people <em>well-wishers</em>. I don't think they're necessarily committing out of <em>sympathy</em> - they probably genuinely want the community to do well - but unlike, say, <em>friends</em> or <em>family</em> or even <em>associates</em>, a <em>well-wisher</em> takes a completely <em>passive</em> role, celebrating your victories but doing absolutely nothing to help achieve them, then drinking all the champagne.</p> <p>These are not isolated incidents. The statistics speak for themselves:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/1425/geographic-information-systems">Geographic Information Systems</a>: <strong>38.4%</strong> signed up, <strong>10.4%</strong> fulfilled</li> <li><a href="http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/5728/user-interface">User Interface</a>: <strong>80.7%</strong> signed up but only <strong>13.7%</strong> fulfilled after <strong>6 months!</strong></li> <li><a href="http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/1908/physics">Physics</a>: <strong>22.9%</strong> signed up, <strong>16.5%</strong> fulfilled</li> <li><a href="http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/1924/graphic-design">Graphic Design</a>: <strong>16.5%</strong> signed up, <strong>11%</strong> fulfilled</li> <li><a href="http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/8431/it-security">IT Security</a>: <strong>15.2%</strong> signed up, <strong>9.8%</strong> fulfilled</li> </ul> <p>These stats are dismal. Less than 1 out of 5 people are even <em>trying</em> to pay their dues, and when they do try, they're usually not passionate or knowledgeable enough to go all the way.</p> <p>Now for the sake of thoroughness, <em>not all</em> proposals are like this; many of the proposals that you would expect to be popular with computer geeks, like <a href="http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/1338/gaming">Gaming</a> and <a href="http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/151/apple">Apple</a>, have excellent participation rates and reasonably good fulfillment rates. But for the most part, the message is clear: <strong>Most proposals that aren't either <em>fun</em> or <em>closely related to programming</em> seem to be inundated with <em>well-wishers</em> who don't fulfill their commitments and often don't even bother to sign up.</strong> That's a <em>horrible</em> reflection on the overall Area 51 community and culture.</p> <p>The team <em>could</em> simply use a fudge factor and encode this assumption into the system, but that's not fair to the proposals that have <em>legitimate</em> support. And I know the team vets proposals before they go to public beta, but looking at the number of proposals in the system, I don't see how that's going to scale over the long haul.</p> <h1>My Proposal</h1> <p>Supposedly the "commitment tokens" (max commit to 3 proposals) is supposed to discourage well-wishing behaviour, but it doesn't seem to be working very effectively. Bottom line is that there are millions of users in the Stack Exchange community and at least several thousand of them with enough rep to make a difference, and most of these people <em>just don't care</em>. So let's <em>make them care</em>.</p> <p>I think we should give commitments an <strong>up-front cost</strong>. Instead of being empty <em>promises</em> with no teeth, make them like <strong>investments</strong>. An <em>investor</em> has to take on some degree of <em>risk</em>, and if the decision was a good one, there will be an even greater <em>reward</em>. Also, investors who <em>really</em> care will actually get involved and attend shareholder meetings, not just sit passively and wait for a return.</p> <p>Here is how my hypothetical system would work:</p> <ul> <li>Investors <strong>pay reputation</strong> for their commitments, like bounties.</li> <li>Investors receive a <strong>100% refund</strong> for <strong>fulfilling their commitment</strong>.</li> <li>Investors receive an additional <strong>50% bonus</strong> if the site goes <strong>live</strong>.</li> <li>Investors can also <strong>choose how much</strong> reputation they wish to stake, possibly up to some predefined limit (again, like bounties).</li> <li>Committing <em>can</em> be done for free, but the value of a 0-rep commitment from a high-rep user is identical to the value of a commitment from a 1-rep user (i.e. virtually nothing).</li> <li>Users with no reputation on Area 51 itself can siphon reputation from one of their other linked accounts, but this would be one-way and non-refundable.</li> <li>If a proposal gets closed or merged during commitment phase or mid-way through the beta then all "fees" are refunded.</li> </ul> <p>The (positive) consequences of this are manifold:</p> <ul> <li>Fulfilling commitments becomes the <em>most effective</em> means to gain Area 51 reputation over time.</li> <li>Area 51 reputation actually measures <em>trust</em>, like it is supposed to.</li> <li>Members who undermine the system with empty promises must work to earn back that trust.</li> <li>Members have a strong positive incentive for participating (to earn their rep back).</li> <li>Members have a strong positive incentive for committing/investing <em>before</em> participating (rep gain).</li> <li>Members who help to spawn <em>successful</em> sites still get <em>something</em> back, even if they didn't/couldn't participate directly - but they still end up "out of pocket".</li> </ul> <p>I really believe that this is how reputation on Area 51 <em>should</em> work. Creating and helping to define proposals is still valuable and should of course confer <em>some</em> rep, but the only thing that's <em>really</em> worth a damn in the long haul is actual participation, because if people don't participate, then the sites will either fail or take forever to reach half-decent traffic levels. Anyone can come up with an idea; the real value is in its execution.</p> <p>Right now all you get for doing the most important thing is a few worthless badges, while folks spamming junk proposals and questions rack up the points and members who seem to be actively working to undermine the system suffer no consequences whatsoever. So instead of basing the progress simply on how much reputation people <em>have</em>, base it on how much they're willing to <em>spend</em>, and give them something (semi) tangible for following through.</p> <hr> <p>Anyway, that's the proposal. Question and comments are welcome of course.</p>