Difference between revisions of "WikiWork"

I think Evan Prodromou's weblog post about paying for Wiki content is excellent, and if I were in his shoes, or that of anybody working at the back end of a Wiki based company, like [[[AboutUs]], I would not be very motivated to pay for Wiki content.

Anybody that has spent any time with people in the Wiki community realizes there is an almost religious zealotry and passion for “Wiki ways” – no problem with that! Take a trip to the back end operations at such companies and you will see highly motivated and passionate people with a day job they love, and that puts food on their table.

These few people that start up Wiki based companies, and their back end employees, are like the “chosen few”, able to do work they like and get paid for it.

What about the rest of the populace? The rest of the populace reads all the upside “stuff” about Wiki and sees the happy faces of those involved, and wonders, “is there any way that I can leverage this phenomenon to put food on my own table – because I currently hate my day job?”

So it should be no wonder that within this warm and embracing Wiki culture there are content providers that are not employed by the Wiki companies, having thoughts about how they might make some money in the process, just as do the “insiders” at the Wiki company.

There are many in the Wiki community that want to make the world a better place – I commend them for this attitude. It is not a stretch to say that if a lot more folks had decent paying jobs they liked, again like the folks on payroll at Wiki companies, the world would be a better place. The problem is the current Wiki processes are not addressing such work related issues, and may never do so. Sharing and editing “content” is a lot different problem than “how can I make money to put food on my table?” – and so far I see no novel solutions to the latter problem, that have a chance to impact a large percentage of the populace.

So for those of you with day jobs you hate, or no day job at all, suck it up – and when you have some free time, contribute to some Wiki pages. MartinPfahler

MartinPfahler, I actually had a day/night job that I loved for many years, while I worked on my passion for wiki. I left that job, much better paying than an internet start up job, for a vision of something that might be better, not in terms of money for me, but in terms of benefit for the larger world. Utopian I know, something that I have always had to contend with, "am I being utopian (read, mental masturbation) or am I really doing something?" I know that my work has benefited many people in my life. I hope this wiki endeavor does also. As a union organized, I am interested in work and the organization of work. My excitement about wiki comes from one of the basic ideas, whoever shows up builds it and we never know what ideas will emerge. I believe that wiki is truly an emergent experience. What ideas about money and work will emerge from these interactions... MarkDilley