So if somebody wanted to write an article on something like the following:
An Indepth Look at the Rubik's Cube. For Beginners and Experts A Unique Fitness Program for Beginners How to Make Getting a Job After College Easy An Advanced Guide to Desserts Clothes for the First Professional Job
(Note: Some of these may not be 100% appropriate for what they're looking for. It's unclear without further articles being written what their topic choice range is).
They HAVE to have an Amazon link to a product? How linked does the article have to be with this product? Who gets the final decision on which product is linked? Why does an article have to have a product linked with it if it is informative and useful to the community?
It really sounds like exploiting the free resource of writers on TL to make money. I don't mind TL making money but...I just don't understand why it has to be linked with a product.
Well, I sat around and thought about this a lot. There is a lot of things you can argue about as for the validity of endorsements, bias ect. The other problem is that this is volunteered effort. While I love the idea of this type of effort, I don't think it's necessarily the best choice.
I think my suggested solutions listed below to these problems are logical and make a lot of sense. Here is what I think needs to be done to make this successful and more ?moral?
1. Submissions are voluntary, but producing profit receives mandatory payment and public disclosure.
Why is this important? A couple reasons:
1. A monetary incentive helps promote a well written article, drags closet/lurker "experts" out of the underground, and makes people trust the source more. If i know someone has the possibility of a strong monetary stake in the information he's providing, I will certainly be much more inclined to believe he really wanted to not only push a good product, but that he wanted to give me the best information possible in applying said product to whatever it is he or she is teaching me. The most IMPORTANT part of this is going to be the persons expertise and how well they can write and connect with the layman trying to learn, and having an incentive is going to encourage him to do the best job possible, while comforting me that he or she is likely actually attempting to doing so.
2. The books need to be open on this. When someone hits the jackpot with some great advice/knowledge, and that create profits, other people need to take notice, and it keeps the system honest. A monetary stake is needed, and this makes sure there is an extremely strong integrity for that stake. It also creates a larger incentive for people with knowledge to get out there and create something of real quality.
2. This section will need an AMA similar to Reddit, with possibilities for polling ect. Following this, a similar system for requests on the things we want to learn from these people.
Well, maybe not exactly like Reddit, but an AMA is great because it helps you with the supply and demand for knowledge, and gives you a more public user base of experts. The AMA isn't about funny stories or trivial shit, it's just some simple facts and or stats and or portfolio about the person who is supposedly an expert or professional in their field. Once you start getting some "experts" you can expect an influx of requests in said experts fields of knowledge. It is important however, for the ability of these 2 things, the AMA requests, AMA submissions, knowledge requests, and knowledge submissions, to be kept mutually exclusive. You should be able to request anything, you should be able to volunteer anything, but it's also helpful to know what fields we have an educated presence in, and what fields have a lot of interest in the user base.
3. Knowledge submitted needs approval.
Someone needs to fact check a persons credibility if its not already public, and more importantly, they need someone to spell check and make sure their information is as easy to read, understand, and logically sound as it is informative. This person/peoples should be compensated as well, as there ability to ask questions users would ask should confusing information pop up is an invaluable time saver and maintains quality content, which gives this whole idea a better reputation in the long run.
Apologies for the wall of text and perhaps poorly written ideas, but I feel they are articulated well enough. I haven't contributed anything strongly to this site in a long time, so I thought I'd put my thinking cap on and actually belt out a constructive post here.
Here are some personal AMA requests and Know-How requests for myself, as an example and possibly an incentive to get the ball rolling, as well as some novelty ones.
1.Linguist 2. Fluent 2nd language Japanese writer/speaker, 3.Desktop/computer hardware expert (dude who knows how to build a cheap rig that gets the job done), 4.Artist of the sorts who can customize various peripherals of all types (computer cases, fight-sticks, things around the house, ect)
Experience as an 1.Internetcafe/Gamingcafe owner (I can show you the do's and don'ts, who to market to, legal stuff ect, 2.Debt collector and trained and certified 3.Skip Tracer (I can help you track someone down for whatever reason, and teach you how to eliminate, stall, or hide from money you owe.) I also have a ton of experience learning 4.Japanese Kana (I can teach you surefire methods to learn correctly, and how to network yourself with native speakers so you can learn from a natural pro as well). I have credentials to back these listed things up, but this is half a mock post so I'm not going to post them here.
Most trusted condoms from Rek Poetry book from Trozz Quality hammer from Mani
These are all just examples, and I'm sure someone can think of a much cleaner way to submit information, organize it, access it ect, but I thought I would take the initiative to help illustrate my points.
On July 17 2012 05:11 Insane wrote: So it sounds like there's no way to just write articles without the for-profit/tied into a specific referral thing? I'd be interested in writing some things, but I don't feel good from the legal perspective of my own job about writing something in those conditions . I guess good luck to those who do so.
e: that is, essentially using my employment / role to make money for TL
We want people to write about things they believe in. If you use something at work which is sold on Amazon, and you think it's great, write about it. We don't want people pushing stuff just because.
First of all, thanks for responding to my somewhat negatively-toned post. I don't want to give the impression that I don't like TL or that I think it's bad for you guys to try new things, because it's actually great and I'm really proud of where you guys have taken the site over the years.
I believe in the value of my work, and I'm passionate about a variety of things that I do outside work which are totally unrelated to my work, but may be interesting to people if they want to get into it. I don't personally really like learning through books - none of the things I do are things I've learned through books, but rather via getting out and doing things, talking to people who do it better than I do, and straight up learning from mistakes.
Basically to me it sounds like TL BookReview. Admittedly, the articles are long and detailed book recommendations, as opposed to what you'd see on a normal Amazon review. But ultimately, that's what it's boiling down to. I love what you guys have written in the spoiler + Show Spoiler [What Is KnowHow] +
"Know-how (or knowhow as it is sometimes written) is practical knowledge of how to get something done, as opposed to “know-what” (facts), “know-why” (science), or “know-who” (networking). Know-how is often tacit knowledge, which means that it is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalising it. The opposite of tacit knowledge is explicit knowledge. (Wikipedia)."
Knowhow is after the theories and strategies, it is the knowledge of how to survive to get to your goal, or to outperform others to make it or simply how to get to a level of practical understanding faster. The term 'knowhow' refers to knowledge which is critical and insightful but which is developed internally and not publicly known or taught in a systematic process.
Knowhow is usually applied to industrial processes, making the same machine or process produce 'more' than the same machine/process in the hands of another operator, whether it be the right room tempurature or the exact type of oil that adds 0.5% better performance. But in the broader context, social or career based knowhow is one of the last types of knowledge that is passed on through directly sharing experiences.
By its nature, knowhow is about results and getting to the results with less effort, more output or faster, it is about increasing your performance and it isn't something you can just pick up from a manual, but is something passed on through training or articulated by using someone's experience as a base. This is very different than a theory or opinion because it's value is based off a process that is validated because of its results.
An example of this is if you were raised in an engineering family, meaning both your parents are engineers or a doctor's family or restaurantuer's family. Whether you realize it or not, things that you take as 'givens' such as a more analytic approach to life, or understanding basic human biology and what certain types of medication do, or what are the different standards of customer service are, this is all knowhow that unless someone was raised in the same family or did the same job, they would have no access to though common resources of knowledge.
Knowhow is both simply passed on, but is also guarded fiercely as it may be the only competitive factor that a company or individual has when all things are equal. Thus, the effectiveness of knowhow is mainly to it's very specific nature to a process or task. It may be as simple as a single function command, but used properly can save hours of work and may be completely obvious after the fact, but the amount of experience to have come to such an obvious outcome may have been hours upon hours of trial and error. But the fact that it is obvious and effective makes it true knowhow.
Due to the nature of when and how knowhow is 'passed on', the only reason to share knowhow is because they are family or work in the same company and are aligned with the same goals/objectives
However, I don't feel that the rest of the post afterwards is in line with the above section. Even taking a look at the list of five things you need to provide, it seems very heavily biased towards the product recommendation, without even caring about the article:
Area of Expertise (finance, athletics, arts, IT, etc.).
Level of experience and/or accomplishments.
Proof of experience/background (i.e. proof of employment/experience, published work, etc.).
Books or products you would like to recommend.
Desired level of contribution.
It's totally cool to ensure that there's centralized tracking so five people don't each write an article about how to get gear/into hiking, for example. That said, you want to know the recommendations we're going to make before we've even written the article? That seems just backwards to me; who cares what recommendations someone's going to make? It should be about the quality of the article, and if the article has no recommendations of products to buy online but is well-written and informative, then that's as much KnowHow as anything else.
Basically, I'd rather see a focus on informing the audience (TL users), and if someone happens to have a recommendation for something then cool, maybe TL can get a little extra cash; if not though, it's still going to be a useful document repository by people with some domain knowledge, with the added bonus that the people in question are actually approachable & can answer questions to help users, as opposed to more isolated / uninteractive sources (books, a lot of sites)
It doesn't have to be a book or related to your work, that's just how it started out (Atom's work is his life, basically). If you love the shit out of a movie, and think it's the most amazing movie in the universe of all time, write an article about it!
If you are a shaving fanatic (you own 20 different razors of different styles and have tried hundreds of cremes and whatnot) and want to write all about shaving and have suggested items (a particular razor for instance), write about it!
The reason we are editing them is because we want a minimum quality standard. I asked before I joined the project if we would only accept positive reviews pushing products and was told flat out that that isn't a requirement (although since it's an attempted revenue stream for TL it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, which is understandable). We want a controlled environment where we can say "our readers deserve to have the best, so we will work with the author to make this article as good as it can possibly be". Obviously, if we decide not to use your article, you're entirely free to post it in Blogs or General or wherever it belongs.
Another reason is that there's some HTML that needs to be embedded in the post that does the actual referreralizing which is what helps TL, which can only be done by certain staff. Letting us know what you want to write about is a key part of us having that particular code in the first place.
On July 17 2012 05:49 Complete wrote: So if somebody wanted to write an article on something like the following:
An Indepth Look at the Rubik's Cube. For Beginners and Experts A Unique Fitness Program for Beginners How to Make Getting a Job After College Easy An Advanced Guide to Desserts Clothes for the First Professional Job
(Note: Some of these may not be 100% appropriate for what they're looking for. It's unclear without further articles being written what their topic choice range is).
They HAVE to have an Amazon link to a product? How linked does the article have to be with this product? Who gets the final decision on which product is linked? Why does an article have to have a product linked with it if it is informative and useful to the community?
It really sounds like exploiting the free resource of writers on TL to make money. I don't mind TL making money but...I just don't understand why it has to be linked with a product.
Well...yeah. If you want to write about winning Rubik's Cubes, you can write and say "here's a cube: " and go on with your How To Be Awesome writing.
A Unique Fitness Program might have a place where you buy whatever material (DVD with exercises?) that you link to.
And so on for the others. Might be books, might be a pair of shoes, whatever.
I wouldn't call it exploiting since we are asking for volunteers. If you want to write something on your own that's fine. If you're going to write it anyway, why not help TL with the end result? We aren't demanding our users start writing for us now. TLKH follows the same model as the rest of TL: By the Users.
On July 17 2012 05:54 tofucake wrote: Yeah we are working on getting it placed somewhere more accessible.
@Insane, it doesn't have to be a book or related to your work, that's just how it started out (Atom's work is his life, basically). If you love the shit out of a movie, and think it's the most amazing movie in the universe of all time, write an article about it!
If you are a shaving fanatic (you own 20 different razors of different styles and have tried hundreds of cremes and whatnot) and want to write all about shaving and have suggested items (a particular razor for instance), write about it!
The reason we are editing them is because we want a minimum quality standard. I asked before I joined the project if we would only accept positive reviews pushing products and was told flat out that that isn't a requirement (although since it's an attempted revenue stream for TL it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, which is understandable). We want a controlled environment where we can say "our readers deserve to have the best, so we will work with the author to make this article as good as it can possibly be". Obviously, if we decide not to use your article, you're entirely free to post it in Blogs or General or wherever it belongs.
Another reason is that there's some HTML that needs to be embedded in the post that does the actual referreralizing which is what helps TL, which can only be done by certain staff. Letting us know what you want to write about is a key part of us having that particular code in the first place.
For example, let's say I want to write about hiking. I'm not going to recommend someone buy hiking boots, a pack, etc., online, because that's a terrible idea even if it's the exact same set of gear that I personally use, and I would be irresponsibly doing the readers a big disservice by doing so. I don't understand this sentence:
I asked before I joined the project if we would only accept positive reviews pushing products and was told flat out that that isn't a requirement (although since it's an attempted revenue stream for TL it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, which is understandable).
Why would anyone write a recommendation of a product they want to say don't buy? I'm trying to figure out a potential scenario where someone would write a review about how this book is bad, and then provide a link to buy the book. The only way that quote makes sense to me is if you're saying we can write articles without having specific recommendations, but the OP makes it very clear that we have to be pushing a specific product, and MightyAtom posted specifically about this condition that he firmly put his foot down about it having to be that way. For reference for ease-of-reading, MightyAtom's post is in spoiler + Show Spoiler [here] +
On July 17 2012 02:22 Marou wrote: That's an interesting idea, i'd like to contribute to it but i hate the fact hat i have to recommend some products on Amazon to be featured on a know-how. Why not just completely disregard profit ? By making it a for-profit initiative you really make it look like super blogs that sells stuff on TL (nice way to get some quality copywriting done i guess).
It's a very valid point and one that was hotly debated on for some time within TL as it was felt that some people wouldn't contribute specific for that reason.
I personally stuck to my guns on this point for a few reasons.
1. This section isn't about being featured as something special per say, it's in the blog section below featured bloggers and actually featured bloggers was part of the roll out of this section as well (that came out first) as we wanted to expand the blog section in general. So people just want to blog about something they feel passionate about, then this area isn't a replacement for that.
2. Why it's the knowhow section is that we don't want this section to be just a FAQ section, so the reference to a book or product was key part of it, not just for revenue, but as the main source of the knowledge for discussion on the actual knowhow. So we hope that as TLers read through or use the product/item that they can also share their comments, questions based on that specifically so it would focus the discussions as well (hopefully making the discussion active rather than just again, FAQs)
3. I'd like to think it is both, a for profit and for community initiative, I don't think for profit automatically cancels that out, because sincerely we wanted to set something up that wasn't invasive and gave back much more than what it was asking. And I think that will be apparent in the quality of the posts because we couldn't really pay an expert their market rate to write these posts, ultimately is a volunteer community contribution and part of the objective is yes, financial, but also contributing a really unique resource to our community. The content itself isn't restricted or based on having to buy the book or product, I mean people can go to the library or buy it second hand and personally all the books I've thus far recommended are older books.
In terms of initial image, I agree, it does look like its some super blog that is selling stuff, but I hope that the actual return to the community is far more than what it's initial image may be, that for some TLers it can really contribute to their understanding and even future endevours.
But I also won't shy from that if TL can get financial benefit from it, then I'm really pleased with that as well. I sincerely believe that TL is a great organization that will be investing in for the development in esports, and that requires funding, and while any act of commercialization can be seen as corrupting, I'd like to think that we're doing it in a responsible fair and appropriate manner which is true to the spirit of the community as well as contributing to TL in a meaningful way.
I completely understand the need for editing, so I have no probelm with that patr too prevent b ad articl quality contrl .
On July 17 2012 05:51 Vansetsu wrote: Well, I sat around and thought about this a lot. There is a lot of things you can argue about as for the validity of endorsements, bias ect. The other problem is that this is volunteered effort. While I love the idea of this type of effort, I don't think it's necessarily the best choice. The 3rd problem is what are we learning the tricks for and why are we learning it.
I think my suggested solutions listed below to these problems are logical and make a lot of sense. Here is what I think needs to be done to make this successful and more ?moral?
1. Submissions are voluntary, but producing profit receives mandatory payment and public disclosure.
Why is this important? A couple reasons:
1. A monetary incentive helps promote a well written article, drags closet/lurker "experts" out of the underground, and makes people trust the source more. If i know someone has the possibility of a strong monetary stake in the information he's providing, I will certainly be much more inclined to believe he really wanted to not only push a good product, but that he wanted to give me the best information possible in applying said product to whatever it is he or she is teaching me. The most IMPORTANT part of this is going to be the persons expertise and how well they can write and connect with the layman trying to learn, and having an incentive is going to encourage him to do the best job possible, while comforting me that he or she is likely actually attempting to doing so.
2. The books need to be open on this. When someone hits the jackpot with some great advice/knowledge, and that create profits, other people need to take notice, and it keeps the system honest. A monetary stake is needed, and this makes sure there is an extremely strong integrity for that stake. It also creates a larger incentive for people with knowledge to get out there and create something of real quality.
2. This section will need an AMA similar to Reddit, with possibilities for polling ect. Following this, a similar system for requests on the things we want to learn from these people.
Well, maybe not exactly like Reddit, but an AMA is great because it helps you with the supply and demand for knowledge, and gives you a more public user base of experts. The AMA isn't about funny stories or trivial shit, it's just some simple facts and or stats and or portfolio about the person who is supposedly an expert or professional in their field. Once you start getting some "experts" you can expect an influx of requests in said experts fields of knowledge. It is important however, for the ability of these 2 things, the AMA requests, AMA submissions, knowledge requests, and knowledge submissions, to be kept mutually exclusive. You should be able to request anything, you should be able to volunteer anything, but it's also helpful to know what fields we have an educated presence in, and what fields have a lot of interest in the user base.
3. Knowledge submitted needs approval.
Someone needs to fact check a persons credibility if its not already public, and more importantly, they need someone to spell check and make sure their information is as easy to read, understand, and logically sound as it is informative. This person/peoples should be compensated as well, as there ability to ask questions users would ask should confusing information pop up is an invaluable time saver and maintains quality content, which gives this whole idea a better reputation in the long run.
Apologies for the wall of text and perhaps poorly written ideas, but I feel they are articulated well enough. I haven't contributed anything strongly to this site in a long time, so I thought I'd put my thinking cap on and actually belt out a constructive post here.
Here are some personal AMA requests and Know-How requests for myself, as an example and possibly an incentive to get the ball rolling, as well as some novelty ones.
1.Linguist 2. Fluent 2nd language Japanese writer/speaker, Desktop/computer hardware expert (dude who knows how to build a cheap rig that gets the job done), Artist of the sorts who can customize various peripherals of all types (computer cases, fight-sticks, things around the house, ect)
Experience as an Internetcafe/Gamingcafe owner (I can show you the do's and don'ts, who to market to, legal stuff ect, Debt collector and trained and certified Skip Tracer (I can help you track someone down for whatever reason, and teach you how to eliminate, stall, or hide from money you owe.) I also have a ton of experience learning Japanese Kana (I can teach you surefire methods to learn correctly, and how to network yourself with native speakers so you can learn from a natural pro as well). I have credentials to back these listed things up, but this is half a mock post so I'm not going to post them here.
Most trusted condoms from Rek Poetry book from Trozz Quality hammer from Mani
These are all just examples, and I'm sure someone can think of a much cleaner way to submit information, organize it, access it ect, but I thought I would take the initiative to help illustrate my points.
1.1) I'm not sure I understand exactly which PoV you're talking about. TL gets money if whatever product is purchased. Writers get no money, staff get no money, readers get no money; it all goes to funding TL
1.2) As above, I think?
2) I agree. The threads are for having focal discussions with the writer about the material. We aren't saying you should just buy whatever's written about. Talk with the writer and determine by your own scale whether or not you want to buy the product. No money is earned by just viewing the article.
3.1) This is obvious. I am one of the editors for this section, and there are a couple others (who have worked on unpublished as of yet articles). Again, there are only 4 (maybe 5) paid TL staff. Money generated from ads (in general) and from sales of these products will support TL. Staff are just regular users. We help TL for the love of TL, not because we get paid.
AMA Stuff Not sure I understand these as they aren't exactly specific questions, but appear to be more of a list of "things people do".
Personally, I am quite familiar with linguistics and I fancy myself quite good at words n stuff. Additionally, while I am nowhere near fluent, I can get by in Japanese. More additionally, I know computer stuff, and I can (and have) put together a few computers in my day. We have the TL art team to abusehelp out with graphics.
From your second paragraph I see that was an example but whatever. I stand by what I wrote.
On July 17 2012 05:54 tofucake wrote: Yeah we are working on getting it placed somewhere more accessible.
@Insane, it doesn't have to be a book or related to your work, that's just how it started out (Atom's work is his life, basically). If you love the shit out of a movie, and think it's the most amazing movie in the universe of all time, write an article about it!
If you are a shaving fanatic (you own 20 different razors of different styles and have tried hundreds of cremes and whatnot) and want to write all about shaving and have suggested items (a particular razor for instance), write about it!
The reason we are editing them is because we want a minimum quality standard. I asked before I joined the project if we would only accept positive reviews pushing products and was told flat out that that isn't a requirement (although since it's an attempted revenue stream for TL it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, which is understandable). We want a controlled environment where we can say "our readers deserve to have the best, so we will work with the author to make this article as good as it can possibly be". Obviously, if we decide not to use your article, you're entirely free to post it in Blogs or General or wherever it belongs.
Another reason is that there's some HTML that needs to be embedded in the post that does the actual referreralizing which is what helps TL, which can only be done by certain staff. Letting us know what you want to write about is a key part of us having that particular code in the first place.
For example, let's say I want to write about hiking. I'm not going to recommend someone buy hiking boots, a pack, etc., online, because that's a terrible idea even if it's the exact same set of gear that I personally use, and I would be irresponsibly doing the readers a big disservice by doing so. I don't understand this sentence:
I asked before I joined the project if we would only accept positive reviews pushing products and was told flat out that that isn't a requirement (although since it's an attempted revenue stream for TL it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, which is understandable).
Why would anyone write a recommendation of a product they want to say don't buy? I'm trying to figure out a potential scenario where someone would write a review about how this book is bad, and then provide a link to buy the book. The only way that quote makes sense to me is if you're saying we can write articles without having specific recommendations, but the OP makes it very clear that we have to be pushing a specific product, and MightyAtom posted specifically about this condition that he firmly put his foot down about it having to be that way. For reference for ease-of-reading, MightyAtom's post is in spoiler + Show Spoiler [here] +
On July 17 2012 02:22 Marou wrote: That's an interesting idea, i'd like to contribute to it but i hate the fact hat i have to recommend some products on Amazon to be featured on a know-how. Why not just completely disregard profit ? By making it a for-profit initiative you really make it look like super blogs that sells stuff on TL (nice way to get some quality copywriting done i guess).
It's a very valid point and one that was hotly debated on for some time within TL as it was felt that some people wouldn't contribute specific for that reason.
I personally stuck to my guns on this point for a few reasons.
1. This section isn't about being featured as something special per say, it's in the blog section below featured bloggers and actually featured bloggers was part of the roll out of this section as well (that came out first) as we wanted to expand the blog section in general. So people just want to blog about something they feel passionate about, then this area isn't a replacement for that.
2. Why it's the knowhow section is that we don't want this section to be just a FAQ section, so the reference to a book or product was key part of it, not just for revenue, but as the main source of the knowledge for discussion on the actual knowhow. So we hope that as TLers read through or use the product/item that they can also share their comments, questions based on that specifically so it would focus the discussions as well (hopefully making the discussion active rather than just again, FAQs)
3. I'd like to think it is both, a for profit and for community initiative, I don't think for profit automatically cancels that out, because sincerely we wanted to set something up that wasn't invasive and gave back much more than what it was asking. And I think that will be apparent in the quality of the posts because we couldn't really pay an expert their market rate to write these posts, ultimately is a volunteer community contribution and part of the objective is yes, financial, but also contributing a really unique resource to our community. The content itself isn't restricted or based on having to buy the book or product, I mean people can go to the library or buy it second hand and personally all the books I've thus far recommended are older books.
In terms of initial image, I agree, it does look like its some super blog that is selling stuff, but I hope that the actual return to the community is far more than what it's initial image may be, that for some TLers it can really contribute to their understanding and even future endevours.
But I also won't shy from that if TL can get financial benefit from it, then I'm really pleased with that as well. I sincerely believe that TL is a great organization that will be investing in for the development in esports, and that requires funding, and while any act of commercialization can be seen as corrupting, I'd like to think that we're doing it in a responsible fair and appropriate manner which is true to the spirit of the community as well as contributing to TL in a meaningful way.
I completely understand the need for editing, so I have no probelm with that patr too prevent b ad articl quality contrl .
Surely you bring other things when hiking? Bug spray, sun screen, a badass compass, etc. I agree buying clothes online is generally a bad idea, but that's a bit of a harsh limitation.
As for my post about positive reviews only, see this post, which is quite negative. But I love that movie. It's awesome. Sure, it's poorly written and pretty terrible overall, but then again...so are all zombie movies. But whatever. My point is that if you write a review for a thing, it doesn't necessarily have to be positive. Yeah it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but there you go.
On July 17 2012 05:54 tofucake wrote: I wouldn't call it exploiting since we are asking for volunteers. If you want to write something on your own that's fine. If you're going to write it anyway, why not help TL with the end result? We aren't demanding our users start writing for us now. TLKH follows the same model as the rest of TL: By the Users.
I guess I just don't understand why you have the right to make money off of somebody elses work. But I suppose the simple solution is if they don't want to post a topic with a product they can write a regular blog - So I guess I have no major problems with this.
We have the right because when someone says "take my post and make money from it" they sort of give us that right. We aren't trying to hide the fact that the purpose of TLKH is to increase revenue. If someone has an objection to that all they have to do is not write an article and not buy things directly through others' articles.
On July 17 2012 06:18 tofucake wrote: We have the right because when someone says "take my post and make money from it" they sort of give us that right. We aren't trying to hide the fact that the purpose of TLKH is to increase revenue. If someone has an objection to that all they have to do is not write an article and not buy things directly through others' articles.
I guess my point is why can't an article be written with similar useful information but without a product be written, reviewed, accepted and featured?
That's just a post then. There are posts like that, like TDL's "How to use TL" thread (stickied in General I think) and Featured Blogs and Final Edits and all other manner of posts.
On July 17 2012 05:51 Vansetsu wrote: Well, I sat around and thought about this a lot. There is a lot of things you can argue about as for the validity of endorsements, bias ect. The other problem is that this is volunteered effort. While I love the idea of this type of effort, I don't think it's necessarily the best choice. The 3rd problem is what are we learning the tricks for and why are we learning it.
I think my suggested solutions listed below to these problems are logical and make a lot of sense. Here is what I think needs to be done to make this successful and more ?moral?
1. Submissions are voluntary, but producing profit receives mandatory payment and public disclosure.
Why is this important? A couple reasons:
1. A monetary incentive helps promote a well written article, drags closet/lurker "experts" out of the underground, and makes people trust the source more. If i know someone has the possibility of a strong monetary stake in the information he's providing, I will certainly be much more inclined to believe he really wanted to not only push a good product, but that he wanted to give me the best information possible in applying said product to whatever it is he or she is teaching me. The most IMPORTANT part of this is going to be the persons expertise and how well they can write and connect with the layman trying to learn, and having an incentive is going to encourage him to do the best job possible, while comforting me that he or she is likely actually attempting to doing so.
2. The books need to be open on this. When someone hits the jackpot with some great advice/knowledge, and that create profits, other people need to take notice, and it keeps the system honest. A monetary stake is needed, and this makes sure there is an extremely strong integrity for that stake. It also creates a larger incentive for people with knowledge to get out there and create something of real quality.
2. This section will need an AMA similar to Reddit, with possibilities for polling ect. Following this, a similar system for requests on the things we want to learn from these people.
Well, maybe not exactly like Reddit, but an AMA is great because it helps you with the supply and demand for knowledge, and gives you a more public user base of experts. The AMA isn't about funny stories or trivial shit, it's just some simple facts and or stats and or portfolio about the person who is supposedly an expert or professional in their field. Once you start getting some "experts" you can expect an influx of requests in said experts fields of knowledge. It is important however, for the ability of these 2 things, the AMA requests, AMA submissions, knowledge requests, and knowledge submissions, to be kept mutually exclusive. You should be able to request anything, you should be able to volunteer anything, but it's also helpful to know what fields we have an educated presence in, and what fields have a lot of interest in the user base.
3. Knowledge submitted needs approval.
Someone needs to fact check a persons credibility if its not already public, and more importantly, they need someone to spell check and make sure their information is as easy to read, understand, and logically sound as it is informative. This person/peoples should be compensated as well, as there ability to ask questions users would ask should confusing information pop up is an invaluable time saver and maintains quality content, which gives this whole idea a better reputation in the long run.
Apologies for the wall of text and perhaps poorly written ideas, but I feel they are articulated well enough. I haven't contributed anything strongly to this site in a long time, so I thought I'd put my thinking cap on and actually belt out a constructive post here.
Here are some personal AMA requests and Know-How requests for myself, as an example and possibly an incentive to get the ball rolling, as well as some novelty ones.
1.Linguist 2. Fluent 2nd language Japanese writer/speaker, Desktop/computer hardware expert (dude who knows how to build a cheap rig that gets the job done), Artist of the sorts who can customize various peripherals of all types (computer cases, fight-sticks, things around the house, ect)
Experience as an Internetcafe/Gamingcafe owner (I can show you the do's and don'ts, who to market to, legal stuff ect, Debt collector and trained and certified Skip Tracer (I can help you track someone down for whatever reason, and teach you how to eliminate, stall, or hide from money you owe.) I also have a ton of experience learning Japanese Kana (I can teach you surefire methods to learn correctly, and how to network yourself with native speakers so you can learn from a natural pro as well). I have credentials to back these listed things up, but this is half a mock post so I'm not going to post them here.
Most trusted condoms from Rek Poetry book from Trozz Quality hammer from Mani
These are all just examples, and I'm sure someone can think of a much cleaner way to submit information, organize it, access it ect, but I thought I would take the initiative to help illustrate my points.
1.1) I'm not sure I understand exactly which PoV you're talking about. TL gets money if whatever product is purchased. Writers get no money, staff get no money, readers get no money; it all goes to funding TL
1.2) As above, I think?
2) I agree. The threads are for having focal discussions with the writer about the material. We aren't saying you should just buy whatever's written about. Talk with the writer and determine by your own scale whether or not you want to buy the product. No money is earned by just viewing the article.
3.1) This is obvious. I am one of the editors for this section, and there are a couple others (who have worked on unpublished as of yet articles). Again, there are only 4 (maybe 5) paid TL staff. Money generated from ads (in general) and from sales of these products will support TL. Staff are just regular users. We help TL for the love of TL, not because we get paid.
AMA Stuff Not sure I understand these as they aren't exactly specific questions, but appear to be more of a list of "things people do".
Personally, I am quite familiar with linguistics and I fancy myself quite good at words n stuff. Additionally, while I am nowhere near fluent, I can get by in Japanese. More additionally, I know computer stuff, and I can (and have) put together a few computers in my day. We have the TL art team to abusehelp out with graphics.
From your second paragraph I see that was an example but whatever. I stand by what I wrote.
I'll re-iterate a bit, I'm tired and I tend to post like shit when I am tired. I'll also state this post wasn't meant to contradict or affirm any suggestion bias, only to hopefully inspire a quality system Just trying to do a little good before I hit the sack.
So to address your points:
1. Yes as the model stands TL get's money. i am stating the model should be changed so that the writer gets a small percentage, and that the editor fact/credibility/spellchecker gets a small percentage too. Like I said, providing monetary stake for the writer encourages him to write an extremely informative piece, and knowing this the layman and possible consumer can have a little more faith in the quality of the information. The staff who does the boring shit and filters hundreds of posts can get even a super small amount, unless they want to volunteer, ect. The point is even a small monetary stake encourages quality from people doing the work, encourages people to climb out of their holes and say "Hey, I'm a ____" I didn't go to MIT, but maybe someone really wants to know the shit out of ___, and if I bust my ass, maybe there's something small in it for me to. I believe this community is capable of a complete volunteer effort, but it is much more beneficial for everyone to have a bit of stake in it, even if it is something as small as 1-5% of whatever TL nets on the whole.
2. Just stating possible ideas for making it easy to identify what knowledge source TL has. Without up voting of some sort, I imagine it might be hard to gauge interest in a particular field, and you also end up with a bunch of information that might not get sen by the correct people. Sure there is a search feature for the person with the ama request or the knowledge request, but does that mean that the certified person with the knowledge or the lurker who can fulfill the AMA will stumble upon the thread perchance? Here's a cool idea: do some sort of meta tagging involving the persons expertise. When someone makes a request thread title, have it automatically pm said certified expert(s) with a notification of the possible demand for knowledge when the thread title or something uses some tagged keywords. This way supply meets demand quickly, and information and people can connect easier. Just and idea I really don't think a pure thread system will ever work
3. That's cool, but I think if this thing really took off, it's going to be a heck of a lot of work, and I'm not sure everyone would be so motivated for it. If so cool, but I hate to speak for everyone, even theoretically :p But i'm glad we agree on the necessity.
4. These were just examples, I don't even know why I threw those in there. But it's cool your knowledgeable and there are others who are knowledgeable as well. When this thing is up in running, I'll be sure to make some very specific requests
Again, these are not contradictions or affirmations, they are just ideas for an open mind. I just wanted to suggest some things that might make things run a little smoother in the long run, for no other reason than to be constructive
On July 17 2012 05:54 tofucake wrote: Yeah we are working on getting it placed somewhere more accessible.
@Insane, it doesn't have to be a book or related to your work, that's just how it started out (Atom's work is his life, basically). If you love the shit out of a movie, and think it's the most amazing movie in the universe of all time, write an article about it!
If you are a shaving fanatic (you own 20 different razors of different styles and have tried hundreds of cremes and whatnot) and want to write all about shaving and have suggested items (a particular razor for instance), write about it!
The reason we are editing them is because we want a minimum quality standard. I asked before I joined the project if we would only accept positive reviews pushing products and was told flat out that that isn't a requirement (although since it's an attempted revenue stream for TL it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, which is understandable). We want a controlled environment where we can say "our readers deserve to have the best, so we will work with the author to make this article as good as it can possibly be". Obviously, if we decide not to use your article, you're entirely free to post it in Blogs or General or wherever it belongs.
Another reason is that there's some HTML that needs to be embedded in the post that does the actual referreralizing which is what helps TL, which can only be done by certain staff. Letting us know what you want to write about is a key part of us having that particular code in the first place.
For example, let's say I want to write about hiking. I'm not going to recommend someone buy hiking boots, a pack, etc., online, because that's a terrible idea even if it's the exact same set of gear that I personally use, and I would be irresponsibly doing the readers a big disservice by doing so. I don't understand this sentence:
I asked before I joined the project if we would only accept positive reviews pushing products and was told flat out that that isn't a requirement (although since it's an attempted revenue stream for TL it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, which is understandable).
Why would anyone write a recommendation of a product they want to say don't buy? I'm trying to figure out a potential scenario where someone would write a review about how this book is bad, and then provide a link to buy the book. The only way that quote makes sense to me is if you're saying we can write articles without having specific recommendations, but the OP makes it very clear that we have to be pushing a specific product, and MightyAtom posted specifically about this condition that he firmly put his foot down about it having to be that way. For reference for ease-of-reading, MightyAtom's post is in spoiler + Show Spoiler [here] +
On July 17 2012 02:22 Marou wrote: That's an interesting idea, i'd like to contribute to it but i hate the fact hat i have to recommend some products on Amazon to be featured on a know-how. Why not just completely disregard profit ? By making it a for-profit initiative you really make it look like super blogs that sells stuff on TL (nice way to get some quality copywriting done i guess).
It's a very valid point and one that was hotly debated on for some time within TL as it was felt that some people wouldn't contribute specific for that reason.
I personally stuck to my guns on this point for a few reasons.
1. This section isn't about being featured as something special per say, it's in the blog section below featured bloggers and actually featured bloggers was part of the roll out of this section as well (that came out first) as we wanted to expand the blog section in general. So people just want to blog about something they feel passionate about, then this area isn't a replacement for that.
2. Why it's the knowhow section is that we don't want this section to be just a FAQ section, so the reference to a book or product was key part of it, not just for revenue, but as the main source of the knowledge for discussion on the actual knowhow. So we hope that as TLers read through or use the product/item that they can also share their comments, questions based on that specifically so it would focus the discussions as well (hopefully making the discussion active rather than just again, FAQs)
3. I'd like to think it is both, a for profit and for community initiative, I don't think for profit automatically cancels that out, because sincerely we wanted to set something up that wasn't invasive and gave back much more than what it was asking. And I think that will be apparent in the quality of the posts because we couldn't really pay an expert their market rate to write these posts, ultimately is a volunteer community contribution and part of the objective is yes, financial, but also contributing a really unique resource to our community. The content itself isn't restricted or based on having to buy the book or product, I mean people can go to the library or buy it second hand and personally all the books I've thus far recommended are older books.
In terms of initial image, I agree, it does look like its some super blog that is selling stuff, but I hope that the actual return to the community is far more than what it's initial image may be, that for some TLers it can really contribute to their understanding and even future endevours.
But I also won't shy from that if TL can get financial benefit from it, then I'm really pleased with that as well. I sincerely believe that TL is a great organization that will be investing in for the development in esports, and that requires funding, and while any act of commercialization can be seen as corrupting, I'd like to think that we're doing it in a responsible fair and appropriate manner which is true to the spirit of the community as well as contributing to TL in a meaningful way.
I completely understand the need for editing, so I have no probelm with that patr too prevent b ad articl quality contrl .
Surely you bring other things when hiking? Bug spray, sun screen, a badass compass, etc. I agree buying clothes online is generally a bad idea, but that's a bit of a harsh limitation.
As for my post about positive reviews only, see this post, which is quite negative. But I love that movie. It's awesome. Sure, it's poorly written and pretty terrible overall, but then again...so are all zombie movies. But whatever. My point is that if you write a review for a thing, it doesn't necessarily have to be positive. Yeah it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but there you go.
They don't actually make the compass I use anymore . The thing is, is this about educating people, or is this about selling products? (I suspect you'll say both), but I feel the focus is on the 2nd one, with the 1st one being a potential side-effect. I feel it should be the other way around: educating people should be the focus, with selling products being a potential side-effect if it's relevant to the topic. In order for it to be relevant, something about the TL aspect needs to be there. I guarantee, no matter what the potential topic, there is already a lot of good material out there about it on the internet / in real life. What does TL contribute that I couldn't find with a simple web search somewhere else? To me, it's the ability to interact with the actual poster in order to ask questions, apply the general logic to my specific situation, etc.. In some cases, the knowledge the poster may be bringing may in fact be "XYZ brand is good because ABC". Fine, good for that specific article. If it happens that the specific article lends itself to a recommendation for a given brand, then good for that article; but there are a lot of cases where the knowledge is not about XYZ brand vs DEF brand, and I feel that the current system is excluding that branch of knowledge.
It's certainly possible to still monetize it without the current focus, even if it might be less profitable (but more valuable, to me); TL can put ads on the page if they want. Hell, so long as it's not misrepresented as me recommending the item (I'm assuming the editing of the pages doesn't go to the extent of misrepresenting what I say so it looks like I recommended something that I in fact didn't even mention), I don't care if TL wants to recommend everyone buy Banana Boat sunscreen. The thing is, both bug spray and sunscreen are pretty irrelevant. It really doesn't matter to me or anyone really what you use. Just pick up something from the store. Buying gear is relevant, but the actual aspect that matters are the attributes of the thing you buy, and someone who's properly educated will be able to pick out these things themselves.
It's like the whole "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime" (I don't eat fish, but whatever ). I have no idea what specific brands are available in different countries, and things I personally buy may in some cases be out of the price range of people from less affluent countries who are just trying an activity out.
Regardless, I'm getting the feeling this project just isn't going to go in the direction I'm personally interested in, as it sounds like you guys have already made up your minds. I'm just one reader/potential contributor out of tens of thousands, and if it's successful for you going that in direction, then good luck and more power to you .
e: since I left the window open for a while as I wrote my response, here's a response to this
On July 17 2012 06:23 tofucake wrote: That's just a post then. There are posts like that, like TDL's "How to use TL" thread (stickied in General I think) and Featured Blogs and Final Edits and all other manner of posts.
Then you mistitled the feature, and I feel the section about what "KnowHow" means is irrelevant. Nothing about "KnowHow" to me says "this is a bunch of product recommendations"
Really interesting. I'm heading into the media industry section myself (Starting the first year at University in 2 months). Hopefully there is someone out there with an exstensive working experience who can share some insights.
I'd love someone to write about psychology / the book 'thinking, fast and slow' because that is the best book ever written (let's be honest here...)
edit: I'm not sure what's wrong with having experts advertise books that they think are great.... even without the added editorial / input.... I <3 the idea however it turns out.
On July 17 2012 08:07 tsarnicky wrote: edit: I'm not sure what's wrong with having experts advertise books that they think are great.... even without the added editorial / input.... I <3 the idea however it turns out.
That's not TL KnowHow, that's TL BookRecommendation .
On July 17 2012 05:54 tofucake wrote: Yeah we are working on getting it placed somewhere more accessible.
@Insane, it doesn't have to be a book or related to your work, that's just how it started out (Atom's work is his life, basically). If you love the shit out of a movie, and think it's the most amazing movie in the universe of all time, write an article about it!
If you are a shaving fanatic (you own 20 different razors of different styles and have tried hundreds of cremes and whatnot) and want to write all about shaving and have suggested items (a particular razor for instance), write about it!
The reason we are editing them is because we want a minimum quality standard. I asked before I joined the project if we would only accept positive reviews pushing products and was told flat out that that isn't a requirement (although since it's an attempted revenue stream for TL it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, which is understandable). We want a controlled environment where we can say "our readers deserve to have the best, so we will work with the author to make this article as good as it can possibly be". Obviously, if we decide not to use your article, you're entirely free to post it in Blogs or General or wherever it belongs.
Another reason is that there's some HTML that needs to be embedded in the post that does the actual referreralizing which is what helps TL, which can only be done by certain staff. Letting us know what you want to write about is a key part of us having that particular code in the first place.
For example, let's say I want to write about hiking. I'm not going to recommend someone buy hiking boots, a pack, etc., online, because that's a terrible idea even if it's the exact same set of gear that I personally use, and I would be irresponsibly doing the readers a big disservice by doing so. I don't understand this sentence:
I asked before I joined the project if we would only accept positive reviews pushing products and was told flat out that that isn't a requirement (although since it's an attempted revenue stream for TL it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, which is understandable).
Why would anyone write a recommendation of a product they want to say don't buy? I'm trying to figure out a potential scenario where someone would write a review about how this book is bad, and then provide a link to buy the book. The only way that quote makes sense to me is if you're saying we can write articles without having specific recommendations, but the OP makes it very clear that we have to be pushing a specific product, and MightyAtom posted specifically about this condition that he firmly put his foot down about it having to be that way. For reference for ease-of-reading, MightyAtom's post is in spoiler + Show Spoiler [here] +
On July 17 2012 02:22 Marou wrote: That's an interesting idea, i'd like to contribute to it but i hate the fact hat i have to recommend some products on Amazon to be featured on a know-how. Why not just completely disregard profit ? By making it a for-profit initiative you really make it look like super blogs that sells stuff on TL (nice way to get some quality copywriting done i guess).
It's a very valid point and one that was hotly debated on for some time within TL as it was felt that some people wouldn't contribute specific for that reason.
I personally stuck to my guns on this point for a few reasons.
1. This section isn't about being featured as something special per say, it's in the blog section below featured bloggers and actually featured bloggers was part of the roll out of this section as well (that came out first) as we wanted to expand the blog section in general. So people just want to blog about something they feel passionate about, then this area isn't a replacement for that.
2. Why it's the knowhow section is that we don't want this section to be just a FAQ section, so the reference to a book or product was key part of it, not just for revenue, but as the main source of the knowledge for discussion on the actual knowhow. So we hope that as TLers read through or use the product/item that they can also share their comments, questions based on that specifically so it would focus the discussions as well (hopefully making the discussion active rather than just again, FAQs)
3. I'd like to think it is both, a for profit and for community initiative, I don't think for profit automatically cancels that out, because sincerely we wanted to set something up that wasn't invasive and gave back much more than what it was asking. And I think that will be apparent in the quality of the posts because we couldn't really pay an expert their market rate to write these posts, ultimately is a volunteer community contribution and part of the objective is yes, financial, but also contributing a really unique resource to our community. The content itself isn't restricted or based on having to buy the book or product, I mean people can go to the library or buy it second hand and personally all the books I've thus far recommended are older books.
In terms of initial image, I agree, it does look like its some super blog that is selling stuff, but I hope that the actual return to the community is far more than what it's initial image may be, that for some TLers it can really contribute to their understanding and even future endevours.
But I also won't shy from that if TL can get financial benefit from it, then I'm really pleased with that as well. I sincerely believe that TL is a great organization that will be investing in for the development in esports, and that requires funding, and while any act of commercialization can be seen as corrupting, I'd like to think that we're doing it in a responsible fair and appropriate manner which is true to the spirit of the community as well as contributing to TL in a meaningful way.
I completely understand the need for editing, so I have no probelm with that patr too prevent b ad articl quality contrl .
Surely you bring other things when hiking? Bug spray, sun screen, a badass compass, etc. I agree buying clothes online is generally a bad idea, but that's a bit of a harsh limitation.
As for my post about positive reviews only, see this post, which is quite negative. But I love that movie. It's awesome. Sure, it's poorly written and pretty terrible overall, but then again...so are all zombie movies. But whatever. My point is that if you write a review for a thing, it doesn't necessarily have to be positive. Yeah it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but there you go.
Regardless, I'm getting the feeling this project just isn't going to go in the direction I'm personally interested in, as it sounds like you guys have already made up your minds. I'm just one reader/potential contributor out of tens of thousands, and if it's successful for you going that in direction, then good luck and more power to you .
e: since I left the window open for a while as I wrote my response, here's a response to this
On July 17 2012 06:23 tofucake wrote: That's just a post then. There are posts like that, like TDL's "How to use TL" thread (stickied in General I think) and Featured Blogs and Final Edits and all other manner of posts.
Then you mistitled the feature, and I feel the section about what "KnowHow" means is irrelevant. Nothing about "KnowHow" to me says "this is a bunch of product recommendations"
This really seems to be "The TL product review". While the idea to get a bit more money back into TL isn't bad itself, the Knowhow title definitely looks misleading and some post reactions seems to confirm that. It's not meant just for information posts, it's aggregated product reviews for people who happen to live on the TL forums. Not exactly new idea but I wonder if it ever becomes popular around here, we'll see.
The initial post is a review, yes, but it's also the start of a discussion thread. If you read the articles already written by MightyAtom, you'll notice he encourages you to discuss the contents of the books with him, or ask him questions. The initial article is a jumping off point, after which the author agrees to have discussions which are based around sharing his or her knowledge.
EPT
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