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don't call anyone "lurker" #1789

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chadwhitacre opened this issue Dec 20, 2013 · 21 comments
Closed

don't call anyone "lurker" #1789

chadwhitacre opened this issue Dec 20, 2013 · 21 comments

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@chadwhitacre
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Suggested by @JustinKDavey in private email:

A dev at Ideapod (a platform for ideas) suggested I check out gittip. I haven't started to utilize it in anyway. BUT I do have a question for you.

I logged in today and it said Justin Davey is lurking.

Why does it say that? I think of lurking as a negative thing. Why would you use that kind of language to describe a new user who is merely curious? I want to evangelize your product and your mission but not if you call me a lurker. I understand your push for openness at all levels but it just struck me as odd. No one likes being called a lurker.

@chadwhitacre
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@bbinkovitz raised this at #634 (comment) and I added code to vary our verbiage:

  • For the first minute, that text reads "So-and-so just joined Gittip! :D"
  • For the rest of their first week on the site it reads, "So-and-so joined recently."
  • After that it goes to "So-and-so is lurking."
  • As soon as they start actually giving and/or receiving, those numbers are shown instead.

Justin joined 10 days ago now, so either the week timeframe is too short, or (more likely) we should just drop the term entirely. Personally, I don't mind being called a lurker, but especially as we grow beyond a geek crowd that word will increasingly be experienced differently.

@chadwhitacre
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Is it too cute to change "Justin Davey is lurking" to "Justin Davey is biding their time"?

@rummik
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rummik commented Dec 20, 2013

How about just their user name?

@ehmatthes
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Where is this message shown?

I would guess that these people have projects that are too low-profile to attract tips yet, and don't have enough disposable income to tip someone else yet. I have no issues with the word "lurking", but I can see that it would be very easy to make these people feel bad. It would be easy to make someone think, "I don't have enough money to participate in gittip as a supporter, and I don't have any projects significant enough to receive tips. I'm out of here."

Maybe these people could see a couple links? One link to tips on how to start tipping with as little commitment as possible: "You can start tipping with a one-time payment of $10. If you tip someone $0.25/ week, your $10 will last for 40 weeks! It might not seem like much, but this is one of the core ideas of gittip: many small tips can be more reliable than several much larger tips."

The second link to suggestions for how to strengthen your own projects to the point that people will want to tip you. Do you have good documentation? Is your work polished enough that people can see it work? Gittip helped motivate me to bring some of my projects past the "good idea" phase, and I think we could help others take that step as well.

These people who are lurking are a very interesting demographic.

@tshepang
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They don't have enough disposable income to give someone $0.25/week? Really? My guess is that a bigger barrier is entrusting some random website (Gittip in this case) with credit card details.

@tshepang
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I don't remember before someone complaining about the word 'lurking' before. Interesting. Is there a positive word? Inactive is not so positive. As @rummik says, showing just their username is maybe ok, though I do like some indication of whether or not the user is actually active without having to guess.

@ehmatthes
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They don't have enough disposable income to give someone $0.25/week? Really? My guess is that a bigger barrier is entrusting some random website (Gittip in this case) with credit card details.

You're right; I realized that as I was typing out the rest of the message. I wonder if some people feel like tipping $0.25/week won't be a meaningful contribution, and that is the sentiment that my suggestion addresses.

I hadn't thought about the trust issue. How would you help people trust Gittip? I wonder if emphasizing some stat would help, such as "Gittip has already distributed $x to y recipients." Maybe an explicit section, "Why should I trust gittp?" There are a good number of reasons, that people might not be aware of. The open company concept, gittp is funded off of gittip.

I don't remember before someone complaining about the word 'lurking' before. Interesting. Is there a positive word? Inactive is not so positive. As @rummik says, showing just their username is maybe ok, though I do like some indication of whether or not the user is actually active without having to guess.

I'm not sure we should try to name what they are doing. I wonder if that's the time to offer them help, which is why I keep going back to the idea of some kind of link there in place of a message. Link text something like "How can I get involved?", or "Can we help you get started?"

@tshepang
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@ehmatthes thanks for re-emphasizing the idea of adding links on profiles on inactive users. I sort of missed it. Sounds like a good idea.

@chadwhitacre
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Here's what it looks like:

screen shot 2013-12-20 at 5 22 31 pm

https://www.gittip.com/JustinKDavey/

@ehmatthes
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Here's what it looks like:

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought this was a message displayed to the user themselves. I still like the idea of displaying links suggesting how to become more active to logged-in, inactive users. In the upper right, where I see "Giving" and "Receiving", they could see something like "start giving" and "how to build support".

I wonder if a simple statement such as "User is not yet active", "User is just getting started on gittip"?

@balupton
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Why is this message even here in the first place? What is it's point? What purpose was it suppose to fulfill?

@clone1018
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It's was supposed to be a cute message about the users status on Gittip, it filled a content void.

@balupton
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Thanks. In that case, would "So-and-so is on Gittip" fill the content void without negative connotations?

@clone1018
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I think that doesn't give a good impression of what the user is on Gittip, have they been here for awhile without giving anything or are they new to the site? Maybe we can reach out and help them if they're new.

@ehmatthes
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Maybe we can reach out and help them if they're new.

That should definitely be part of the solution. But this message is displayed to other users. I think it should be a non-assuming statement; I like "User is just getting started on Gittip." A person can be "just getting started" indefinitely.

@tshepang
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"just getting started" is misleading; not good

@mvdkleijn
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I have to agree with @JustinKDavey - Lurker is not really a positive word.

I don't like the "just getting started" idea. My suggestion would be something like "User is quietly watching the Gittip world."

@ArcTanSusan
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@mvdkleijn I like your idea so I implemented it in a PR. If there's alternative suggestions for this descriptive text about the user, I'll be happy to modify the PR.

@chadwhitacre
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!m @mvdkleijn @onceuponatimeforever et al.

mvdkleijn added a commit that referenced this issue Dec 24, 2013
Fixed #1789 -- Removed text 'lurking' to friendlier text.
@mvdkleijn
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Closed this by merging the PR after no comments on PR in 2 days. We can always change it again should the change be controversial for some reason.

@chadwhitacre
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Deployed!

!m *

screen shot 2013-12-26 at 11 19 51 am

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