make Gittip work for behind-the-sceners

[chadwhitacre]

Raised by @dgouldin on Twitter:

cash for commits, brah.
just pointing out gittip's fatal flaw. Behind-the-sceners are further under-appreciated
if you want to help get $ to valuable OSS members, you need to make non-code contrib MUCH more visible.

[chadwhitacre]

I see project tips as playing significantly into this (#27). People behind-the-scenes on a project should be able to pull gifts from their association with a project even though they may not be the well-known public face of the project.

[chadwhitacre]

@dgouldin Where do you see Gittip emphasizing code contributions?

[dgouldin]

I think exposing sources of contribution with digital artifacts other than code could help (though not solve) the issue. Things like (just brainstorming) mailing list posts, IRC logs on freenode help channels, meetup attendance at sprints. @jnoller could probably provide more insight; this is his world much more than mine.

[chadwhitacre]

Here are other interactions I've had around this topic:

---

@lsblakk (via twitter):

[Gittip] is just another way to undervalue others.

---

@jphalip (via twitter):

This is just one proof that gittip isn't a fair platform. Just sayin' :-)

---

Related, from /r/Anarchism:

As it currently exists, Gittip has little potential to do more than shift the way a tiny elite of open source software developers earn their living. If it results in ordinary developers successfully subsidizing the developers of the most popular tools and libraries, it will only have the effect of freeing elite developers' former employers from having to financially support open source, and leaving ordinary developers no better off.

If, as planned, Gittip was extended to other identification providers like Facebook and no longer effectively restricted to funding open source software, the effect would be the same. An elite creative class may succeed in gaining a greater degree of freedom from capitalist modes of production by appealing to the benevolence of the middle class, but the economic relations affecting most people will be unchanged.

But with a couple changes, I think Gittip has the potential to be really interesting.

They go on to suggest organizational tips (#27) with even distribution, and one-off gifts (#5).

---

A similar concern, about Gittip being a popularity contest, cropped up pretty early with some fanfic fans:

"Gifts received closely reflect benefit to society" only if you conflate "benefit to society" with "popular". That's a fallacy.

There's a lot more context to that conversation, but that's the main point.

---

On Hacker News:

Unfortunately I think only the internet stars have even a chance of living like this... The irony is that these superstars normally already have huge paychecks :/

[jphalip]

In order to offer behind-the-sceners a fairer chance to benefit from the gittip platform, one would need to 1) raise awareness about the work that they do and 2) give tippers a reason to care about that work, or help them realize why they should care.

As far as possible solutions, I'd need to give it more thought, but perhaps a good place to start would be to allow people to refer other people by featuring quotes on their profile page: "THING wouldn't have been possible without PERSON's hard work", "I wouldn't have learned so much about THING without PERSON's mentorship and dedication", etc. This way the most recognized, visible people would reflect their own visibility onto other deserving, yet under-recognized people. In parallel, a regularly updated board could also highlight the people who've received the most referrals in the last week/month/year.

I'll try to think of other ideas. While I have mixed feelings about the platform as it stands today, I do recognize that its long-term goals are genuinely commendable and I do appreciate the creator's (@whit537) willingness to improve it and make it fair for the open-source community as a whole.

[lsblakk]

Hi Chad,

I'm certainly not intending to pile on with a well-poisoning attitude here. I'm not one to talk, I'm still a pretty green programmer, only a few years out of school and mostly writing small-ish python scripts for build automation and such. So I'm not throwing stones at a project that you've obviously worked at and then put out there to the world - I know that takes a lot of work.

I discovered gittip after seeing a link in Jesse Noller's tweet, checking it out I first thought "Well that's really nice that people are donating money to him cause I know he's had some rough times with health issues in his family". I thought it was a fundraising thing. Then I looked closer and saw that it seemed like people were being paid for their contributions to open source projects and, well, that got me thinking. As a woman, and a late-blooming programmer, I've spent most of my time since joining the open source communities I'm in (Mozilla, Python) trying to build spaces for myself where I can feel safe to learn, contribute, and otherwise provide value as much as possible. I've organized PyStar events in the Bay Area and in Paris (when I was there last summer for a few weeks) - taking any opportunity I can to teach other women Python in a non-alpha learning environment. And it's working. Because of PyStar and other groups aimed at increasing the diversity of Python programmers, I see a huge difference at PyCon and in the day to day world of Python programming. There are new conferences, new speakers, new projects - it's wonderful. But then I look at gittip and to me, it seems like a bit of a complete opposite program -- people who are "rockstars" and contribute tons of code will now not only get prestige, conference speaking opportunities, and lots of job options, but on top of that? A tip. I don't know, I'm not wanting to begrudge someone's hard work but it's just a way to value a certain kind of hard work over others. What about the people who are volunteering all their time in ways that aren't measurable in lines of code? Is something like gittip going to cause a rift in a community like Python where we're just starting to see a lot of momentum towards more inclusivity and diversity? Does it throw up more walls for women to think they are not good enough if no one wants to tip them for their work?

That's just where my mind goes. I wonder where you'll take this, and I'll try to reserve judgement. I guess my other thought when I saw it was to find a way to feminize it -- women tend to learn well when there isn't a scoreboard but instead when they can best themselves and so I try to think of ways to create learning opportunities that leverage that. Perhaps I could do a different take on what you're doing where there would be a donated amount, guaranteed to be shared equally out among all participants each week and people could have personal bests measured beyond commits but also in filing bugs, accepting pull requests, managing the projects that participate, and maybe even referring new contributors. At Mozilla we all (every employee) get quarterly bonuses that are a percentage of our wages. This means that while everyone gets a different dollar amount, we all receive the same recognition in a way and I love that about us.

So that's the long version.

Thanks for looping me in on this and, again, I'll be curious to see what happens for your project.

Cheers,
Lukas

On Aug 23, 2012, at 10:15 PM, Chad Whitacre [email protected] wrote:

Here are other interactions I've had around this topic:

@lsblakk (via twitter):

[Gittip] is just another way to undervalue others.

@jphalip (via twitter):

This is just one proof that gittip isn't a fair platform. Just sayin' :-)

Related, from /r/Anarchism:

As it currently exists, Gittip has little potential to do more than shift the way a tiny elite of open source software developers earn their living. If it results in ordinary developers successfully subsidizing the developers of the most popular tools and libraries, it will only have the effect of freeing elite developers' former employers from having to financially support open source, and leaving ordinary developers no better off.

If, as planned, Gittip was extended to other identification providers like Facebook and no longer effectively restricted to funding open source software, the effect would be the same. An elite creative class may succeed in gaining a greater degree of freedom from capitalist modes of production by appealing to the benevolence of the middle class, but the economic relations affecting most people will be unchanged.

But with a couple changes, I think Gittip has the potential to be really interesting.

They go on to suggest organizational tips (#27) with even distribution, and one-off gifts (#5).

A similar concern, about Gittip being a popularity contest, cropped up pretty early with some fanfic fans:

"Gifts received closely reflect benefit to society" only if you conflate "benefit to society" with "popular". That's a fallacy.

There's a lot more context to that conversation, but that's the main point.

On Hacker News:

Unfortunately I think only the internet stars have even a chance of living like this... The irony is that these superstars normally already have huge paychecks :/

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[thiloplanz]

I think the most realistic way for "behind-the-sceners" to get a piece of the pie is that the "rockstars", the project owners, who are probably the only people who really know their backstage area, give them a fair share of the money thrown their way. This could maybe be supported by having "project" or "product" accounts in addition to "people" account, but on the whole it would depend on them "doing the right thing".

If spreading the wealth is doing the right thing, that is, because any microdonation system can only work if 99% pay 1%, and spreading it to a wide audience would make for smaller amounts, so small that they do not have any impact (except give everyone a fuzzy feeling).

If anything, it might make more sense to actually funnel payments even more towards the "rockstars" (#55 plays in here), who presumably can make good use of amounts once they reach bigger sizes (quit day jobs, travel to conferences, buy infrastructure, organize events for the behind-the-sceners). We just have to assume that they don't just keep the money to supplement their "already huge paychecks". And if you are under the impression that they do, just give your money to someone else. Ultimately, it is the donors responsibility to decide where her money makes the biggest difference.

[jnoller]

Lukas: interesting thoughts, though I'd recommend taking a look at my profile on git tip again - I, like you, spend more time on the social work of the community than code.

I actually work for a fairly proprietary company, I spend all of my other time organizing pycon, doing outreach and other work, etc.

Essentially - I am the definition of someone who contributes some other way. I don't get speaking gigs for it though.

On Aug 24, 2012, at 1:43 AM, Lukas Blakk [email protected] wrote:

Hi Chad,

I'm certainly not intending to pile on with a well-poisoning attitude here. I'm not one to talk, I'm still a pretty green programmer, only a few years out of school and mostly writing small-ish python scripts for build automation and such. So I'm not throwing stones at a project that you've obviously worked at and then put out there to the world - I know that takes a lot of work.

I discovered gittip after seeing a link in Jesse Noller's tweet, checking it out I first thought "Well that's really nice that people are donating money to him cause I know he's had some rough times with health issues in his family". I thought it was a fundraising thing. Then I looked closer and saw that it seemed like people were being paid for their contributions to open source projects and, well, that got me thinking. As a woman, and a late-blooming programmer, I've spent most of my time since joining the open source communities I'm in (Mozilla, Python) trying to build spaces for myself where I can feel safe to learn, contribute, and otherwise provide value as much as possible. I've organized PyStar events in the Bay Area and in Paris (when I was there last summer for a few weeks) - taking any opportunity I can to teach other women Python in a non-alpha learning environment. And it's working. Because of PyStar and other groups aimed at increasing the diversity of Python programmers, I see a huge difference at PyCon and in the day to day world of Python programming. There are new conferences, new speakers, new projects - it's wonderful. But then I look at gittip and to me, it seems like a bit of a complete opposite program -- people who are "rockstars" and contribute tons of code will now not only get prestige, conference speaking opportunities, and lots of job options, but on top of that? A tip. I don't know, I'm not wanting to begrudge someone's hard work but it's just a way to value a certain kind of hard work over others. What about the people who are volunteering all their time in ways that aren't measurable in lines of code? Is something like gittip going to cause a rift in a community like Python where we're just starting to see a lot of momentum towards more inclusivity and diversity? Does it throw up more walls for women to think they are not good enough if no one wants to tip them for their work?

That's just where my mind goes. I wonder where you'll take this, and I'll try to reserve judgement. I guess my other thought when I saw it was to find a way to feminize it -- women tend to learn well when there isn't a scoreboard but instead when they can best themselves and so I try to think of ways to create learning opportunities that leverage that. Perhaps I could do a different take on what you're doing where there would be a donated amount, guaranteed to be shared equally out among all participants each week and people could have personal bests measured beyond commits but also in filing bugs, accepting pull requests, managing the projects that participate, and maybe even referring new contributors. At Mozilla we all (every employee) get quarterly bonuses that are a percentage of our wages. This means that while everyone gets a different dollar amount, we all receive the same recognition in a way and I love that about us.

So that's the long version.

Thanks for looping me in on this and, again, I'll be curious to see what happens for your project.

Cheers,
Lukas

On Aug 23, 2012, at 10:15 PM, Chad Whitacre [email protected] wrote:

Here are other interactions I've had around this topic:

@lsblakk (via twitter):

[Gittip] is just another way to undervalue others.

@jphalip (via twitter):

This is just one proof that gittip isn't a fair platform. Just sayin' :-)

Related, from /r/Anarchism:

As it currently exists, Gittip has little potential to do more than shift the way a tiny elite of open source software developers earn their living. If it results in ordinary developers successfully subsidizing the developers of the most popular tools and libraries, it will only have the effect of freeing elite developers' former employers from having to financially support open source, and leaving ordinary developers no better off.

If, as planned, Gittip was extended to other identification providers like Facebook and no longer effectively restricted to funding open source software, the effect would be the same. An elite creative class may succeed in gaining a greater degree of freedom from capitalist modes of production by appealing to the benevolence of the middle class, but the economic relations affecting most people will be unchanged.

But with a couple changes, I think Gittip has the potential to be really interesting.

They go on to suggest organizational tips (#27) with even distribution, and one-off gifts (#5).

A similar concern, about Gittip being a popularity contest, cropped up pretty early with some fanfic fans:

"Gifts received closely reflect benefit to society" only if you conflate "benefit to society" with "popular". That's a fallacy.

There's a lot more context to that conversation, but that's the main point.

On Hacker News:

Unfortunately I think only the internet stars have even a chance of living like this... The irony is that these superstars normally already have huge paychecks :/

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[andyweissman]

Doesn't the experience with Kickstarter show that, done right, a broad range of people will get funding for their projects?

[chadwhitacre]

@andyweissman Yeah, I think that Kickstarter and also @jnoller's experience show that the issue doesn't fall out along code-contribution lines so much as something else--personal marketing acumen or some such. It's a quintessentially modern skill. Twitter and Facebook turn everyone into their own marketing department.

I wrote a Gist related to this, about class-ism on Twitter: http://gist.io/3593759

There's something to be said for giving everyone their own voice. The revolution I want to be a part of turns our own personal concerns--my own personal concerns--inside out. Can we privilege giving over receiving, somehow?

[jnoller]

If I broke it, let me know and I'll stop

On Sep 1, 2012, at 11:32 PM, Chad Whitacre [email protected] wrote:

@andyweissman Yeah, I think that Kickstarter and also @jnoller's experience show that the issue doesn't fall out along code-contribution lines so much as something else--personal marketing acumen or some such. It's a quintessentially modern skill. Twitter and Facebook turn everyone into their own marketing department.

I wrote a Gist related to this, about class-ism on Twitter: http://gist.io/3593759

There's something to be said for giving everyone their own voice. The revolution I want to be a part of turns our own personal concerns--my own personal concerns--inside out. Can we privilege giving over receiving, somehow?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[aclark4life]

Helping "behind the scenes" folks can be as simple as asking various software foundations to encourage the funding of these folks through gittip (assuming they are unable or uncomfortable with compensating them directly somehow).

Someone knows something about whoever is doing these things behind the scenes, but they may not be the same people that want to help financially. A software foundation (e.g. Plone Foundation, Zope Foundation, Django Software Foundation, Python Software Foundation, et. al) issuing a formal statement could go a long way toward helping various individuals in the community help other individuals doing the work.

In my case, I'm half behind the scenes (as a Plone volunteer) and half in front (as the founder of pythonpackages.com). And I suspect while the former is much more likely to motivate folks to donate, it's much easier to say "check out all this new and exciting work I'm doing with my startup" than it is to say "Check out this email I just moderated in mailman!"

So, I'm hoping that everything I do will somehow translate in a way that is meaningful to the gittip community. Because what I'd eventually like to see for myself and others is "this person consistently performs this set of tasks in the community and consistently receives some amount of compensation for it." That's what it looks like we are starting to see here.

[mcdonc]

One strategy for behind-the-scener developers might be to allow the tip receiver to display a ratio of number-of-commits-per-month-to-number-of-dollars-per-month next to the gittip username in places it gets displayed. This probably wouldn't really work if the sole source of commit data was Github, but it might work if the source of commit data were Ohloh. And of course "number of commits" is a pretty bogus value, but it's kind of all-we-have. People who were not developers wouldn't benefit from enabling it, of course, either.

[ncoghlan]

If it's the wrong number, resist the temptation to measure it. Anything based on commits is the wrong number (e.g. I have far more influence on Python through design and API review than I do through actual code contributions).

As far as "behind the scenes" folks go, outside social safety nets, people ultimately have to retain responsibility for their own revenue streams. Some of us are happy with the idea of keeping "stuff we do for a paycheck" and "stuff we do because we want to" separate. Others may have other income streams, or simply not want to be in the spotlight sufficiently to encourage others to tip them directly. That's life - a service like gittip can facilitate a "many small patrons rather than one large one" model, but it's still up to individuals to decide if they wish to be funded that way. It's not gittip's place to try and make that decision on their behalf.

[chadwhitacre]

@jnoller, you're not doing anything wrong. You're doing everything right and I love it. Sorry I left that hanging for so long.

[chadwhitacre]

@aclark4life @mcdonc @ncoghlan We've already got a metric for who does the work, and that's tips amongst peers. We can use that information to allocate gifts given to projects. This is described in full on #27, but tl;dr: my current thinking is to allow Corporations to opt-in to Gittip and register Brands. Then People are tipped apropos a Brand by their peers, essentially crowd-sourcing the association of People with Brands (== projects).

So for example, the PSF, Inc. would opt-in to Gittip and register the "Python" Brand. @aclark4life, @jnoller, @mcdonc, @ncoghlan, etc., etc., etc. would all be tipped by various other Pythonistas "apropos" Python. Then when someone who has no idea who @ncoghlan is but loves Python wants to give back, they can tip the Python Brand directly, and this gets divied up based on the weighted associations that have built up over time through "associational" tips.

Specifically relevant to this ticket: in order to mute rock-stardom, part (half, say) of the money would be divied up equally amongst associated people, and the rest based on weighted association. So if $200 comes in for Python on a given payday and there are four people associated with Python with scores 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, and 0.9, then here's how money might be divided:

• Person A - 0.1 - $25.00 + $5.88 = $30.88
• Person B - 0.2 - $25.00 + $11.76 = $36.76
• Person C - 0.5 - $25.00 + $29.41 = $54.41
• Person D - 0.9 - $25.00 + $52.95 = $77.95

Again, see #27 for details.

[chadwhitacre]

@ncoghlan Also, you're right. Gittip is a tool for people to use. It's the people that matter and that are ultimately in charge.

[aclark4life]

Pretty cool! Great to see you have put some thought into this and are already thinking about an implementation. FWIW, that would go a long way toward satisfying my suggestion to "have the Foundation encourage gittiping", at least from the gittip side of things (i.e. they wouldn't have to call any attention to any individuals). I assume @jnoller's point about involving the Foundations is that they don't need or want to get entangled in any controversial activity (or that they feel it is a conflict of interest). That is a valid point, and Foundations certainly shouldn't feel obligated to do so. Rather, each Foundation can at least have it as an option and pursue it if they are interested.

I'll give you a real world example: In @DCPython (a MD 501c3 promoting Python in DC) we have a small amount of money in the bank we use to fund operations (donated by local businesses and individuals, mostly). One of those operations could be to financially and directly support individual volunteers, though it would require a significant amount of work amongst our board members, and others, to implement such a program. Instead, with our small board of 3 we can more easily discuss and possibly approve endorsing a "DC Python" brand on gittip that could result in payments for our volunteers without us having to become directly involved. Of course, the flip side is to decide if we want to encourage that or discourage it based on our specific financial needs. Maybe we want all the money to go to the organization first? Maybe we don't. But gittip at least (potentially) provides us with another tool in our shed to make our organization work better.

[chadwhitacre]

Hey all, if you're watching this thread, can I get you to look at #327? Could be a way to address the concerns here.

[chadwhitacre]

Subsumed by #449.