On prizes 1) when would you plan to start them from (i.e. what are posts eligible for this) 2) have you thought much about extrinsic motivation crowding out intrinsic motivation? My worry is that by offering financial rewards, it changes how people will think about this e.g. “well, I’m probably not going to win anything, so I won’t bother posting” or “there was some really good content this month, I’m going to hold onto mine”
1) The first period for prizes will start as soon as the new forum is open to everyone.
2) Yes, this was a concern we had, but we decided that encouraging a wave of people’s best content in the early period of the new forum was worth trying.
Cerasoli, C. P., Nicklin, J. M., & Ford, M. T. (2014). Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives jointly predict performance: A 40-year meta-analysis.
In general, our most important theoretical and empirical contribution is that incentives and intrinsic motivation are not of necessity antagonistic; We found that incentives coexist with intrinsic motivation, depending on the type of performance and the contingency of the incentive.
http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-03897-001
Yeah, this matches my personal experience a bunch. I’m planning to look into this literature sometime soon, but I’d be interested to know if anyone has strong opinions about what first-principles model best fits with the existing work in this area.
On prizes 1) when would you plan to start them from (i.e. what are posts eligible for this) 2) have you thought much about extrinsic motivation crowding out intrinsic motivation? My worry is that by offering financial rewards, it changes how people will think about this e.g. “well, I’m probably not going to win anything, so I won’t bother posting” or “there was some really good content this month, I’m going to hold onto mine”
1) The first period for prizes will start as soon as the new forum is open to everyone.
2) Yes, this was a concern we had, but we decided that encouraging a wave of people’s best content in the early period of the new forum was worth trying.
Cerasoli, C. P., Nicklin, J. M., & Ford, M. T. (2014). Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives jointly predict performance: A 40-year meta-analysis.
Yeah, this matches my personal experience a bunch. I’m planning to look into this literature sometime soon, but I’d be interested to know if anyone has strong opinions about what first-principles model best fits with the existing work in this area.
Another risk is demoralizing anyone who is encouraged to make a post based on the presence of the awards but doesn’t actually end up winning.