Thanks for this and the related work! Interesting to see the relatively small/insignificant effect on post frequency. I don’t want to spend much time commenting here so I’ll be very concise with my quick thoughts. They are just for the sake of feedback mainly so don’t take them too seriously!
I still think [55% confidence] that prizes probably do have an effect, mainly on those considering writing posts. The effect might not enough to justify doing them monthly though. However, annual prizes seem more likely to be cost-effective to me.
Your ‘prize posts’ also curate good content and that is valuable for forum readers, I think
I’d like an annual prize for the top posts/comments over the year, potentially with a crowdsourced component (i.e., forum users nominate/vote).
I like the creative writing prize and similar. I think it makes me many times more likely to produce creative content (which sadly doesn’t overcome my time or ineptitude :P)
I like the idea of using prizes to spotlight and incentivise specific types of content.
Your ‘prize posts’ also curate good content and that is valuable for forum readers, I think
I think this was a relatively valuable part of the Prize as well. However, the weekly Forum Digest now gets about 700 opens/week, which is well over the total number of views the average Forum Prize post received. If people want to track good content, the Digest is a good way to do that. (It’s much less selective than the Prize, but still seems like a superior form of curation overall, given how many good posts didn’t receive prizes.)
However, the Mailchimp archive only goes back 20 issues or so — I’ve made a note to put up a page displaying all past Digests at some point, to make the curation more complete.
Thanks for this and the related work! Interesting to see the relatively small/insignificant effect on post frequency. I don’t want to spend much time commenting here so I’ll be very concise with my quick thoughts. They are just for the sake of feedback mainly so don’t take them too seriously!
I still think [55% confidence] that prizes probably do have an effect, mainly on those considering writing posts. The effect might not enough to justify doing them monthly though. However, annual prizes seem more likely to be cost-effective to me.
Your ‘prize posts’ also curate good content and that is valuable for forum readers, I think
I’d like an annual prize for the top posts/comments over the year, potentially with a crowdsourced component (i.e., forum users nominate/vote).
I like the creative writing prize and similar. I think it makes me many times more likely to produce creative content (which sadly doesn’t overcome my time or ineptitude :P)
I like the idea of using prizes to spotlight and incentivise specific types of content.
I think this was a relatively valuable part of the Prize as well. However, the weekly Forum Digest now gets about 700 opens/week, which is well over the total number of views the average Forum Prize post received. If people want to track good content, the Digest is a good way to do that. (It’s much less selective than the Prize, but still seems like a superior form of curation overall, given how many good posts didn’t receive prizes.)
However, the Mailchimp archive only goes back 20 issues or so — I’ve made a note to put up a page displaying all past Digests at some point, to make the curation more complete.
They also give a signal to authors that content is valuable.