So for me the prize fulfills some very important purposes. Perhaps the most important two are:
Curating the best content
Rewarding content creators for producing content
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Curating the best content
I regularly use the prize posts as a “summary of the best of the month” which I greatly appreciate. It helps me focus my attention on the best articles of the month. It is also a great experience for the authors, who just publish content as usual and without any additional overhead sometimes they get selected for the prize. This is how I wish more academic areas worked—everything published openly in a preprint archive and then the journals acting as “curators”, selecting the best work. I really wish something like this will remain in the forum (a “best of the month” selection).
This is a very useful function also to help analyze a posteriori the impact of the best pieces of the forum, as for example with this post.
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Rewarding our content creators for producing content
I would think some people who are specially competitive are motivated by the prize to write more. But I don’t know how large of a share of the community is like that.
Instead, I think the most important reward is making people feel proud and recognized for their work. When somebody I knew won the forum or comment prize, they were showered with praise and felt happy and appreciated.
This goal is a bit at tension with the goal of curating the best content. People are sometimes disheartened by the posts being consistently won by professional researchers who have the time and experience to write very good posts.
I think I would like this goals to be somehow separated—though I admit I am a bit confused about how one would go about doing that.
So for me the prize fulfills some very important purposes. Perhaps the most important two are:
Curating the best content
Rewarding content creators for producing content
----------------------------------
Curating the best content
I regularly use the prize posts as a “summary of the best of the month” which I greatly appreciate. It helps me focus my attention on the best articles of the month. It is also a great experience for the authors, who just publish content as usual and without any additional overhead sometimes they get selected for the prize. This is how I wish more academic areas worked—everything published openly in a preprint archive and then the journals acting as “curators”, selecting the best work. I really wish something like this will remain in the forum (a “best of the month” selection).
This is a very useful function also to help analyze a posteriori the impact of the best pieces of the forum, as for example with this post.
-----------------------------------------------
Rewarding our content creators for producing content
I would think some people who are specially competitive are motivated by the prize to write more. But I don’t know how large of a share of the community is like that.
Instead, I think the most important reward is making people feel proud and recognized for their work. When somebody I knew won the forum or comment prize, they were showered with praise and felt happy and appreciated.
This goal is a bit at tension with the goal of curating the best content. People are sometimes disheartened by the posts being consistently won by professional researchers who have the time and experience to write very good posts.
I think I would like this goals to be somehow separated—though I admit I am a bit confused about how one would go about doing that.