5 ms·

I’d argue getting a shirt for some PRs is better than the status quo, where you get nothing for a PR. Which just goes to show how bad the status quo is.

robocat 6y ago
“But we obtain the puzzling result that, when rewarded, volunteers work less. These findings are in line with a large literature in social psychology emphasizing that external rewards can undermine the intrinsic motivation for an activity.” Be very careful assuming that a payment motivates open source developers. If you offered to help me do something for an hour for whatever internal motivation you might have, and afterwards I offer you $5 for your time, you would likely be demotivated.
- dec0dedab0de 6y ago
  If you offered to help me do something for an hour for whatever internal motivation you might have, and afterwards I offer you $5 for your time, you would likely be demotivated. On the other hand if you offered to buy them a beer or a coffee it would probably be very motivating. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe cash just feels lazy and impersonal, so the amount being offered has to be big enough to counter that feeling.
  - NhanH 6y ago
    It's the implicit conversation with the beer-buyer that matters. You are offering your time (which is atleast valuable to you) along with the beer. If you just buy a beer and left instantly, it's gonna be worse than $5
    - dec0dedab0de 6y ago
      It's the implicit conversation with the beer-buyer that matters. That is certainly a plus, but I don't think that's all of it. If I was working on something for a friend, that they had no idea how to help with. Then at some point they dropped off a snack or drink as a thank you, I would be happy about that. If they offered me a $100 bill I would be offended because they're not my boss, and my time is worth more than that. I want to say that a small token of appreciation feels better than having my value quantified to an insulting amount. However, it may be even more basic than that. Food is a powerful reward, there is a reason it is used to train animals. It also could be that introducing money makes something feel like an obligation.
  - pythonaut_16 6y ago
    Offering $5 dollars feels like it's ascribing a low value to the time/effort to help. Offering a coffee or beer feels like a better gesture/token of appreciation. It's not about the value then but about the gesture. For anyone who is working, people are "giving" them $5 all the time. But they probably don't have people buying them coffee/beer/lunch all the time.
- imtringued 6y ago
  I actually would be very motivated. From the perspective of a contributor the worst thing that can happen is that their patch gets rejected or ignored. If you get paid for something it means someone actually wants your contribution. It's less likely to be ignored or rejected outright.
- _visgean 6y ago
  http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.511.2983 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.511.... here is the work that you cited if i am not wrong.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  That quote might be misleading: "Volunteer work is an increasingly large, yet ill-understood sector of the economy. We show that monetary rewards undermine the intrinsic motivation of volunteers." -- https://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/iewwpx/007.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/iewwpx/007.html The earlier sentence make it clear they are talking about monetary rewards specifically, not any kind of reward. A t-shirt might notionally have a $ value, but it is not a monetary reward. Plus, the nature of a branded t-shirt has an obvious team-participation / prestige value. If rewards demotivate people, we should also avoid positive recognition, or praise, which is a form of reward; of course this is unintuitive, so I assume monetary rewards are a special case.
  - robocat 6y ago
    It is tricky. We all hear the stories of the person who saves a company a million dollars, and then gets giving a coffee cup (or an attaboy) for recognition. It gets even trickier when the giver and the receiver have wildly different incomes. Generally I find money to be a terrible proxy for what I actually value, but other options are worse proxies!
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
That's missing the point a bit. Good PRs are valuable, but require lots of work. Spam is not valuable, but it also does not require basically any work. Hacktoberfest equally rewards both good PRs and spam equally. With those incentives, what are people logically going to produce?
- Chris2048 6y ago
  On the other hand, what kind of people are going to logically participate in an event where the reward is a Hacktober branded T-shirt? What are their likely motivations?
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    > what kind of people are going to logically participate in an event where the reward is a Hacktober branded T-shirt? Well, the answer is clearly "a lot of people," unless you can think of an alternate explanation for the increase is spam during Hacktober. Why they want a damn T-Shirt so much is a totally valid question, though. I don't understand that either.
pmontra 6y ago
I submitted very few PRs to open source projects. I usually submit bug reports. In both cases I get that what I care about gets into the project. It's enough for me.
account42 6y ago
> where you get nothing for a PR You already got payment up front: software that the author(s) have made available to you for free. You get payment by the author spending time to review your changes. You also get payment afterward: free maintenance for your pet feature. (Not guaranteed of course but generally the case.)

robocat 6y ago

“But we obtain the puzzling result that, when rewarded, volunteers work less. These findings are in line with a large literature in social psychology emphasizing that external rewards can undermine the intrinsic motivation for an activity.” Be very careful assuming that a payment motivates open source developers. If you offered to help me do something for an hour for whatever internal motivation you might have, and afterwards I offer you $5 for your time, you would likely be demotivated.

dec0dedab0de 6y ago
If you offered to help me do something for an hour for whatever internal motivation you might have, and afterwards I offer you $5 for your time, you would likely be demotivated. On the other hand if you offered to buy them a beer or a coffee it would probably be very motivating. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe cash just feels lazy and impersonal, so the amount being offered has to be big enough to counter that feeling.
- NhanH 6y ago
  It's the implicit conversation with the beer-buyer that matters. You are offering your time (which is atleast valuable to you) along with the beer. If you just buy a beer and left instantly, it's gonna be worse than $5
  - dec0dedab0de 6y ago
    It's the implicit conversation with the beer-buyer that matters. That is certainly a plus, but I don't think that's all of it. If I was working on something for a friend, that they had no idea how to help with. Then at some point they dropped off a snack or drink as a thank you, I would be happy about that. If they offered me a $100 bill I would be offended because they're not my boss, and my time is worth more than that. I want to say that a small token of appreciation feels better than having my value quantified to an insulting amount. However, it may be even more basic than that. Food is a powerful reward, there is a reason it is used to train animals. It also could be that introducing money makes something feel like an obligation.
- pythonaut_16 6y ago
  Offering $5 dollars feels like it's ascribing a low value to the time/effort to help. Offering a coffee or beer feels like a better gesture/token of appreciation. It's not about the value then but about the gesture. For anyone who is working, people are "giving" them $5 all the time. But they probably don't have people buying them coffee/beer/lunch all the time.
imtringued 6y ago
I actually would be very motivated. From the perspective of a contributor the worst thing that can happen is that their patch gets rejected or ignored. If you get paid for something it means someone actually wants your contribution. It's less likely to be ignored or rejected outright.
_visgean 6y ago
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.511.2983 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.511.... here is the work that you cited if i am not wrong.
Chris2048 6y ago
That quote might be misleading: "Volunteer work is an increasingly large, yet ill-understood sector of the economy. We show that monetary rewards undermine the intrinsic motivation of volunteers." -- https://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/iewwpx/007.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/iewwpx/007.html The earlier sentence make it clear they are talking about monetary rewards specifically, not any kind of reward. A t-shirt might notionally have a $ value, but it is not a monetary reward. Plus, the nature of a branded t-shirt has an obvious team-participation / prestige value. If rewards demotivate people, we should also avoid positive recognition, or praise, which is a form of reward; of course this is unintuitive, so I assume monetary rewards are a special case.
- robocat 6y ago
  It is tricky. We all hear the stories of the person who saves a company a million dollars, and then gets giving a coffee cup (or an attaboy) for recognition. It gets even trickier when the giver and the receiver have wildly different incomes. Generally I find money to be a terrible proxy for what I actually value, but other options are worse proxies!

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

That's missing the point a bit. Good PRs are valuable, but require lots of work. Spam is not valuable, but it also does not require basically any work. Hacktoberfest equally rewards both good PRs and spam equally. With those incentives, what are people logically going to produce?

Chris2048 6y ago
On the other hand, what kind of people are going to logically participate in an event where the reward is a Hacktober branded T-shirt? What are their likely motivations?
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  > what kind of people are going to logically participate in an event where the reward is a Hacktober branded T-shirt? Well, the answer is clearly "a lot of people," unless you can think of an alternate explanation for the increase is spam during Hacktober. Why they want a damn T-Shirt so much is a totally valid question, though. I don't understand that either.

pmontra 6y ago

I submitted very few PRs to open source projects. I usually submit bug reports. In both cases I get that what I care about gets into the project. It's enough for me.

account42 6y ago

> where you get nothing for a PR You already got payment up front: software that the author(s) have made available to you for free. You get payment by the author spending time to review your changes. You also get payment afterward: free maintenance for your pet feature. (Not guaranteed of course but generally the case.)