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I wonder if there is a way to incentivize the behavior of "I work at a big company and have the ability to help out a stranger with a problem"? Perhaps people

I wonder if there is a way to incentivize the behavior of "I work at a big company and have the ability to help out a stranger with a problem"? Perhaps people who help others with these issues (which are public by nature of being discussed on reddit/twitter/etc) can put it as an item on their resume when looking to switch jobs - something like "I care about the community and people who use the products I help build. I advocated for [this person (with link to public forum)] which ultimately resulted in [this solution (with link to release note if possible)]." Of course there is a discussion to have about incentivizing the _wrong_ behavior (the need to create publicity around issues that shouldn't exist in the first place / only people with "clout" become the ones who get their issues resolved).

jacobion 6y ago
It's incentivized like this: [At a party] A: What do you do? B: I work for $BIGTECH. A: You suck dude. I bought one of their products and it never worked once.
- kridsdale1 6y ago
  Response: "Oh yeah I know, the team that made that really sucks. How about that local sports team?"
  - CamperBob2 6y ago
    "The thing about Facebook is, they always try to walk it in."
thinkingemote 6y ago
Couple of pop psych thoughts: People on HN are not really strangers, we are part of a community. By helping one of us, they help one of their in groups. Not helping might devalue their investment in this place. HN users are the early adopters that small group of users who have much more influence early on in projects. Care of early adopters makes sense.
rvba 6y ago
I assume that quite often those are marketing & PR people who use special tools to track every mention of a product / company name. Many companies (especially niche ones) buy those services that basically track the whole internet - so their representatives can comment on issues. Bigger companies seem not to care that much, apart from maybe twitter? And those few thousand upvote posts on reddit.
underwater 6y ago
There are groups inside Facebook to raise issues like this. I can guarantee this one has already been escalated. They wouldn't allow just any employee to "fix" these issues. Too often there is a lot of context that is omitted from the shared story, so it's not just a matter of hitting a button to remove a block.
pjc50 6y ago
You don't want to incentivise this too much or people will start taking bribes. Also, "I helped a member of the public defeat my organisation's policy" is a negative on the resume not a positive. Sadly.
- brundolf 6y ago
  The very fact that regular employees of these companies might have the clout to take bribes for simply giving their attention to something, speaks to the absurdity of how much power we've given the organizations. We're talking about Facebook programmers like they're state senators.
CamperBob2 6y ago
I wonder if there is a way to incentivize the behavior of "I work at a big company and have the ability to help out a stranger with a problem"? When the coin in the coffer rings / An account from bannination springs!

jacobion 6y ago

It's incentivized like this: [At a party] A: What do you do? B: I work for $BIGTECH. A: You suck dude. I bought one of their products and it never worked once.

kridsdale1 6y ago
Response: "Oh yeah I know, the team that made that really sucks. How about that local sports team?"
- CamperBob2 6y ago
  "The thing about Facebook is, they always try to walk it in."

thinkingemote 6y ago

Couple of pop psych thoughts: People on HN are not really strangers, we are part of a community. By helping one of us, they help one of their in groups. Not helping might devalue their investment in this place. HN users are the early adopters that small group of users who have much more influence early on in projects. Care of early adopters makes sense.

rvba 6y ago

I assume that quite often those are marketing & PR people who use special tools to track every mention of a product / company name. Many companies (especially niche ones) buy those services that basically track the whole internet - so their representatives can comment on issues. Bigger companies seem not to care that much, apart from maybe twitter? And those few thousand upvote posts on reddit.

underwater 6y ago

There are groups inside Facebook to raise issues like this. I can guarantee this one has already been escalated. They wouldn't allow just any employee to "fix" these issues. Too often there is a lot of context that is omitted from the shared story, so it's not just a matter of hitting a button to remove a block.

pjc50 6y ago

You don't want to incentivise this too much or people will start taking bribes. Also, "I helped a member of the public defeat my organisation's policy" is a negative on the resume not a positive. Sadly.

brundolf 6y ago
The very fact that regular employees of these companies might have the clout to take bribes for simply giving their attention to something, speaks to the absurdity of how much power we've given the organizations. We're talking about Facebook programmers like they're state senators.

CamperBob2 6y ago

I wonder if there is a way to incentivize the behavior of "I work at a big company and have the ability to help out a stranger with a problem"? When the coin in the coffer rings / An account from bannination springs!