Thoughts about a wiki competition with cash prizes?

[W1zzard]

i've been thinking about giving people some incentive to work on the wiki .. since its so easy to send money around using paypal i think that's the way to go.

any suggestions on how much? in which timeframe? how to pick the winners? how many winners?

an initial idea is three prizes of $250, $100 and $50 each month to the most active people? how to measure active people?

[DanTheBanjoman]

Perhaps keep writers of articles anonymous and put an option to rate articles. Average rating of articles/additions would be the most active user. Making readers unable to see who wrote it keeps people from basing their vote on how much they like the writer. If some major asshole writes well people will rate him low even though he would deserve the cash.

Obviously amount of articles written/content added should be taken into account as well. A single article with max rating would get someone $250 otherwise which isn't fair to someone who wrote a lot and has a slightly lower average.


You could also hire me in 2 months, I'll be jobless at that time :P

[lemonadesoda]

If someone does a bad or maybe OK job on a new wiki article, but someone else comes in and edits to make the article GREAT, then who is the author to win the prize?

And what if someone makes a short wiki summary of an existing thread or sticky, which is essentially plagarism of the info and experience already provided by others...

And what if a GREAT article is actually nothing much more than a copy+paste of someone elses work, from another website, possibly even copyrighted? How would you know?

I see lots of problems with the approach. Especially if there is voting, since some poeple will inevitably create fake votes if there is money involved.

Perhaps better to commission the creation of certain articles? You choose a list of topics, and approach people to create the article. Minimum payment, say, $10 to write the article. Then AT YOUR discretion, $20 or $50 for the best article of the month. But I think YOU need to make the decision. It's your cash, and you are the CHIEF EDITOR.

$250 is too much. It is better to "thank" more people (say $10,30 or 50) than to give ONE person $250, and expect a hundred others to do something for free.

[DanTheBanjoman]

and expect a hundred others to do something for free.

You'll never do anything for free, in return you get access to the wiki. You share your knowledge and get a great amount of other peoples knowledge in return. Users that expect to get information for free without sharing their own are the bad users.

Anyway, voting is very sensitive yes, that's why I suggested the author shouldn't be listed. Though if W1z (or selected staff) handpick the "winners" it would be fine of course.

The idea of more people getting a share of the big amounts of cash sounds good to me as well. Works more motivating. Then again $10 in a month isn't that much. Perhaps prices should include hardware (reviewed items) .

[W1zzard]

shipping around hardware costs just too much.. we should review diamonds :)

hiding the author is not a good idea because its important to keep the wiki working ..

we could have a pot of $500 and split it among people based on who did how much.. which brings us back to quantifying the work someone did

[DanTheBanjoman]

shipping around hardware costs just too much.. we should review diamonds :)

hiding the author is not a good idea because its important to keep the wiki working ..

we could have a pot of $500 and split it among people based on who did how much.. which brings us back to quantifying the work someone did

I can review drugs. Cheap shipment.

Why wouldn't it work when author is hidden? It's just hidden from users, it's still stored in the database. So people messing around could still be nailed to the wall.

[W1zzard]

its just a lot harder to communicate when no names are listed..

[cdawall]

so do i need to list my name after i add to articles?

[Steevo]

Do we get bonus points for doing it drunk and blindfolded?



But on a serious note. Give no money, strip-o-grams are the way to go. And besides, I'm sure that it will get done, and done well, just a lack of time on the part of many.


And mebey a tutorial on how to create a professional looking article, or mebey I should just go look at others work and try to conform, and spell check.

[W1zzard]

i understand that working for the wiki involves time and effort from your side, so to get it started faster i'm willing to pump some money into the project

[cdawall]

i was going to help out before the money but whatever w1z im happy with the paypal money cause it will go towards a better computer for me :D

[AthlonX2]

if i could figure out how to add to it,i would be more than happy to contribute to this.....

[Steevo]

Click edit.



Prepare to be corrected by about 10 peeps.

[AthlonX2]

i was trying to add a manufacturer and i cant figure it out

[Steevo]

Add the manufacturers name to the end of the wiki address.



For example

http://reference.techpowerup.com/Reference/Dood


Change Dood to waht ever MFG you want, and edit it.

[AthlonX2]

say i wanted to add to the list of memory manufacturers would i type

http://reference.techpowerup.com/Reference/Kingston

and then edit it?

[cdawall]

i tried that and it wouldnt work for me better luck for all of you but im done for tonight i've done these so far

minor in SLI+pic
minor in Crossfire+pic
Major in Soclet 754,939,AM2,F
pic for celeron D
the entire air cooling thing

and if someone will create a case cooling one ill do that :D
edit ha got it i just couldnt be on wiki at the same time
all right that all done woop woop

new to the list:
case cooling

[Steevo]

Yep, I started it.

[AthlonX2]

i dont understand i guess....lol i dont see anything about kingston in the memory section? or shuold it be somewhere else

[cdawall]

you have to add the category to the bottom of the page in edit

like this:
[[Category:Cases]]

[AthlonX2]

ok i hope i figured it out now:banghead:

[AthlonX2]

ok im stuck now...........lol how to add pictures?

[Polaris573]

Nobody get upset if I edit your grammar, spelling, or completely re-structure chunks of your articles. It's not a personal attack, I'm ruthless to everyone.

I would hope everyone would contribute to the wiki for the fun of it, but I know the world doesn't work that way. If things don't pick up, some type of cash prize might be just what it needs to get it jump started. I think it would be kind of hard to keep track of everything if all users were anonymous, if you want to win a prize you should have to attach your name to the article and stick by what you wrote.

[AthlonX2]

Polaris can you give me some insight on how to add pics?

[Polaris573]

On the menu on the left side of the page click "upload file". Upload the file filling in the necessary information. We'll call the picture AthlonX2.jpg. Go to the page you want to add the picture to and add this line where you want the picture to go:

[[image:AthlonX2.jpg|thumbnail|right|200px|AthlonX2]]

The first part indicates that the file is an image, the next portion indicates you want it to be a thumbnail, then where you want it to be aligned (left, center, right, none), what size you want it to be (200px or 300px are good sizes) and then the caption for the picture.

Sorry, I should have answered your question with my first post, but I'm tired and wasn't thinking.

[AthlonX2]

thanx!! ill contribute what i can....

[W1zzard]

my approach to uploading pictures is to add the

[[image:AthlonX2.jpg|thumbnail|right|AthlonX2]]

tag first, then click on preview and it shows the image with a red linky. open the link in a new window then upload the image. this helps a bit when doing a lot of images. also try to use good names because all images live in the same namespace