When do you give Kudos?

[MoReese]

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@Steve Chandler wrote:
I'm not sure if this is the first time Cyndi Lauper has been quoted here on the forums, but "money changes everything"

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For better or for worse?

[JÞB]

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@MoReese wrote:

 Knights should be paid a stipend for every solution they author.  This would show good will from NI to those members who have been consistent and loyal to LV.  Besides, you are providing free tech support for NI.  Why shouldn't you, the Knights, be compensated for your years of service to the community.  I'm not talking much here, but it would show some appreciation from NI.  Plus, it would motivate people to become even more involved and motivated.  As a Knight, you're already motivated, but a monetary benefit would be nice I bet.

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Mo-

You are missing a very large point with tis and should expand your viewpoint.  The desire to share knowledge is a very common human motovator.  Show me the teacher that choose the profession because "the pay scale is so good".  Money is just not enough motovation for those afflicted by the teaching gene.  I suspect the forums would be harmed by moving from a collaborative effort to a means to make money directly.

By all means the forum contributors deserve compensation- and we recieve it directly through gratifing our teaching need and indirectly by building a base of expertise and practices that aid the adoption of NI products.  Taking LabVIEW as an exapmle- the better the average developer can use the IDE to meet the needs of the market in time and material the more LabVIEW projects there will be.  More contracts- higer pay- employment security.  Real benefits of forum participation

[MoReese]

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@Jeff Bohrer wrote:

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@MoReese wrote:

 Knights should be paid a stipend for every solution they author.  This would show good will from NI to those members who have been consistent and loyal to LV.  Besides, you are providing free tech support for NI.  Why shouldn't you, the Knights, be compensated for your years of service to the community.  I'm not talking much here, but it would show some appreciation from NI.  Plus, it would motivate people to become even more involved and motivated.  As a Knight, you're already motivated, but a monetary benefit would be nice I bet.

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Mo-

You are missing a very large point with tis and should expand your viewpoint.  The desire to share knowledge is a very common human motovator.  Show me the teacher that choose the profession because "the pay scale is so good".  Money is just not enough motovation for those afflicted by the teaching gene.  I suspect the forums would be harmed by moving from a collaborative effort to a means to make money directly.

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You are correct that the desire to share knowledge is a good motivator as well as the added benefit of improving LV.  For most, this is satisfaction enough.  My thoughts were not to "satisfy" or make money the primary motivator.  What we do is enough for me, but your example of educators choosing their professions more for the job then the money is a little lacking.  They may not, and most don't, choose what they do because of money, but they are still compensated for it regardless.  Who would choose that if they had to work for free?  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy this forum because I enjoy learning, and I've learned many things.  I only threw that out there as a way to reward those who have participated in the forum for such a long time.  As I said, I'm not talking about something that would pay the bills.  I was thinking a buck for each solution.  That might give you $40.00 per year.  It won't break the bank but it also probably would not be a great motivator either.  So I will conceed that my suggestion was a bit short-sighted.  My only reason was for acknowledgment of a job well done.

As an alternative to that how about making the "Solutions Authored" visible for all to see?  This is more telling to me than how many Kudos someone has receieved.  NI could assign different levels based on the number,. like they do for posts.  Just a thought.

[SteveChandler]

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@MoReese wrote:
 

As an alternative to that how about making the "Solutions Authored" visible for all to see?  This is more telling to me than how many Kudos someone has receieved.  NI could assign different levels based on the number,. like they do for posts.  Just a thought.

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I asked about this very recently on Breakpoint. I agree it would be very interesting to see but Darin.K made a pretty compelling argument against it.

One reason I like to help people is partially for greedy purposes. When I started doing it I was preparing for my CLD. I would look for questions related to the things you need to know in order to pass and try to answer them. Sometimes I knew the answer and sometimes I would have to research the answer. I did not necessarily reply to the thread but rather would wait until someone else did so I could compare what I came up with to the actual solution. Doing this was the single most helpful thing in passing the exam. As I learned more and became braver I started replying to questions.

Helping people with their problems is an excellent learning tool and I am better for it. That is the only compensation I really want out of this. But as I said that is only part of it. It feels good to know I helped someone out and knowing they apreciate it by giving a kudo makes it feel even better.

[altenbach]

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@MoReese wrote:

I purpose, Knights should be paid a stipend for every solution they author. 

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No, definitely not! You are opening up a can of worms here.

• NI would need to keep track of earnings for tax purposes.
• We would need to complicate our tax return.
• NI would need to create a contract with each forum member.
• NI would need to judge if an "accepted solution" is actually correct (some are not!)
• Scammers could form circles that constantly ask questions and mark each others answers as solutions.
• NI could be held liable if the code suggestion blows up a nuclear reactor.
• We would have some responsibility to follow some company line, limiting creativity.
• NI would have the responsibility to give us free access to all NI software, because if you use your company's software, they would deserve a piece of the pie too.
• ...

Sure, the bottom line is that NI saves a lot of money due to our volunteer effort, but that does not come automatically and does not simply end up in the pockets of some very rich CEO instead. You cannot buy volunteers that are passionate about helping. What they did was put a huge R&D investments into a product and make it exciting enough to generate positive feedback dynamics.

This is a very successful forum and you cannot buy that with any kind of money by astroturfing. If NI saves money, they can invest it into more and better development, leading to a better product with less bugs and we all benefit!

NI also sponsors education efforts from LabVIEW for Education all the way to FIRST robotics, these are very good causes.

That is sufficient for me! 😄

[James_W]

reposted over in this thread:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/BreakPoint/When-do-you-give-Kudos/m-p/1838041#M17707

[MoReese]

Thank you Christian and others that have replied.  I am happy to see you are very passionate about this, as I expected you would be.  I just wanted to know what others thought.  I knew there would be some backlash to this.  I know, thanks to James W, that this suggestion has been made before, but you make a very convincing argument.  These things I never took into consideration, obviously.  Let's chalk this one up to inexperience on my part.  I will concede the error of my ways.

[Ben]

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@altenbach wrote:

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@MoReese wrote:

I purpose, Knights should be paid a stipend for every solution they author. 

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No, definitely not! You are opening up a can of worms here.

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This is a very successful forum and you cannot buy that with any kind of money ...

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Megga-dittos

If you like what you get, "pay it forward" and it just gets better.

Ben