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A New Non-Money Oriented Crowdsourcing Platform Based On Code Contributions (crowdsourcer.io)
An anonymous reader shares a new crowdfunding site built on open source principles to "remove the money element from project creation" so creators "don't have to take extreme actions such as quitting their jobs or compromising on their ideas because of investor demands. Because of the nature of crowdsourcer.io projects, project creators can remain as ambitious as funded projects and get all the contributors they need to make their idea a reality."
From the site: Crowdsourcer.io is an alternative crowd sourcing platform that allows developers and designers alike to create or join in on software related projects, build up their contribution and earn an income from the final product. Think of Crowdsourcer.io as something between open source software creation and Kickstarter start ups, a new crowd sourcing alternative, in its purest form"
The site's creator recently answered questions on Reddit, saying they'd spent years fine-tuning the idea, and writing that "It's really focussed on people who don't want to quit their job to form their own software company, and don't want to become embroiled in debt or other financing." A note at the bottom of the site adds that "Crowdsourcer.io is young. We want your ideas!"
From the site: Crowdsourcer.io is an alternative crowd sourcing platform that allows developers and designers alike to create or join in on software related projects, build up their contribution and earn an income from the final product. Think of Crowdsourcer.io as something between open source software creation and Kickstarter start ups, a new crowd sourcing alternative, in its purest form"
The site's creator recently answered questions on Reddit, saying they'd spent years fine-tuning the idea, and writing that "It's really focussed on people who don't want to quit their job to form their own software company, and don't want to become embroiled in debt or other financing." A note at the bottom of the site adds that "Crowdsourcer.io is young. We want your ideas!"
The last part of the quote (from Reddit) which got cut: "...At the moment I’m hoping that on every sale there’ll be a cut of about 10% before transaction costs so that 90% of all sales revenue is going to the project contributors - with no extra, hidden costs. This could change though, depending on costs.".
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Hi,
I'm the creator of the site. I'm guessing from your comment that it's not clear that contributors get paid. Just wanted to clarify that the profits are distributed based off of contribution whether they're the creator of a project or a contributor. Better yet, everyone's contribution is valued at the same level so irrespective of what you're contributing with your time, the money you earn for that "unit" of time will be the same as everyone else. It's essentially a rev-share model weighted by contribution.
Hope this clears stuff up.
Let me first address your questions on the practical features of the site which contribute to making it a fair workplace. And then maybe if I can allay some of those concerns, I can talk about why I genuinely believe it can create a change in the industry even though I know all too well the exploitation of workforce by the largest and most powerful in the industry. I've spent years coming up with solutions to the problems you're thinking about, so even though it may seem like the site has tonnes of flaws, it's my job now to show you that I've likely had the same issues with it as you and have come up with some way of tackling it.
So first things first.
How can you assess the relevancy of each contribution (across the huge number of different programming languages which I presume that you will be supporting)?
Simply put, we advise creators to come up with a system for allocating cpts. The default suggestion is one hour of work equates to 1cpt, irrespective of what that hour was doing. Creators and task editors can come up with any scale they like, as long as it remains consistent across all positions and throughout the life of the project
How can you avoid people to trying to trick the system by performing lots of irrelevant commits?
Actual commits bear no relevance to the system. Everything is done through project tasks. Tasks are created based on position and have a cpt associated with them. Anyone in that position can accept it (provided they've not undertaken too many tasks) and anyone in the project with a threshold level of cpts can create new ones. Should a task be completed, under certain circumstances it can go into review in which case it can be voted on by anyone in the project over a certain threshold of c.pts (not the same threshold as task management, though all thresholds can be changed by project owners). So simply put, I've built projects in such a way that they're autonomous. They can't easily be hijacked by random people but likewise there can't be a dictatorship by the project owner. The balance of power of course, was the largest thing I had to solve. Also this might also begin to draw a bigger picture of how it'll be hard for venture capitalists or work exploiters to take advantage of the system. The whole site involves a two way relationship throughout. Both sides have to realise that this system is only going to work for them if they don't try to rip each other off. That's quite literally the only way projects on CSio won't fall into mayhem.
how are you planning to perform such a distribution?
Which brings me on to the last point of the mechanics. We're providing a store for our users + selling tools to sell on their own sites & third party retailers (though the technical side of that is a little off implementation). All the money gets distributed straight away to all the contributors. If the project creator hasn't pulled their weight (or anyone for that matter) then they're going to earn less than those who've dedicated lots of time. That's the mentality we want people to have. And sure there are going to be issues internally; what if the project creator feels like the project is being swept away from under him and gets jealous/spiteful? What if the project creator is a bit of a tool and annoys all his contributors? These are people problems, and people problems can't be solved. Lastly this also begins to tackle the issue of requiring money to be seen in the market. Something a bit like watch itch.io does for games, by providing them a store and tools to advertise themselves without fighting head on with the largest stores with the largest marketing budgets. We're creating our own ecosystem where money is not necessary and - if we stay true to our values - never will be