Here is WHY everyone is outstandingly important here!
Feb 24 '01
The Bottom Line Here is the proof that everyone's contribution IS important and welcome to Epinions and its community.
This is a (very long) comment on CyndiA’s Editorial “Here is WHY you will never be important here!” to be found at: http://epinions.com/content_915447940. Please do yourself a favor and read this outstanding piece of work, she really has to say a lot of important things, although I needed to comment a couple of things out of my perspective, but her’s is truly an outstanding manifest of honesty and important attitude to this community.
Congratulations, CyndiA, for this excellent piece of work and honesty! I really do admire your powerful statement and energy you put in here. As one of the old-timers I wanted to conclude from my side a little bit.
Making tons of money at Epinions
First of all, there are not more than a handful of writers that made more than $10k last year and they were pretty lucky to have made 80% of that with the old rates (10 times more as today and special bonuses as advisor). I started October ’99 and used to be the most trusted member for many months last year, wrote 120 of my 175 reviews in this period of time and still “only” made $5,000 (including affiliation, more than 200 new members I brought in, etc.). Unless you were really determined and spent a ton of time here and run the whole package of Content Partner and other programs you would never make this kind of money.
And it is true that a couple of folks have really been in here for the money but here is what impressed me most about this concept: look at the really famous guys here (ptiemann, bonies7, pogomom, forkids, Leah, joli, charles, Petra, awoolcott, CurtisEdmonds, Poseidon, VeeZee, 29th_Candidate, erik_kosberg, AlexG, Lark729_89 , to name a few – wow, finally the first time I mention names here, was about time after writing 200,000 words at Epinions…), if they had not constantly proven to the very dynamically behaving and judging crowd of readers/raters, that there work is worth to check out and to grant the honor of coming back again and again, they would never have gotten this far.
Ask their fan readers why they stop by to repeatedly check out their new stuff, it was never because their longing for money shone through! It was because they not only wrote excellently informative, entertaining and supportive to serve the main purpose of the site (to support buying decisions, this is the only reason for this site to exist! If you like it or not, this is not a financed playground for everyone who is pleased to announce the freedom of speech, this is an environment where other folks hold there @ss in the line of fire of the financial community and other folks make their living with it, meaning the company!). It was because they “played” – as you say – the whole “game” to be “played” to become trusted and gain sympathy from the community: countless hours of conversations in any form, advising on site features and even fill gaps the site could not cover (create and entertain message boards and even additional tools to make the site working better, see what ptiemann, Peter has done for the Epinions world, without him this site would never have been that successful!). Anyone call me an idiot here who knows better…
It’s about the purpose of the site!
On top, they truly cared, lots of the advisors today (and please do not forget that they stopped earning any substantial amount of money months ago and still keep going in what they have started to the advantage of all others!) – lots of them have been given away a significant portion of their private life time to go after these goals and everyone profited! But again, the wish for a private playground to the free word and other honorable purposes to be imposed by any member fails by far the right for existence for this site!
Think about it: even if it seams to everyone that the “moneymakers” at Epinions served a more capitalist-like approach, this was the only purpose given to the site to begin with! It is set-up, financed and run as a place where the owners, the company sets the rules and you either like the approach and serve it or mind your own business!
This is a business with people working for it that need to feed their families and want to make it a success at the same time and everyone who serves this purpose to the best ability is considered a key player. Just like in any other venture of the world!
There is more to it
Fortunately the founders realized that there is more to it than plain words but personalities and a self-dynamic way how humans judge them. And this is where the critical mass of your entire doing here at this site kicks in. You are never entirely judged or left out because of a word or phrase or review. Everyone has a chance to be read, heard, to make a stand, to be part, to serve the purpose, to inform, to participate in any activity and to contribute in their meaning of sense. And the outcome, the overall judgment of the entire doing here, the final (well, it’s ongoing anyway, even better because that increases the chance to develop further) result of your contribution is what counts.
Equally to any human community, take a company for example, anyone who started with them earlier got more advantages? Quite the contrary, even if they paid better earlier, there is always a solid chance that newer, more motivated (just like you Cindy!) folks contribute not only differently but serve the overall purpose better, don’t you think? Ever experienced a writing blockade? After your 150th review you will know what I’m talking about and there is the big chance for everyone else to complete what a lot of fine folks here have started and to become an equally or even more important part of this WebVenture.
This is where I entirely disagree with your title statement!
In the observation and judgment of the critical mass of value of this site every single piece of work counts! And regardless how someone tries to run after the money or how much they made over a short period of time, the only measurable outcome is the popularity of the overall doing here, the service that is done with your commitment. And as time goes by and water runs down the rivers, this self-dynamic process will gain weight and some day down the clock the really outstanding members will be the ones that really contributed to serve the purpose of the site the best, regardless what money they made!
See, there is a reason to be picked as an advisor and everyone knows that the judgment of this needs to be fine-tuned, but the mix of popularity, status (advisor that is) and value of contribution makes the real sense and this is the true reason for everyone to be equally important over time here at this site!!!
Who moved my Cheese?
And there is something else in this society and this site to be aware of and to recognize as a fact: the willingness to accept change! Change as a chance to start over, to re-gain momentum and to allow new talent to equally grow on the challenge, even grow bigger than older members. See, after 1.5 years of many nights (all of us have a life, a family, a job – after all, it’s just a web site we are talking about here!!!) and change in the rest of my life as well I really do not have the time and the energy anymore as before and this is what the site needs as well: new, willing, motivated members that take over what others have started and protected and maintained and grown.
Many of us old-timers (the majority of the advisors today) will not even be here anymore at some point of time, so what’s the point to complain about what we had done wrong (and there will always be thing done wrong or not perfectly) when there is a chance to do things new, better and gain popularity by taking over!
Whoever was in here for the money, might have vanished by now (as you just make a couple of bucks a month anymore) or would stay for some other lower reason. Very easy to outperform with a really valuable contribution, don’t you think? And everyone who earned the popularity of this community (and quite some money in the past, but is that so wrong?) and still sticks to this community and keeps going, will be truly happy to learn about newer talent to do even better and eventually make their share as well, in popularity, satisfaction and money if you will. And again:
This is what makes everyone so important here! Everyone’s share can make a difference, just like in real life, so let’s go for it, all together I say!
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