I began writing this back in July as a Contributoria how-to. Then this morning, I received an e-mail announcing the demise of Contributoria.
We want to thank you for all you’ve done to make Contributoria such a wonderful project. The team here is immensely proud of what we’ve achieved together, and we are very thankful that you dedicated time and energy to writing here and helping others in the community.
That, an FAQ and the brief mention (without link) of an unofficial Contributoria group. No other explanation as to why this crowdfunding experiment died.
But.
I have some thoughts as to why it didn’t work out.
This past July, in an attempt to figure out what Contributoria was about, I threw my own proposal into the ring. My project? Volunteering won’t change the world. Do this instead. I wrote it, spread the word, got funding in July and spent August writing the thing.
(I’m not sure how long my article page will work. On September 1, it should have a permanent home on their archive site, so I’ll make sure to fix the link then.)
It publishes September 1 in the last series of funded articles on the site. I made it just under the wire.
Even before receiving that announcement, though, I’d already decided not return to the platform for many reasons.
I love the idea of a citizen funded and supported site. I love that public interest leads production. I am intrigued with possibility of a crowd of people giving insight and input to my writing, but from beginning to end, the process felt unclear and disjointed.
For those of you who don’t know anything about how Contributoria works, a quick overview.
You propose a topic and state how much you want to be paid for the piece. Once your project is approved, users of the site back you with points. Anyone signing up for a free Contributoria accounts automatically gets 50 points. You could also pay for additional points with premium accounts.
If by the end of the first month, you received enough points, Contributoria comissioned your piece.
You spent a second month writing it. During that month, you published drafts of the piece that were posted on the site for people to edit. Anyone could offer suggestions. Then your piece published the third month.
There is lots to like about this.
- You decide how much your writing is worth.
- The general public decide whether or not your piece interests them enough to back.
- In theory, that could help you build your writer platform.
- You make contact with writers who have similar interests.
- Collaborative editing can be absolutely wonderful. It gives you the opportunity to hear multiple points of view which in turn deepens your coverage of the subject matter. Plus, you’re not reliant on one editor.
- It is a wonderful feeling when a complete strangers pays cash money to to see your proposal come to life.
Why I didn’t like Contributoria?
It lacked transparency.
Writing the proposal was easy enough, and it then went into review before being released to the public. Who was actually reading and commenting on proposals? No idea.
The points system was neither straightforward or standard.
You chose how much you wanted to be paid, which was then transferred into points. Points per dollar varied from month to month. I have no idea why or on what criteria.
So 200 pounds could be 1500 one month and then 2500 the next. I know this because I asked people who had been backed previously. We each asked for 200 pounds. I had to get 2500 in backers.
That is a big difference when you’re trying to get people to back your project in increments of 50 points.
It wasn’t worth the effort.
Pounding the virtual pavement to back a project sucks, and it’s not something I’ll do regularly. I sent out e-mails, asked friends, pleaded with family. Imagine how many pitches I could have sent for the same time and energy. (I estimate at least ten.)
Lack of fully completed user profiles made the system easy to game.
It takes a lot of backers to reach 2500 points when each backer only has 50 points, but find a backer with 250 or 500 points, and you reach your target quickly.
Aside from a stern warning from Contributoria that it’s against the rules, nothing stopped people from creating fake acounts and backing themselves. It’s super easy to open a new account, and you didn’t have to verify your address.
Then, another, faster to self-back projects occurred to me when I saw a few proposals receive full backing from only a few backers within a day or two of appearing on the site. My proposal, by contrast, took two weeks and 42 backers.
Say you purchase three 250 point accounts. That would be about ten pounds. (The same amount as one 500 point account, by the way.) Set up six accounts for 20 pounds and you have 1500 points. Even with the changing points amount, you’ll still make more than you spend.
To be 100% clear, I did not do this. Nor would I. I’d much rather pitch editors and write articles than fuck about with some bizarre money making writing scheme.
What does this say about the quality of what’s written on the site?
Nothing positive. Aside from a few e-mails sent to remind you of deadlines, nothing holds you accountable to quality writing.
Anyone can edit your writing.
This is fantastic in theory. In practice, it means people with no editing experience can say what they want about your writing, and you have no way to clarify or ask questions. Very frustrating.
My biggest complaint was the lack of community.
It was disjointed and incomplete.
Aside from comments left on your writing, there was no way to connect with other members. I tried to reach out to the people who backed and commented on my proposal, but most had no identifying information and, thus, no way to contact them.
There were no alerts to let you know someone commented on your piece, so you had to remember to go back and check the site regularly just in case. You also had to keep track of where you commented.
Way. Too. Much. Complication.
Overall, I still admire the idea of Contributoria and would love to see it or a similar project succeed.
I imagine if Contributoria threw more resources behind forums, created a solid way to vet users, included an inbox with each account and hired a really wonderful community manager to facilitate discussion, they would be in a very different place right now.
I do hope someone will try this again and will learn from these mistakes. I know I’d be willing to try again.
What about you? Or should we stick with the current pitch model where editors have all the control?
