Facebook puts more bounties on dlang issues

[Manu]

On 12 January 2014 10:49, Peter Alexander <peter.alexander.au at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Sunday, 12 January 2014 at 00:34:38 UTC, Manu wrote:
>
>> Perhaps people need some sort of urgency motivator, like higher paying
>> (initially), but time limited bounties ;)
>> Ie, every day the bounty is reduced by 5% or something...
>> If it's not there tomorrow, then you'd better get it done today!
>>
>> Humans are proven to work most effectively when threatened with a strong
>> sense of urgency (it's why the gamedev industry always seems to be in a
>> perpetual state of 'crunching' :/)...
>>
>
> If you don't fix it soon then someone else will... that should give a
> sense of urgency :-)
>
> (not sure I agree about crunch/urgency making people more effective... but
> that's a different thread)
>

If it didn't work on some level, it would be adopted as standard practise
by at least 1 whole industry.
It certainly does work in the short term, but applied long term, it has
diminishing, and eventually severe negative returns. People aren't much use
when they're burned out and hate their life.

Anyway, just a question, how are the values for the bounties calculated?

The values assigned make the suggestion that they should all be roughly 1-3
hour tasks (presuming most people here get paid in that ball park, I think
typical for skilled comp sci).

Psychology when money is involved is very interesting. People here usually
contribute because they want to, and no other reason, and on things that
interest them. But if they're to consider being motivated to work on
something they're not interested in by financial interest alone, why would
people take a pay cut to do so?
Granted that a middle ground probably exists, but I doubt it's relevant
here; this community represents some of the highest idealism in open-source
software.

So I wonder,
a) should the bounty applied be less than an average hourly rate; ie, it
shouldn't undermine the open-source incentive, but just give a nudge of
incentive to some select issues, or
b) should it be more than an average hourly rate (more like contract
rates), to offer people fair compensation for the work they're doing.
Surely, if it pays more than your day job, then this obviously comes first.

I can imagine quite easily why a bounty that's too small wouldn't seem to
create any additional pressure on getting bugs fixed; if I make more in an
hour at work, then the financial motivation is basically non-existent, and
the idealistic nature of open-source might even add negative pressure.
I know for me personally, the moment there's a financial figure on the
table, my mind immediately starts considering it in terms of time. If it's
not a recreational activity, it's work, and I don't work for free.

If getting these bugs fixed is a business interest for facebook, then I
wonder if the bounties should be set closer to a reasonable contractor pay
rate?
That's what you'd be paying in the event you hired a contractor to get the
work done, and it makes financial sense to any (employed) members of the
community who might take the job.
If you do look at it that way, I think it would be useful to attach an
estimated number of hours to each task. Infact, I think that would be
useful regardless...

Anyway, just some thoughts.
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