On 19.10.2015 17:47, Stephen Michel wrote: > > > On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 11:27 AM, Aaron Wolf <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> On 10/19/2015 08:20 AM, Stephen Michel wrote: >>> In short, I don't believe we actually need any change to the mechanism; >>> we just need to lower the minimum and encourage donation at >>> above-minimum levels. >>> >>> We should do this by keeping in mind that *the average user will >>> tend to >>> stick with the defaults.* Therefore, if we set the recommended pledge >>> level above the minimum, so long as that pledge level is reasonable >>> (ie, >>> easily within the user's budget), they will stick with that donation >>> level. I propose the following. Note: numbers are rather arbitrary, I >>> just wanted to give a concrete example/idea. >>> >>> let n refer to the number of users. >>> >>> - Lower the minimum contribution to $1 per 5000 users. >> >> There's no basis for you to speculate that this lower minimum makes any >> sense. These types of changes are only sensible once we can operate and >> see how the numbers play out. Our current baseline is as good an >> appropriate guess and easier to calculate and explain. >> >> I think you need to read https://snowdrift.coop/p/snowdrift/w/en/limits > > I have read this. > >>> - For small n (< 100), the recommended contribution is $1 per 1000 >>> users. >>> - For n <= 100, the recommended contribution is the average of other >>> users' contribution. >> >> We don't want to recommend people counteracting the network effect. That >> would mean a message to others that says "if you join, others will >> adjust their pledge downward and actually *not* match you really". > > There's very probably some phrasing improvements. However: > > 1. When you join, others will match you at the level they have selected, > no matter what. The messaging should be: > - "If you join, current patrons will donate $X more." > - This is a simple concept which everyone gets. > - "Future patrons will match you at a level they choose. We'll > recommend they match you 1:1, so if you donate more/less, we'll > recommend they match YOU more/less respectively. > - This is slightly more complicated. Probably, this puts the idea > outside the scope of our MVP. This is fine. > >>> - This is presented to the user as "match other users 1:1" >>> - The user has an option to match at a different rate, but it's not >>> highlighted visually. >>> - If a user does opt to change their rate, the following message is >>> displayed: >>> - "This will [increase/decrease] the recommended donation[!/.]" >>> >>> Hopefully this allows for all of the following: >>> - A social incentive to donate more (increase the recommended >>> donation). >>> - A way to donate less with a reasonable social "penalty." >>> - if there's no "penalty," people may try to calculate the "best >>> deal" >>> of matching, ie, always donate the minimum. >>> - if there's too much "penalty," it may dissuade people who actually >>> can't afford it from donating. >>> - An elegant way to handle higher and lower contribution levels (ie, >>> adds little complexity). >>> - An intuitive way to present higher and lower donation levels to >>> users. >>> >>> Thoughts? >> >> All these goals are captured in our initial formula: >> https://snowdrift.coop/p/snowdrift/w/en/formula >> It has all the right properties to encourage larger pledges, discourage >> reducing your pledge, *allow* reducing your pledge… and we even >> originally started with a minimum that was a tenth the size of the >> current proposed minimum. So your thinking is exactly where we started >> with all this. >> >> The problem is that all this just leads to too much complexity, too much >> to explain, too many qualifications over the plain pledge concept, and >> so we really need to focus on launching without all this for now. The >> explanation of it all is just too cumbersome. The principles would be >> ideal to have, but we can't make it work practically. > > This is where I want to stress the difference here: ***this is NOT > actually a change of formula!*** For any individual patron the formula > is still, "I'm pledging to donate X per patron." > > It's a change in the level of donation that we recommend. Actually, how > we decide on that level of recommendation can be *completely* hidden > from the user. > > ~~Most~~ All of this is simply a change in how we present information to > the user. > > The point, is, I believe this, IFF we do the messaging right, is a way > to get back some of the benefits of the original pledge mechanism, > without a substantial increase to the complexity of the system, > particularly from the user's point of view. > > Most users will only ever see a button like: > > /-------------------------------------\ > | **PLEDGE** | > | (recommended donation)" | > \-------------------------------------/ > (change donation level) > > ~Stephen >
This *still* is too complex - especially if it is not transparent how we get to our recommendation that we hope most people will just fall back to. I also have an issue with turning nobs *at all* in a system that should be a big knob that turns itself. If i understood you right it boils down to "smartly" adjusting a vital property of the user preferences that control the flow of money *on top* of our matching system.
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