The admin team have announced the return of he quantity rewards scheme, but with an unfortunate twist.
do you recall, when you were so much younger than you are today, how there was an unspoken, but perfectly well understood code of honor among children, that you simply did not snitch on a perpetrator known to you, even at risk of getting punished yourself, because it simply was NOT the done thing? Of course, as we get older and our attitudes mature, we tend to take a different view in adulthood, but remnants of that code of ethics always linger.
When I saw the announcement today of an August Special, I was glad to see that it looked like the admin team were actually getting on board with their writing contributors, re-introducing the concept of those willing to write more, and post more regularly, being worthy of some financial incentive, a very laudable sentiment, but there is a twist that should not sit well worth anybody, for what is being offered is 30 pieces of silver by another name.
You ONLY qualify for the extra 10% on your month’s earnings if you have used the new flag button 15 TIMES as well! I cannot imagine that the genuine users of this facility, of which there obviously are some, because admin are apparently pleased to see it being made use of, will find it easy to perform the act of flagging 15 posts in a month, because, while forum violations of spamming etc are easy to spot, those committed in the posts themselves seem much less so.
There is, naturally, the grave danger that some, desperate to qualify for that extra 10% of not very much anyway will start flagging posts like crazy, just to be sure of reaching targets, and some worthy and quite respectable writers could easily find themselves targeted unfairly. In my view, the admin team will be overwhelmed by ‘violation’ notifications, and the best-laid plans will end up in tatters because it was not well enough thought out to begin with.
If it becomes a necessary evil that dedicated contributors, wanting to see a big improvement in the fortunes of the site have to start pointing the finger, then so be it, but please do NOT turn this rather unsavory practice into a competition, where ethics, morality and sound judgement go out of the window in the quest for a prize. We are all surely better than that, and I feel that the admin team really are clutching desperately at straws in trying to rebuild site reputation by such means.
It is NOT wrong to blow the whistle on writing that breaks all the rules, and disregards the triond TOS, but that is only really applicable where no pressure exists to achieve certain goals. Big Brother tactics like this one are hardly likely to endear people to triond, so perhaps the admin team should re-think the strategies they want to see employed for putting the site back where it belongs. We are no doubt all more than willing to help achieve that aim, but there are limits, and boundaries we should never be asked to cross.
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