Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 17:03:27 -0700 From: dannyman <dannyman@toldme.com> To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: questions answered w paypal "tips" Message-ID: <20010614170327.O99558@toldme.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hrmmm. So, I'm playing with Linux Mandrake 8.0 on my laptop to see how the other half live in their user-friendly GUI. Gnome is pretty nice stuff, and while there are a few things I haven't licked yet, it is not a bad desktop environment. But then the box crashes a few times, and mozilla stops working. Why? Dunno. Reinstall it? Sure! Nada. So, I click on this desktop icon called "Mandrake Expert" and type my question in and get to chose from rated "experts" who apparently at some point can receive tips. And I think, why not? I'd be happy to chuck a guy a $5 for answering my question. Maybe more. I've got a PayPal account. I might even be able to expense it. Then it occurs to me that since, with PayPal, you just click "send money" and put in an e-mail address ... I could post a frustrating question, and offer $n to the first person to answer it to my satisfaction. A "gift culture" might be the most lightweight answer. This isn't like a big contract - if you can give me the clue to solve my mystery, then a few bucks makes it worth your while, you're more likely to read -questions and answer them. :) How's this sound, as an example? From: dannyman@toldme.com To: freebsd-questions Subject: [$5] Mozilla won't run. [I intend to PayPal $5 to the first person who helps me solve this problem successfully.] After a couple crashes, mozilla will no longer run. I tried reinstalling it, but nada. When I run /usr/local/bin/mozilla it exits successfully and nothing happens. So I step through the script. foo returns 0. bar shows this output, then hangs: yada yada yada Any ideas? [Note: I have no problem with Mozilla under FreeBSd. I send you no money, that's just an EXAMPLE!] Actually, as I write this e-mail I start thinking we could tie e-mail questions to some sort of "question queue" and when you're satisfied with your question you send people appropriate tips, and then you do like eBay where people give each other stars based on the quality of their answers / tips, so you build up a reputation. People who keep asking questions but renig on the tip they suggested start to look bad, and people who give marginal answeres and then feel jilted at their measly tip ... or simply just have a link to "history of this person's questions / answers, and the tips they gave." Well, anyway, I'm just tossing this at chat. Maybe it excites somebody, maybe someone is already doing this. -danny -- http://dannyman.toldme.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20010614170327.O99558>