A thought

[jarandhel]

I've been thinking about something for a few days now.... I think it's a good idea that I would like to see take off in the LJ community. If you agree, please turn this post into a meme and see that it spreads to others.

Often, it seems, unpaid LJ users go to paid users asking for journal creation codes to give to friends they want to invite. The paid users often have more than enough that they can give some away, so the request is generally granted by someone with a paid account on the unpaid users's friends list.

Nothing is inherently wrong with that practice, but I think the LJ community would benefit from a change. What if, instead of having journal creation codes given to them by paid users, unpaid users took the time to help out with support requests, thereby eventually earning a journal creation code? Or made a contribution to LJ itself, which was acknowledged as such by a previously acknowledged contributor? Or hell, even paid five dollars to get a paid account for two months and recieve two journal creation codes? These are all ways that are already in place for people to earn extra LJ codes, and all of them involve giving something back to LJ itself, which is something that benefits all of us.

I know I'm definately going to be checking out the incoming support requests from now on, and earning any creation codes I may need on my own.

Comments

[arhuaine.livejournal.com]

Actually this scheme has been in place ever since the start, but in practise only established support volunteers (ie people who are physically employed by Livejournal, or who belong to certain cliques) ever get their support answers approved. No-one else gets the chance to earn points. Unless you were here since year dot, the only way to get invite codes is to buy them or be given them from someone who bought them.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

That may once have been the case, but judging by the questions and answers available in the helpscreening community ( http://www.livejournal.com/community/helpscreening/ ) it is no longer the case, and if another answer is selected over yours you can actively seek a response concerning why that happened in order to improve your skills in answering people's questions as a newbie to the support community.

[arhuaine.livejournal.com]

The trouble is that if you are an "unknown", your comment is held back for screening before it's shown on the site. So while you are waiting for your answer to be approved, someone who already has the support-priviledge puts their answer in and it goes through automatically because they don't have to wait for approval. Then if your answer is the same as theirs, it is not posted because of duplication, or because the peson asking the question has already seen the first response and closed the request. Therefore the person who gets the points for the response is the person who already has support privs. The only way for you to get points is if for some reason no-one with support privs responded to it at all (which is pretty damn unlikely). I managed to get 1 support point, way-back in the day before that used to happen. In the end I gave up.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry about your negative experiences trying to hep out in the support forum, but I can see several posts in the helpscreening community just since yesterday by people who are new to support who have had a few of their answers approved, so it apparently is no longer as big of a problem as it once was. I'll keep a running update of my own experiences with it in my journal, once I start answering questions... I'm still trying to become familiar with the system and the connected resources first.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

That's not how it works, actually. Almost without exception, all answers are screened by default, regardless of the priv-level or experience of the volunteer. An experienced volunteer with 'supporthelp' privs in the right category then looks over the set of screened answers and selects the "first best" answer that follows policy and answers well. If none are yet good enough, they'll wait for a better one or, if enough time has passed without a suitable answer, write one of their own. Most supporthelps don't like approving their own answers, though.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

I've been a volunteer for about two months now -- I'm one of the newer ones -- and I'm already nearing 300 support points. It has nothing to do with belonging in to a clique and everything to do with writing acceptable answers.

The first acceptable answer on a request is approved, whether the poster is brand new or a supporthelp. When you're brand-new you can't tell if a request has already been answered or not until an answer is approved, however, and this can be frustrating. (In my first couple of weeks, the vast majority of my answers were passed over because I just didn't get there first. Now I'm an I1, and I can see when I'm wasting my time because I can see the screened answers.)

skreidle has already explained how the system works, but I'd like to add a point: support has nothing against new volunteers. We love them. We want more of them. Everyone is very helpful when you have a question -- you can even send in a bunch of your answers in at once for a review. The trick is not to be afraid to ask questions and to use the resources available to you.

[xerne.livejournal.com]

Having actively tried it for a week and a half and not gotten a single answer approved, I gave up. But good luck to your attempt.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Did you ask in the helpscreening community why your answers were not approved?

[xerne.livejournal.com]

Generally I was told that someone else just phrased it better. Once I was told I included too much information. Once I was told I shouldn't have added instruction after I linked the FAQ, that it was too confusing.