Henne Vogelsang (hvogel@opensuse.org) wrote:
You might think it won't but there is a mountain of research and data suggesting that it does influence engagement and motivation. And not really in a way that is obvious at first sight. This is a complicated topic from a very complicated science (psychology, hello Jos! :-).
In the theory of motivation there is a distinction between 2 different type of motivations/rewards. There are "intrinsic" rewards like the feeling that you are getting better at something, that you control the progress you make, that what you achieve is matching your values. Also that you belong to something bigger, more important than yourself. Intrinsic motivation comes from within yourself.
[snipped some *great* stuff]
And motivation is even the very beginning of things you have to consider before you go ahead and implement something like this. Implementation wise, for instance, you have to offer rewards that matter to the action you reward them for (e.g. compulsion loops). If you don't they are meaningless to the recipient. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-BUJL54Tk0 for a nice summary about this.
That was a really interesting video! Especially when considering how what the speaker said applies to sites like stackoverflow, ohloh, etc. I find contributing to stackoverflow strangely addictive, and I think that's mostly due to the compulsion loops resulting from the privileges you gain when reaching reputation points thresholds. However they don't form strong positive feedback loops, because earning a new privilege typically doesn't help you earn points faster (with some exceptions earlier on). The other aspect of stackoverflow's addictiveness (from my PoV) is, as the speaker on that video says, that there's something in assigning numbers (scores) to people that often just makes people want a bigger number. Yes, there's evidence to suggest that this is more effective for repetitive tasks than ones which require creativity. But nevertheless noone can deny the success of stackoverflow. Where does that come from? I guess it's also due to a really good interface, aside from the game-ification aspects.
And here is where gamification in software gets complicated. You have to get to the point where your automated (software driven) rewards appear human, unexpected and and include direct feedback to what you issue them for. Because only then they increase intrinsic motivation. You have to match your extrinsic rewards to the intrinsic rewards of people or you destroy their motivation. This is especially true for beginner and women (groups we desperately need).
Right, that makes perfect sense. ohloh also assigns a sort of score (they call it "kudos"), and various badges, but noone seems to care much, and I suspect that's because they didn't match the extrinsic rewards to any intrinsic ones.
Like I've said in the beginning. It might be your intention to only achieve the things you are trying to achieve (measure trust, credit and guide people etc.) but in the end with any type of gamification system you will impact peoples engagement and motivation, it's inseparable. You have to be very careful with that, you can easily destroy communities with it.
Agreed. Henne, that was a fantastically useful and well-thought out post, which shows that the topic is a lot more complicated than most of us (me included) understand. Thanks a lot! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, email: opensuse-project+owner@opensuse.org