Onboarding creators as Liberapay ambassadors

[eldelacajita]

Hi everyone!

First of all, I really hope this is not a duplicate of some debate you have already had somewhere. During the last week I've already started two duplicated bug reports. I searched for this one before posting, I promise 😅

I have been exploring Liberapay during the past weeks, and wanted to share an idea I have been thinking about since I started looking for interesting creator profiles for #189.

Seeing the profiles (and the generally low donations they are getting by now), it felt that Liberapay's presence could really improve if the number of talented and well-known creators was increased. On the other hand, I was impressed by how many well-known projects do still have unclaimed donations.

So my proposal would be, instead of (or apart of) diffusely disseminating via social media, to focus some communication efforts on contacting quality creators and inviting them:

• to join Liberapay,
• to have a look around and share their feedback, and
• to introduce it to their followers, inviting them to join and also share their impressions.

This way, Liberapay would gain ambassadors among the very people/organizations it aims to support.

As an example, I liked how @Changaco approached Nadia Eghbal here. As an even better example you can look at David Revoy's post about him joining Liberapay, as well as the feedback he provided and the comments of his followers.

I read somewhere that growth is not a priority right now for Liberapay, but I think this kind of focused growth would bring a great qualitative and quantitative improvement to the platform. Bringing creators and their supporters together would fill the explore page with successful projects, supporting the idea that donations can become a sustainable way to grow the commons and create a thriving free/libre culture.

We could start with the ones that have unclaimed donations. (That's an awesome feature in Liberapay, as it gives creators one more reason to join.) Then we could contact other notorious creators and invite them, and see how it goes. Oh, and while doing this, I'd not only focus on software but also on visual arts, music, video, etc., which result in very attractive projects and bring a more diverse user base.

I mean, look at this and tell me that this image by David Revoy is not pure PR gold for Liberapay and the whole commons movement. Even my mom would want to join Liberapay! 😀

[eldelacajita]

Just two side notes:

• I think part of my perception of current donations being low is due to them being weekly donations, which is unexpected. I find myself multiplying everything by 4 to get a proper idea of the monthly amount, which is the reference for anything related to achieving sustainable income. I'll just link to Switch donation cycle from weekly to monthly #206 in case someone wants to continue this debate there.
• Speaking of contents like that image by David Revoy: we live in a visual culture, and including a visual showcase component in Liberapay (homepage and user profiles) would increase its overall attractive, especially for graphic/video oriented creators and followers. Has this already been discussed somewhere? I have only seen something related mentioned at Background image for profile page header (AKA profile banner) liberapay.com#735 and Making the Liberapay site visually attractive liberapay.com#183.
• I said "we could start" because I'd like to jump in and help with this, if possible.

[mattbk]

I think this is a thoughtful idea. A few things that would be needed to implement:

• An onboarding page specifically for these folks that outlines essentially what you say in your first post: "hey, here's a platform, come check it out, sign up, try it, and give feedback."
• A very easy way to give feedback. Maybe just a GitHub triage issue where these folks can dump their thoughts without asking them to see if other issues exist already, etc. Then we would split up comments into existing or new issues to pursue.
• A second very easy way to give feedback (for those who aren't/refuse to be on GitHub or other social media). A form on the website or an email address.

Would be cool to route feedback somewhere and summarize potential actions before the development team (@Changaco et al.) wade through. This would let them focus on fixing bugs/implementing features (which they are good at) and let other people handle the information wrangling.

[eldelacajita]

Those are all great suggestions.

Having a specific onboarding page for creators is a great concept. It can be shown to creators regardless of the channel you used to contact them. You could even speak to them by phone and tell them to type "liberapay.com/creators", and have everything explained there. This is also relatively simple to implement, in terms of coding work, right?

And adding an easy way to get feedback would also be great. This part seems especially important:

Would be cool to route feedback somewhere and summarize potential actions before the development team wade through.

The translation into Github issues should (carefully and manually) be done by someone else before creating actionable issues. The feedback workflow could look like:

(Feedback form) > Github thread (issue) > review, clarification & discussion > link to existing issues & creation of new ones > development.

The "feedback form" could be skipped by people already familiar with Github. For other users, we would take their feedback and turn it into a Github thread, and then tell them "hey, thank you for your feedback, we are reviewing and discussing it here" as a followup. If they are OK with having it made public, that is.

It might be useful to use a simple survey-like form with some questions, in order to make the feedback more systematized and thorough. But even a write-what-you-want text field could give us a qualitative look into how creators are perceiving Liberapay.

[Changaco]

So my proposal would be, instead of (or apart of) diffusely disseminating via social media, to focus some communication efforts on contacting quality creators and inviting them

Unsolicited communication about joining our platform could be considered illegal spam.

Moreover, I am not comfortable inviting anyone to join Liberapay right now, because it's in danger of closing (#232), and because it has become clear to me that the way the platform currently works is flawed and unsustainable.

[eldelacajita]

Unsolicited communication about joining our platform could be considered illegal spam.

I hadn't seen it that way. It could, if it's done as spam: massive unsolicited mail. If we do it personally and closely, looking to start a conversation and not so sell any product, I think it would be different.

Moreover, I am not comfortable inviting anyone to join Liberapay right now, because it's in danger of closing (#232), and because it has become clear to me that the way the platform currently works is flawed and unsustainable.

Now, this is a real blocker. If the platform is not ready to grow, then we should focus less (and in different ways) on communication, and I think this idea should be discarded. This is why I find it so important to discuss and clarify priorities (#241) before trying to make any contributions to the project.

[RP87]

Hi, does the "unsustainability feeling" got solved by now @Changaco (stripe?)? I thought of "inviting" a selection of youtubers arguing against capitalism but using lucrative plateform to "try" this model and invite their community to discuss this topic. Would you advise against that ? As @eldelacajita explained, it would be specific to creators with interest in alternative economic model (commoners). (I'm preparing a framaform anyway with question not specific to liberapay).

[Changaco]

@RP87 Liberapay mostly works fine for new users now but it's not perfect so I would recommend wording your invitation carefully. In other words, inviting people is fine if you're not overzealous.