over on his fadedpage forums, rfrank asks "what motivates users?" it's an excellent question, one that deserves a thoughtful answer... so here's my take on it, which i give partly because i have some disagreements with _some_ conclusions that roger has come to. i phrased these all in an affirmative way, so this could be used as a mission statement (e.g., for my own site, or by others), although the reverse-phrasing will often have made more sense to people... (for instance, "i do not want to be asked to do _unnecessary_ work.") i'd guess that most people would approve of most of my items, so i'd be interested to hear if anybody would challenge any of them... *** what i want as a distributed book digitizer... i want to proof, yes. i want to format too. i want to finish pages. i want to finish books. i want to smooth-read. i want to do a great job. i want to do necessary work. i want to select what i work on. i want to have unambiguous rules. i want to know if i am doing a great job. i want to know when i am making mistakes. i want to see solid proof if i've made a mistake. i want to receive fair credit for work i have done. i want to work in a system that's very transparent. i want to work with others who're doing great work. i want to know my energy is being used productively. i want to know how to improve the quality of my work. i want to know exactly what data the system has on me. i want to be able to challenge the system if acts unfairly. i want to let the world know when i have done a great job. i want to let the world know when i have done a lot of work. -bowerbird