Is gittip a gift economy?

[whit537]

[A few folks on Twitter started an important conversation about whether Gittip is actually a gift economy. I asked if we could move the conversation to another venue given the limitations of Twitter. I'd like to have the conversation in public, however, so let's try it here?]

So, first off, what do you mean by gift economy? Do you think in terms of one "THE gift economy" or do you see multiple "A" gift economies?

And especially, what's your experience of it? Do you consider yourself to participate in a/the gift economy? Can you describe that for us?

chad

[anat...@gmail.com]

Okay, so, like I said, right now I don't have much time for a really elaborate conversation, but... I'm one of the people who started this on twitter and I'll start here with one important thing - I think we hare having *several* semantic issues.

So first thing I'll say, because it affects the very formulation of your question(s), is that I do not think the sentence "Gittip is (or isn't) a gift economy" makes sense.

A website or a service cannot be (or not be) an economy, gift or otherwise. An economy, of any type, is not just a system of exchanges on paper but the community of practice that goes with it. So, Gittip can be the *enabler* of an economy (whatever its type); it can be its central and primary tool, it can be the agora in which the crowd gathers to take part into an economy, where a community (of practice, but not only) gets built. But it cannot, on its own, and especially not when it is so very young, BE an economy.

So that's my first semantic issue here (and if anyone want to shrug off semantic issues, that's fine, but then I don't think that there's any sense in having this conversation at all).

More later, because offline life sadly calls! :)

[tegan.mu...@gmail.com]

As I said on Twitter, by my definition open source software is already a gift economy. A "gift economy" is a system where social conventions and personal relationships determine exchange, rather than any formal barter or pricing system. It usually includes social visibility of gifts to help in social reinforcement of norms. Visibility of the giver is important to my personal idea of a gift economy as a place that rewards people socially for their gifts. Gittip is more set up to show a person's popularity by showing what they received, rather than showing someone's generosity by showing how much they gave.

Upon reflection, the biggest definition gap is that individual gifts with gittip are anonymous. Thus gifts cannot be seen to infer a social obligation, except in the most general sense that the coder or artist is obligated to "the world." The giver of tips doesn't accrue prestige through their gifts.

In the existing gift economy of OSS, the software itself is the gift, and givers get a feeling of accomplishment, learning, and often social/professional status for their contributions. There's no reason gittip can't be a tool for improving the world, but the definition of gittip as a gift economy itself is what really gave me pause when anatsuno brought it up. A gift economy is a culture, a system of social norms. Gittip may be a tool for building gift culture, a part of the ecosystem, but it cannot itself BE a gift economy. A website or service is not a culture.

Tegan

[tegan.mu...@gmail.com]

"The "tip" is a way to accord reputation to those who give the most away. Subverting money for this end gives the thing teeth." - chad, on twitter

Ok, I think I see where we're defining things differently. Giving people a tip obviously rewards them for their gifts of creative output. But you also see the amount of money they've been given, publicly displayed, as a reward of reputation. Is that right?

Tegan

[Krytella]

I come from a completely different world: the other major online gift economy, transformative fandom (fanfiction and stuff). My experience is a little different from people in the open source software gift economy because it has different constraints:

* By community standards, fanfiction can't be sold and no one is supposed to make money off it. Not even on a donation basis! Charity auctions for commissions are mostly accepted now, but they can't profit the creator. There are some fan works that are physical objects, and it's common to sell those, sometimes even at a profit for things like original paintings. Open source software is open by choice, but fanfiction is free by necessity for legal reasons. And there are for-profit companies based around open source software, which could never happen for fandom.

* Reputation in the open source software community has extrinsic value for many people while reputation in the fan community has it for only a few. People who work professionally in the software industry can use that reputation on their resume or to get promoted. Most people who do fandom don't use their real names. Most kinds of fan work are still a legal grey area, and plenty of people do erotic work which most don't want associated with their real name. The only place I see fan reputation having extrinsic value is when fans start publishing original work and use their existing fan base as customers. Only a very few fans do this.

* Since people can't give money in fandom, they "give" things with emotional value: positive comments and recommendations. I don't think the open source software community is as driven by positive feedback as fandom is. Feedback can be about reputation, but it can be just as rewarding if given privately. The gift of appreciation is qualitatively different and is treated differently in the community than the gift of "work."

There are a lot of similarities, though, and to me these stand out as features of the kind of gift economy people are talking about when they use the term online:

* Communities centered around production of creative, non-physical goods. Low marginal cost of distribution.

* Goods are generally gifts to the community as a whole, not to an individual. This requires the above.

* While work can be produced by a lone wolf working alone and then presenting the finished product as a gift to the community, in practice the most successful creations are to some extent community efforts. In software, there are projects with many contributors and projects with one developer who gets help from beta testers. In fanworks, especially fanfiction, most popular authors use "beta readers" (editors) from the community, and there's a lot of cheerleading and idea-bouncing that goes on in a circle of friends to get work created. There are also cowritten stories and collaborations between artists of different media.

* There is a system of informal community rules governing how people interact: how to get people to work with you, how to offer contributions, how to reward people for their contributions.

* There is a community of practice around the skills required to produce. This is essential, I think. Gift economies don't work as a way to run a factory. They work because the work is challenging and skilled and rewarding in itself, and the community comes together to teach each other. There's a culture of pedagogy that welcomes any newcomer who's trying hard.

This is all I can think of at the moment.

[whit537]

Tegan,

 

Upon reflection, the biggest definition gap is that individual gifts with gittip are anonymous. Thus gifts cannot be seen to infer a social obligation, except in the most general sense that the coder or artist is obligated to "the world." The giver of tips doesn't accrue prestige through their gifts.

Ticketed:

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/82

 

A gift economy is a culture, a system of social norms. Gittip may be a tool for building gift culture, a part of the ecosystem, but it cannot itself BE a gift economy. A website or service is not a culture.

I see Gittip as bigger than Gittip.com the website. But I can see that especially given how young it is it shouldn't call itself that. I care more about it being a real community in reality rather than calling it one in words. :-)

chad

[whit537]

But you also see the amount of money they've been given, publicly displayed, as a reward of reputation. Is that right?

Right. Both frames are valid. I agree that they're not balanced on Gittip today. Publicly showing high givers will help with that.

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/82

chad

[whit537]

Anat,

 

A website or a service cannot be (or not be) an economy, gift or otherwise. An economy, of any type, is not just a system of exchanges on paper but the community of practice that goes with it. So, Gittip can be the *enabler* of an economy (whatever its type); it can be its central and primary tool, it can be the agora in which the crowd gathers to take part into an economy, where a community (of practice, but not only) gets built. But it cannot, on its own, and especially not when it is so very young, BE an economy.

Gittip is young, but it already is a community. You and I are instantiating it right now. Many others have been doing so for the past 21 days. Look at the interaction on this thread:

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/28

That's not just "a website."

If your contention is that Gittip is not a gift economy because it is not a community, then that is false, because it *is* a community (albeit a very young one). In fact, in that thread above we hashed out precisely that it has to be an opt-in community. Gittip is not just a website. It's a community.

[Tegan Mulholland]

On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 9:58:35 AM UTC-7, whit537 wrote:

I see Gittip as bigger than Gittip.com the website. But I can see that especially given how young it is it shouldn't call itself that. I care more about it being a real community in reality rather than calling it one in words. :-)

I'd use the words "the gittip community," that's less confusing to me. But of course it's your project!

[whit537]

All,

After sleeping on it, I really do care more about the reality than the label. I'm content to let others make the connection with gift economics when the time is right. Certainly there are differences from the classic gift economies in what Gittip is doing.

I also would prefer not to make strong statements about the vision that Gittip is pursuing ("reversing the polarity of the economy," etc.), because I want Gittip to have mass appeal, and people are going to all have their own agendas and ideas. Gittip should be an ideologically neutral community that as many people as possible can get excited about and come together over. Of course people are free to express their view of and desires for Gittip, but there shouldn't be an "official" ideology.

In this light I removed the Gift Economy section of the About page, and changed the tag from "Gittip is a gift economy" to "Gittip is a micro-giving community."

    https://www.gittip.com/about/

chad

[anat...@gmail.com]

Chad,

sorry to have taken so long to answer. I applaud your decision! The "top-down" nature of the one-line description was precisely what was putting me off (I understand why you've also chosen to change the meta section, even though I found it interesting and lovely!); I like what you settled on.

Thank you for listening and engaging!

-anatsuno.

[Chad Whitacre]

Thanks for the conversation and for closing the loop. :-)

chad

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[Andy Weissman]

My $.02 would just be to remain flexible here as this community evolves. I do like "Gittip is genius grants for the rest of us. Call them pretty-smart grants, or crowd-sourced genius grants."

On Wednesday, June 27, 2012 10:56:48 AM UTC-4, whit537 wrote:
> All,</div>
>
> </div>After sleeping on it, I really do care more about the reality than the label. I&#39;m content to let others

> make the connection with gift economics when the time is right.
> Certainly there are differences from the classic gift economies in what
> Gittip is doing.
>

> </div>

> I also would prefer not to make strong statements about the vision that

> Gittip is pursuing (&quot;reversing the polarity of the economy,&quot; etc.), because I want Gittip to have mass appeal, and people are going to all

> have their own agendas and ideas. Gittip should be an ideologically
> neutral community that as many people as possible can get excited about and
> come together over. Of course people are free to express their view of

> and desires for Gittip, but there shouldn&#39;t be an &quot;official&quot; ideology.</div>
>
> </div>

> In this light I removed the Gift Economy section of the About page, and

> changed the tag from &quot;Gittip is a gift economy&quot; to &quot;Gittip is a
> micro-giving community.&quot;</div>
>
> </div>
>     <a href="https://www.gittip.com/about/" target="_blank">https://www.gittip.com/about/</a>
> </div>
>
> </div>
>
> </div>
>
> </div>
> chad</div>
>
> </div>
>
> </div>
>
> </div>
>
> </div>
>
> On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 5:29:41 PM UTC-4, Tegan Mulholland wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
>
> On Tuesday, June 26, 2012 9:58:35 AM UTC-7, whit537 wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
>
> I see Gittip as bigger than Gittip.com the website. But I can see that especially given how young it is it shouldn&#39;t call itself that. I care more about it being a real community in reality rather than calling it one in words. :-)</div>
>
> </div></blockquote>
>
> I&#39;d use the words &quot;the gittip community,&quot; that&#39;s less confusing to me. But of course it&#39;s your project!
> </div></blockquote></div>