I cant wait and I'm prepared to pay, again and again.

[[email protected]]

Re: I cant wait and I'm prepared to pay, again and again.

Josh raises an interesting point. Consider; if developers around the world knew they could earn money by providing support to noobs and there was an elegant system that managed the users expectations and aligned them to the support persons deliverables what would that create? It could create (maybe immense) energy and grow the community, (maybe exponentially to unprecedented levels...what would it take to do this?).

I agree with Steve too. Where you apply the current paradigms, if a user pays for an answer it creates a new set of problems, you're asking for problems.

To be successful, the "system" would have to deal with issues exactly like Steve has mentioned, elegantly - that requires a lot of thought power, a systems architecture such as this is beyond my capability, someone really smart would need to design this "system" (I've experienced some really smart people in this community, I believe the talent is there). I'm also aware of the complex commercial realities related to this post - its not an easy fix but I am passionate about A5.

Its a conundrum for sure...but imagine "what if"

The "system" delivered really fast, relevant answers
The "system" had zillions of code examples (with lots of comments)

I'm free to dream.,..thanks for the comments (public, private and off line) it just reinforces what a great bunch of people support A5.

[Peter.Greulich]

Re: I cant wait and I'm prepared to pay, again and again.

It could create (maybe immense) energy and grow the community, (maybe exponentially to unprecedented levels...what would it take to do this?).

You're suggesting "build it and they will come". But that's kind of putting the cart before the horse. If the user base were to grow "exponentially" then such a system might arise "organically" or otherwise out of necessity. But in the mean time, you're free to dream, of course.

[Wajeed]

Re: I cant wait and I'm prepared to pay, again and again.

I really wish ,Senior experienced forum members should suggest A5 to have some paid solution providers who will answer user queries which will be very much helpful for new users. I really thank those kind-hearted senior guys who put their valuable time in answering queries of all level, but for these men , people like me might have put end-card to using a5 long ago (within short duration of usage)

[GGandhi]

Re: I cant wait and I'm prepared to pay, again and again.

Brad, when you get back, drop me a line so we can talk about this. Here are some likely problems:

• Most of the forum members do this out of personal zeal and would perform no better or worse if being paid
• Taking payments create its own problems -- at least half the time either the one asking the question, or the one providing the answer will feel they got less than they deserved. And someone may have to get involved to resolve that dispute.
• If you actually had to pay for all of the time a Forum member spent on solving a problem, you might not want to pay for it. Sometimes it takes a few minutes, but sometimes Forum members spend hours coming up with a perfect solution.
• Because of the above fact, you are going to want to put restrictions on what you are willing to pay, like "I will pay max $50.00 for this...".
• I don't know any highly qualified developer who will drop what they are doing for $50.00 to solve someone else's problem.
• Unless you have a bidding process, then likely only one person is going to take the task and get paid. So you go from dozens of developers looking at your problem, to just one.
• Unless you make the discussion public, the rest of the Forum public misses out on the solution.
• It might be cheaper and more consistent to just put one or more developers on retainer as dedicated mentors. However, even though everyone tosses around the term, here to tell you "mentoring" is a really difficult and exhausting job.

These aside, the simplest form of what you suggest could be done. I can do it on the IADN forum AND make it possible for any registered user to take on the task (e.g., not just those IADN Members formally registered as "Developers".)

wisely stated.
while all the experts are providing the solution out of their kind heart whether paid or not, the requesting person is immensely helped to proceed with their project.
sure it might take a minute to solve some problems but how did that happen? is the problem too trivial in the first place or the knowledge gained by the person answering the question is responsible to make the problem look trivial?
yes, you can put a price on a product that has certain input to get the output, but what about knowledge and time?
if you have time constraints and need help immediately and the problem is solved beautifully by someone else then it is reasonable to think you offer payment as a way of thank you, since it is expected you will profit from that answer.
since the payment is initiated by the answer seeker and the answer giver would have answered regardless of the payment in the same manner, any payment to the expert is really a reward.

as an example, I received a thank you gift from one of our members and it felt like a million.