

A Call for Open Crowdsourcing Platforms - cryptoz
http://www.jacobsheehy.com/2014/02/open-source-software-is-important-for-modern-science/?open

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dalek2point3
I agree, but the more important thing that this article needs to emphasize is
the difference between crowdsourcing and crowd _serfing_. Waze is using the
crowd to hoard data about traffic, that you can use for one specific purpose
(avoiding traffic) but for science its nearly useless. Want to understand
traffic accidents based on the design of highways? you're out of luck with
Waze data. All that the crowd is doing is making Google rich.

We definitely need open source software to power these platforms. But whats
more important is to keep the work of the crowd in the open. But maintaining
data servers, reliable access and developing features takes developers and
time -- how was fund that work? that is the real challenge.

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doppenhe
Great blog post jacob. Thanks for the read. To Daleks point on aligning
incentives I think this is crucial to the success of any crowd-sourcing
platform.

One of the things we are doing at Algorithmia.com is trying to provide a lot
of the value add around the source code, so that the source itself can remain
open yet paying users still have a reason to come to the platform (and the
algorithm developers can get paid).

I think doing this is possible in almost every crowdsourcing platform the
trick is to find those value adds are. Its on the platform creators to build
something that is worth paying for yet still allows being open with whatever
it is that you are crowd-sourcing - data, code, etc.

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dalek2point3
Great point and glad to hear about Algortihmia. In my own domain of mapping
data, I see something similar. OpenStreetMap users put in the fundamental data
openly, and firms then value-add using nice routing design, apps etc to
compete on the product market and make money. It usually works out just fine.

Also would love an invite! My email is dalek2point3 AT gmail

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mgraves
This is exactly what we are doing at MyIRE. I've spent the past three years
designing an infrastracture to open source science. If you are interested
check out [http://www.myire.com](http://www.myire.com) or our Technori Pitch
at [https://vimeo.com/81457472](https://vimeo.com/81457472)

If you are interested in helping, please contact mark@gravesmedical.com

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contingencies
TLDR; author could benefit from being less verbose and adding more visual
structure. Then again, I get slammed for the same thing!

