> That sounded like work, so I declined :) And thus was my editorship revoked. I am going to guess that they had trouble ever getting a volunteer-editor model to stick.
As an early Quora Top Writer, I feel you on this. I really enjoyed it for a while, and it was nice to have an audience for my writing. But as the site grew and got more centrally controlled, it wore thin. Eventually some admin told me I was Doing It Wrong and I decided I'd had enough.
In the years since I've decided that I'm just not going to give volunteer labor to for-profit things. If they want to make a zillion dollars, great, they can pay their workers like everybody else. If I get the urge to contribute, I can always work on Wikipedia, Wikidata, and other public-benefit projects.
Funny, I had the same experience at Mic as well. In their early days, I was invited to contribute based on some distant social connection to a founder. Many years later I felt inspired to write something again and was told that they would only accept content if I wrote on their schedule and, IIRC, on topics of their choosing. I guess many of these user-generated content platforms go through similar growing pains on the Road To Monetization…and a lot of them are more fun to interact with in their “grow at all costs” phases
I guess you haven't had a wikipedia admin tell you "you're doing it wrong" yet, then. They are quite the slanted and tiny authoritarian bunch over there.
I am a retired Wikipdedia editor and admin. Not sure what the current experience is like, but back in my day I didn't have much beef. Most people have no idea how much crap people try to put into Wikipedia on a daily basis. It's also legitimately a very complicated place. So I can believe a lot of novices walk away with an opinion like yours, in that the gap between "what Wikipedia needs" and "what J Random Editor wants to put in" is often miles apart.
As an early Quora Top Writer, I feel you on this. I really enjoyed it for a while, and it was nice to have an audience for my writing. But as the site grew and got more centrally controlled, it wore thin. Eventually some admin told me I was Doing It Wrong and I decided I'd had enough.
In the years since I've decided that I'm just not going to give volunteer labor to for-profit things. If they want to make a zillion dollars, great, they can pay their workers like everybody else. If I get the urge to contribute, I can always work on Wikipedia, Wikidata, and other public-benefit projects.