[Wikimediaindia-l] What's in it for me?

[Erik Zachte]

Hi Srikanth,

If you get laughed at doing something voluntarily, just return a friendly
smile, that might in due time be remembered better than any well verbalized
rationale. 

If you're looking for some inspiration yourself, here are some thoughts, and
I willfully take the risk of sounding bombastic, which I hope at least puts
a smile on your face  :-)

You might be interested to read about Maslow's theory of self-actualization.
I first read about it as a student decades ago, as a metaphor it grabbed me
and it keeps coming back from time to time. Wikipedia tells me there is a
large cultural component in his ideas. For me finding a balance between
different needs always remains a challenge, but certainly it is not
either/or, selfishness or altruism. Even more, how to draw the distinction?
Sometimes altruistic motives will bring you personal rewards, and vice
versa. I'm not sure even much of what I do is altruistic at all, I just have
fun doing it.

John Adams said " I am a revolutionary so my son can be a farmer so his son
can be a poet. ... " We are marching in the front rows of a digital
revolution. [2]   Later people will listen to our stories, and envy us, if
they don't already.

If you haven't read Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral & the Bazaar" on open
source movement, I can heartily recommend it to you. Best section for me was
"Homesteading the Noosphere" [3] [4] which discusses how selfishness and
altruism can both be served at the same time by contributing in a 'gift
economy'. 

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Revolution
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homesteading_the_Noosphere
[4] Essay online: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/

Cheers, Erik Zachte


-----Original Message-----
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Srikanth
Ramakrishnan
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 6:02 PM
To: Wikimedia India Community list
Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] What's in it for me?

Sorry guys, looks like Google chopped off the bottom of my mail again.
What I said was, when I asked my friend to contribute to the Tamil Media
Contest, he told me- when I'm not getting paid for all my photos, why should
I upload? Anyone who's gone thru similar experiences and can help me out?

On 12/16/11, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <rsrikanth05 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Heya all. I just wanted to share this quick mail with you and get your 
> feedback. Over the past two years, I've actively been part of Wiki 
> outreach efforts. Thru meetups, volunteering for the Bangalore 
> Samskrit academy, trying to convince friends, classmates etc. I've had 
> a lot of negative experiences with people askin me- What's in it for 
> me? Mere liye kya hai? Ennaku enna kadaka porthu? I get laughed at 
> when I say I'm doing gu voluntarily. Infact recently, when I tried to 
> get a friend to contribute to our
>
>
> --
> Regards,
> Srikanth Ramakrishnan,
> Sathyamangalam-Gobichettipalayam Star Gazers Gang, Ukkadam, Coimbatore.
> My Commons uploads, now exceeding 75.
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/Rsrikanth05
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
> Wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
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>


--
Regards,
Srikanth Ramakrishnan.
Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore

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