Now I’ve been on Glide’s forums off and on for probably the best part of a year. I unlike most people do not come here for help or inspiration but instead I come here to help or offer up some suggestions among my fellow Gliders. I do watch consistently people like @Robert_Petitto, @ThinhDinh, @Wiz.Wazeer, @Jeff_Hager, and a few others spend easily hours a day helping fellow Gliders. Robert for example posts dozens of tutorials and lord knows how much combined time they have spent doing a job they are in no way compensated for.
My suggestion/request is that Glide creates a tutorial section somewhere on this website that tutorials are approved by Glide and posted and setup to be viewed in order to better serve the Glide members you have. This approval should come with some compensation for their time and how much they have contributed to the growth of Glide and it’s amazing community. This community wouldn’t be nearly as amazing as it is without these individuals and the help they have provided countless people. I do not clearly fall in that group simply because the help I provide is normally not what someone wants to here or something that shouldn’t be said. But I believe many people feel the same way about this topic and would agree this is another step Glide should take.
Your advocacy and support is appreciated, Joe! Like you, I help fellow gliders on this forum and elsewhere to simply pay it forward— no compensation needed (though I certainly wouldn’t turn it away )!
I personally don’t think Glide should be compensating for people’s generosity on this forum. The “free” nature of this forum makes it a great place to feel open to ask for help and advice. If that advice became associated with a $$ system, I think it would turn people away to be honest.
What I think could be beneficial is if there was a way to add a “donate” or “buy me a coffee” button to user profiles in this forum. This way, if someone was helped to a point they want to compensate someone else, they have a way to do it that isn’t in their face or required.
Glide benefits from the generosity of these much more than most can comprehend. Imagine you didn’t have these hands on tutorials. Most companies like glide do not have people making these tutorials. The ease of use that has come to so many with these tutorials is what has made glide so popular. I’m not saying we charge the community. I’m saying glide uses these tutorials and officially recognized them and pays the people for their time in making them.
Shchc, how much time have you spent making tutorials or offering up help on the forums? I would bet it’s safe to say that Robert spends twice as much time as I do and I spend roughly 10 hours a week helping people. And I do not and almost refuse to make a tutorial video because they take far too much time with writing and catching yourself jumping ahead or assuming people understand a concept then have to edit that part out redo the entire video. I again am in no way advocating for myself. I give away every template I make to spite the paid for system and do not agree with it. But glide almost takes for granted these people I feel like and it’s not much to ask for them to say every video approved and added gets them a month free of pro on any app or a priced template of their choosing, or something. If you were one of those people maybe you would feel differently.
There can be different opinions on this. Mine is that a “Community Forum” like this should contain free information that is recognized by others through thanks and continues to build on itself as a “pay it forward” system.
If Glide themselves recognizes some tutorials as being beneficial to post on their website as official Glide tutorials, then they should obviously compensate as it means less work for them.
I personally make an effort to help people on here every single day. I believe I’ve been active on here for over 400 days straight. I benefit from others’ advice and offer my own whenever I can. Video tutorials are great, but they’re not everyone’s style when it comes to learning new things. I’ve posted nearly 900 items and can say that the majority are likely helpful posts in some way. Sometimes a quick reply is more helpful than a lengthy video, it depends on the situation and issue. Do I want or need compensation for those 900 posts? Of course not.
Thanks guys for opening the convo up on this. I m not quite sure these days how to approach matters in this forum because of certain perceptions that I witness at play regularly. Slowly, I’m beginning to understand these things. I’ve had some time to ponder on this one though. I wasn’t sure what to say except to appreciate Joe for being the nice human being that he is. He doesn’t mince his words ( a straight shooter), and goes out of his way to help everyone including making otherwise premium apps available for free. He doesn’t reveal much about what he knows despite being all those things and I know things about this person that a lot of you probably don’t. This @Drearystate is no ordinary guy; that’s all for now.
On the question of compensation/recognition.
1.No obligation, moral or otherwise, on us to offer any help to anyone.
2. Some of us want to become experts; others certified experts (to advance own own careers). Glide does not ask us to sit an exam or to pay for the privilege; all Glide wants to see is a portfolio demonstrating why we think we are better qualified than others.
3. We start building that portfolio by helping others out in the forum (experts), and/or building apps for others (certified experts)…
4. We submit our portfolios and ultimately get the titles.
5. Glide on its website promotes us as experts for free (don’t know why Jeff is not there but see below, lol)
6. We become to a good degree, Glide’s public face.
7. We continue to remain active in the forum (1. sense of gratitude; 2 build on existing client base; and/or for any number of reasons). But, crucially, no obligation on us to remain active.
8. We get loads of business as a result. We offer Glide a cut, but they say, no. Could be anywhere between 100-200 dollars they are letting me keep everyday or say even once a month (if all I am getting is a client a month).
9. Is that not compensation enough?
10. Here is where I have some Q. Those genuinely engaged in helping others out without expecting anything in return like @Jeff_Hager, @Drearystate, @gvalero, @Rosewebstudio, @Santiago_Perez2, @Lucas_Pires, @Krivo, to name but a few, get no recognition, whatsoever, except a few pink love bombs. I mean I see that man Jeff and I do ask myself questions (but lets leave it at that as he might be an insider for all I know, lol).
11. My other fear is the two tier system coming into force soon which will give some unfair advantages over others, and quite possibly could be in direct conflict with the whole Glide ethos. But, they know best what they are doing!
Please do not misread the content as a personal attack on anyone. Just my observations.
And with all the respect I have for Wiz I will leave it at that. If those individuals see it in the same light as Wiz then who am I to say otherwise. Wiz, I love you man. Your a great human being.
There are certain members of this community who are frequently summoned to posts requesting assistance. It’s like there’s an invisible service bell somewhere. And they do appear and save the day. For that and their infinite wisdom, this community has often expressed its gratitude.
But I echo @Wiz.Wazeer 's sentiment — many others help and contribute substantively. Happy to see some acknowledged here. @kyleheney made me check my stats and I’m horrified seeing how much I consumed this year. These posts were written by 1000 different people all contributing to my “body of knowledge.”
Introducing an incentive structure for helping will not be well-received. Tutorials and answering posts, while exceptionally helpful, are also lead gen content. I’ve worked with experts on the higher and lower ends of the compensation scale. I haven’t observed a correlation between forum presence/content contribution and performance on a project.
For those who seek compensation and are in some way disadvantaged, here’s a wild idea:
Advocate for a star-rating system to be built somewhere in the process for both experts and clients. One where Glide asks both parties to rate their experience at the end of a project. To actually make this data valuable, however, Glide has to use ratings almost imperceptibly to filter out poor performers and continually improve the pool of available expertise.
Some will argue that reputation systems work better in ecosystems (or transactions) where success is binary. Think food: Was my pizza delivered? yes / no. On-time? yes / no. Order accurate? yes/no. And so on. There is also a qualitative range for rating a food delivery, but it’s much narrower.
Subjective evaluation of quality is not useless, but binary success allows for simple reputation systems with clear cut boundaries, leading to more consistent, quality experiences. This, of course, assumes the outcome of an expert <> client match is a valuable metric to Glide. I believe it is.
Glides success = 85% product + 85% community support and the community support, I feel, is that it is open and free to use and talented individuals, e.g. @Drearystate et al generously share.
I’ve posted a question or two, I had great responses and yet I am still stuck (due to my lack of skill/ability). SO, keep the forum as is, but somehow make a pay-option to be able to scheduled a video call.
I mean, now that I am stuck on a couple of points, I know I can go through the CE sign-up process, but seems too formal for a single question. If I have a question or post that I still can’t get my little brain around then I’d like to see a button that says, ‘call a friend, buy a coffee’ and a vetted list of available persons are there and I’ll ‘buy a coffee’ for the 10 or 15 minute chat.
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on this one though. I wasn’t sure what to say except to appreciate Joe for being the nice human being that he is. He doesn’t mince his words ( a straight shooter), and goes out of his way to help everyone including making otherwise premium apps available for free. He doesn’t reveal much about what he knows despite being all those things and I know things about this person that a lot of you probably don’t. This 
