Random Thought

There has been some uproar on the 'nets the past couple of days and I just wanted to post a random thought about it. I won't mention any names because I don't anyone to get any undue publicity from my little hole in the wall site that only I visit. For those who follow the same types of things I follow and visit the same websites I do, you'll know what I'm talking about. Here goes...

If I had a social news site who's main mantra was no editorial control, that was a completely user driven experience, and all of a sudden it was suggested to me that I should pay the top 10 or 20 users of my site because they're what keeps the site going... if I did that, what would stop me from coming back to those same users who are now on my payroll and telling them, "I'm your boss, I want to make sure 'Story X' is promoted to the front page"?

Not saying that would happen, but it's sure something that would be a possibility. Then all of a sudden we don't have a completely user driven site. We have a user driven site, driven by users who are paid by the site owners. Heck, we could almost go so far as to call these paid users "editors", in that they are paid and, in theory at least, have some control over what stories are submitted. This of course goes against said site's main mantra.

Some people just don't get it, and some just want to buy it I guess.