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Make suggestions, report errors > Why do users need to contribute content?
Why do users need to contribute content?
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Openupplease
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Why do users need to contribute content?
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I�ve created an account in order to give my two cents about this requirement. Especially after browsing the content on the website and reading a few of the other topics on the message boards. Please understand that my tone is not to criticize or bully anyone, but to raise a point that I think is important.
The idea of asking users to contribute content in order to download content sounds great on paper. It really does. But looking at the website, I�ve immediately seen the flaw with this kind of system. You�ve got people creating medium to low quality content in order to gain access to better content. I�m looking at activities that use some really questionable images, poor formatting, badly written instructions, English mistakes, etc.
I�m not trying to belittle the people who are creating content, because it�s not always easy. We�re all busy being teachers as well. If I�ve created three good assignments on my own, but I want to use four or five activities from this site, am I seriously going to spend time creating an entirely new idea just to gain access to something else posted here? I�m going to reinvent the wheel just so I can save a few minutes not having to design a new version of Guess Who? What people will do is just copy the idea they see here, or upload something that is juuuuust good enough.
I saw other users say that the rules COULD be changed, but it would be somehow undesirable or unfair to people who posted older content. I�ll stay polite, but that kind of opinion is simply not fair to anyone. "I did it the hard way, so it needs to stay hard." Who benefits from that? The purpose of a community like this is supposed to be increasing access to quality teaching materials, right? So why gatekeep that?
You want to ensure that the community stays active, with users generating new content instead of just sucking up bandwidth, right? Here�s a suggestion: Maybe uploading new content gets you 5 points. But rating content from other users gets you half a point, or one point. Higher rated content (or content that gets rated a lot in a short time frame) gets more visibility. You still spend one point to download content. Instead of flooding the platform with lower quality content, you increase community engagement. Because as it stands right now, you�re competing with other (free or subscription) websites. And very soon, I�ll be able to just ask an AI to create content for me. I�ve already done it. It�s not perfect yet, but it takes WAY less time to edit the handful of mistakes from an AI than it does to create something new.
Again, I�m not intending to sound condescending or insulting. My goal is not to make anyone here feel upset. Thank you for reading. |
30 Aug 2023
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spinney
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I see what you are saying but, for my part, if this rule did not exist, I would not have started to develop my own worksheets. Sometimes there are mistakes (there most definitely are in mine) but I have also seen them in Cambridge books among other publishers. On the ISL Collective site, a lot of people just take but refuse to contribute anything. To be fair, many of them are just busy, but it is nice to see the motivation of the members of this particular site who perhaps would not have been so motivated in the first place without this rule. |
31 Aug 2023
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s.lefevre
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I agree totally with spinney. I have learned a lot here about how to make good worksheets. Of course there are lower and higher contents, but sometimes a teacher is looking for something really easy. So, I don�t think that you should judge. If you are not interested in a worksheet, you are not obliged to download anything. If everybody thought like you about sharing, there wouldn�t be anything to download. |
31 Aug 2023
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karagozian
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Absolutely agree with Spinney. I have never uploaded anything on other sites. I do think ESLP is the very best. Nothing and nobody is perfect. |
31 Aug 2023
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LenkaW
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I also completely agree with Spinney. Exchanging materials is completely different from just taking or even buying. I think this is one of the reasons why ESLP is so exceptional and useful, exchanging not just taking materials creates the community. |
31 Aug 2023
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traute
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I also absolutely agree with Spinney and like karagozian, I have never downloaded anything on other websites, not even on Esl Collective. |
31 Aug 2023
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douglas
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I agree 100% with Spinney and the rest. Another advantage of this system is that it also creates buy-in among members, which I credit as one of the primary reasons users of this site have proven so loyal over the years.
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1 Sep 2023
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cunliffe
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I agree with the original post and think the site should open up. This site is dying. People contribute and maybe there are twenty or thirty takers, at most. Where will that figure be in a couple of months or years? (And what will the advertisers who provide the money think of that?) If people want to create their own materials, that is wonderful, but it is not for everyone. Teachers have lives to lead and there is ample content elsewhere. They can get almost anything that is on here from other sites quite freely. Staying �closed� just means the eventual demise of this site. Kohai mentioned earlier that previous uploaders would not give their permission for just anybody to download their materials, but the irony is that much of the best has been copied onto other sites! And most of the best have shared elsewhere anyway. And it seems a bit - narrow-minded. (It is mine and I am keeping it!) If I put stuff on the internet, everybody is welcome to it - unless I charge, which I do elsewhere. That is also the best way to stop it being nicked (stolen) and uploaded to other sites. I get (understand) the loyalty on here and it is mainly down to the existence of this forum, imho. Silvia - you upload all your stuff onto the other site, islcollective, which is free to all, but not on here? Would you come back here if your materials were reaching a much wider audience, as on islCollective? This site, as it was when Victor started it, was the best. I owe it and I love it. Time has moved on. Time to change, adapt and --- compete. I know what I would do if I was the webmaster (after an intensive IT course;) Come on - open up! Share! Lynne |
1 Sep 2023
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s.lefevre
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Lynn I don�t mind when people download for free. I answered the guy who said that most of the materials here are low quality because people upload any kind of material just to get points. I haven�t uploaded here, it is tru, because I think that there was so much great material, so mine wouldn�t be necessary. On islcollective I upload in 4 languages, so it is more practical. I still think that people should try to give something and exchange. But I don�t upload to get points nor compliments. I like making the worksheets. |
1 Sep 2023
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cunliffe
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Yes Silvia, that is your personal situation - and mine. Actually, there are thousands of great materials on islCollective, too!:) But you agree with letting anybody download? That makes two of us! The main rationale on here was to encourage teachers to make their own resources. I do not think it does anymore. There are loads of new contributors on islCollective who do not bother with this site. In other words, they do not need any persuasion to create resources. For my part, I do love to get comments. I love to hear that someone in a faraway place without much by way of resources, has used a worksheet of mine and found it useful. I catch up with the comments on islCollective from time to time and they incentivise me. I believe that facility has gone on here and that is a shame. EDit: it seems the comment s are back! Good! Encouraging teachers to create worksheets worked in the past. Sixteen years ago - my god, where does the time go?- there was a worksheet on here that I wanted so bad! That did encourage me to upload. It was on the present continuous tense. That does not work anymore. You can get worksheets and power points on anything under the sun nowadays. I simply do not see any point in maintaining a closed shop. However, I can see it is not going to change. Madness! Shooting self in the foot. I am sorry if this sounds a bit formal, I am trying to avoid that mess which shows up when you use apostrphe �s�.   And Silvia, do not be so modest! Your material is wonderful and very welcome here as well as anywhere else. @openupplease - I have re-read your post and you make so much sense! Thank you for your post. Lynne
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1 Sep 2023
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traute
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Sorry Lynn, I do not agree with you. I have never downloaded anything on ISL Collective, I do not like that site at all and every time I have a look at it I do not find worksheets that I like so I end up closing the window and not downloading anything. I like this site as it is but there would be another option which would be to give each member of this website the option to choose whether or not to give permission to download the worksheets in open mode, for everyone. This option is working well right now at liveworksheets.com, the site Victor created in order to convert downloadable worksheets into online ones and choose if you give permission or not for people to download them or if you want them to just be used as an online source. I would not like this site to become another ISL Collective o similar because they already exist. What is the point in changing this site into another one exactly the same as any of those? Of course this will be up to the new owner of the site to decide (if there is a new owner) and each one of us will be free to decide whether to accept the changes or not. 
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2 Sep 2023
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