One more contributor questionnaire

Here's the last of the four responses I got from social news site members. It's from Neil Patel.

What social news site(s) do you contribute to?
I contribute to Digg, Netscape, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Twitter.

What made you choose this site? What's rewarding about being a contributor?
I chose them because many of my friends were on them. With the
majority of these sites the rewarding part was a chance to be on the
top users list.

What are that site's strong points and weak points?
The main strong point with all of these sites is that they are social.
The main weak point is that there is a lot of spam or gaming going on
which hurts the quality of these sites.

How much time a week do you spend participating there? Describe your
involvement, and explain why you donate your time.
I spend around 15 hours a week on these sites. Most of my time is
spent reading new stories as well as submitting them. The main reason
on why I donate my time is because I enjoy being part of the social
community.

Describe the attributes of the community on your chosen site. How does
community enhance the experience there? Please provide an example of
one or two of your experiences.
Digg is a social site that involves friends and interaction with other
members through comments. The community enhances these experiences by
voting on comments as well as stories which helps great stories make
the front page.

What's your opinion on the role of editors at social news sites? Are
they useful as filters or guides to content? Or do they get in the way
of the free exchange of information?
Editors are needed on social news sites because they help reduce the
amount of spam. In some cases they get in the way of free exchange of
information, but in most cases they are just great at filtering spammy
content.

What's your opinion of the mainstream media? Are social news sites and
the MSM competitors, or do they complement one another?
I think mainstream media is great source of news which is why I love
it. To some extent they are competitors because I read less MSM
publications because I can get news from social media sites much
faster.

Do you think crowds have wisdom? Explain.
Yes, if the crowd claims that a story is important than most likely it
is important and worth reading. The great thing about this is that you
save time by not having to read tons of junk stories.

In most cases, volunteer effort forms the bedrock of a social news
sites' monetary value. Some people earn money for being an active
contributor, but most don't. What's your opinion on this?
I don't feel that there is anything wrong with getting paid to
contribute to these social communities. Sites like Netscape pay
certain users and this benefits both Netscape and some of the
contributors. Why shouldn't people be paid for their time.

Are there ways social news sites could make better use of the wisdom
of the crowd? What are they?
One of the things I think they could do is create more of a social
aspect and groups. Such as one group may have common interests in all
news related to Google and by creating groups people can join them and
find information that is more valuable to them.

Make a prediction: What will social news look like two or three years from now?
I think they are going to be more social such as how MySpace and
Facebook are. There will also be more integration between social sites
due to things like OpenID.