Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Scripting for cash

There has been a suggestion recently that a forum where people could request a script and then people could bid to write that script for them with some of the proceeds going to AutoItScript.com.  On the surface it would appear to be a good suggestion and is primarily the same as RentACoder.  I'm not at all sure just how practical it would be in the end.  There is a tremendous amount of potential for abuse and indeed even for malicious code to be inserted.  In order for it to work as intended, I think it would require a lot of oversight by moderators as well as a registry of users who are able to code the scripts properly.  Making it onto that list would require a high level of AutoIt skills and the code would then have to be checked by someone to make sure there is nothing malicious happening in it.  Most of the forum moderators are already overburdened with their own work and their forum duties, so who is going to do all this moderating?

Then there is the question of payment.
Just what is the best way to go about making sure that everything is collected for and the proceeds properly apportioned?  Can we trust everyone to collect and then forward the correct amount to AutoItScript.com or not?  If not then again it takes someone to handle the bookwork and collections.  Should there be a minimum charge for the service?

My last question for today is;
Does Jon want this type of service running as a part of the forums?  It's really up to him and long discussions about how it could be incorporated and indeed whether or not it should be incorporated are moot at this point.
Personally, it is going to take a lot more thought and some input from Jon before I will decide whether or not to support such an undertaking.

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