Contribution style

If we take a broad view of the content creation pipeline, there are many steps leading up to the publication of a piece of work:

In addition, if we consider just the final output format, there are many styles:

Finally there is a choice to focus on the kind of contribution:

We can use the term “contribution style” to refer to these choices. Why are some contribution styles more popular than others? How do people decide what contribution style to use? Are some contribution styles “better” than others? Why are some contribution styles more socially or financially rewarded than others?

The “opposite” of contribution style might be “consumption style”: one’s preferred consumption format for information. One can ask similar questions like, should one prefer certain formats? How should one reward the creation of work (e.g., principles for “liking” things on Facebook)? Should one stick to popularizations of scientific works or read the original papers (this isn’t a dichotomy)?

Contents

Decision process

How do people decide what contribution style to use? In general, the decision process seems to involve many factors (how fun it seems, value produced, prestige, habit) and might not be fully conscious.

Page history

This page is an attempt to abstract several things I have been puzzling over: