JOKR Solutions Blog

An idea popped up in my in my mind about the possibility/need for adding virtual currency to the Joomla community. This is more of a concept - i´m not saying this is a way to go - this is just some thoughts. I´m not a developer my self so i have not seen to the technical requirements.

Background

Lots of developers sacrifice lots of time by creating useful extension for the Joomla community. Many of these extensions are free - often developers doesn´t get the appreciation that they deserve. People download the extension without a simple “thank you”.

The concept of virtual currency

My idea is to implement virtual currency - let call it Joomgold, Karma or whatever. The idea is to let Joomla users gain/trade/buy virtual currency. The main purpose with Joomgold is to encourage contribution to the Joomla community.

How it could work

In order to control the cash flow there is a need of a bank. In this concept, JED is the bank. Developers will receive Joomgold when their extension are published at JED - meaning that JED is able to issue Joomgold every time an extension is published at JED. The developers could then transfer Joomgold to regular users in order to get help with translation, bugs or ideas. Users could also be able to buy extension with the Joomgold.

A bullletlist of thoughts

• Joomgold would be “attached” to the profile at JED. Amount of Joomgold could be transfer automatically when extensions are published or manually transferred user to user.
• A market for the JED would let developers issue help for a certain amount of Joomgold, ie “I need my component to be translated for Swedish for this you will receive X Joomgold”. The market would be more like an open project tracker - users could search for job and earn Joomgold by contributing.
• In the JED profile for each user there would be “Gained income” - showing how much the users have earned in total - the user himself could see his own Balance
• Users should be able to spend their Joomgold on any Joomla project. Developers could sell their extension for a certain amount of Joomgold at their website
• JED could issue Joomgold each time an extension is published but also “extra” funds to the developer depending on popularity, downloads, updates etc.

Round up

So what do you think - waste of time, good, bad or what?
Also posted on all together as a whole