[GertG]

Still trying to make up my mind about crowd sourcing, but I like to compare it to the well-established practice of architecture contests. That system also gets criticism for forcing architects to do a lot of work without a guarantee of being paid anything, but nevertheless it is broadly accepted: big-name bureaus participate in them too. The reason why it works, imo, is because the potential reward is much bigger. They might spend weeks preparing an entry, but in case of a win it's usual to have months or years worth of paid work. In my eyes, for web design/software crowd sourcing to gain the credibility needed to attract more than starters looking for a foot in the door, it will need the same effort/reward ratio. For example, you design a specific part of the future website in detail, and the winner gets to redesign the whole site. That way, the client still has the benefit of getting more than well-written intentions in a project proposal, and the contestants know that the potential reward is bigger than being paid for what he has already done.