Sometimes I want people to get $$$ for their contributions. When someone posts a long, exceptional sequence? I don’t get that feeling. When folks working on the site itself roll out a sweet new feature? I don’t get that feeling. But when https://www.lesswrong.com/users/lsusr creates a fun and relevant competition requiring them to code up quite a bit of framework/bots and coordinate people? (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/AHTRyQJtiRin22kth/the-darwin-game-1) I wonder if there’s a pool to reward over-and-beyond contributors, and if there is, how much I’d be willing to contribute to it. Does something analogous exist? "Should" it? If so, what should be "eligible"?
When it comes to rewarding long and expectional sequences, a good way would be to make it easy to convert a sequence with one click into a book that the person can sell on Amazon. Both being seen as having written a book is a reward and royalities for the book on Amazon provides further royalities. In addition to providing value to the author it would also help spreading the expectional sequence to more people.