Frequently Asked Questions
PieceWise is here to help. The following is a list of the most common questions we receive and their answers. If you need more help, don’t hesitate to contact us.
- Can you give me a brief overview of PieceWise and how it works?
- How do I make money with prize projects?
- What does it mean to search projects?
- Can I make my projects private?
- I heard I can earn royalties for my ideas. How?
- How are my ideas protected?
- Can I see how my idea spreads out into other projects?
- How do I see more information about a project piece?
- How can I participate in planning a project?
- How do I search for projects?
- How do I create pieces? What does it mean to create pieces?
- How do I rank pieces?
- How do I organize pieces?
- How do I edit pieces?
- How can I earn points?
- How does PieceWise make money?
- Who can post a project?
- What is a prize project?
- What is the marketplace?
- Prize Project Fees
- Fee for depositing funds into your PieceWise account
- Fee for withdrawing funds from your PieceWise account
| Can you give me a brief overview of PieceWise and how it works? |
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PieceWise is a platform for getting projects done (and let's face it, anything from building a house to entertaining ourselves is a project). There are dozens of ways to use the site. Some of the most useful features include:
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| How do I make money with prize projects? |
| The simple answer, just contribute! Everything you do to help with the project plan earns you points. This includes voting on pieces, adding pieces, suggesting edits (when approved), moving pieces (when approved), and more! For information on how your ideas can make money even after the prize project pays out, click here. |
| What does it mean to search projects? |
| When you use the search bar to search through projects, you're searching through all the pieces of information that people have put into a project plan in the past. These pieces are linked to other parts of the project by their position in the project. When your search finds a piece of a project, the results page will give you a link to the part of the project where that piece is used. The text of the link is the piece that leads to your search result. The description below the piece is the description of the project where the piece is used. |
| Can you give me an example? |
| Sure. Let's say we were searching for "flat panel computer monitors." These might be a part of the project, "Setting up an office space." The piece of the project that leads into the piece we're searching for is "Computer monitors." When we click this link, we go to the "Computer monitors" step of the project plan "Setting up an office space." There we can see all the different types of available monitors. To get more information about each, we just click the arrow next to the piece. |
| Can I make my projects private? |
| We're currently working on adding this feature but for the time being, anyone can search through your projects. Because of this, we don't recommend putting sensitive information into your project plan. |
| How are my ideas protected? |
| This is actually a multi-part question. First, ideas you contribute to a project plan can be seen and reused by anyone. However, when your idea is reused, you will earn points AND recognition for it. This means that when your idea is reused in a prize project, you will receive part of the prize. We are working on compensation structures for when your ideas are reused in non-prize projects. Second, if you want to start a project on PieceWise but don't want someone taking your project idea, we'll be offering projects where users must sign a non-disclosure agreement before starting to work on the plan. The ideas generated for the project plan will be reusable since they belong to the user who created them. However, the project details will be hidden from searches. “It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite — that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.” – Mark Twain |
| Can I see how my idea spreads out into other projects? |
| We're working on adding this feature. Stay tuned for updates! |
| How do I see more information about a project piece? |
| If additional information exists, clicking the arrow to the right of the piece description will expand that piece and give you more information about it. You can also double click any piece to get more information about it. |
| How can I participate in planning a project? |
| There are four ways to participate in projects (3 during alpha testing). These are, creating pieces (if you do this, you're a PieceMaker), ranking pieces, organizing pieces by when they need to be completed in the overall plan, and bidding on pieces. Bidding is not currently active. |
| How do I search for projects? |
| From the account home page you can click "Projects" in the top navigation bar and then "Find a project." Then you can search for projects using the search bar, "Projects by Prize" button, or "All projects" button. You can also use the "search projects" bar on the index page or account home page. |
| How do I create pieces? What does it mean to create pieces? |
| Start by finding a project to work on. If you haven't completed the tutorial for working on a project, it will show up at this point. If you have, you can create pieces using the console on the right side of the page. The pieces you create should be either a step of the project that needs to be completed or information relevant to the project. For example, if someone has created the step, "Buy a grill", you could add in different types of grills as pieces below this step. |
| How do I rank pieces? |
| Start by finding a project to work on. Next to each piece in the project there's an icon with a red checkmark in it. Click on the icon. A voting box will pop up with three icons. If the piece sounds like it's important to completing the project click the thumbs up icon. If it's not important, click the thumbs down icon. If the idea sounds original (even if that just means original when applied in the context of this project), click the lightbulb. |
| How do I organize pieces? |
| Start by finding a project to work on. Any piece you create can be moved in the project before you save it. To do this, set the pointer to the place where you want to put the new piece. Then click the green "Move" icon next to the piece you want to move. The piece will now show up where you set the pointer. If you want to move a piece you have saved or move a piece someone else has created, follow the same method. However, the piece won't actually be moved in the main project until enough people agree with your vote by moving it to that same spot. You earn up to two points for every piece that you move to its correct location. |
| How do I edit pieces? |
| Click the down arrow all the way to the right of the piece you want to edit (when hovering over this arrow, text will appear that says, "Show more options"). Click the icon with the pen and paper (far right in the dropdown that appears). An edit screen will pop up. If people have suggested edits for this piece, these edits will show up. If one of them is the change you wanted to make, select that edit by clicking it. Otherwise, make your changes in the text field under, "Edit this piece" and click "Submit edit." If it was your piece, the edit happens immediately. If the piece was created by someone else, the edit will take place once enough people agree vote on it. |
| I heard I can earn royalties for my ideas. How? |
| Not quite but close. If you have put an idea into a prize project, you will earn part of the prize. People can re-use your ideas in other projects (using our autocomplete feature). If they do and the project is a prize project, you'll earn part of that prize as well. This mechanism is similar to earning a royalty on your ideas. You earn the same number of points as the person who placed your idea into the project (2 points for the idea and then additional points for votes on the piece). |
| How can I earn points? |
| You earn points for contributing to projects and giving us feedback that helps to improve the site. Additional rules on earning points. List of ways to earn points and the points you earn for doing these activities |
| How does PieceWise make money? |
| PieceWise is working on building a marketplace where people can bid on doing the pieces of a person's project. We'll take a small commission on those marketplace transactions. We also take a small commission on money put towards prize projects. |
| Who can post a project? |
| Anyone can post a project. We're aiming for simple, small business projects at first but we have plans to expand into business creation, social activism, disaster planning projects, political planning (yes, we want politicians to use our system to write bills so that everyone has a chance to give input), and many, many more areas. |
| What is a prize project? |
| A prize project is a project where a pool of money is available to be divided out over all the people participating in the prize project. The division is based on the amount of work that each person puts into the project. The payout date is thirty days after the project is made into a prize project or whenever the Project Maker decides to close the project. |
| What's the marketplace? |
| The marketplace is where you'll be able to see all the offers that people have placed on project pieces. |
| Where's the marketplace? |
| Currently you can see offers placed on pieces by right clicking the piece and selecting, "View offers" (note: this option will only show up if there are offers to view). We're working on building a real marketplace where you can see all of the offers people have placed on all pieces. It's a big project. If you're a talented coder and want to help out, shoot us an email at support@piecewise.com. |
| Prize Project Fees |
| PieceWise retains five percent (5%) of any moneys put towards a project's prize amount. The remaining ninety-five percent (95%) is distributed among the PieceMakers (site users) contributing to the project. This distribution is based on their contributions to the project. |
| Fee for depositing funds into your PieceWise account |
| We do not currently charge a fee for depositing money into your PieceWise account. |
| Fee for withdrawing funds from your PieceWise account |
| We currently charge a 3% withdrawal fee when withdrawing funds from your PieceWise account. For example, if you withdraw $100, $3 will be taken out as a withdrawal fee and you will receive $97. This measure is in place to prevent credit card users from using our site to turn their credit into cash. |
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Terms To Know
PieceMaker
A person who creates the pieces that complete a project. The pun is intended. Maybe someday one of our members will create the world peace project :)
Piece
A piece is simply something that needs to be done for the project to be completed. Eventually, they'll serve as information nodes containing additional descriptions, pictures, and files that are relevant to that step (piece) of the project.
Piecewise Function
A function in math that is not able to be defined by one single expression. Instead, it is comprised of multiple expressions (pieces) that add up to create the Piecewise Function.