There is a cultural difference at work here, of course-- people who post pictures of their cat probably think that's some legitimate expression of what's imporant to them-- but somehow I don't think the borrowers will embrace that alternative reading of things. I also suspect that a lot of people who lend will treat their profiles as a close kin to a "MySpace" page.

You may have to remind the lenders of the dignity of the borrowers and the partners. As a first measure: you could remind lenders who set up profiles with pictures etc. that their borrowers and partners will (possibly/probably) see the pictures, and expect/deserve a person-to-person connection, so when they're about to upload an image they should bear that in mind that these folks have a right to be treated as equals...

I'll be happy to remove the feline photograph (and substitute that of a human) when the MFI's in Peru reinstate the names of their client/borrowers to whom I have already made loans. (They currently remove the name and sometimes the location, of the client/borrower as soon as the loans are funded, stating "privacy" as the reason.) It's pretty hard to feel a connection to a nameless individual who doesn't trust you with something as basic as their identity AFTER you're sent them some of your hard-earned cash. If the MFI's removed the names of their clients BEFORE the loan was funded I wonder how long it would take those loan to fund... This one is a two-way street, Matt.

When I completed my lender profile I took note of this request: "How would you describe your work? (to someone across the world)". This told me that many different people might have access to my information who might not be familiar with the jargon I might normally use to describe my work. Perhaps a similar phrase could be added to the photo upload section such as "photo your borrower might see" and a caption section added to the photos for those who wish to continue showing pictures of pets.

Pets are commonly used as icons or avatars in the culture of the internet. I agree that it is culturally insensitive for lenders to believe that their use on lender pages will be understood by their borrowers.But for those who wish to continue the practice it seems only prudent to prepare future fellows to describe the practice in a more meaningful way to the borrowers.

I think you described this issue very well and treaded very lightly as you should have. I never would have considered that as an issue without you mentioning it. You really should remind people of this when they post pictures. I think people consider the picture as how other lenders will view them but forget that the people they loan to also see these pictures.

When I first read this I thought "wow, using the cat as the persona really is inappropriate", at which point I remembered that I'm using a snowman myself. Now, I built the snowman myself, but I assume the situation can be compared.

Someone mentions that the loaners are kept private, but that don't really bother me. What I don't like is to have my picture available on a public (non-login), high traffic site, and thus I use a somewhat anonymizing picture. I'm not really consistent in this behaviour, and images of me are readily available elsewhere - so maybe I will reconsider for Kiva. I'd still prefer that I could choose to keep my profile picture private and only available for loaners and staff (or similar) though.

what a great observation and concern. In a way, the situation is not too unlike what people say about facebook et. al., trivializing human relationship.

I would think having some additional communication means or things lenders and loan recipients can work together would help. The meta idea is to get the people more involved (than just simply giving out $$$).

Thanks everyone for commenting and reading at all. I just posted this on KivaFriends and pretty much have the same comments here....

One point I wanted to make here is that I don't think anyone on Kiva should feel bad for using a cat as an avatar. Using animals on social web sites is pretty much well accepted net etiquette and it's natural that it's happening at Kiva too. It's something I've known about and thought about for a long time.

I just heard the catfood story a couple weeks ago and I thought it was a great anecdote. I blogged about it because it made a big impact on me and also because I like sharing pertinent and potentially controversial stories on my blog. I also think the story brings to light a tension in our business.

There is the tension surrounding whether Kiva is truly "p2p" or not and whether the borrowers are being treated like commodities or not. It's obvious that Kiva is not "p2p" in the purest sense, because there are intermediaries (MFIs). When we started, the Kiva web experience was very personal and connected. In the last 1.5 yrs, it's become less personal. As we've scaled fast, much of the personal touch has been lost and the borrowers have little voice on the site. That's something that hopefully we can rectify in the future. As borrowers get further away form the website, the more they can seem like commodities that are bought and sold without a voice. A previous poster mentioned something to this effect and I share the concern. Hopefully we can resuscitate any personality temporarily lost under rapid growth.