Spring Progress Report #1

First wave of users to the site, totaling around 22 users after the first "seed" communities from the NMD 498 and Facebook. (Next wave, this week: The first round of invited "strangers", the Reddit community).

Based on survey responses and on-site feedback, the following projects have been tackled:

- Making the process of posting clearer. There are now two ways to post - a large on/off tab at the top of the page and a smaller link in the control panel.

- Simplifying the karmalgorithm: Right now, if you do something, you get karma. If you get up arrows, you get karma. If you invite, you get karma. One karma point for each transaction.

Based on survey responses and on-site feedback, the following projects will be tackled:

- Allowing for non-anonymous invitations. Some users complained that their invitational e-mail looked "spammy" and they ignored it (for testing purposes, I invited several friends without giving them a heads up.) As a result, we will minimize (yet again) the "true confidentiality" of the site by giving users the option of adding their e-mail to the invitation. This will also probably mean a higher level of karma, since it would probably yield more actual users.

- Creating a "follow this" option. A number of posters used the site once, made a few comments, or a post, and then dissolved. By sending notifications of activity to their e-mail (again, an opt-in measure) we could probably inspire more active dialogue. (This has already been set up on a testing basis for the admins, we just have to make it sortable by individual discussion).

- Customize site for portable devices. This is a backburner project, though I agree it would go a long way to keep people in the loop. We're hoping to outsource this one to a volunteer coder (or group of coders) on the site - increasingly, we're hoping to get the community involved in that aspect of the project.

- Sorting. Sorting by karma, dollar values, most recent, and user.

"Seeding Schedule"

- This week: Reddit's Trust community.

- Next week: Revisions from that round of feedback, Rhizome invitations

- Three weeks: New round of revisions, then the push for local users to invite (elevated invitation karma), press release to local newspapers.

In the meantime, I will be focusing on other communities to search for invitations, writing press release(s), and starting to flesh out, more, the theoretical research for my final paper. By spring break I want the community to be self-expanding.