Site Improvements

How can we improve ned?

Want to abolish all negative feedback? Make things more like Razoo?

Start your ideas here! Ideas that catch probably deserve their own discussions eventually.

This site does not have full time support personnel, but changes will be made as people agree on good ideas, and time permits. Larger features may require raising money and hiring programmers, but that's not out of the question!

Last comment added: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:00:44 PDT

Comment 1 on Site Improvements

I like the idea of the feedback being identified with what it is for. With the Razoo system, you identify if it was something you did, something you said, an inspiration, a thank you. When we were working with Arthur Brock, he proposed, and I really liked

Stones – Originality / Ideas / Eloquence
Tumbles – Participation / Processing / Community Building
Gems – Implementation / Practice / Action / Leadership

Comment 2 on Site Improvements

Yeah, Linda. I like the idea. So would we just have three kinds of feedback: one for each stage of gem? Could a single comment receive 2 tumbles and 1 gem? Where else would we see these? How could someone use the feedback to find the gems on the site?

Comment 3 on Site Improvements

So Linda if I understand your comment in the welcome thread, we should just tell people that their content is under a CC license?

I could see giving people an option of license. They could choose various CC licenses or none, or something more restrictive.

I do think that people have valid reasons that they haven't chosen the CCAL30 on omidyar.net. I think it comes down to the concern that under the CCAL30 the content can find its way to places that it is no longer in a good context, even if it is attributed to the right people.

Still, it would be nice if we could find some blanket agreement that would cover everyone equally.

Comment 4 on Site Improvements

Jim,

Currently we can set a filter limit to look at threads based on the feedback. Why couldn't we set filters on each aspect of the gems in the making?

Discussion of how to handle words spoken in the public domain probably deserve their own space. :-)

Comment 5 on Site Improvements

I like the idea of points with purpose...very much so when related to action and such as well.

>>Still, it would be nice if we could find some blanket agreement that would cover everyone equally.<<

Agreed.

Also, should each group be created under some form of index system (like Wiser Earth's 44 main areas of focus) or something to help give groups context?

We also can do some pretty interesting things with the main ned.com page as well.

Comment 6 on Site Improvements

It would be interesting if each group would auto-generate a thread each month (ala Crisis in Sudan and Food Chain), so each would have a monthly main discussion area.

It would also be very, very cool if that code (one chunk of code, just one time) could be syndicated to multiple web sites.

A group like The Emancipation Network running their group at ned.com could then syndicate an ongoing monthly discussion based on slavery to multiple web sites dedicated to the same subject.

Comment 7 on Site Improvements

These are great ideas Mark...

Mark Grimes said:

It would be interesting if each group would auto-generate a thread each month (ala Crisis in Sudan and Food Chain), so each would have a monthly main discussion area.

It would also be very, very cool if that code (one chunk of code, just one time) could be syndicated to multiple web sites.

A group like The Emancipation Network running their group at ned.com could then syndicate an ongoing monthly discussion based on slavery to multiple web sites dedicated to the same subject.

Comment 8 on Site Improvements

my opinion is that negative feedback is necessary..

I dont' see another alternative at this point.

there has to be some kind of reward/consequence for actions

Comment 9 on Site Improvements

Thnx.

>>my opinion is that negative feedback is necessary.<<

I agree, and think it can be used without being cruel.

In some ways I would prefer if with +2 (or more) or -2 (or more) to a comment or thread members "signed their name to it". Never been a fan of giving -5 to sign my name and having that also close the comment. Would be nice to have the option to do both.

What about form fields under our personal profiles that encourage all members to share their phone numbers and mailing addresses? The more there are real names, real contact information, real stories, real pictures, real videos, real actions...the more interesting things become (I think).

Comment 10 on Site Improvements

What if each group owner is responsible for keeping the area of their group friendly, OT etc. If the behavior in the group is deemed unacceptable by some number of the board, the group is folded (timed out) for some amount of time. If the norms are established early and diligently enforced, that could be good. It could also make each person who owns a group a Host/Hostess. Better than the people on razoo who are memebrs f 700 causes to be razoo ambassadors.

Comment 11 on Site Improvements

Good ones Linda.

I also think (and Jim can confirm), that there are now "semi-private groups" within ned.com... meaning that everyone can read, but only those invited into the group can post.

Comment 12 on Site Improvements

What about a limit to the number of groups members can start?

What can be best done to keep noise to a minimum, and help focus on action, collaboration, getting work done, etc?

Comment 13 on Site Improvements

Mark Grimes said:

Good ones Linda.

I also think (and Jim can confirm), that there are now "semi-private groups" within ned.com... meaning that everyone can read, but only those invited into the group can post.

Um, there are several degrees of privacy for groups. The Help group (where you go when you click "Help Index" in the upper left) is an example of a group that only members can edit or create content.

Comment 14 on Site Improvements

Mark Grimes said:

What about a limit to the number of groups members can start?

What can be best done to keep noise to a minimum, and help focus on action, collaboration, getting work done, etc?

It's going to be interesting having fewer points on this site. Since we don't automatically accumulate points when others read our content, it's not going to be so common to have 10 points to create a new group. I think that might be the limit right there.

Comment 15 on Site Improvements

~ Mark asked: ~

~ What about form fields under our personal profiles that encourage all members to share their phone numbers and mailing addresses? ~

I'm not really a fan of publishing my personal information to that degree. Real name, sure but if someone wants to call me or send something to me/visit they can pm me for the information.

Comment 16 on Site Improvements

>>it's not going to be so common to have 10 points to create a new group. I think that might be the limit right there.<<

Excellent.

>>I'm not really a fan of publishing my personal information to that degree.<<

I totally get that. Publishing my work address and cell number is entirely different that other personal information (home address/phone) etc.

An editorial calendar could look something like this...

September 2007: Partners for Others/international-aid
October 2007: The Emancipation Network/trafficking
November 2007: Peace Tiles/AIDS
December 2007: Life in Africa/orphans
January 2008: Stop Genocide Now/genocide
February 2008: SOLID/poverty
March 2008: Better World Island/technology
April 2008: Making Cool Stuff Happen/volunteering

Seems like each month the Main ned.com Index Page could feature specific grassroots Ned member organizations (NPO, NGO and social purpose). The monthly feature could outline recent accomplishments, current volunteer opportunities (both real world and online only), small scale fundraising item (for something $500-$5,000), current month actions and goals, etc, etc.

If you click the number "5" after the word "Links" in this video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g RWSRXHWB7c&eurl=

Sites Linking to This Video:
904 clicks from http://www.ned.com/
386 clicks from http://www.colourlovers.com/d41d 8cd98f00b204e9800998...
226 clicks from http://ned.com/
23 clicks from http://www.stopgenocidenow.org/c ategory/iact/iact3/
21 clicks from http://stopgenocidenow.org/categ ory/iact/iact3/

...you will see that of the 3,215 visits to that video page since 7/23 that 1,130 came directly from ned.com from just the sites "natural" organic traffic. I think a monthly feature of the orgs on the main page could lead to some pretty interesting opportunities and actions.

Comment 17 on Site Improvements

where do the ned branded communities like ned Uganda and ned Thailand feature in the proposed editorial calendar?

I'm really not sure I like the idea of 1 month featuring only 1 initiative on the front page. Then you miss the ongoing story... I was imagining something more along the lines of the social edge blogs - key content from the field that gets updated regularly, offering visitors the ability to follow along over time from the home page.

Also, just had a chat with some of my Ugandan friends who observed that awarding more points to those who have more time to read discriminates against those of us with limited bandwidth. We would like to see point systems that reward the people at the grassroots who go to such great lengths to get online and participate.

Comment 18 on Site Improvements

Today we had a disruption of ned hosting service from 12:20 to 1:30 Eastern time. The problem was a problem with an upstream ISP that affected a sizable region of Vermont. I do think it will be a rare occurance, but it does make me look forward to the day that we have some site sponsors and can migrate to a more stable (and expensive) host.

Comment 19 on Site Improvements

Wondering about the "group creation function" ... association streams of "business", "community", "social sector" seem unnecessary in that there's so much overlap - it's a cumbersome artifice.

Would rather the streams reflect behaviour - "discussion", "action", "planning" or even "R 'n' R"

Comment 20 on Site Improvements

Hey jim: Have just notice that when u click on the new up date on omidyar it take u striate to omidyar net,so am woundering if that is supposed to be?.

Comment 21 on Site Improvements

Hi Peter, those are nice alternatives. Very nice.

I have been deleting the top level groups like public / private / social blah blah that omidyar.net was using to categorize things. I'll delete more soon, (I've left the ones that already had member groups, just in case deleting them broke something.)

The four categories you have there are really attractive, since people are likely to be looking for one and not another when they visit the site.

Comment 22 on Site Improvements

Hi Jim,

Appreciate your tweaking/adjusting the categorization of groups as opportunity permits.

It's these early shifts that'll allow <ned> to differentiate.

Be well.

Jim said:

Hi Peter, those are nice alternatives. Very nice.

I have been deleting the top level groups like public / private / social blah blah that omidyar.net was using to categorize things. I'll delete more soon, (I've left the ones that already had member groups, just in case deleting them broke something.)

The four categories you have there are really attractive, since people are likely to be looking for one and not another when they visit the site.

Comment 23 on Site Improvements

I've removed the rest of the top-level groups, and added a Fun group called R 'n' R. I want to wait to hear from the board about trying to separate discussion from action, etc. That seems like something that would take effort to keep separate.

Comment 24 on Site Improvements

Brad is the first to "neg" a comment here and here ... one of the benefits of a small alpha.

Now ... Brad being Brad, no foul (perhaps).

I'm not sure why a behaviour deplored, by Brad - i.e. anonymous "negging", would be brought to <ned>.

Comment 25 on Site Improvements

I noticed the negs too 'sigh'. I was a little confused as to why they were deemed necessary.

Comment 26 on Site Improvements

Only Brad can say for certain. I'd guess he's making a point. An old stale empty point, but a point nevertheless.

If you look at the tags under Brad's profile, I made a point too.

Evvy said:

I noticed the negs too 'sigh'. I was a little confused as to why they were deemed necessary.

Comment 27 on Site Improvements

Hey you want to support anonymous negative point giving,

well that is just a tip of the iceberg of what we'll get,

now is the perfect time to remove this failing feature!

just trying to make the point!

;)

Comment 28 on Site Improvements

Thanks Brad, for making your (negative) point ... again.

That reminds me, for the list of site improvements, can we have an ignore button?

Comment 29 on Site Improvements

Meron: we can ignore certain users, there's no UI for it, but I'll PM you with the link.

Brad: This is not a good site on which to do annoying things just to point out how annoying you can be with the feature. Please save the negative points for spammers, people who act disruptively, or without respect for the peace and good will on the site.

The site is open now so that the board can set the ground rules, and lay the foundation of a healthy site.

When you say, "well that is just a tip of the iceberg of what we'll get" it sounds hostile to me.

Please don't be hostile.

Comment 30 on Site Improvements

Brad, I realized that you didn't mean to be hostile, but you were warning that others might use negative points inappropriately. Sorry I took it the wrong way.

Don't worry, this site is going to be more hands-on in terms of community moderation. My feeling is that the point system only works if people have a common goal. On Omidyar.net, there were a group of people who had a goal of having fun being disruptive. If that happens here, we won't leave it to the points system to let the community moderate itself, the board has decided that we will disable user's accounts and effectively ban people from the site if they are disruptive, and the board votes together to ban the user.

Comment 31 on Site Improvements

ok, Jim you'll find out I thought the same 3 1/2 yrs ago about ONet, the negative point system will destroy this place just like it destroyed ONet if it is not changed! Good Luck! ;)

--- Jim Carroll wrote:

Dear Brad Byrne,

Jim Carroll has given you -1 negative feedback, and has provided the following comment:

Brad, This site is about getting stuff done, please do not do annoying things just for the sake of the point of the annoyance. This is exactly what drove people away from omidyar.net, and it won't be tolerated by me here.

Comment 32 on Site Improvements

Jim Carroll said:

On Omidyar.net, there were a group of people who had a goal of having fun being disruptive. If that happens here, we won't leave it to the points system to let the community moderate itself, the board has decided that we will disable user's accounts and effectively ban people from the site if they are disruptive, and the board votes together to ban the user.

one last comment, (which is meant to be constructive btw)

Jim, you will not be able to do that peacefully and still scale, what is considered constructive to some is considered disruptive to others and vise-versa, if this site has plans for engaging more than a 100 or so members, then the board will not have time to moderate it w/o causing negative personal opinions of the moderators.

personally, I am a firm believer in the idea that "ALL are Welcome" - the whole is better than the parts! if a group doesn't like someones postings then exclude them from that group, let's say Brad is a disruptive poster, well eventually all the groups who think so will ban Brad from posting in that group, simple! and eventually Brad might find himself only posting in the 'Brad's Corner Group' and that is all transparent! make the negative feedback transparent! and let the members moderate! else Ned will appear to be a 'closed environment, clique' and you will lose membership just as ONet did.

again Best Wishes! :)

Comment 33 on Site Improvements

Brad Byrne said:

ok, Jim you'll find out I thought the same 3 1/2 yrs ago about ONet, the negative point system will destroy this place just like it destroyed ONet if it is not changed! Good Luck! ;)

Brad, I do not agree that negative points/feedback destroyed ONet. I could agree that the misuse of it was a big part of the destruction.

At ONet there was a faction that did seem to enjoy the act of giving negs and did so unmercifully and many times with no just cause. Conversations were constantly disrupted, brutal personal attacks were made using negs as a weapon, the productivity of the community was impeded. I personally became fearful to make comments and was very quiet even though I was there every day. I don't think I was alone in my fear.

Negative feedback is necessary, in my opinion, but we as a community must make a choice to use it wisely. To use it correctly as it is intended. And to act as a community to stop it if we see it being misused. How do we do that? I see it as threefold.

At <ned> we have a governing board that can step in to stop abusive negging whereas at Onet we did not

This gives me some comfort because there were many times on ONet that I screamed at my computer screen for somebody to "Stop the Abuse' but there wasn't anybody listening. I have looked at the list of board members here and I trust that they will not let this happen here.

WE as the new <ned> community must make a choice and a commitment to use the system wisely

The system is designed to safeguard against spamming, disruptive behavior, personal attacks, etc. We need to choose to use it for just that. I do not believe it is or was ever intended to use as a weapon or as a means of entertainment by disrupting and destroying conversations. WE can change that by not doing it ourselves and by speaking out when we see it happening.

On ONet there was a faction that seemed to operate like a pack of thugs who seemed to have a sole purpose of stopping the good that was happening. Most of them did not have projects they were working on and they did not seem to even want to do good. I never understood why they were there or were allowed to stay. They seemed to be in every conversation and in every group. WE cannot allow that to happen again. I ran from them at ONet but I will not do that again and I think most of the members here think the same way. At least I hope so.

WE as the new <ned> community must choose to change OUR OWN reaction to negative feedback

Back on ONet I saw many good conversations deteriorate because someone got a neg on a comment. All of a sudden the conversation became about "who negged me" or "how dare someone neg me" and this would sometimes go on for pages and pages until everyone just left because there was no conversation left.

If a comment draws a neg then I think the writer should step back and take a second look at what they wrote. I think if I were the person getting negged I would ask myself some questions like:

Was I off topic? If that is the case then perhaps I should let that comment go and get back on topic or start a new thread myself.
Was my comment too harsh, sounding hostile or sounding like a personal attack on someone? If that is the case then perhaps I need to apologize or reword my comment in a more appropriate manner to make my point.
Was there no apparent reason for the neg? If this is the case then the best approach would be just to assume that someone just chose to disagree with me and I should just move forward without making a huge thing of it. I would hope that negs would not be used this way but I can accept it since I do realize that not everyone will agree with my point of view.

The past does not have to repeat itself. WE have the choice to allow that to happen or not. I choose not.

Brad, I am sorry you are choosing to not give us a chance. You are assuming that we will fail and that there will be a repeat of the Onet experience here without giving us a chance to even get started. I hope that you will change your mind. I believe that we can learn from past mistakes and build on those mistakes to make a better future.

Comment 34 on Site Improvements

Something I'd love to see in the help pages is a guide for how to use feedback.

Like for instance, is a point supposed to mean "I agree/disagree" or is it supposed to mean "Hey everyone, look at this!", or does it matter if it means something different to each person? (I am hoping we could agree on a meaning and ask everyone to stick to that, so when anyone sees points given they have a common basis for interpreting them. :)

And how about 2 points? Is that supposed to mean "I REALLY agree/disagree" or can it just mean "I'm feeling generous today (or my bank is fuller), so where yesterday I gave something 1 point, today I'm giving something else 2 points, even though I felt stronger about the thing from yesterday."

Another question I have is if comment A has 3 points and comment B has -1, but I feel that comment B is way more important than comment A, should I give it 2 points (which would bring it to +1) because I really agree with it, or should I rather give it 5 points (bringing it to +4) so I can hilite the fact that I think B should have more points than A?

[Sorry if this sounds too technical, but that latter practice can lead to inflation.]

Comment 35 on Site Improvements

David, welcome to ned.com. Soon there is likely to be a suggestion group to look at all these things you mentioned (and others), and weigh them all.

Possibly capping points that someone can give a post, thread or person.

Possibly rebooting all points every 12/24/36 months.

Also, there has been discussion of things that have meaning outside points. Like icons.

Group owners can award different types of icons to members (that then show up under their profiles) who do different things for that group. Volunteer an hour. Host a TEN party. Have a Peace Tiles event. Donate $25. Meeting FTF. Help someone on the phone for 30 minutes. Well, you get the idea.

Comment 36 on Site Improvements

I've been thinking that we could have a warning that appears when someone clicks on a - to give negative feedback:

"Do you find this material inappropriate or offensive?"

If they click yes, then the neggie happens, otherwise we suggest that they reply instead.

Comment 37 on Site Improvements

I think that would be a positive step.

Another idea is simply to have a "Violates User Agreement" button that you check, instead of negative points.

Comment 38 on Site Improvements

I like it David. It takes away any ambiguity for the newcomer.

Comment 39 on Site Improvements

Although VUA - Violates User Agreement - could be a tag applied to content.

As an aside ... I'm not interested in covering old O.net ground.

My interest is building ned.com to support the growth/sustainability of <ned> global franchises, where <ned> = 10,000 villages + Starbucks + community_centre, all linked and supported by a global community gathered at ned.com.

Comment 40 on Site Improvements

Well said Peter, and thank you.

I think it's going to fun to boot, and cause some very interesting waves of change.

Comment 41 on Site Improvements

<ned> = 10,000 villages + Starbucks + community_centre

Do you mean a <ned> branded cafe which also sells products produced by artisans in developing countries, or a joint venture with http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/ and http://www.starbucks.com/?

Comment 42 on Site Improvements

I'm not convinced that we need a lot of rules, regulations and tiers around points; I'm still with the KISS crowd. Personally I can't see myself expending a lot of energy trying to figure out how we high-five each other. I'm not here for the kudos, icons, points or gold stars, I'm here to (net)work and breathe life in to <ned> and .ned

Comment 43 on Site Improvements

I have to agree with Meron, I think the whole points/kudos thing is often just a distraction. While I liked the theory behind negative points, the realitiy is that people did not use them enough and since they were not used enough they became a major distraction when used. They also brought out the rabble who just like to complain about things.

If we have active moderation that deletes posts and users then neg points will become even less needed.

How about neg points that can only be seen by the board - so that they can be used as a flag by users that they have concerns but being invisable to the troublemakers.

Comment 44 on Site Improvements

Well said, Meron!

Though I do think we need, collectively, to promote a culture of unwritten "rules" where we are sensitive and responsive to each other's points of view, where point dumping or campaigning against other ned.com members (provided they are respecting the users agreement) are frowned on because such behaviours are part of an insistent ME (or THEM and US) culture, rather than a inclusive WE culture of non-competitive support, where diversity is valued.

Comment 45 on Site Improvements

I like it John. I think the - link does need to be turned into words, and I also like that there's no immediate visible clue to non-board members. It simply helps the moderation process, which has to be person-to-person in delicate cases.

Comment 46 on Site Improvements

I forget who, but someone suggested changing the colors just a bit so that people can tell when they're on omidyar.net and when they're here. I added a subtle background that gives the pages the green stripe down the left side, which is the only simple change I could think of. Any graphic artists in the house?

Comment 47 on Site Improvements

Jim, what do you think about adding the /issues/ as a tab for all groups too? Useful or just distracting?

Comment 48 on Site Improvements

What would be under the tab?

(My first reaction is that issues should be a rather-large feature on the site, that can be dropped into existing comments and workspaces using .. issues: kind of directives) But maybe there's something more doable we could start sooner.

Comment 49 on Site Improvements

Oops. I didn't mean issues as in index, I meant issues as a tracking tool that already exists (I think):

http://www.omidyar.net/group/foo dchain/issues/0/

Comment 50 on Site Improvements

Oh... I see. To-do list sort of thing. It is true that we can easily have one per group, and I think I could add a tab that showed it. Let me take a look...

I wonder why omidyar.net chose not to reveal that functionality...

Comment 51 on Site Improvements

I suspect because it was used inhouse more for Thomas/Haney/Pierre to handle bugs and software task/assigments ... and not really thought about how a broader group might use it.

Which leads to to ask. Are there any other plug-n-play type features for this type software that we could all be aware of? Calendars, etc?

Comment 52 on Site Improvements

~ Mark said: ~

Which leads [one] to ask. Are there any other plug-n-play type features for this type software that we could all be aware of? Calendars, etc?

Oh, Boy! Sounds like Christmas!!! Maybe there's lots of goodies to open :D

Comment 53 on Site Improvements

~ Jim said: ~

~ I forget who, but someone suggested changing the colors just a bit so that people can tell when they're on omidyar.net and when they're here. I added a subtle background that gives the pages the green stripe down the left side, which is the only simple change I could think of. Any graphic artists in the house? ~

I know! How about the tweak is, after September 7th you can't post a comment to O'net? ; )

Comment 54 on Site Improvements

Jim Carroll said:

I've been thinking that we could have a warning that appears when someone clicks on a - to give negative feedback:

"Do you find this material inappropriate or offensive?"

If they click yes, then the neggie happens, otherwise we suggest that they reply instead.

Jim, I think this solution to the 'negatives problem' would be both simple and effective. It would certainly resolve my criticism that negatives on O/net provided members with an easy cop out because it allowed negs to be used to express disagreement with a comment rather than engaging in debate.

That said, the 'solution' only addresses the use of negatives in discussions and not the direct use of negatives against individuals to either express dislike, spite, disapproval, censure or - in the rarer worst case scenarios - to bury them altogether.

When this use of negatives was also anonymous and, on occasions, also seen (rightly or wrongly) as a 'clique attack' it was understandably taken as a personal attack.

That then led those of us whose first instinct is to try to defend the underdog to correct the situation with positive points and then, of course, we witnessed all of the consequent exhausting, diverting and acrimonious discussions that followed.

The upshot ? We were all losers because some disruptive members gained personality status as the community's resident 'pains in the butt' on the basis of often erroneous freedom of speech arguments.

All of which is a long winded way of trying to illustrate that the most disruptive and embittered aftermath of negatives came when they were directed at an individual's 'reputation' score and most heat on the use of negatives was always generated around the anonymous use of negative points.

I always thought it strange that no on ever complained about anonymous positives but I'm even handed on this one.

If the old O/net points system is going to be retained (even in the short term) I don't see why any points (pluses or minuses)need to be anonymous.

Surely, if everything is out front from the start that will encourage the use of PMs to seek understandings and resolve differences without the 'points issue' clogging up discussions.

And doesn't that process help build the positive layers of interaction that unite communities rather than tear them apart ?

Comment 55 on Site Improvements

John says:

If the old O/net points system is going to be retained (even in the short term) I don't see why any points (pluses or minuses)need to be anonymous.

I'm with John on this. Particularly, if the suggestion that negatives are visible only to the board of advisors is acted on, it would mean that all other awards of points would be entirely transparent.

IMO This would would reinforce trust and build mutual understanding.

Comment 56 on Site Improvements

Thanks David .... and, to illustrate my point further, I would add that in the Other Place I would probably have given you anonymous positive points for agreeing with me, thereby boosting both of us and my opinion..... but, as my bank is low in this place, I'll resist the temptation. :)

But seriously, the use of our real names on Ned is welcomed and should always be encouraged (even though it is difficult to police) because this simple requirement builds trust and also acts as a deterrent to mischief makers.

I am suggesting that anonymity undermines this trust.

Comment 57 on Site Improvements

John said:

[...] But seriously, the use of our real names on Ned is welcomed and should always be encouraged (even though it is difficult to police) because this simple requirement builds trust and also acts as a deterrent to mischief makers.

I am suggesting that anonymity undermines this trust.

Agreed.

Comment 58 on Site Improvements

Idea for new thing under personal profles.

Have:

3-5 items max, each in its own field radio button choice for free, trade, fee.

Want:

3-5 items max, each in its own field radio button choice for free, trade, fee.

Perhaps tjose things could also exist for groups too, and include.

Actions:

5-7 items max, each in its own field radio button choice for do something online, do something in your community, phone call, buy something, funding, introduction, idea needed, feedback wanted, test something, etc.

Maybe each has a character limit that would be a single line of text.

Maybe each item has an expiration date too (7 days, 30 days, 90 days), so things are kept fairly fresh.

And all haves, wants, and actions could be pushed into a group/page and members could browse among the items and see what is available.

Comment 59 on Site Improvements

The other big thing we need to work on is some kind of better navigation. Even with almost no one here I find I am a day or two behind on new threads as there seems to be no easy way to find them. The whats new is ok, but when busy only shows the few most recent things and gives no sense of what the structure of this place is. I would like to see some kind of map, or drilldown menu.

Comment 60 on Site Improvements

We could do an index by hand and list things by: human rights, community, social enterepreneurs/enterprise, development, sustainability, and have all groups listed under a main category header. Would that work?

Also seems to me like we could limit the number of groups somehow. And/or groups should be self-tagged with their main area of focus...and then they more or less "own that space" within Ned. In other words, The Emancipation Network Group would have the human trafficking, slavery space. If a new organization with the same focus wanted to get active in Ned, they would simply do it in a thread under the TEN group.

Does any of this make sense?

edit: spelling

Comment 61 on Site Improvements

Mark, I've transferred the Wanted Ads group over from the other place (http://www.ned.com/group/wanteda ds/) and I think it would be helpful if any paid advertising on personal pages or profile pages was clearly separated from postings on Wanted Ads.

I think content can be separated by intent. Obviously, someone offering goods/services for a fee from their profile page is clearly advertising and, if a fee was charged for those entries, that would resolve past disputes in The Other Place about people using their personal pages for 'commercial gain' - no matter how worthy their objectives.

It might also be helpful to bear in mind that the original idea for Wanted Ads was a permanent centre for barter, networking, skills exchange, voluntary support etc.

The ideal would have been one click access for everyone - e.g. with Wanted Ads always heading up 'What's New' or appearing as an automatic entry on everyone's Watch List. Maybe that could be arranged here ?

There's also no reason why Wanted need exclude (help, skills,stuff) Offered so I'm happy to rewrite the intro or change the group title if that helps clarify the difference with paid ads if they happen.

And, if there is any leakage of advertising for gain into Wanted to escape classified fees I would guess members would quickly police that once the purpose of Wanted/Offered was clearly understood.

My initial thoughts - but I would be interested to hear what others have to say.

Comment 62 on Site Improvements

Call me wacky, but I would love to see the "Who's Online" be at the top rather than the bottom in the left column. It is always the first thing I look at...so I always have to scroll down. Maybe that's just me.

Comment 63 on Site Improvements

I do the exact same thing and always scroll down to see who is online right away. So for me, moving that function to the top would be great.

I also agree with John on the index. At the Other Place my coping mechanism was to follow people instead on topics. This did put me where the people I wanted to hang out with were probably talking about things I was interested in but it was a very limiting system and I know I missed a lot. An index would be much better.

Comment 64 on Site Improvements

Surely Who's Online is at the bottom of the list because it can be as long as a piece of string ? If all goes well, it could be a very long string.

Maybe I'm wacky too but I always look first for items in bold type on my Watch List so that I can pick up on discussions where I'm a follower or contributor.

But then maybe I'm a just one of life's scrollers. ;)

Comment 65 on Site Improvements

I agree John, Who's online is the only one that has a size that changes all the time, and putting it at the bottom keeps things steadier.

I use the watch list too, and also watch for Group names that are bold, so I know there's something I haven't read in a group. Joining a group is a good way to watch everything within.

I've been thinking that there could be a variation of the watch list that's "everything I haven't read on the site" As if you were watching everything. It would be like what's new, but would hide individual comments, and anything that you had read.

Comment 66 on Site Improvements

Jim Carroll said:

I agree John, Who's online is the only one that has a size that changes all the time, and putting it at the bottom keeps things steadier.

I had not thought of the size, and hopefully it will get huge. So I have to agree that the only logical thing is to leave it where it is.

I've been thinking that there could be a variation of the watch list that's "everything I haven't read on the site" As if you were watching everything. It would be like what's new, but would hide individual comments, and anything that you had read.

That would be cool!

Comment 67 on Site Improvements

I think the cool idea is cool too !

Comment 68 on Site Improvements

What if we zeroed out people's personal points each day?

(I find it weird over on the Other Place that the number "3136" follows me around everywhere I post, whether I'm being helpful or idiotic. Wouldn't a more interesting number to follow me around be the number of days I've been a member?)

I like giving points to comments and threads, as a way to say, "Hey look at this!" But people? "Hey look at him!" ???

Comment 69 on Site Improvements

ok, so if we are reorganizing the left column... here's the order I'd love to see:

groups I own (lights up when there is activity anywhere in those groups)

my other other groups (also lights up when there's any activity there)

my watchlist (takes me to the newest posts in specific discussions I choose)

my footprints (where I've recently been)

who's online

help

Comment 70 on Site Improvements

^^^ What she said : )

Comment 71 on Site Improvements

From a BoP point of view ...

Does <ned> have an implicit interest in keeping this site as broadly accessible as possible, i.e. the site loads quickly whether the user is accessing via dial-up or an early iteration of windows?

I'd like orgs like Inveneo to recommend their client use <ned>, etc ...

Comment 72 on Site Improvements

Ned.com intropage (not ned.com/home) could do with an overhaul.

It still links to a yahoo group (witch i think is non- existent)

Comment 73 on Site Improvements

>>Does <ned> have an implicit interest in keeping this site as broadly accessible as possible, i.e. the site loads quickly whether the user is accessing via dial-up or an early iteration of windows?<<

100% yes.

>>Ned.com intropage (not ned.com/home) could do with an overhaul. It still links to a yahoo group (witch i think is non- existent)<<

Agreed. Right now I'd like it to be a simple <Ned> text link into the /home/ page. I think the UI can be built in such a way to highlight a few of the active groups within the community and really draw people into not only the conversations...but the actions and things those groups are looking for from other people. The Yahoo group is mainly Portland people from a few Portland events...once there is a little more structure within this site I'm going to invite them to join here.

Comment 74 on Site Improvements

Maybe a little introduction to these conversations here on the homepage could be helpfull.

Comment 75 on Site Improvements

Agreed.

Comment 76 on Site Improvements

Also a more textbased homepage with clearly stated goals and objectives would be good.

The youtube video could be put at the bottom of the page. (That'll make people see the text while the video is loading in the background--->>> good for people with low connections)

Comment 77 on Site Improvements

Mark, If you create a workspace for the homepage by dumping in the html, then that would be a nice way for you to update the homepage, and then at your request, I'll copy that to the site's main static root page. (You might even have some luck with the .. raw:: html directive if you don't have any blank lines.

Comment 78 on Site Improvements

until we get a "real" design, I was just thinking of this for a zen like placeholder for now.

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

<title>Ned :: a better world experience, social entrepreneurs, social enterprise, social purpose enterprise, npo, ngo, community based organizations</title> <style type="text/css">

<!-- .style1 {

font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;

} .style2 {color: #000000} -->

</style>

</head>

<body>

</strong></p> <p class="style1" align="center"> </p> </body> </html>

Comment 79 on Site Improvements

Is it possible to get more points injected into the system to enable members to sponsor groups and seed more activity on <Ned> ?

Comment 80 on Site Improvements

Hi John, One of the things that came up early in conversations between Mark and I is that we wanted to limit the number of groups to one per person. Instead of changing the code so that people could only create one group, we decided to see if the smaller starting karma banks and the cost of creating groups regulated the group proliferation by itself.

I think the idea behind it is that it's better to have fewer well-cared-for groups.

That said, during the seeding timeframe, we did reduce the cost of creating a group from 10 points to 2 points, so people can create groups while is less karma in circulation.

The seeding timeframe might be ending though, now that we're up to 99 visitors a day, and 49 members. Mark, what do you think?

Comment 81 on Site Improvements

>>The seeding timeframe might be ending though, now that we're up to 99 visitors a day, and 49 members. Mark, what do you think?<<

Yes, I agree very much. I think that group propagation at o/net was definitely the cause of many members feeling of overwhelm. If members are limited to one group each, they will focus (and carefully moderate) the one thing that is closest and dearest to their hearts. Plus if every group within <Ned> is collaboration and action based there should be plenty of things for everyone to do.

I'm not sure of all the actions that have been already floating around, but here are three.

Name a web site: Playful City: Atlanta
Meet or introduce Atlas Corps Fellows to your friends in Washington DC`_
Soap Project - Development and help Munnu Morrish work to build a successful liquid soap business in Gulu, Uganda. Something that if done properly could help provide a living wage to perhaps dozens of individuals.

BTW, with 20,000 people even one group per person is not scalable. Members need to probably "own" their categories and collaborate with other members and organizations within them. Now if someone must start/own a second group...I'm sure there will be exceptions to the rule. Action. Collaboration. Measurable results. Small failures. Trying new things in the real world. Transparent reporting (financial and operational). Sharing results and lessons learned.

Comment 82 on Site Improvements

I light of the foregoing comments - I have a question. I have been thinking about setting up a group for Local Organizing and the Planetary Mind as ned is exactly the type of thing each community should be discussing in regard to the question, "What can We do to make Our community a better place to live?"

I was also thinking about asking the REDI board of directors - the local organizing group I am working with in Denver - if they would like to use the ned space for asynchronous decision making.

Is that the type of group proliferation the BOA wants to avoid? - or do those fit in with groups based on action and collaboration - that I would take special care to maintain? (I know that would give me two groups).

Comment 83 on Site Improvements

I guess we could. But let me ask you this.

Could you boot up the Local Organizing and the Planetary Mind group and initially have REDI as a thread within that group?

With FOOD CHAIN I found keeping things inside an active group was powerful. When orgs tried to "break out" of the FOOD CHAIN group too soon, they often didn't have enough traction and members to really get enough followers or support to remain active/viable. Think about the two most active "groups" on o/net. Crisis in the Sudan with the changing monthly discussion, and FOOD CHAIN with the changing monthly discussion.

Hmmmm. Maybe starting new groups even isn't so much about more points to get them started, but 2-5 points a person...and many more people needed to start one. Just thinking out loud.

Comment 84 on Site Improvements

Some immediate thoughts and questions:

Why is it necessary to have group 'OWNERS' in the big capital letter ownership sense that I think is being referred to here ?

Isn't there a better distinction to be made between 'Founders' who set up and seed the group (or groups) and the more democratic sense of ownership vested in the participants in the group or the threads created under the umbrella of the group ?

Isn't the understandable tendency to organise possibly at odds with the desirable objective of building a self regulating community ? Or has that ideal been shelved ?

Is there an assumption at work here that groups are tablets of stone intended to stand the test of time ? Aren't more fluid structures equally valid and workable ?

Is the drive to archive The Other Place also tempting <Ned> to set out its stall with one eye on history and future archives rather than accept that ideas flow, discussions start and stop and groups fold through inactivity ?

Why can't groups be started and folded - into an archive if necessary - when they run out of steam ?

If we're being very tidy with stuff, shouldn't we also be tidy with people ? Isn't it logical - if we can leave a group with one click - to also provide for members to leave <Ned> with one click from their profile page ?

Doubtless more to come but that's enough for now. ;)

Comment 85 on Site Improvements

Mark said:

Could you boot up the Local Organizing and the Planetary Mind group and initially have REDI as a thread within that group?

That's an interesting view of "nested groups" that has got me thinking . . .

One of the projects of LOPM is the Community Portal software that would allow REDI exposure, transparency in decision making and transparency in accounting within its locality, as a part of the local organizing effort. I see that project as having potential value to David Bale's WWC and all the local ned organizations - as well as supporting the open source community. How do those groups nest? Perhaps there is an even better way to do it. I'll think about it some more since I am in no particular hurry.

Comment 86 on Site Improvements

John Firth said:: Is there an assumption at work here that groups are tablets of stone intended to stand the test of time ? Aren't more fluid structures equally valid and workable ?

There's some infrastructure involved in groups... In the real world, it's probably analogous to building (or leasing) a meeting / working space. So I wouldn't say set in stone, but I would associate groups with a committed group of people.

Is the drive to archive The Other Place also tempting <Ned> to set out its stall with one eye on history and future archives rather than accept that ideas flow, discussions start and stop and groups fold through inactivity ?

Folding groups through inactivity is a good idea. Right now there's no good way to do that with the current software. So right now, we want to avoid creating groups that don't already have some real-world traction with a group of people.

Your other ideas all look good and reasonable too.

Comment 87 on Site Improvements

OK Jim, so it seems there's two things at work here:

First, the activity of forming, expanding, disbanding or forming new groups. All processes that could still happen in the same or adjacent meeting rooms in one building.

Second, the signposts that enable us to find our way to the building and then to the right meeting room.

Maybe recognising these differences simplifies matters.

In other words, am I talking about groups as living things and part of the process of interaction on <Ned> whilst you are talking about groups for perfectly legitimate organisational and navigational reasons ?

If so, maybe we need to define our terms. If we're thinking only about navigation and filing then maybe it's simpler to think of 'categories' and not groups.

We can all recognise broad navigational categories (e.g. politics, religion, health & welfare etc) and some groups (activities) will fall under more than one category.

But this shouldn't matter - groups can be under more than one category. The important thing is that people can easily find their areas of interest quite quickly.

I do appreciate the need for navigation.... try navigating on Razoo (even in their early days) and it's already a mess.... so I suspect that we're not really disagreeing just placing different meanings on the notion of groups.

But then I guess you'll quickly correct me if I'm wrong. :)

Comment 88 on Site Improvements

How can i start a group?

I still am running the Diplomacy Chess game, and while it probably is a niche kinda thing at present, i'd like to spread the tablecloth out and show what's been cooking.

Remember, it's only when people have tasted (experienced) that they tend to interact. We're at the moment at deserts and will give you a full menu when the restaurant feels it's got the proper menu, cutlery, staff and all other kindsa things.

Diplomacy Chess

Comment 89 on Site Improvements

I never understood what "groups" meant in o/net. I was always wishing I could find topics by browsing the group taxonomy (for a few months I went and posted a thoughtful comment in every single discussion I was interested in -- they were all dormant). I learned to use "What's New" and users' "Recent Discussions" to find the conversations.

If a group really is supposed to be a group of people who want to collaborate on something, that is a much higher bar than getting 5 people to sponsor with 5 points.

Comment 90 on Site Improvements

Dominique, if it's a niche kinda thing for now I would skip starting a group honestly, I'm afraid it would get lost there.

I would say start it in a thread at <Ned> Front Porch (for now) and that way as it pops up every active member at ned.com will actually see it and you'll stand a much better chance at engaging people. Strong great single threads, like Ray and Jackie's Unbelievable Donation had great readership and participation.

David, I think we need some kind of hand built index system (ala WiserEarth, but starting with less than 44 areas of focus). And I would agree that setting the bar higher to start a group could be a great idea. I could also see (after we get all te o/net people here on board), having new members wait 30-60 days prior to starting a group...just so they have time to get the lay of the land.

Comment 91 on Site Improvements

Mark Grimes said:

Dominique, if it's a niche kinda thing for now I would skip starting a group honestly, I'm afraid it would get lost there.

I would say start it in a thread at <Ned> Front Porch (for now) and that way as it pops up every active member at ned.com will actually see it and you'll stand a much better chance at engaging people. Strong great single threads, like Ray and Jackie's Unbelievable Donation had great readership and participation.

Mark, totaly agree.

Maybe it's a good idea of creating a proper workspace.

I just don't know how its done here.

Ps. Is there still a friday call?

Comment 92 on Site Improvements

Sorry,

Foot in mouth.

Couldn't make a group (or so i think it was)

Comment 93 on Site Improvements

Ned hitching guide to a better world

Comment 94 on Site Improvements

Dominique, Luke is looking into getting the call going again at 8:30AM Friday's...we should know more soon. You can always post questions here too, someone may well have the answer.

Comment 95 on Site Improvements

Just remembered my frustration starting at O.net that led to A Brief Tour of Omidyar.net and later efforts to document the rules for negative feedback that led to Tips for Avoiding Negative Feedback. I am the principle drafter of both of those - though I never considered that I owned them. For what it is worth, you have my permission to use both of those here - or modify them as seems appropriate.

I can't figure out why those links don't work. Let me try Small Pond Welcoming Space.

Ok, that works and the links to the workspaces are there.

Comment 96 on Site Improvements

Thnx David, that will be helpful.

One thing that is being looked at very strongly too is making all point giving at ned.com pos/neg 100% transparent.

Comment 97 on Site Improvements

Mark Grimes said:

Thnx David, that will be helpful.

One thing that is being looked at very strongly too is making all point giving at ned.com pos/neg 100% transparent.

Now that makes sense. If I am going to be responsible and give a negative point to a comment then I am willing and want to be transparent about it. I don't want to have to give 5 negs to have my name show or necessarily close a post down. I think too that if negs were totally transparent, users will really think about giving them instead of playing the old 'neg and hide' game that seems to cause so much disruption.

Comment 98 on Site Improvements

The fold a comment had a strange psychology to it, that is very true. Often times when a comment got smacked with a -1, one could often gather why...even though you never knew from who. Now when someone were to give a neg, they may feel more compelled to share the reason(s) with the member. I hope with much more moderation the entire thing can remain civil...and we can all focus on taking action, making real good things happen, and collaborate with real results in mind. Fingers crossed and all.

Comment 99 on Site Improvements

Mark Grimes said:: One thing that is being looked at very strongly too is making all point giving at ned.com pos/neg 100% transparent.

I'd certainly give a 1000% welcome to that !

Comment 100 on Site Improvements

Per a conversation with Mark, instead of just having a single <ned> link on the home page, I've made it so that it instantly redirects you to the community site.

Comment 101 on Site Improvements

Thnx Jim. When we get the sense of a good direction, design, interface and great ongoing editorial content we can have the main page be a great door to some of the most action oriented groups/people.

FWIW, there have been as many as 50-100 people (some bots)that used to visit the main ned page daily...we'll see what that turns into now.

Comment 102 on Site Improvements

One thing I would like to highlight weekly/bi-weekly/monthly on the main page is something like a Focus On: Christina Jordan member of the week type thing. A member picture, maybe a brief statement about what they do (professionally, to make the world a better place, etc), link to their profile.

Other ideas for the main index page?

Comment 103 on Site Improvements

Mark, I'm happy to nominate Christina as 'the first victim' but some of us might wince at the prospect of making the front cover. :D

LOL........... well,not out loud really. More sort of cringily smiling - but I don't know what keys to hit for that emoticon.

Comment 104 on Site Improvements

Yeah, we'd want to highlight people that would agree to being there, that's for sure.

Comment 105 on Site Improvements

Maybe you need a 'Model Release Form' ? :)

Comment 106 on Site Improvements

John Firth said:

some of us might wince at the prospect of making the front cover. :D

I'm wincing big time.

Comment 107 on Site Improvements

Hey here's a suggestion, I don't know if it's easy or hard, but how about having a box you can uncheck when you make a thread that says

Include comments to this thread in "What's New"

That way if threads develop where comments end up being long lists (e.g. of countries, nonprofits, green products, websites...) they won't overwhelm the "What's New" page.

Also some threadmakers might not want to be hilited in that way, they might want to invite people to read and participate in the thread, as opposed to advertising it each time someone posts a comment.

Comment 108 on Site Improvements

Get's my vote - if I had one !

Comment 109 on Site Improvements

Christina Jordan said:

John Firth said:

some of us might wince at the prospect of making the front cover. :D

I'm wincing big time.

Scaredy-cats.

Well, maybe a weekly focus on a Peace Tile and the person and story behind that.

Comment 110 on Site Improvements

All feedback is now transparent. Any feedback given can be connected with its giver.

I haven't put caps in place yet.

Comment 111 on Site Improvements

Awesome! Thanks Jim : )

Comment 112 on Site Improvements

rocking good

Comment 113 on Site Improvements

Just tested out transparent points on Jim. It works great.

Comment 114 on Site Improvements

I don't know if anyone suggested this, but has it been suggested that a "friends" section be added to the profile page, so each of our groups could attract members? This is a growing feature of Facebook, Linked In and other communities.

With such a feature, is there a "group email" feature that would enable the host of a group to send messages to the entire group (if they have given permission).

I found on Omidyar that I introduced myself to many people over many years. But there was no good way to follow up with these people after some time had passed. A group email feature might help a group stay connected to its members.

Are these features being considered? Are they already here?

Comment 115 on Site Improvements

I love the "friends" idea. It could make it really simple for people to stay in touch.

I also love the way razoo and facebook encourage people to put up their picture (or a picture they want to use as a placeholder). It adds another dimension to how we think of people and what they say. It would be fun to see little pictures next to each comment in these threads.

Comment 116 on Site Improvements

Here's an idea that actually got me out of bed early this morning.

How about an "ON TOPIC" flag? Forget negs and "off topic" tags to keep noise down. It would be so cool to be able to click to say "Now, THAT's what this thread is all about!"

"ON TOPIC" wouldn't mean I agree with the post, or like it, or approve of it, or want to kiss up to the author. It would just mean this post is on topic. So if megathreads ever developed here and people log in after a vacation and see 320 new posts, they could turn on the "on topic" filter and just read the gist of the thread to catch up.

Some people might even leave the on topic filter on all the time. If any of the off topic posts were really great, there'd be an incentive to move them to a thread where they'd be "ON TOPIC"!

OK, isn't that just about the coolest idea I've ever had?

Comment 117 on Site Improvements

Oh, and then this would also be an interesting metric about a thread. How many of the posts are on topic? It could be a way to focus topics too, because if there were two threads about the same thing, and one was more on topic than the other, maybe that would draw the activity to the more focused space.

Comment 118 on Site Improvements

Dan Bassill said:

I don't know if anyone suggested this, but has it been suggested that a "friends" section be added to the profile page, so each of our groups could attract members? This is a growing feature of Facebook, Linked In and other communities.

Hi Dan, The closest to a list of friends that we have on the site is http://www.ned.com/my/feedback/ It shows the people who have received positive feedback from you. From there, it's two clicks to their profile, then their discussions tab to see what they're active in recently.

With such a feature, is there a "group email" feature that would enable the host of a group to sendmessages to the entire group (if they have given permission).

There is a group PM feature in the organized groups, but none that would e-mail people who are in your friends list.

-Jim

Comment 119 on Site Improvements

Here's who's at ned.com right online now...pretty cool.

Antal Ferenc Kovacs/Budapest
Christina Jordan/Uganda
Meron Moroz/Canada
Mark Grimes/US
Cordelia Salter/Italy
Linda Nowakowski/Thailand
Munnu Morrish/Uganda
John Firth/England
Chris Cook/Scotland
Mike Land/Baghdad

It sure would be cool to somehow incorporate geo/location of people online in the left column somehow.

Comment 120 on Site Improvements

I really dont like the friends idea, mostly because it does not work at anything other than creating noise. I had several interns in the last year that were good at using the myspace type tools, but I was amazed to find that there is almost nothing of substance they did on them.

Comment 121 on Site Improvements

I joined Omidyar several years ago at the invitation of Michael Hermon. I had heard him speak at a workshop in Chicago about the power of invitation.

...at http://www.michaelherman.com/cgi /wiki.cgi?OpenSpaceTechnology/Es sentialElements is a paragrapth that reads, "The essence of OST is invitation. Invitation gathers people into the event, where they are further invited to post more invitations. The results of the groups that accrete around those smaller invitations are invitations to carry the work into the larger world. Practicing invitation"...

Without the ability of people who are passionate about a cause to send invitations to groups of people on a consistent basis, the individual doing the inviting has less ability to build a community of people.

I realize that we can open groups on Ned and post messages that serve as invitations, but would really like to see a feature that would enable me to contact a group of members who have demonstrated some reason for me to invite them into my space.

I find the same weakness on the other social networking places where I'm active. My blog on these spaces has to serve as my invitation, but it's not the same as a targeted message.

I realize we can send private messages to one person at a time, but that gets inefficient when you're trying to reach 50 or more people at a time.

How have others worked around this?

Comment 122 on Site Improvements

Dan,I don't know how others have worked but I wonder if the solution to your 'problem' would be a simple PM address file built into our personal settings.

Maybe not possible technically but it would keep it simple and I guess any abuses of the facility (e.g. PM Spam)could also be dealt with simply and quickly.

Comment 123 on Site Improvements

If we had a "friends/contact" list that we could group pm from and make it selective rather than just pm the entire list....I guess a contact address book with the ability to pm more than one of them at the same time. That would definitely be a cool feature.

Comment 124 on Site Improvements

With understanding that they are some times necessary, I'm not a huge fan of group PMs. As far as mass personal messages are concerned (kinda' like a form letter to my friends) I'm even less supportive. I have a personal contact list so I can personally contact people.

Comment 125 on Site Improvements

I suggested on o/net that there be a little bit of screen real estate devoted to a global kiosk. Any member could post there, and it would be really cool if you could sort and search on the posts kind of like you can search for items on ebay or in gmail.

So anyone who has a solar energy conference to announce can post it there, and if it's buried in lots of ads I can find it by searching for solar, or if I'm always interested in Meron's announcements I can search for Meron there.

I don't mind a few group PMs now and then, but when they start filling up my inbox they can crowd out personal messages.

Comment 126 on Site Improvements

Dan, I have always wished you of all people would start a group. I frankly don't want to just be PM'd with your news - I'd much rather have a group space where we could learn new things and explore ways to collaborate on making tutor-mentor news together! If you and some of your tutor-mentor network/ staff were able communicate interactively here I bet there would be all sorts of overlaps to discover and build on. Not just with me... and then you'd have the group pm system.

I really do not think a personal group pm function is a great idea. If people started to use it a lot, I'd want off those peoples' friends lists eventually, because I just don't have the bandwidth for more pm checking than I already do now. One of the reasons I used this interface at the O as a virtual office was that it was easier to filter out the unwanted noise and use my pm box for business. It's a much more private and focused space than my email inbox. I would be afraid that a personal group message function would compromise that.

Comment 127 on Site Improvements

I started groups on Tutor/Mentor in the previous forum, and frankly not too many people participated. Maybe more visited the space and followed the links to other information, but I don't know.

Just creating a group, or a space to meet, is not enough. There has to be a variety of marketing on an on-going basis to draw people togehter, share ideas, and move the group toward actions. In my other life I was an advertising planning manager for a big corporation. We communicated to over 20 million potential customers every day inviting them to our 400 stores in 40 states. We spent over $250 million a year doing this.

Non profits don't have that kind of money, yet they need that kind of reach and frequency to build their communities and mobilize resoruces for their causes.

If Ned or any other social network group is going to be able to draw consistent attention and build participation in the different groups that form here, it will need to create some form of advertising that not only draws people to the web site, but to the individual groups.

A PM system may work for some, and not for others. As long as it has an opt in and opt out, people should be able to choose what form of communications they want to use or receive.

In the end, one measure of Ned's sucess is how well the infrastructure supports the growth and impact of the groups who meet here.

Comment 128 on Site Improvements

Just general housekeeping point really - but I was looking at 'largest banks' on the people pages and noticed that there seem to be lots of 'members' listed as someone@ whatever email address.

Occurred to me that sometime down the line there might be queries about how many people have registered on <Ned> and, in my view,if people haven't given a name then they're just passing by and haven't really registered.

Is there a process whereby all of the anonymous someones@ will be regularly wiped unless they log in with a proper name ?

Comment 129 on Site Improvements

John, those visitors do not show up as members in any list, or in any way until they enter their names. Though when you see someone like that, please welcome them and point them to the "settings" tab where they can change to their real first and last names. Seems to me like the most consistent people reputation-wise and such are the ones using real first and last names. Not symbols, abbreviations, or made up names.

Comment 130 on Site Improvements

I agree - I was just being tidy !

Comment 131 on Site Improvements

Luckily, the system does what you want...and I did agree with you. o/net had a great welcoming group (which we could just do in the Front Porch thread monthly/quarterly), and it was a nice place people could introduce themselves. Even more so if there were prompted with a introduce yourself, what do you do, how to you make the world a better place, what are you looking for...kinda thing.

Comment 132 on Site Improvements

The site server had a little glitch today at 9:40 PT.

Sorry for the inconvenience. The site was back up in about two minutes.

Comment 133 on Site Improvements

I tried to upload a photo but I only got a "Server Error" message each time.

I did try 4 times....

Is there a glitch or something, or did I exceed file size at 224kb?

Thanks.

Comment 134 on Site Improvements

just a few thoughts of what would be nice to see on ned (lessons from o.net):

more ease to put links and photos
the point thing: perhaps initially we can all self-restraint and just give rep points conservatively - personally, i do think if a newcomer come it IS intimidating to find a bunch of power-users having 2000+ points.. and that does have an impact on user perception and user decision to use the site. i would actually go as far as (a) not having a number next to our name, (b) have only 1 reputation per person from anyone (aka. friends)... this would probably redirect the points towards 'activities' and comments.

Comment 135 on Site Improvements

Could you try again for me Michael? It was a permissions thing on the server.

Comment 136 on Site Improvements

Niny, what do you think about caps?

A post up to 5 points from any one member, a thread/workspace up to 10 points from any one member, and a member up to 10-25 from any one member?

Comment 137 on Site Improvements

I just noticed Mark tagged a nice answer to a question with 'faq' and I think that's a fantastic site improvement.

For it to show up on the home page, we need more people to tag good answers as 'faq'. Whaddyathink?

Comment 138 on Site Improvements

Mark Grimes said:

Niny, what do you think about caps?

A post up to 5 points from any one member, a thread/workspace up to 10 points from any one member, and a member up to 10-25 from any one member?

Hm.. just realized there's point transparency for even 1 point feedback - great! I'd even say 5-5-5 is fine, but maybe 5-10-10 works too.

One other thing that I was thinking last night - to me one of the great derailment of discussions was all these energy that goes into point disputes. A long time ago in the old o.net someone was discussing of needing to have a place to sort things out - kinda like the time out ring, grievance room what not. That might be useful down the road here as things scale..- a group/thread that's not visible to the non-logged in visitors. Not quite sure whether it need to be announced early, just thinking ahead.

Comment 139 on Site Improvements

Niny, I think one sanction here is that there are now enough people around who have experienced the disputes you're talking about and I would guess that many (like me) perhaps now accept that they were probably far too tolerant with some of the disruptive influences.

I also suspect that any new disruptive influence will be dealt with much more effectively on <Ned> and,as a moderated site, we will not have to rely so much on the blunt (and controversial) use of negative points to deal with community problems.

Comment 140 on Site Improvements

One reason people talk so much about points is because we all desperately hope that it will hilite things we want to pay attention to, save us lots of time, and also provide free advertising to really worthy projects and people.

In the old days, we used referrals and recommendations, and people got reputations by consistently doing things you liked. O/net points didn't really replace or improve on that old system, imo. To do that, you'd either have to drastically restrict point giving, or else you'd have to get everyone on board using the kudos system in roughly the same way.

The other reason people talked so much about points is because when an amazing person who is spending her life doing amazing things for the world gets negged, it screws up the equation, the neg is saying, pay a little less attention to this person, when what we should be saying is, pay more attention to this person.

The flip side is when people give lots of points to their pet project, the result is that everything else gets less attention from people who are using points to filter material (granted, on o/net I was one of the top offenders who used points mercilessly to hilite my favorite people and projects). So the amazing nobel prize winner who doesn't have time to log in every day and click the feedback button a million times ends up not counting, in the feedback process.

I think points were a cool idea. I bet there are other really cool ways to filter and hilite the best stuff. It would be interesting to explore those. What about "editor's choice"?

Comment 141 on Site Improvements

I agree with Niny's suggestion to lose the number following us around. Put the number on the profile and in the active user lists and stuff, but not on every post we make.

Or make the number a percentage, like what percentage of all the points given went to this person.

Or another idea is the way banks rate people, average daily balance. Put how many points each user has gotten, DIVIDED BY the number of hours they've been logged on, or by the number posts they've made (plus 1, to avoid division by zero).

Comment 142 on Site Improvements

Great Ideas David! I like the percentage, because it will point out the leaders really nicely.

The ratio (by hours) would point out the highest quality stuff... both fantastic ideas!

Comment 143 on Site Improvements

I tend to like the number there with each post. That's what the reputation is all about. It also is great to see someone with (0) points, as it shows right away...they are new.

I'd love to see a tab that shows the last 25-100 posts and threads that member has given a point (or more) to. Members can then quickly look to that tab on a users profile and see what that user thinks was the most important recently.

edit: typo

Comment 144 on Site Improvements

It'd be fantastic the column navigation items could be each individually nested (opened/closed) with the click of a small triangle icon to the right of each one.

Help
My Watch List.
Footprints
Groups I Own
My Other Groups
Who's Online

Comment 145 on Site Improvements

It would be very nice if every instance of the word "user" under the people tab was replaced with the word "member"

http://www.ned.com/user/active/

Most Active Users

Most recently signed-up users.

Top-Rated Users

Top Rated Users Feedback

Ranked by the number of unique users giving positive feedback.

Comment 146 on Site Improvements

It'd be great to offer users a 1-2 line signature file for all their posts, so they would not have to have their messages in their user name.

Comment 147 on Site Improvements

I guess locking user names could be an interesting idea too (only admin could change).

Comment 148 on Site Improvements

Jim Carroll said:

Great Ideas David! I like the percentage, because it will point out the leaders really nicely.

The ratio (by hours) would point out the highest quality stuff... both fantastic ideas!

Just a question here or maybe its really a statement. I tend to not sign out and am logged in most of the time either at home or at work and will just check in as time permits to see if anything is going on. So my hours could sometimes be a full 24. Does this kind of practice mess up the ratio?

Comment 149 on Site Improvements

That's fine Evvy, logged in doesn't mess anything up. I do the same thing 4AM-6PM-ish usually myself. I always have a browser window open on o/ne....errr, Ned.

Comment 150 on Site Improvements

Skipping back a few posts there, I would particularly like to go along with Mark's limit on the number of points that 'friends' can give to each other.

Surely, once someone's stroked me 10 times that's more than enough. In The Other Place we had some really heavy points petting running into the hundreds which made the reputation numbers look both ridiculous and promiscuous.

I would softly suggest that the seeds are already here and I'm sure that Lars - respect! :) - won't mind me pointing out that he was picking up reputation points when he wasn't even active here. Surely that's plain silly ?

I agree with Niny that points (also subject to limit) should be about content but I would go further and suggest, that 'reputation scores' should also be built on some ratio of (net) points awarded to posts in discussions, threads started etc.

Interested to hear what others think though. Maybe its just me but I've always taken more notice of 'top commentators' scores rather than anything else.

I also think some way of building reputation through contribution would immediately resolve the 'Mandela dilemma' - i.e. when and if 'distinguished members'(like George) turn up then we would recognise that by giving points to their contribution (if they are valued) rather than their simple presence - thus immediately boosting their reputation scores.

In short, dump deference and mutual stroking !

Comment 151 on Site Improvements

I think Lars suffered from the Mandela dilemma, which to a certain degree...one's reputation can proceed them. But that effect wears off quickly if the new member does not engage.

I think there will be caps on what a member can give any one post/thread/workspace/member...but Jim's very busy (with paying work) and that will take some time for him to program.

I'd like to see something done so we can add users to the watch list and when anything by anyone is posted to their personal news it goes bold.

Comment 152 on Site Improvements

Mark Grimes said:

I think Lars suffered from the Mandela dilemma, which to a certain degree...one's reputation can proceed them. But that effect wears off quickly if the new member does not engage.

I think there will be caps on what a member can give any one post/thread/workspace/member...but Jim's very busy (with paying work) and that will take some time for him to program.

I'd like to see something done so we can add users to the watch list and when anything by anyone is posted to their personal news it goes bold.

Thanks Mark. Looks like good directions to me - apart from Lars' elevation to 'Mandela' status..... now that is stretching things - even for the 'old' reputation system! :D

Comment 153 on Site Improvements

Joi Ito and Howard Rheingold had the same reputation situation when they hit o/net. But quickly faded once they stopped engaging.

Comment 154 on Site Improvements

Someone mentioned getting points for making posts and opening threads. There was also a mention that people on onet got points for people reading their threads.I would argue that we don't want to just give people points for posting or opening threads. That continues the syndrome of verbal diarrhea. However, I do think that there should be some incentive for the member who starts a good thread that gets a lot of discussion going. I don't know if that is measured by activity or by somehow factoring the points given to the topic.

Jim Carroll Started one of the best discussions I have seen here or on onet...he should get a pat on the back and encouragement for that!

Comment 155 on Site Improvements

O! Was that me ? :(

I think I really meant to say what you're saying Linda ! :D

Comment 156 on Site Improvements

Why don't we dump points altogether?

People who engage enough will have their voices heard.

Comment 157 on Site Improvements

Several years ago, i got invited on Howard Reingolds brainstorms. There's no pointsystem and the community is solid.

There's more emphasis on people and their ideas, instead of a rating scale.

Comment 158 on Site Improvements

there's also lighthearted sections that'll take the edge off the seriousness of the daily grind.

Comment 159 on Site Improvements

Points are only one way to hilite things.

We could use tags as well. How about a tag like "Ned" or "Very Ned" to hilite noteworthy comments and members? This would also look cool on the home page tag cloud.

Cooperate on a specific tag, and it serves as another way to hilite things, that might take up some of the slack in the point system's raison d'etre.

Comment 160 on Site Improvements

Another suggestion, put the "tag this" link in the top righthand corner instead of bottom left, and lose the "quote and reply..." link.

Would conserve vertical space in more ways than one, and reduce eye and wrist strain. :)

Comment 161 on Site Improvements

David, what would people click when they wanted to quote and reply? It is a commonly used link... (at least by me.)

The Tag This link does need to expand into something rather wide... Maybe it would expand something just above the comment itself.

Comment 162 on Site Improvements

Linda Nowakowski said:

However, I do think that there should be some incentive for the member who starts a good thread that gets a lot of discussion going. I don't know if that is measured by activity or by somehow factoring the points given to the topic.

Linda, I like this a lot. When a comment gets some positive feedback, that could credit the karma of the message author and the discussion starter too to a lesser degree.

Jim Carroll Started one of the best discussions I have seen here or on onet...he should get a pat on the back and encouragement for that!

Total luck. I'm really just a techie, but when I saw George's tech talk, it wasn't hard to imagine it would be great discussion material.

I'm subscribed to TED talks using the Miro player. I get a few downloaded automatically every week. I do think that the Miro player (formerly Democracy Player) is going to make television obsolete in the future. There's already even some sponsorship happening with the popular shows.

Comment 163 on Site Improvements

Jim/Mark, perhaps you will want to make your <Ned> logo a copyable asset so that more people can easily link to that hosted version when creating backlinks to the site? Or at least have a page of linkable assets, like a "Join me at <Ned.com> badge...?

Comment 164 on Site Improvements

Great idea Lars, we'll make a workspace page of linkable assets.

Comment 165 on Site Improvements

Mark, you sent me a link of assets on omidyar.net... where do all of those images live? Do you have a zip file with all the images that you could send me (or sompthin' ?)

Comment 166 on Site Improvements

Let me slather a file together. My organizations skills are not such that they are all in one neat little file. Put I'll put a load together and ship em off.

Comment 167 on Site Improvements

Creative assets should be in your inbox Jim.

How easy is it to turn the logo into a favicon.ico for the site too? That'd be nice.

Comment 168 on Site Improvements

thanks mark. say, since the favico (favico.ico .gif file) is such small real estate, what do you think about dispensing of the dood and "ed", so that all that would display is a square image something like <N>

Comment 169 on Site Improvements

here is what i created at "the new" peacetiles.net:

btw, i have shifted my strategy a bit to use <Ned> for collaboration instead of Open Planning - better be around for a while ;P

Comment 170 on Site Improvements

Could we see it as both <N> and <Ned> both without the dood, then decide from there? (and maybe a third with just the dood?)

Comment 171 on Site Improvements

Cross-posted. That looks great. Yeah, I think Ned'll be around for a while, that's the plan, and we're stickin' to it.

Comment 172 on Site Improvements

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

btw, i have shifted my strategy a bit to use <Ned> for collaboration

Yeay! I knew you'd come back to Ned, after not having it in your plans for a while... I was hoping for this moment!

Now the competitive side of me wants to figure out what's most alluring about Razoo too and address those issues here. Gotta keep improving to avoid obsolescence, ya know...

Comment 173 on Site Improvements

Mark, think about the problem this way (sketch it out maybe):

As it stands, you need to fit a horizontally aligned image into a square (that is the shape of a favicon). The more that can be done to reduce the image width to align with the image height without distorting the original artwork, the better. Know what I mean?

Comment 174 on Site Improvements

Thanks Jim (fwiw I would never just leave - I ended up driving cross the country after visiting california and then jumping right into a peacetiles.net overhaul).

Anyway, I find Razoo alluring (nice!) because it appeals instantly to the visual side of me. Its also got a nice balance of people + ideas + actions. It also make connecting fun. The fourth piece is that the whole "Razoo" name thing recalls one of my favorite shortish stories, "A Coin in Nine Hands," by Marguerite Yourcenar :)

Drawbacks are that the site performs poorly (lots of PMs lose text, for example), there is lots of huff 'n stuff (ie take the stairs as an "Action"), and wiki's are limited to causes, and don't integrate multiple pages (among other flaws I hope they'll work out)...

Comment 175 on Site Improvements

>>Know what I mean?<<

Agreed. How about seeing one <N> and one with just the character?

Comment 176 on Site Improvements

Here's Marks branding stuff:

http://www.ned.com/branding/

I'm sorry I don't have a good image browsing mechansim handy...

Comment 177 on Site Improvements

Under the "who's online* box in the left column have a who's where box that feed you the location of users online pulled from their personal profile. And the city/country link also goes to each users personal profile page.

Comment 178 on Site Improvements

>>I'm sorry I don't have a good image browsing mechansim handy...<<

No worries, will build some kind of workspace page for the material.

Comment 179 on Site Improvements

Thanks Lars! The new favicon is a thing of beauty.

It looks fantastic too.

-Jim

Comment 180 on Site Improvements

De nada. Kind of looks like an eyeball if you let yours go out of focus, eh?

Comment 181 on Site Improvements

<Ned> is watching you... ;P

Comment 182 on Site Improvements

Looks great on Firefox. I'm not seeing it on IE.

Comment 183 on Site Improvements

I don't think IE displays favicons....?

Comment 184 on Site Improvements

People still use IE?

Sigh....

IE probably needs a real microsoft ico file, I can make one but it's a pain...

Comment 185 on Site Improvements

Jim, maybe you can do something about IE by challenging the MS monopoly on pre-installed browsers on new computers.

There we are - something to do in your spare time !! ;)

Comment 186 on Site Improvements

John, how about you do it and give Jim the credit?

Comment 187 on Site Improvements

Thanks, but I'm already been representing myself in a civil case that's gone through to the UK High Court of Appeal and may yet go to the House of Lords - our final court of appeal - so I'll pass on litigation against Microsoft for the moment.

Maybe another time. :)

Comment 188 on Site Improvements

Such a small thing but I love the favicon. Thanks.

Comment 189 on Site Improvements

Ok, I just got back.

Test photo above.

Yes, thanks the photo upload function is now working.

Sweeet!

Thanks!!!

Comment 190 on Site Improvements

Nice photo I love it.But I failed to tag

Comment 191 on Site Improvements

Hi Munnu, I bet the tagging will work if you try it again...

Comment 192 on Site Improvements

Had the same problem,some time back,with favicons in IE on some of my sites.

For some reason it seems to be solved. (don't know why or how)

Comment 193 on Site Improvements

wonder whether it has some to do with the .htaccess file...?

Comment 194 on Site Improvements

hi, i just noticed by squinting that there is some kind of funny background image creating the lightly textured grey tone in the header and left column. i would switch this from an image file to a hex color. also, is the green far-left border here to stay?

Comment 195 on Site Improvements

Hi Lars, that's me trying to do a touch of branding on the site. Mark is talking with some people who know their branding...

Comment 196 on Site Improvements

I like the green edge, it is distinctive.

Comment 197 on Site Improvements

There's rotating favicons now.

Then again, how far do you wanna go?

Comment 198 on Site Improvements

The current ned.com site color palette is green/brown/yellow/grey/black.

I'm exploring collaborating with an online design community to consider some alternate color palette combinations. There may even be the chance that Ned members could select from a color palette collection of 3-5 choices depending on any members given mood at the time.

Comment 199 on Site Improvements

Michael wrote:: I like the green edge, it is distinctive.

Um, of/from what?

Comment 200 on Site Improvements

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

Michael wrote:

I like the green edge, it is distinctive.

Um, of/from what?

From O.net, from any other site that I know of.

Also, green and gold are the traditional colors of "supply" or well-being.

Comment 201 on Site Improvements

Mark,

Depending what you see with collaborating with an online design community, the colour palette doesn't really matter.

However, if you're thinking to Jazz <Ned>up, there's definitely some area's to be explored.

Plenty of thinking beyond the box, but maybe <Ned> needs to find it's feet first, get out of the cradle and progress in an organic way.

Then, again, knowing your eagerness and drive, you probably could fast forward.

Mark Grimes said:

The current ned.com site color palette is green/brown/yellow/grey/black.

I'm exploring collaborating with an online design community to consider some alternate color palette combinations. There may even be the chance that Ned members could select from a color palette collection of 3-5 choices depending on any members given mood at the time.

Comment 202 on Site Improvements

>>However, if you're thinking to Jazz <Ned>up, there's definitely some area's to be explored.<<

Let's explore some index page design and content elements over here: http://www.ned.com/group/ned/new s/7/

Would love to hear what other things you (and others) have in mind Dominique.

Comment 203 on Site Improvements

Maybe in the near future, there'll be a need to highlight some things.

Design isn't necesarily the high office of the few. I think you've got the right people here. There's no need throwing pearls to people who might see your venture as just another commodity.

If you want to brainstorm some ideas later, i'm your man.

Comment 204 on Site Improvements

I'm in the middle of finishing off an (art) business plan in conjunction with Dublin City university that will be presented to Enterprise Ireland at the end of the month.

Hopefully (fingers crossed), we'll have some money to pay people to program the game (multiplayer)for the web, mobile phones and other structures like SL.

I'm a very visual orientated artist and sometimes have dificulties expressing the whole gist of what i'm doing. The businessplan is a point in case, it's giving me headaches on the one hand but is a good exercise to streamline the whole venture. + Getting egged on with some fabulous people in the university who started seeing what i was on about.

I'll post some stuff on Ned when things are more concrete.

Dominique

Comment 205 on Site Improvements

One thing that comes to mind regarding ned is that we don't ned to be confined to the rigid structure on what's here, but could easily go back and forth (Interactive-video-audio-whatever)to anything you want, while keeping the emphasis on the discussions here.

Comment 206 on Site Improvements

hm, michael, that's interesting - i just find the green border distracting - especially how it is broken by the green of a completely different tone on the main frame (ie before scrolling). ah but a small spray in a mighty sea of work ;)

Comment 207 on Site Improvements

Dominique, looking forward to seeing what you post and/or say whenever it is ready.

And I would like to explore some of the ideas written here as well: http://www.ned.com/group/ned/new s/7/

Some of the things there would be great introductions to first time visitors to the site I think.

Comment 208 on Site Improvements

Mark,

It's not so much what i can do.

It's much more what you would want.

Comment 209 on Site Improvements

ideas/input first, want second, do third (I think) ;-)

Comment 210 on Site Improvements

Come up with 1 specific idea you would want to see done. Then it makes it a tad easier to start working. Later on we'll go to something more.

Comment 211 on Site Improvements

Sorry to join this thread so late after Linda made the Stone / Tumbles / Gems reference so early...

I'd like to have a fairly concerted conversation about points / posies / neggies / reputation / incentives / ratings / signal-noise filtering and such. I'm going to start the conversation here responding to a number of things in this thread, but it may be appropriate to start a topic on it.

A Context for Reputation & Feedback

So, first let me link to the recommendations I wrote up a couple years ago about reputation and feedback for o.net. I know <Ned> may have a different agenda, but based on the discussion already going on on this thread, I think it still applies.

We initially created the metaphor of Stones/Tumbles/Gems as a general tri-fold reputation currency for online communities of practice. The metaphor itself creates the context that we are moving toward creating Gems (action, practice, impact, results). However, the Stones (ideas, theory, insight) are a valuable starting point, and the Tumbles (feedback, dialogue, refinement, processing, participation) are critical to the process as well.

Much of the dialogue on this thread about points has already been infected by the assumptions acquired from the other place. I think we need to stop and get clear about why we would even use points and what they should be useful for.

Please note that Stones/Tumbles/Gems are NOT like the different categories of kudos on Razoo. They are never directly given to a person. Rather they are calculated based on a number of factors related to the persons behavior. How active are they? How are their posts rated? How many people have "subcribed" to watch their posts? How many have blacklisted them? Are they participing in initiatives and producing results? etc...

The Purpose of Reputation and Feedback

Reputation for People: As has been pointed out, this is silly if it is about stroking our egos. However, it is very useful for managing community boundaries and acceptable use of the site. We want to know if somebody is a constructive member of the community. Ideally, we'd like to know something about what kind of resource they might be for us and what kind of resource they've been for the community.

A well designed reputation is a kind of extrapolation of somebody's trajectory... it gives a sense of what they have to offer in the future based on their past behavior. Any reputation based on the arbitrary giving of points/kudos/thanks, ends up being a kind of popularity contest rather than a measure of value they're contributing to the community.

Reputation for Discussions/Workspaces/Threads Again, this is not about stroking people's egos. What makes this kind of reputation extremely valuable is when we can use it for gauging quality. We have finite time and attention, our community will fail if we feel like we're drowning in noise just to get to the valuable pearls of wisdom.

The "verbal diarrhea" of the other place has been mentioned and I think it was a natural consequence of the points system there. You were rewarded for talking. The more actively you posted, the more your bank grew, the more your bank grows the more you can throw points around to shape other people's attention and stroke egos and increase the chance of receiving reciprocal points. In other words, the more noise you made (regardless of quality) the influence you had. Norbert gave over 44,000 points away (over 20,000 more than Mark, the 2nd place giver of feedback). If points are used to highlight valuable content and/or fold it, do we really want them to just amplify the influence of the already loudest voices?

BTW, the current <Ned> solution of just keeping the banks from growing isn't really a solution to this problem either. We want community members to actively be rating content so we can have the high-quality stuff become visible instead of being buried. Having scarce points prevents people from fulfilling this role. Of course, I'm suggesting something more like 5-star ratings on content rather than points anyway. And everybody always gets to have their vote on each item of content. There's always enough votes to go around.

Did Neggies Destroy Omidyar.net?

Yes. I believe they did.

But posies played their role too (as noted above - they only amplified the noisemakers).

If neggies are supposed to play the role of muting innapropriate content (and posies are supposed to highlight content), how well did they play that role?

Neggies consistently generated MORE noise when they were used. Fights ensued, people were offended, they took it personally, people's attention was drawn to them. People even veiwed folded posts, curious about why they were folded. The combination of two noise producing points activities was the large part of what made o.net fundamentally untenable.

Evvy suggested that maybe we could just have a more enlightened view when we receive neggies. However, it is a VERY different experience to receive 1 or 2 out of 5 stars on a post than to receive a negative feedback point. It occurs for most people as personal -- as if I received negative feedback. Neggies are an active attack. 1 out of 5 is simply constructive feedback. Consequences are necessary, but neggies are not necessary to create consequences.

Neggies (and Posies) also tend to reduce constructive dialogue and increase personality battles. Posies and Neggies should not be about whether you agree or disagree with what was said. What we care about is whether a post is appropriate, on topic and adding value to the dialogue.

Personal note: Frankly I couldn't keep up with the noise machine, and that is my biggest fear about participating here where you're using the same tools. I set out to post this suggestion a few days ago, and the thread grew by pages before I could read the other suggestions to be sure I wasn't being redundant and could integrate people's input. And this is not that active a thread. A "hands-on" board who can reprimand people can not make up for the deck being stacked for generating noise. And if they try to, it will feel like censorship.

Some other Pearls on this Thread

On Topic - David Frayne suggests and "on topic" flag. This is exactly one of the things to help filter noise. Sometimes jokes or other things inserted into a thread are funny or constructive, but they're not on topic. If I have the time to read everything because I care about the interplay of each personal interaction, I can do so But if I'm trying to figure out if they're something valuable in this thread that I can use or want to respond to, I can skip the jokes (even when they're funny enough to rate 5 stars).
Reputation Scale - Niny suggests 2000 points could be intimidating to newcomers. And Mark talks about rebooting points so they don't grow out of hand. David F. suggests what percentage of all points given went someone... In any case, a reputation on an infinite scale is meaningless. One strange thing about the points in the other place was that if you had over 100 points you had more than about 90% of everone else, but compared to the leaders it seemed miniscule. I'd recommend that reputation be displayed as a percentile ranking. It gives it a clear scale. Percentage doesn't quite work, because with enough people, the top rated person may still only be 2% of total points given. You'd never be able to see any progress on your reputation.
Distraction - John Berger talks about points as a distraction. I couldn't agree more about that in the way they're currently structured. However, if one's reputation is derived from actual behavior metrics (rather than tossing points around) than it is a natural, emergent thing that just comes from participating. And one form of participating is helping filter noise from content by rating it's quality and noting it's relevance.
Offensive Content Flag This is where it is great to have active moderators who can respond and delete spam or posts which are not congruent with the purpose of the community. They can respond to these flags and remove the item, or remove the flag if somebody was mistakenly trying to use it like a neggie.
What's Alluring about Razoo? - Action. O.net provided great discussion tools, but really had nothing to support action. Razoo is organized around action. Frankly, it's weak on discussion and workspaces. Adding the ability to post initiatives/causes and actions and track who is accomplishing them makes our talk of making a difference real.

If you skipped the link to the recommendations at the beginning, now is the time to go read it. It should help clarify the Stones/Tumbles/Gems concept a lot. You'll find that all these issues were addressed in it.

Jim, I'd be happy to discuss any of the technical aspects in greater detail. We could even look into using some of the things we've already built in conjunction with this toolset.

edit: fixed image insertion tags

Comment 212 on Site Improvements

Arthur, the model is interesting and perhaps deserves a discussion of it's own in the Suggestions for Ned.com group http://www.ned.com/group/ned/. Would you mind reposting it there?

Comment 213 on Site Improvements

arthur, i have some ideas and am happy to post when a 'home' for this discussion is identified. important (i think) to note that a) not everything that enters the info processing (tumbler) stage is a "stone" and not everything output is a gem. what other variations on the model you have proposed actually exist?

Comment 214 on Site Improvements

Okay. I started a new thread in this group to focus on designing the feedback and reputation system to foster the kind of interactions and community that we'd like to build here.

Please jump in and share about what you would want these kinds of tools to accomplish to have the community work well for you.

Comment 215 on Site Improvements

small point in a big discussion, but I did not know where to post it, I think the Punctuation Help page is empty.

Comment 216 on Site Improvements

Hi.

The Word Game is showing up in the What's new list. Did I see something that would filter this kind of discussion so as not to take over the what's new list?

Comment 217 on Site Improvements

Michael Pattinson said:

Hi.

The Word Game is showing up in the What's new list. Did I see something that would filter this kind of discussion so as not to take over the what's new list?

I'll have to filter out the R&R group, I won't get a chance for a while (Yet another crunch week with the day jobs!)

Comment 218 on Site Improvements

I'm keeping track of <NED>'s popularity with the nitty gritty of robots, google, etc....

It seems they're getting interested.

I'll keep it updated every so often.

Comment 219 on Site Improvements

Nice hockey stick, thnx Dominique.

Comment 220 on Site Improvements

Linda mentioned that raw HTML directives aren't working:

This should be a table:

I'll need to upgrade our docutils to fix this.

Comment 221 on Site Improvements

Also, the "|" for organizing information in lines in not working

| still | I | think

Comment 222 on Site Improvements

Jim, hi!

I noticed that after I've deleted a discussion thread, it still appears in my profile page's list of recent comments. The comments can still be clicked through to.

I wonder whether it is possible to make the "Delete" function remove the data entirely - from lists, etc? As though it never existed...

Thanks!

Comment 223 on Site Improvements

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

Jim, hi!

I noticed that after I've deleted a discussion thread, it still appears in my profile page's list of recent comments. The comments can still be clicked through to.

I wonder whether it is possible to make the "Delete" function remove the data entirely - from lists, etc? As though it never existed...

Hi Lars, it could be some time before I can look at it, but it's on my todo list.

The philosophy of the original developer seems to be that all data accumulates over time... and I'm going to have to fix it (so that the database doesn't grow to be unmanageable.) But it could be some time...

Comment 224 on Site Improvements

Okay - thanks!

Comment 225 on Site Improvements

Say, if you're ever thinking about a possible upgrade, have a look at the WiserEarth platform...

Comment 226 on Site Improvements

Lars, what do you like about the wiser earth platform?

At first glance, I can't tell what the benefits of upgrading would be.

Comment 227 on Site Improvements

yeah, why wiser earth? There is no one there! even amnisty international has only 5 members in their group, there are no discussions on the forums, and the forums are really hard to find. I dont get it.

Comment 228 on Site Improvements

i like the easy ways to: - post content to other networks - i like how it is easy to separate information sharing tasks (ie add an organization,resource, job, event) from community-building tasks (ie start, join a discussion) - i like the integration of user profile images with features like, "contributors to this discussion" - how discussions have a "gallery" - overall, i think its a sleeker, cleaner, friendlier implementation of plone that can be learned from

john, i don't get your "there isn't anyone there" point: i'm not talking about a migration, just consideration of their implementation of plone as something we at ned could look to, learn from, whatever. just a thought.

fine too if you guys don't think talk of an upgrade is necessary, though i personally think things like adding the August Sponsors at the top - instead of say, a clean sidebar - screams, "Hack!" and may be an invitation to just such a conversation...

Comment 229 on Site Improvements

hm, on second thought: maybe its not plone at all but symfony... which i just found out was developed at MIT. never mind...!

Comment 230 on Site Improvements

Well, I'd say let's explore the features, UI and what we like from WE and other better world like sites and figure out if and how they might be best integrated here.

Comment 231 on Site Improvements

my 'there is no one there" point is an obervation that despite great marketing all folks seem to do is post their orgnization profiles. But other than that, what does anyone do or say there? With a lot more PR then Ned its a dead end as far as I can tell. In my opinion thats a result of design, its not created for people to converse or contribute.

Comment 232 on Site Improvements

>>a result of design, its not created for people to converse or contribute.<<

Agreed. It may or may not have been their intention.

Comment 233 on Site Improvements

You guys are channeling something I'm completely missing. There's what a site "is designed to do" and "how a site is used." I don't see ned.com being any more about conversation than wiserearth. "what does anyone say or do there" seems to me alot more about strategic and tactical use of tools than it is about the tools themselves... inheriting a platform doesn't seem to me to mean you inherit the limits of its previous use. Some people implement drupal really well, others really suck at it. Etc etc.

Comment 234 on Site Improvements

i personally think things like adding the August Sponsors at the top - instead of say, a clean sidebar - screams, "Hack!" and may be an invitation to just such a conversation

I don't follow what you are saying here, Lars. (My lack of technical knowledge, I suspect). Why do you dislike putting the sponsors at the top? (I don't understand the reference to "Hack").

Surely you aren't advocating a side bar from top to bottom of the screen? I think that would be terribly intrusive.

And I think I agree with John re the lack of discussion on Wiser Earth. It's less a question of what an "improved" site design might achieve in theory, than of what it has already failed to achieve in practice. If it really represented a site improvement, wouldn't that result in popular, lively discussion boards?

And it hasn't.

Comment 235 on Site Improvements

Hi David,

"Hack" in the sense I'm using it refers to "hack job," something I sense is cobbled together and put up as a temporary "fix" rather than a complete implementation or "solution."

Two other things:

The advertising at the top seems completely random, out of step with the graphic to the immediate left, there is not context for who/what is a sponsor (ie no other invitation to be a sponsor), is not connected to any other "content" in that space (the rest are tools or branding), and the convention is not reinforced anywhere else. The theory is wrong too IMHO: who wants to click through to "see" information about a sponsor - one should be redirected to a page at their site describing something about their values, etc - not a page where attention to them is in competition with others).

Would a sidebar be intrusive? sure, that's the nature of a sidebar i guess - and effective advertising. could it be done "nicely" or "better" like the left sidebar "blocks"? absolutely! "from top to bottom of the screen"? well, i don't know - there really aren't that many advertisers so i don't see how that could possibly happen... it would simply force a little less middle column space for reading (which is already a bit on the "generous" side).

hey, here's an idea: enable users to "turn off" advertising. the more people turning "off" advertising, the cheaper the ad gets for people placing them...

WiserEarth. Sounds like what you are both saying is that a) if the tools were good b) wiserearth would be more successful.

I don't have the time to unpack that, but i fundamentally disagree. there are many possible explanations for why wiserearth lacks discussion. the tool set and implementation can hardly be the chief explanation. i suspect it has much more to do with the question, "so why the hell talk here?...

Comment 236 on Site Improvements

To be a little more specific, I'd ask what do facebook, wiserearth, and ned have in common?

part of the answer, from a design perspective, is that they use these nice, "thin" wire frame structures to pump content through to users. facebook is the rock star because it enables users to put content they value right where they want it - with some limitations of course.

i think wiserearth has learned something from them, which is that users like to be able to interact in a number of ways, in a graphic-easy environment. lots of whitespace, clear framework.

ned could use a facelift. it functions great, but it lacks personality. there's never anything fresh to "look at." this is an important way to draw people to content, from "hey that person looks interesting" to, "hm, wonder what that does."

the wiser platform seems to me like a nice opensource piece of software that could provide a framework for further development. its a framework that looks and feels alot like plone (so not an alienating experience for users joined at the nose with the ned interface) while baking in some upgraded features, from 'sharing' content easily on other networks to peppering the place with graphics, to creating better use of the screen real estate by enforcing a 3 column structure.

Comment 237 on Site Improvements

here's a way to look at it: design as an invitation.

Comment 238 on Site Improvements

Mark Grimes said:

Well, I'd say let's explore...what we like from WE..and figure out if and how they might be best integrated here.

That my gist, but it sounds like there's a lot of anti-we inertia.

Let's start over: what platforms have features people like that could be baked into a ned2.0?

Comment 239 on Site Improvements

One quick recommendation for the existing sponsors: create an anchor at each sponsor listed and target their text link to that anchor.

Comment 240 on Site Improvements

Thanks, Lars. I now see where you're coming from.

I think the idea of enabling users to switch advertising off in exchange for cheaper advertising rates is a very neat idea.

But Ned needs the revenue, so I wouldn't have the heart!

Comment 241 on Site Improvements

>>Let's start over: what platforms have features people like that could be baked into a ned2.0?<<

Photo feeds to Ned personal profile from member Flickr accounts could be interesting.

Message feeds from Twitter to Ned personal profile could be interesting.

Same with YouTube.

RSS feed people's content into a single location unde their profile...and perhaps even then have a place where Ned members aggregate each content type into a shared page/tab.

What top 3 features do people like about other platforms that Ned does not have (and why do you like those features?)

Comment 242 on Site Improvements

I like the 'what are you doing now' status messages on Facebook. I would like to see something similar on Ned, would it be possible to have a 'status box' that only appears when you hover over the user's name?

I also like Facebook Chat, it would be very useful to have a chat facility on here but I also like the sense of privacy here on Ned. For that reason I'd like to see a chat facility that resets to 'off' by default when you sign out, and remains off when you sign in until you decide you're in the mood for socialising or need some urgent feedback or information. Maybe there could be a very simple indicator of whether a person is in 'chat enabled' or not, such as the colour of the person's name - say 'green' for not enabled, 'orange' for I've time to talk, red for emergency!

I say maybe, some of you may have noticed that I'm not the most technically minded of people! Which brings me to the third thing I like about Facebook - it's so easy to use! Even I can post links on there ;) But then if I had everything done for me I'd never learn anything, would I? :-)

Comment 243 on Site Improvements

Ned has had an invisible improvement... It has been moved to a new server in Texas at The Planet. The new server is very well connected, so pages will load very quickly even when everyone's online.

The Planet gives us tons of storage space and bandwidth, so ideas like image galleries and even streaming video are things we can do now.

The server configuration used to be Quixote / Python / ZODB behind Apache, but now I'm using Lighttpd instead of Apache. It was a breeze to configure, and will shave off a few milliseconds from every page load.

Comment 244 on Site Improvements

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

"Hack" in the sense I'm using it refers to "hack job," something I sense is cobbled together and put up as a temporary "fix" rather than a complete implementation or "solution."

It's true. The 3x3 table of advertisers just floats randomly up there... there's no grounding or anchoring element to its placement. My goal was to get them to fit between the logo and the search most of the time... and I'm the first to admit I have no graphic design skills.

What I do like about the sponsor links is that they don't take any real estate away from the rest of the page... if it pushed the header down or took up a column on the right I would find it a lot more obtrusive.

Lars, if you were to put together a comp (in Photoshop, or a picture of something done with mixed media on birch) of something that does look nice I can implement it.

Comment 245 on Site Improvements

I'll give it a shot, Jim. Are you suggesting to stay with the header, or possibly a right column? What do you think of facebook's advertising scheme, where you can rate the ad +/- and only one shows up at a time?

In my mind, since the text input window is fixed width horizontally, the reading window doesn't need to be too much larger, which opens a world of content possibilities over there ---->

Joomla is nice because it bakes in a nice 468 x 60 banner than is randomly generated from a folder of them, and keeps track of page impressions and click rates... I could see something like this going up nicely in the header:

What do you think?

Comment 246 on Site Improvements

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

I'll give it a shot, Jim. Are you suggesting to stay with the header, or possibly a right column?

What I like about the header is that it's nice and 'present' but easy to tune out once you start reading. My opinion is that we should avoid using the right column for now. Having _only_ sponsors taking up the right column would make it a little too strong.

What do you think of facebook's advertising scheme, where you can rate the ad +/- and only one shows up at a time?

If our sponsors had an ad. that was more elaborate than just their name, then I can see where that would be valuable feedback to see if the ad. is resonating with users... I think the ned version of that would be to have a discussion for each advertiser, and see which ones are more active.

In my mind, since the text input window is fixed width horizontally, the reading window doesn't need to be too much larger, which opens a world of content possibilities over there ---->

I bet I'd like what you have in mind, but I can't tell yet (I'd have to see it.) For something like a sponsor list, I think it would be more effective to have them in the left column, right under help, and just show a random two or three at a time.

Joomla is nice because it bakes in a nice 468 x 60 banner [..] What do you think?

As a reader of web pages, banner ads tell me, "someone wants my money." Even if they're done really well and don't want my money-- there's still an association there in my mind. Google's ad-sense advertising doesn't irritate me nearly as much because it's just text, and it's likely to be much more relevant to me or what I'm reading. (Even though deep down I know that they want my money too... it's more likely to be something mutually beneficial.) I may be the exception to the rule, but I never click on banner advertisements-- it only encourages them.

But Mark has to meld his goals for the site with what he knows works as far as publicity, and you know what is engaging, so I put my opinions aside in favor of yours and his.

Comment 247 on Site Improvements

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

One quick recommendation for the existing sponsors: create an anchor at each sponsor listed and target their text link to that anchor.

Mark: I've added the Anchor links to the mediakit page. We just need the guy who's serving the links to add #Anvil+Media (or whatever) to the end of the links.

Comment 248 on Site Improvements

Jim, the anchor links work perfectly...thanks. Why/how can spaces work in a URL?

Comment 249 on Site Improvements

Josh Friedman said:

Jim, the anchor links work perfectly...thanks. Why/how can spaces work in a URL?

Hi Josh, when a url with spaces is escaped, they change to the + character. If you type the anchor with the space into the browser's address bar, it'll work. In code, using the plus character should work.

Let me know if they're any trouble, and I'll removes the spaces from the anchors.

Comment 250 on Site Improvements

Can the email notifications go back to "ned.com" instead of "noreply"?

Old header: from: ned.com <folks@ned.com>

New Header:from noreply@ned.com

Comment 251 on Site Improvements

Hi Linda, I just changed it back to folks@ned.com.

Comment 252 on Site Improvements

from noreply@ned.com

to lindern@gmail.com

date Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 5:22 AM

Comment 253 on Site Improvements

from ned. com <folks@ned.com>

(as it shows up in my gmail now...)

Comment 254 on Site Improvements

You are my hero Jim!

Comment 255 on Site Improvements

where does an email end up if someone sends to the good folks@ned.com?

Comment 256 on Site Improvements

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

where does an email end up if someone sends to the good folks@ned.com?

It would go to Mark, although I'm not sure that he's got a mailbox set up for noreply... so he may never see it.

Comment 257 on Site Improvements

hm, that'd be odd: "folks" seems so welcoming and chummy. i might be bummed if i never heard back. "noreply" seems to set a reasonable expectation...

Comment 258 on Site Improvements

As it stands now, I get neither. It would be interesting if replies to folks@ were posted to a wiki style page.

Comment 259 on Site Improvements

I like noreply as well...

Linda do you have a strong preference for 'folks' or did you just notice that something had changed?

Comment 260 on Site Improvements

I noticed that when it came into my mail box it showed no reply rather than Ned. Like in gmail, or squirel mail, you only see the noreply or the folks if you open up and look at the details of the headers. Other than that it just says from "Ned to you". I suspect that you have it set up something like "Ned" <folks@ned.com>. For me it work the same if you set it up "Ned" <noreply@ned.com>. I would still be happy then and you would still be my hero.

Comment 261 on Site Improvements

I am so out of my element in this discussion. But I'll second Ceris's suggestion of a microblogging feature being a nice idea.

I am really dumb about how to use lots of sites and features. Facebook and other social networks have kind of a steep learning curve. It's odd to say that because really I think Ned's interface is much harder than any of the rest, but there's a sense, at least for me, that if you fool around the answer will appear reveal itself. Somehow the "easy" site interfaces are easy by hiding the relevant bits of knowledge. In a way I see the Ned platform as a kind of kludge, so where Lars hears screams of "hack" I'm like whatever.

I use Netvibes. Lots of social networks are going the widget or gadget root. I like Netvibes because I can follow Twitter, even though I don't get it, my Flickr friends, Facebook activity including What are you doing updates, Gmail, Delicious and other stuff on one page. I probably would enjoy a What Are You Doing widget that might be both here and able to be placed at places like Netvibes, iGoogle, MySpace, hi5 etc. That second part might be against the grain of Ned culture. Still, the microblogging feature seems like it would be nice.

Comment 262 on Site Improvements

John Powers wrote:

I am so out of my element in this discussion...

I am really dumb about how to use lots of sites and features...

Then he writes:

... I use Netvibes. Lots of social networks are going the widget or gadget root. I like Netvibes because I can follow Twitter, even though I don't get it, my Flickr friends, Facebook activity including What are you doing updates, Gmail, Delicious and other stuff on one page. I probably would enjoy a What Are You Doing widget that might be both here and able to be placed at places like Netvibes, iGoogle, MySpace, hi5 etc. That second part might be against the grain of Ned culture. Still, the microblogging feature seems like it would be nice.

LOL! I'm constantly in awe of your ability to understand SO MANY things, John!

Thanks, as well, for explaining what a kludge is. It's my new word for today. I'll keep it some place handy for when I want to sound knowledgeable on this or any other similarly technical thread!

;)

Comment 263 on Site Improvements

Somewhere I read, but I forget where, that the question that Twitter asks, "What are you doing?" really should be "What are you paying attention to?" The cool thing about status updates, or at least what I'm interested in knowing is what fellow Nedsters are paying attention to. In many ways the whole "friend-base" isn't a part of Ned's DNA. The place is radically open except for our personal news spaces. So the whole idea of a microblogging feature here is harder to implement than at other social networks.

I think maybe I'm missing something simple. I know that I can subscribe to people's personal news via RSS. But can I subscribe to people's recent posts--I mean just the list of places people are posting? I guess it's not just a microblogging feature that would serve what I want, a newsfeed might do as well. Then again part of the magic of Ned might be that we have to work a bit to follow others and that makes for more active listening.

Comment 264 on Site Improvements

Jim, can you check something out for me: when i try to use the |image| directive with the traditional mark-up, no images appear. do they have to be called from the ned server now or anything i might have missed?

also, none of the right three ads seem to be active, and it doesn't seem like anchors are active for the advertisers page (i've been using safari lately btw).

cheers man - we getting together next weekend btw?

Comment 265 on Site Improvements

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

Jim, can you check something out for me: when i try to use the |image| directive with the traditional mark-up, no images appear. do they have to be called from the ned server now or anything i might have missed?

Hmmm... I'll have to check that out.

also, none of the right three ads seem to be active,

I know what that is... the CSS for the search box on the right covers half the page, and covers the links sometimes.

cheers man - we getting together next weekend btw?

Absolutely... at the alchemist perhaps?

Edited to test my .

Comment 266 on Site Improvements

So Lars... tell me more about the image link that's not working. Were you trying to link a PNG by any chance?

Check out the source to the previous post to see how I just included a picture from another site.

Allison and I are keeping an eye out for something great for the six of us to do this weekend.

Comment 267 on Site Improvements

Sure Jim:

So here's my picture: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2 324/2331827354_d6014b8200.jpg

What I would like to do is insert it at the top of this page, so that it is aligned to the right of the text, such that the text "wraps" around the image to the left.

What I do is insert the |image| (actually, "image1" so I don't get confused here!) anchor-thingy to the left of "Sure Jim:" with a space between the | and the S.

Then, at the bottom of this post I will insert the following:

".. |image| image:: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2 324/2331827354_d6014b8200.jpg" with a return, three spaces to indent, and the ":align: right" command and directly beneath, the image width and height. Let's see what happens... (next post)...

Comment 268 on Site Improvements

hm, no image still - maybe my mark-up is wrong? as administrator, you can double check it, right?

Comment 269 on Site Improvements

Sure Jim.

Edited to test my .

Comment 270 on Site Improvements

is aligned on the right with the text wrapping around on the left side, I hope. I would want to fill the text with some nonsense so we can get a feel for how the paragraph wraps to the left...

Sure enough... as soon as I add the align: right, the image disappears. I have to check the version of reStructuredText that we're using.

Comment 271 on Site Improvements

right on - thanks jim (where'd the quoted text come from?)!

Comment 272 on Site Improvements

Did I break it?

Comment 273 on Site Improvements

That's weird. Maybe that's a special new Thai filter ;-) Mmmmm, maybe not.

Comment 274 on Site Improvements

It looks ok to me now Linda... do you still see the messed up page?

link:: http://www.ned.com/group/lia-glo bal/news/6/?page=10#unread

Comment 275 on Site Improvements

Everything appears ok now...but the thing that seemed particularly strange was if you look in the upper left corner, there is a link "skip to content". That link worked and had me thinking that maybe Jim was trying something new. Very weird.

Comment 276 on Site Improvements

I love that we are able to resort to some HTML in posting because I sometimes have problems making the restructured stuff work the way I want but I have also noted that it is a dangerous thing if you don't do things carefully because you can land up breaking a page....like this one.

I have (I think) always found when I have botched up and been able to find my mistake (usually an unclosed tag) before I messed it up good. Hence my normal mode of hitting preview first. Sometimes one gets past someone.

Is there a way that we can do damage control when people break pages?

Comment 277 on Site Improvements

A friend of mine came very close to joining Ned for the first time, only to back off when she read the small print.

I looked at the [Connectory.org]site today and saw you had got the Ned information across the top, which is good. Having had a bit of a change of heart I thought I would join Ned so I could talk about your site if necessary, however, when reading the agreement I was concerned that they would send me unwanted emails (do you get many?), that my email address is available to anyone who joins, and that it automatically logs what sort of things I looked at. A bit intrusive for a dinosaur like me, so I backed off.

Before I reply to her, can I ask whether any of her joining Ned fears are well-founded?

Perhaps I'm just too trusting - I've never been aware of any adverse consequences of signing up to Ned.

In fact, quite the reverse! Anyone like to share their views on this?

Comment 278 on Site Improvements

David Bale said:

A friend said:

I was concerned that they would send me unwanted emails (do you get many?), that my email address is available to anyone who joins, and that it automatically logs what sort of things I looked at.

The only emails I have gotten from <Ned> are notifications that I have received or sent a message and I think you can turn that off.
Your email is not available to anyone. On your profile it simply shows what domain your email is in though some of us choose to put our email addresses out from, we have to post them ourselves.
I don't know about the 3rd concern (logging what you look at) unless that covers the activity of Google Analytics which logs the pages viewed but not by person. And it obviously logs the pages you post to.

Does that help?

Comment 279 on Site Improvements

Yes, Linda, it helps a lot. That is exactly my own experience of things too.

Comment 280 on Site Improvements

Yeah. What Linda said. The most Ned.com would ever send out would be a brief weekly udpate email.

Comment 281 on Site Improvements

This is off-topic to David's question, but his questions made me think of it.

I went to a small party tonight and the subject of Facebook came up. I'm really surprised that so many people my age find the social aspects of the Web so daunting. Tonight I watched the video demo of Google Wave. The demo is an hour and a half, so watching it comes down to either being a developer--I'm not--or a real time-water--I am. Anyhow, It's a pretty exciting project to go live later this year. It will have open APIs so it will probably get incorporated into lots of Web sites--perhaps even this one.

I do think that extending from email is a way for people my age to get the hang of online collaboration. But I also think one of the big obstacles is a sense of dread about bad things that happen on the Internet. Sure lots of bad things do happen, but most often IMHO not where what people think is bad.

Comment 282 on Site Improvements

I also agree with Linda's points 1) and 2).

For point 3) I wonder if they are concerned that you can go to a persons profile and see which threads they have left comments on and who they are following and supporting with feedback points. For me this is a benefit of the system because it builds confidence in who I am dealing with but I imagine some see this as tracking.

I think anyone who uses social networks would not worry about this and, as John says, there are others who don't and are concerned about bad things happening.

Comment 283 on Site Improvements

Thanks Linda, Mark and John. I've passed your comments on.

And I'll pass on Nicholas's helpful comments too.

Not that I think my friend is likely to change her mind about signing up here: I think like many people - many women in particular (she suggests) - she mistrusts communications that are not f2f.

For me, though, I've been struck by the close correspondence between online and f2f persona and communication. This is based on the few occasions I've been lucky enough to meet up with Nedsters in the real world (namely with Linda, Ray, Jackie & Ben)

Comment 284 on Site Improvements

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

here's a way to look at it: design as an invitation.

This is very much my philosophy for sites in the social benefit sector ...

(Guess I will look around and see if there is a successor to this thread)