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I wanted to get feedback on how the community feels about our current name vote. There have been some concerns that we've had relatively small percentage (~10 percent) of members register to vote, and wanted to see if there was something more fundamental going on. As it is currently setup, here's how things are
- You had to be registered by April 12th to have been included in the name vote; if you received a ballot for submission, you should have gotten ranking ballot
- We haven't retroactively added in additional users, though it hasn't been clear that there was a hard cutoff
- The submission phase went until the 19th, and the vote for the name will continue until the 27th
- The current system is email only (but we are looking at getting something integrated into the website implemented for future votes)
I want to hear your feedback below from everyone. Based on what we get back, we'll roll improvements into future votes, or if need be, reset the vote and do it again; I know a lot of you are active here or at least more involved, so the relatively low turnout is a warning canary for me. Leave your comments below, and expect another story in a few days to see how we're using your comments.
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Your aims are high, and you are capable of much.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmoschner on Thursday April 24 2014, @02:59AM
I suggested a name and voted. I assume successful, since my suggestion was on the vote page and the vote email appeared to be sent. Having said that, the instructions and process as a whole were not clear. It really felt like an overly engineered solution that didn't really think about the end user.
The biggest problems were ones of unneeded complexity and and most of all poor communication.
As many have pointed out, the whole process was far more complex than it really needed to be. As a user/community member I want a simple easy way to give my suggestion or vote. I don't want to wade through a mini-manual or a several emails just to do something as simple as suggest a name and cast a vote.
The overly engineered voting system was made worse by the instructions that were not written in a clear concise user friendly way. One thing to keep in mind is that not everyone here speaks English as a first (or in some cases not even as a third) language. Cumbersome wording and very "tech minded" writing can make it very difficult or even impossible for some (not all) to follow the instructions.
Poor communication is also really an overall site issue. For the most part communication isn't as clear as it could be. I'm guessing the site doesn't have marketing people or public relations experts on staff. The hierarchy of information beyond the main stories is rather lackluster and not always intuitive. For example the FAQ on the site isn't about soylent news or the community or any of that, it is a slashcode faq. As a user that doesn't help me if I am trying to figure out something such as how to format a post or how to contact a site admin if I have a problem. Or that less space is devoted to "Site News" than to recent journal entries.
But for now this is all a learning experience for all of us as we are all learning what does and doesn't work. I appreciate that those behind the curtain are trying and are reaching out for feedback. The one thing I would say is the most important is to learn to look at the site as not just an admin, but to really look at things from the perspective of an ordinary community member.