A look back at CivikOwl’s Beta program
Last Friday marked the official end of the CivikOwl beta program. Here’s a look back at what we accomplished together.
Recap
- 350 comments posted
- 123 respects given out
- 98 stories submitted
- 54 emails with feedback and suggestions
- 29 features shipped
Contest winners
We would like to recognize a few members who had valuable contributions in the eyes of the community. Big respects to:
First person to take action: Humanist (Columbus, OH)
Story: ‘Handmaid’s tale’ protest at US Ohio abortion bill — BBC News
Total respects: 4
My issues with the bill:
(1) This bill in unconstitutional as it imposes a control over women’s body…
Most active story: posted by gingerbeer (Quincy, MA)
Story: Meet Tulsi Gabbard, Future President of the United States — Medium
Total comments: 17; Total respects: 18
Longest comment: Doon11 (Portland, ME)
Story:The Dream Hoarders: How America’s Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality — Boston Review
Total Respects: 4
I think that there are some potentially incorrect assumptions implicit in the recent flood of articles such is this which all advocate that the rich need to pay more. These assumptions seem to include the following…
Most respected comment: civiktrial (Arlington, VA)
Story: Wilkerson on Afghanistan: The Longest U.S. War Will Go on for Decades | NewsClick
Total Respects: 4
Wow, I watched this and was surprised by some of his comments. First, I should say that he is not really speaking as a member of the US military. He retired over a decade ago…
We will be in touch about prizes!
What’s next?
Please continue using CivikOwl as you have been. We’ll keep you notified of updates and changes unless you indicate otherwise.
Inviting your friends
The site will remain invite-only for the near future to keep the quality of discussions high. For those of you that have received more than 10 respects any referrals you make will be added to the community immediately. Just email me and I’ll add them.
Product Update: Notifications
Many of you have said you want to know where to focus when you come to the site (Thanks: readwritedo, Headintheclouds). So today we rolled out a new notification system that’s live on desktop view:
This only shows one type of notification (Respects for reading). In the coming days we’ll add mobile view, and notifications when people you’ve respected are active and when topics you’re engaged with have new activity.
Still to come:
- Increasing the propensity and visibility of collaborative actions (Thanks: kaluon, hughmcfall, civiktrial)
- Seeing the most valuable content on a topic first (Thanks: Kkrishna, drdn5e)
- Identifying and recognizing topic expertise of members (Thanks: JJ94010)
- Improving content discovery and community affinity (Thanks: Headintheclouds)
Housekeeping
A couple of housekeeping notes:
1. We are not going to implement the feature to delete all but the top 3 comments after 30 days. Having seen how valuable comments are, and how one’s history of comments can help us learn about each other, we decided it was unwise for us to delete comments. Instead, we will give you all the ability to delete your own comments if you wish. In the interim, if you would like to have your comments deleted please let me know.
2. We would like to shedule a 30 minute feedback session with you to hear your feedback and share future plans of where the site will go. Please look for a separate email from me on this.
3. Some of you have asked how to easily access CivikOwl. You may want to bookmark the site on your desktop browser:
And on your mobile phone set a short-cut on your home screen like so:
Thank you again for supporting us in building CivikOwl. If we’re lucky, years from now you’ll be able to say you were instrumental to the start of something pretty interesting.
