I'm happy to report that WoKJ's new main site has been in Alpha testing for almost a week now. We enlisted the help of around 10 members for the initial phase, but are now looking to open the Alpha up to additional users!

Say what?!

That’s right, a new website!

Since I started this site, it was always meant to be far more than just a forum. I tried to make that a reality, enlisted the help of many great people along the way, both partners and writers, and yet I ultimately failed to make good on that dream. I felt I owed it to myself and you to try once more, and a year worth of planning and doing has led us to this point.




“What do I have to do?”

All we ask of you is to use the site, and provide us with feedback. Ideally we hope that you will commit to visiting the site daily during the alpha, and provide us with feedback anytime you encounter a bug or error. Now that’s what we ask, but it’s entirely possible you’ll want to come on more frequently, or life intervenes and you are on less frequently. We understand that, and that’s totally fine.


“You ask for feedback, what kind of feedback are you looking for?”

We want to hear what you have to say about the site. Specifically, we want to know when you encounter an error in the site, what you were doing when it happened, and what the error was. We also want to hear your suggestions and feedback on the site. We will group this feedback into two categories, and it will help us to determine what we should spend our time working on. We are starting this alpha test with an eye toward three things, ranked by importance:

1) To find errors / bugs and fix them.

More important than any other factor, we are trying to find any issues we may have overlooked, any bugs within the system. We will provide a separate forum where you will be encouraged to report any bugs you encounter. This also includes things that don’t give you an error, but aren’t working the way they should be.

2) Minor changes / fixes to improve the usability of the website.

Here we are trying to identify quick and easy changes we can make which would provide a lot of benefit to users of the site. Generally these changes should require less than 1 or 2 hours of development. Obviously we don’t expect you to make that decision, rather we just want to hear your suggestions and we’ll determine if it fits into this category.

3) Major changes / future updates to the site

Here we are trying to identify what users would like to see changed / improved on the site in the future. These updates are likely to require more development than a minor change.


“So how do I use this site? What the heck is it?”

Part of this new site allows users to write their own content, their own articles. When I first started WoKJ, it was meant as a place where I could make my opinions visible to the world. Throughout the history of this site, I’ve tried to share that dream with other members of the site, making WoKJ a place where their voice could be heard too. I want to fulfill that dream, and I believe this is the closest I’ve come.

We are hoping you're willing to lend our site your voice.


“So what’s in it for me?”

At this time, all we offer is a first chance to see what we’ve been working on and a chance to help us mold the future direction of this site. We value your opinion, and we’d really like to know what you think. In the future, we are mulling around additional possibilities, none of which are finalized.


“So What Now?”

If you feel you will be able to take a look and are willing to spend a little time poking around, providing feedback, and possibly generating some content, then this may be for you!

If you’d like to take part, we ask that you PM me with your interest, OR simply post in this thread. Acceptance will come on a first request / first receive basis. We will add additional alpha testers as needed, and are looking for at least 10 additional testers at this time. Once selected, you will receive a PM with more information.

Thanks for your time,

Karl

I wouldn't mind I guess.

You've got a PM. Really appreciate the help.

Sure, sign me up.

I owuld love to help

PM awaits you both!

I am curious. I will check it out if you like.

I notice in my bookmarks and address bar that KJ has a new stylized "W" as it's symbol - - I'm not sure this is the best strategy for branding, in that this site has always been affectionately referred to as "KJ" or "WOKJ". Although it's a snazzy looking "W", it's meaning is insignificant and bland.

Vanilla, I do like! Please check your PM.

Bradley, you've touched on a good point, one that's generated a lot of discussion amongst ourselves. We're strongly considering changing the name of WoKJ in it's entirety, but have been unable to settle on anything better at the moment. What we do know, is if we do stick with WoKJ, one letter is much more important than the others.

If you think about it ... the new site is meant to give everyone, anyone a voice and a place to express it. World fits best in with that concept (though truly, it's like a square peg being pounded into a round hole), so that's what we choose to focus on.

But hey, if nothing else, I'll take it as a win that you think it's snazzy looking.

(for anyone else curious as to what bradley is referring to ... clear your cache, and refresh WoKJ. Depending on your browser, you should now notice a little W icon in the tab next to the page title.)

I think you need to do something with it, like maybe put a little orange ""k" and "j" at the bottom of it or something like that. Bland is not the problem. The problem is that it looks very similar to the Word Press "W".

https://en.wordpress.com/signup/

You may run into trademark issues given your description of how the new site is conceptually going to work.

A small KJ at the bottom may be do-able, I'll play around with it. I'm not sure I agree on Wordpress though ... we share a W, but style wise I don't think one would mis-click thinking Wordpress was WoKJ or vice-versa.

Let me in!

You're in.

Have about 2-3 slots left for anyone still interested.

Sure

You've got mail.

Signup Closed.

Beta likely to start later this week (don't hold me to that, one minor hiccup could push the date). Beta will be public, you'll know when it starts as the forum will look different.

YO! I see a new logo.