profile - Blogs - Ning Creators Social Network2024-03-29T14:50:36Zhttps://creators.ning.com/blogs/feed/tag/profileOur first week!https://creators.ning.com/blogs/our-first-week2009-11-13T18:56:36.000Z2009-11-13T18:56:36.000ZLaurahttps://creators.ning.com/members/Laura326<div><p>Welcome and thanks for being an inaugural member of Ning Creators!</p>
<p>We had several goals in mind when we co-created Ning Creators with the <a href="http://creators.ning.com/profiles/blogs/welcome-to-ning-creators">Guides</a>. We hoped to create a central place where you could:</p>
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<li>Learn and share best practices, lessons learned, and tips & tricks.</li>
<li>Meet and collaborate with other Network Creators who are facing similar challenges.</li>
<li>Get answers to questions, help with thorny problems, or constructive feedback on your Ning Network.</li>
<li>Find the most up-to-date, comprehensive product, release and incident information.</li>
<li>Give us feedback on releases, report bugs or other issues, and suggest improvements to the Ning Platform.</li>
</ul>
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<p>We are just one week in, and we’re blown away by the depth and value of the best practices shared and the respectful, constructive nature of the discussions. However, we knew we’d need to monitor the network, get feedback from you and the Guides, and make adjustments early on. As such, I’d like to clarify two policy topics and get feedback on the second.</p>
<p><b>Profile Names</b></p>
<p>Discussions are much more likely to stay constructive and respectful when real people are involved and anonymous trolls are kept out. We agreed early on, and included in the <a href="http://creators.ning.com/page/network-creators-network-1">Guidelines</a>, to require that each profile display as a real person, and use a real name. We’ve started reaching out to those who are using a company, Ning Network or generic name (like Admin or Ninger) as their profile name. The next step will be to ban these accounts. We appreciate this may not be ideal for everyone, and have made the network public to ensure those people who choose to not participate within our Guidelines can still benefit from the information here.</p>
<p><b>Groups</b></p>
<p>We've seen some discussion on whether we should allow Groups on this network, and if so, which kind.</p>
<p>There are two types of groups that are clearly helpful to Creators here, and make the most sense to be Groups. The first is the Groups that are here to support Network Creators in a non-English language. The variety of languages used on the Ning Platform is fantastic and we'd love for each to have a place here. The second is Groups that focus on a specific location or region. This cultivates a local community for Network Creators and can help facilitate real life events or meet-ups.</p>
<p>There are two types of Groups that we will not be approving going forward, and those already on the network, we’ll help move to general forums. The first type is Groups that cover information that could be useful to any Network Creator, like “Starting a Network.” The second are those that are specific to a third party company or service. Those members that represent third parties are welcome to link to their own support forums in their profiles, to ensure people looking for that help can find it.</p>
<p>There is a final category of Group that we’re still debating. The best way to characterize this category is niche networks. Examples might include Non-profits, Education-focused, or Sports.</p>
<p>We’d love to have this initial membership think about whether to allow these and add your comments below. Some questions we’ve been asking include: What are the benefits to allowing these, or the potential pitfalls? If we allow them, how do we determine which are “niche” enough to be a group? What is the harm in not allowing them?</p>
<p>Thanks so much! And please let us know if you have any other suggestions or feedback – just start a discussion in the <a href="http://creators.ning.com/forum/categories/improvements-to-ning-creators/listForCategory">Improvements to Ning Creators</a> category in the forum.</p>
<p>Laura</p>
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