Building a Community Around a Website

the-macho-man

We have just finished the initial version of a community-based website and now I want to understand how do we encourage a community to build up around it?

Website: namethisanimal.com
Concept: Animal Identification.

The idea is that users can post images of animals (birds/insects/etc.) to the site which will create a list of animals to be identified. Other users of the website who are interested in identifying animals can browse the website and reply to the image poster letting him/her know the name of the animal.

There are a few other websites with very similar concepts such as:
- reddit.com/r/whatsthisbug
- davesgarden.com/guides/bf

Questions:
First of all, I would really welcome any and all feedback you have about the website concept and how it functions.
I would also like to ask for any suggestions for ways to encourage a community to build up around the website.

Many thanks,
Matt

housamz

Hi Matt,
Very nice idea for the website, I like it.

What I recommend is:
- Instead of having one image on a row, make it three or four images on each row, the text can come underneath the image or as icons. (You may use the current design for mobile version)
- You need to assign some moderators to arrange animals in families and types (so your website would be encyclopaedic after a while)

Best wishes

housamz

Also you may consider to put some cost-efficient fliers in the public libraries and universities to advertise the website and build the community for it

the-macho-man

Hey,

Thanks for those suggestions - we were thinking of doing a grid-style of image presentation but opted for a single vertical row for simplicity initially. However I agree with you that the grid style would be useful too - making use of all the available screen real-estate. We might add that as an option for the user to choose or make it the default depending on how it turns out.

I also agree with the Moderators + Arranging of animals into types also. We just wanted to get something up and running (only spent 3 days to get this up and going!) so we've plenty to to-dos. They are on the list! :-)

The fliers idea is a great suggestion, making the website is the easy part - but building the community will be the real challenge as far as I can tell. Current plan is to try to contact groups of people interested in animal identification like those on Reddit and ask their opinions of the website. Perhaps we might gain a few users that way although we haven't been successful yet.

We were also thinking of trying to get a mention on a popular wildlife blog. Although we need to get people using the website before a blogger might find it worth-while to blog about. Bit of a catch-22.

Thanks again for your suggestions,

Best regards,
Matt

Mr. G

I have not much interest in this as such however I suppose I will give you some feedback. I love the idea, love the simple design. It's very easy to understand what the website is about. Nothing fancy, yet cool. Here's some recommendations from a technical point of view.

I would strongly recommend you get a reCAPTCHA form on the Upload section. Before you know it, you will have been spammed so many times.

I don't know about publishing feedback. I don't see any privacy policy or disclaimer.

I think the grey text in the logo may be hard to read on some screens - as a general rule I never put grey on white unless it is something that doesn't need to stand out.

the-macho-man

Hey Mr. G,

Thanks for the feedback - we're trying to do the most simple thing possible to get the job done, the idea out there and get feedback. The simplistic captcha was just a starting point, we're currently working on user log-ins and will add a stronger captcha when we release that.

Publishing / privacy isn't something I've thought much about so far. As soon as you upload an image you can delete it using a link which only you are given so users can at least control their image content that way. Comments aren't removable currently. This will change once users are added. As for the disclaimer, I must look more into that. Good suggestion.

The grey text is another issue I've been meaning to fix. I'll look into that also.

Thanks again,

Regards,
Matt