It was easy to become a member in the community. The registering was simple and fast and i was immediatley able to become an active member. All functions became immediatley available for me as a newbie. It was kind of difficult though to participate in the community. Because i was new i did not have any 'friends' yet. When i was lurking on other users's profiles i saw that they were all pretty active and had a lot of friends. Which does prove that it is a real community, where people help eachother as often and as good as they can. Users have the same common ground; their passion lies in Cape Town.
Because i am planning to go to Cape Town for my final thesis, joining this community was an easy choice. When looking at it the first time i noticed that it was a big community with a lot of information. Whether it is about safety, food, accomodation, city trips everything can be found in there. And that is what i need! When this module is over i am sure that i will keep visiting the community to get more information.
When i posted my first question i got a respons within half an hour. Which was really fast. Within 2 hours i got a lot of answers which were really helpful. Because users respond that fast i kept checking it a few times a day. Because i don't know much about Cape Town myself and because i was looking for information my participation can be descriped as first a lurker and after a little time as active participant. I've posted questions, but i was not able to help others because i have little knowledge about Cape Town.
The organization of the community appeals to possess the same values as we have talked about in class. The moderation and ranking system is in my opinion good. Moderation is differentiaded in post-moderation and reactive moderation. Members become active moderators by giving them the opportunity to report inappropriate messages. Post-moderation is about the genre the post of a user is about. It has to be related to the kind of forum (there are 3 forums: Travel forum, Technical help forum and the Miscellaneous forum).
The ranking system is clear to everybody and ease to use. By just a simple thing as 'is this comment helpful' one can say if the comment was really useful or not. At the profile of the one who commented the result of the ranking can be seen immediatley. For more widespread information about the ranking system and moderation i want to refer to my previous blogposts.
The community generates money by giving experts and proffesionals the opportunity to become a member too and to track down and post the best travel deals from around the web. There is also a ranking for those kind of participants to see if they are really reliable and trustworthy. At what way the exactly generate money is not clear to me. I guess i have to search this part even more, but i was not looking for this kind of information.
During the seven weeks i was participating in the Cape Town Travel Guide i have learned a lot, i've experienced the advantages of a community myself and i am sure i am going to keep participating in the community. And not only about online communities i have learned a lot, but also about blogging!
* When i am going to manage it to do my final thesis in Cape Town you can follow my experiences on this blog!
I hope to keep you updated in february
I hope to keep you updated in february
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