Newsletter #7 (May 2021)

Hello again from the Codidact team! We're here with another progress report.

Communities

Our communities continue to grow, some more slowly and some more quickly. On many of them we're seeing questions at a variety of expertise levels, which is great! If you can't answer that complex specialist question, the next one down that needs a more introductory treatment is right there.

Our Software Development community is active (come check it out). It's also gotten a bunch of questions that are about software but not development -- questions about software applications and operating systems, for example. We're pleased to announce that we've just launched two new communities that can help with that:

• Linux Systems is for questions about Linux and Unix-like systems. The community is still refining its scope boundaries (for example, WSL). Come be part of the community and help shape it!

• Power Users is for questions about software and hardware usage. Why yes, that does sound broad. The proposal started out focused on software applications, but people quickly realized that related topics can sometimes be deeply intertwined -- operating systems, networks, peripherals. This community, too, is still refining its scope, but broadly speaking, this community is for people who are using, not programming, computers. Again, come be part of the discussions about refining the scope.

Platform

Our design team is putting the finishing touches on a prototype that we're eager to share for community feedback. We've wanted to improve the visual design for a while, and we also have a lot of other usability changes we'd like to make. We want visual design and function to complement each other, creating a more intuitive and pleasant experience for our community members and visitors. Everything's interconnected, which has made it hard to just do that one thing now, so our design team has been working on a mockup that shows several ideas together. Look for an upcoming announcement on Meta.

We're still working on threaded comments. University has to come first, but we haven't forgotten. Meanwhile, we've been fixing bugs, making small usability improvements, and working to improve our search engine placement (SEO).

We still have a lot of things we want to improve and not very many developers; if you're interested in joining us, for a single bug fix or longer term, please take a look at our open issues on GitHub and let us know if anything catches your interest. We'll always respect your boundaries -- if you say you only have this much time or you aren't comfortable working in that area, that's totally fine! Key technologies: Ruby, Javascript, HTML, SCSS.

The Codidact Foundation

We think we almost have a bank account lined up. We'll let everybody know when we can accept donations -- soon, we hope!

When we started the Codidact project, we put together a simple landing page for the project (as opposed to the communities we host) at https://codidact.org. Now that we're incorporated as a non-profit we've been wanting to update it but we hadn't gotten to it, and then Daksh14 offered to help us out (thanks!). One thing led to another, and the page got a little more of a facelift.

In Daksh14's words: "The brevity of our first iteration was on point but it was simple. As we progressed, we laid out an interaction which is currently on codidact.org. Even without images it was something and we were happy with it. Forward one year, I opened codidact.org and thought to myself, it's been a year and we can do a lot even with a wee bit of an upgrade. I laid out a new design that was highly based on what we had previously with images and certain tweaks that would be catchy for the eye, though not sure if I was successful but I have tried something and I blame my lack of creativity for the most part. The images, at least the lot of them, are now up and shining and I'm happy for the most part :)." We're happy too, Daksh14 -- thanks for your work on this!

In May the Codidact directors had the opportunity to attend a training session with Andrew, our UK legal advisor, on best practices for leading and growing the organization, and next steps toward our transition to a Charitable Incorporated Organization (CIO). We reviewed everything from financial recordkeeping to potential solutions to ensure fair Board representation among users, moderators, developers, and administrators. Our immediate next steps following this training are to create a business plan and continue our current attempts to open a UK bank account. With Covid-19 restrictions becoming less stringent we hope this will be feasible sooner rather than later. We remain committed to operating transparently and in the best interests of all our communities.

Thank you for being with us as we continue to build communities and a next-generation platform to support them.

The Codidact Team
https://codidact.org

posted over 3 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Monica Cellio‭ staff

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