WiserEarth Editors

I like the concept of it a lot. For the mailbox, I'd like to be able to see the sent mail as well on the dashboard, instead of first clicking the inbox tab at the top of the screen. I especially like the suggested friends list.

However, I'd personally rather that the profile still came on as the first load rather than the dashboard, because it reminds me of the groups to check on, but it's a little quieter. Maybe if the dashboard were the second tab instead of the first? I guess I'm kind of counter to the trends of Facebook/Twitter newsfeeds constantly bombarding with new info. It feels like jumping into the middle of a huge and disorienting party!

The What's New section is pretty interesting and has cool implications. Do new users show up under this section? If so, that might be a way for editors to say hello and introduce themselves, or to help involve these new users on the site (or fledgling groups, for that matter). I notice that on Meetup.com, there's a staff member who introduces themselves to every creator of a Meetup group and gives their contact info. While the staff on Meetup is larger, I think, and the number of group founders is smaller, it was an interesting concept...

Yikes! I can understand how opening with the dashboard could facilitate greater interaction with the wiser earth community... but this feels too much. my first instinct was to see if i could manipulate the modules to just keep on what interested me, (choose my own adventure). 

i must say, i don't have many friends, so i can see every detail done by the few friends i have! i really don't need this information.

i will support jp in creating User settings. that way i don't have to be a total recluse, but at least my journey through wiser earth will be a little more peaceful. (this is something i really appreciated about wiser earth was the organic design and peaceful presence.)

Well then.

It seems that adding another user setting to select post-log-in landing page would make sense. Choice can be:

- Profile

- Dashboard

- WE Homepage

As mentioned elsewhere, Inbox should be renamed to Messages to maintain language consistency, or be given additional tabs (messages, sent messages, invitations, watchlist alerts), each tab with a number of pending/unviewed items. That would make it more functional (and somewhat cluttered!).

I personally like Friend Feed as it complement my watchlist alerts very nicely and provide a more obvious link to "Invite friends" (it's kinda drowned in the profile page). I understand that "Friend..." sounds too facebook-ish, so we may want to change that? "People in Your Network"

Haven't been using People You May Know a lot because I prefer a more organic approach to friend-making, e.g., to say hi to people I met in a discussion topic or to those whose profile I find interesting and relevant to me. That said, I can imagine this module to come real handy for newcomers, especially those who ventured here more or less alone, with not so many friends who resonate with a site like WE.

As for the What's New on WE module, this definitely can improve. Got me a better way to monitor "Most recent" via "Recent Activity" on About tab (and also "Recent comments" linked from there). Don't really understand how the "Top rated" tab works. And find "Most viewed" marginally useful. "Most viewed" by the way needs to be broken down to finer categories to prevent it from getting skewed further (i.e. those already on the first page of the list, will tend to get more views, thus perpetuate their existence there!). Usually what I see in other sites, it can be most viewed (i) yesterday, (ii) in the last 7 days, (iii) in the last 30 days, etc.). But I guess this module can also / will evolve into a "WE recommend" module?

So, the gist of my comment is, let's have option for landing page after log-in, and keep improving the dashboard.

Would that solve everyone's concerns so far?

Not sure I agree that we should have this extra functionality. Most social networking sites send you to a page with activity - a dashboard e.g. Facebook, Linked-In - the point is to get you into where the action is. None of them have the option of deciding where you land as a signed-in member. I suspect this would be a very little used piece of functionality if we were to have it on a settings page and the downside is that it would complicate matters and require extra scarce programming time. Sending someone to a profile seems strange because presumably you know what is on your profile because you added the content. Especially with the new design (which eliminates comments on the profile*) there is even less reason to visit your own profile.I could see someone wanting to go directly to their Group - but that can be achieved with a bookmark or by quickly using the Groups menu.

* This makes sense because the comments section is being used by spammers and because these comments are not being read by members so it would be better to direct people towards sending messages.