Post #4: Online Communities

Designing an online community in such a brief period of time and with a large group of individuals was not an easy task, though I enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate with a variety of others.  Our community "Wanderlust" aims to appeal to people who are interested in traveling on a budget.  While this is a pretty general topic that I'd like to think applies to most people, I think that's the point.  This focus would appeal to active posters who could find a niche within the community, while also being useful for the occasional user who may only be looking for a few recommendations on an upcoming trip.

While I believe I am an outgoing person, I believe that joining a community in NYC can be somewhat daunting, especially when going to events by yourself.  Often, I find that people rarely attend events alone and will come with a friend or group of friends, and will then spend the majority of their time together instead of interacting with others.  When designing our community, I loved the sense of inclusivity; there is the potential for smaller sub-communities to appeal to a variety of interests for people who could attend solo or as a group.  

One aspect of our community which seemed to cause a spark of controversy from others was the idea that we would limit our posts and feedback to that which is "positive".  I feel the need to clarify our (my) intent with this in the context of our community's focus.  When we added this to our group's plan, it was not our intention to limit negative feedback posts due to a negative social media climate.  It was certainly not meant to prevent contradictory views or to keep individuals from being able to express themselves.

I simply felt that keeping posts positive would: 1) separate our community from similar existing travel communities (Yelp, Trip Advisor) and 2) would be the most beneficial for users.

I almost always read reviews when traveling to foreign places to get a sense of what is a must-see "tourist" thing to do or where not to go.  A lot of negative reviews can prevent us from staying at a hotel or eating at a restaurant, but sometimes people who post reviews may have had a unique experience that is atypical and not representative.  I never listen to movie critics before seeing a film because I'd rather form my own opinion, so when designing a travel community, I felt that a similar idea could be possible by keeping the focus on positive posts.  Negative reviews inevitably end up tainting our opinions when traveling and can cause us to miss out on some great opportunities.  While the site does rely on individual opinions of what is good, I would rather scroll through pages and pages of positive feedback and recommendations as opposed to having to filter through both and weighing the remarks to make a determination about whether it is actually good.