Agenda

Walk through the key features of the site and why they were created that way

What kind of activity that you see on other sites did you want to avoid with Forrst?
How did you attempt to avoid it?

What do you think people "learn" on Forrst?

What's the feedback activity for a typical user?

What usage have you been surprised by? Disappointed by?

Feedback was a much more difficult undertaking than


Forrst started in 2009 and feedback wasn't even part of it--experimental project
Only focused on development and code--used a simple commenting system

Didnt start as a feedback mechanism
evolved organically into the community

Feedback was discovered by accident
he recruited people he knew and trusted--his inner circle that shared the mindset

Community existed almost by accident--and substantive feedback was the norm

How to get users to behave in the way you wanted them to

He wrote guidelines for feedback--

Every feature had to answer yes:
is this going to move the community forward?

vs dribble which focused on making shit pretty

posting doesnt count for anything--but thorough comments do

"I'm awesome and nobody knows it"--get exposure for doing good work

core unit of content was feedback

exposure as someone who knew their shit

Purpose: people learned how to be better at what they do

very common for people to revise their work and repost it

Version 4 of the site was going in and making it all about feedback

"I don't go to Stack Overflow for the community--I go to get my answer and leave"

40% active users weekly
50,000 users total

accountability--if you invite someone who is a jerk, affects your accountability

Application prompted comments--buy in for users--so built content on the site that way

Failed to scale the product fast enough to really stay ahead of the curve of new users

Challenge: balancing the needs of the community and raising $$