About
WE Collective is a new mutation of the Social News genus.
- 1. Structure - A more efficient way to organize and integrate social news communities
- 2. Polling Tools - The introduction of new polling tools to aid in quantifying and visualising group opinion, facilitating debates, collating and ranking resources, creating competitions, collaborative organization, better enabling feedback with large user bases, and ultimately participation in the collective governance of the platform
- 3. User Interface - A modern and intuitive user interface design
- 4. Transparent Non-Profit - A fully transparent, self-sustaining, not-for-profit company structure that allows users to vote on the use of excess profit provided it is spent for the benefit of the world
Each of these features are explained in more detail below:
A more efficient way to organize and integrate social news communities
- A messy and unintuitive navigational experience
- Difficulty finding smaller communities
- Unnecessary reposts to related communities
Advantages
- Better organisation of and within communities
- Easier to navigate
- More choice in scope of focus
- Reduces the need for reposts
- Smoother exposure / points gradient for rising content
- Better spread of exposure for rising content
The ability for users to create and submit Polls along with other submitted content
We believe this tool will open up a huge range of new organisational and collaborative possibilities not available on any other social news platform. Each poll would take a simple format and include four subsections, the first and last of which can be seen in the images below:
Some of the most powerful uses we see for this feature include:
- Group decision making (electing moderators, voting on the rules or design of a branch, deciding on dates for community events etc.)
- Creating competitions
- Processing debates
- Collating and ranking resources (educational materials, etc etc.)
- Interaction and feedback with large userbases
A modern and intuitive user interface design
Unlike many of the designs currently in use we want our user interface to be clean and easy to navigate, even for those unfamiliar with previous social news platforms. It would also be designed from the outset to work well on mobile devices. Click here to see more of our designs.
A fully transparent, self-sustaining, not-for-profit company structure that allows users to vote on the use of excess profit
We were on the verge of seeking private finance to begin this project just over a month ago when events on Reddit changed our mind. We realised there may be enough interest out there to raise the needed funds from the crowd. If we can achieve this there would be several advantages to this method:
- We can start the non-profit free of debt, making it easier for us to reach sustainability and speeding up the how soon we can begin giving money back.
- We have had to reveal the idea in its entirety to the public upfront before release. Now we can work with and engage interested users as the website is developed.
- It binds our relationship to our users. Regardless of how we raised the funds our aim would always be create the best possible site for the users. Being breathed into life by the very people we plan to serve however would solidify our relationship and forever remind us of who created us and who could destroy us!
Our initial goal is to raise £50,000 (approx. US$76,000). This will enable our team to begin the first stage of production building the site. It wouldn't be enough for us to launch but would allow us to produce a working prototype.This would take around 4-6 weeks to complete, during which time the founders would engage with all interested to find out opinions, take on board ideas, and process the options available to us. If we can achieve this goal it will also serve as a powerful proof of concept, demonstrating interest in this type of system, and thus making it easier for us to find the rest of the funding needed to launch.
If we pass this initial target, our first stretch goal will be £150K (approx. US$228K). This would enable us to build and deliver a Beta version of the site, minus the polling tools, by February 2016. All donors would gain access to this beta version for a month after which they would have the opportunity to influence the design of the final site through an open Q&A with the founders.
£200K (approx. US$313K) and above would enable us to launch the full platform by early April 2016. All donors would get access to the beta site in February as mentioned in the previous stretch goal. Anything we then raise beyond £200K would go towards running costs for the first year and help us to begin expanding the company.
The main reward for everyone, if the money we raise here is enough to kick-start us into launching, will be full access to the website and all the new features it offers.
On top of this a page on the site when launched will be dedicated to a Funding Grid that represents this first round of fundraising.
A stone tablet will also be engraved and then guarded with the names of all donors offering over £100 in order of amount donated. It will then be put on display in our offices as a permanent monument to those original core donors.
All donors will receive a unique code that will allow them to add a ‘Founding Donor's Medal’ to their profile page when the site launches that represents the amount they contributed.
Whatever you give helps. Thanks for being a part of making this website possible!
- WOOD Founding Donor Medal on profile page when site launches.
- STONE Founding Donor Medal on profile page when site launches
- WE logo backers sticker
- Proportional space dedicated to you on the Funding Grid
- IRON Founding Donor Medal on profile page when site launches
- WE logo backers sticker
- Proportional space dedicated to you on the Funding Grid
- Option to upload an image of your choice* to fill your space on the Funding Grid
- BRONZE Founding Donor Medal on profile page when site launches
- WE logo backers sticker
- Proportional space dedicated to you on the Funding Grid
- Option to upload an image of your choice* to fill your space on the Funding Grid
- Name engraved on our founding stone tablet
- 1x Years subscription to our premium WEGold membership when site launches
- SILVER Founding Donor Medal on profile page when site launches
- WE logo backers sticker
- Proportional space dedicated to you on the Funding Grid
- Option to upload an image of your choice* to fill your space on the Funding Grid
- Name engraved on founding stone tablet
- 5x Years subscription to WEGold
- T-Shirt Print #1 with thank you note from founder
- GOLD Founding Donor Medal on profile page when site launches
- WE logo backers sticker
- Proportional space dedicated to you on the Funding Grid
- Option to upload an image of your choice* to fill your space on the Funding Grid
- Name engraved on founding stone tablet
- 10x Years subscription to WEGold
- T-Shirt Print #1 + Limited Edition T-Shirt Print #2 (max of x100 will ever be printed) with thank you note from founder
- PLATINUM Founding Donor Medal on profile page when site launches
- WE logo backers sticker
- Proportional space dedicated to you on the Funding Grid
- Option to upload an image of your choice* to fill your space on the Funding Grid
- GUILDED name engraved at top of founding stone tablet
- LIFETIME subscription to WEGold
- T-Shirt Print #1, #2 + Super Limited Edition T-Shirt Print #3 (max of x10 will ever be printed) with thank you note from founder
- First pick of usernames on site before launch (x3 each) along with other Platinum donors in order of date donated
- 1" x 1" wood ‘WECube’ hand-made by founder (see gif image below)
We ran out of space on our Kickstarter page! Find out more about us and our long term vision here.
Find out about the founders and what each of them individually brings to the company here.
NETSIGHT are an experienced web development team located in Bristol, England. With a set of complementary skills required for successful end-to-end solutions (design, development, delivery, management), 15+ years professional experience delivering 300+ websites, web apps + portals to a variety of clients (including numerous non-profits), and a keen interest in our guiding ethos, we believe their team has not only the expertise but also the drive and mindset to fully support our platform through these early stages, scaling up, and beyond.
Risks and challenges
The biggest challenge and gauge of success for WE Collective will be gaining enough users to reach financial sustainability. We calculate that we would need to hit a stable user base of approx. 2-4 Million Unique monthly visitors or around 1-2% of Reddit’s current traffic to achieve this in the long run.
Any growth beyond this however and we would already be able to start giving back some profits to user voted giving. The bigger we scale the better it gets. If we reach 100% of Reddit’s size by that point we could giving back Millions of $ each year to user voted giving.
We hope that by taking the crowd funding route and sharing the idea before the platform is released we will be able to foster an interested user base in the lead up to launch that will help in reaching these numbers. Depending on the success of the campaign, however, we will reassess our approach to marketing the platform after its completion.
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Funding period
- (20 days)