Making good progress now on the vote system.  A few things I'm kicking around; up-vote only.  No down votes.  Let's keep it positive.  If you don't like a story or link, ignore it.  Eventually it will fall off.  Secondly, I'm adding the ability to up-vote a link more than just once.  Maybe 5 or 10 times per link.  When you like a story, give it a few up-votes.  When you really like a story, give it the max votes.  I'm open to some feedback on this.  Pro's and con's and should it be 5 or 10 vote max.  That's it for now.  I'll probably just keep working and install the code when it's done.       

Front End:
The javascript functions that auto increments the counter next to each link that gets an up-vote is working.  It's calling the backend script and, depending on the response, ups the number

Back End:
System is accepting the link_id, checking that the user exists and writing to the database

To Do List:
- Setup table(s) to store link id's, user id's and count tally (I'm thinking 5 or 10 votes per person per story to start since our member count isn't too high yet).
- Create function in link count script to check that a user has not exceeded their votes for the given link id
- Setup the weighted value system to determine in what order links are places
- Setup cron (every 5 min) to update the weighted value system (using the stored votes table)
- integrate the up-vote button and vote count next to each link on the front page.
 

So everything seems to be going pretty smoothly.  There's been a great response so far and I'm hoping to keep the ball rolling.  We've got some really cool people here already.  Some I know personally, some through the web and some new faces nicknames I don't recognize.  I'm anxious to go 'fully live' and excited to see how things progress.

Now, this beta launch hasn't been 100% perfect.  We've had problems getting email invites and confirmations to actually reach people's inbox's.  These spam filteres nowadays are so tight, it's rediculous.  I'm checking into some 3rd party solution so we'll see if we can get this fixed.

Second.  The actual application interfaces are too 'disconnected'.  I expect to click on the tabs on my profile and have all the controls for that section available to me.  Currently, this isn't so.  To post a blog for example, you don't click the Blog tab in your profile.  You click the My Apps dropdown from the top menu, then 'blog' then 'add'.  This will be remdied soon!  A person shouldn't need to work to actually start contribute content.

Lastly, the front page news needs MORE CONTENT.  I want to tie in a person contributing content to the news list.  Example; You setup an album, you should see a checkbox that reads, "Do you want this to be a front page news entry?".  You post a blog, you shoud see a checkbox that reads, "Do you want this to be a front page news ent".  Etc.

I think we should have these things functioning and in place before we have www.mitosis.com point to the real front page.

That is all.  Thanks for hanging around, signing up, contributing content and being part of the community.  I'll keep you all informed on the progress.

- Simon

So here's how the Badge system work:

You do something (or lots of somethings) and you get badges.  Use them to show off your status!

That's it.  Currently I only have a hook in for the "Beta Tester" badge but the system could be setup to give them for just about anything.  Invite a certain number of friends, boom, that's a badge.  Post a certain amount of links to the front page, bang, another badge.  Make a certain number of comments, pow! ...you get the idea.

We could make some badges secret so you never know when you'll get them and make others public to encourage interaction.  Whatever.  I'm up for any ideas and suggestions.  I setup "Social" and "Contributor" and "Achievement" as broad catagories but we can add or edit them as we want.  Let me know.

- Simon