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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) First things first What is MixedInk? MixedInk is a democratic, collaborative writing tool that lets really big groups of people express collective opinions. (Small groups too!) Who uses MixedInk? Consumers, students, employees, fans, activists, political & community groups, unions, citizen journalists... pretty much any group with something to say. What can people write using MixedInk? We think MixedInk is most helpful for writing short pieces of text that lots of people want to get their ideas into:
Why use MixedInk? Sometimes you have to lump your voice together with lots of other people just to get heard. That's part of why you vote, sign petitions, choose to buy (or boycott) products, visit certain websites, and attend public events. MixedInk allows you to express yourself together with others without sacrificing your individual voice to explain why you feel a certain way instead of just giving a simple yes or no. Since MixedInk is a democracy, you and your collaborators have total control over what you say together. For companies, nonprofit organizations and campaigns, it can be difficult and expensive to wade through thousands of emails, blog posts, comments and phone calls to understand what stakeholders are thinking and saying. MixedInk provides a way to harness the energy, ideas, and opinions of all those passionate users, members, consumers, and employees. How does MixedInk work?
It can't - MixedInk doesn't automatically assemble a collective piece of text. We just give users the tools for them to do it themselves, by working (playing, really) together. How is MixedInk different from a wiki? We love wikis. We use one to manage information internally, and we use Wikipedia all the time. But wikis sometimes just aren't the right tool. When it comes to controversial topics, wikis can lead to back-and-forth edit wars. And when lots of people want to contribute at the same time, people end up overwriting each other. Also, since the last editor controls what's on the page, wikis are quite vulnerable to spam. They may not reflect the best ideas, or the collective point of view, of all the people who have contributed. For more on when you probably want to use MixedInk instead of a wiki, see this post we wrote on our blog a while back... The writing process How does the "final" version get chosen? The version with the highest average rating at the end becomes the "final" version. That's the one that best reflects the community's point of view. The organizer decides what time the topic will end during the set-up process. (The organizer may also choose not to use any deadline for completing the topic.) Is it simple majority rule, then? Basically, yes. But any contributor who feels he or she is in the minority can set up a new topic and ask that only people who have similar views participate. The organizer can make this clear in the "organizer message" during the topic set-up process. How do you protect topics from sabotage by groups of users who disagree with it? We hope our user community will have respect for one another. Most people avoid contributing to opinions where the organizer has made clear that only those with a certain point of view should participate. However, we have ways to tell if a group is attempting to deliberately manipulate the process. In extreme cases, we'll take steps to protect its integrity. If you suspect abuse or plagiarism, send an email to abuse@mixedink.com or contact us here. I'm not used to using others' words to express my thoughts, or to having other people use what I write. Is that really allowed? It's not only allowed, it's how MixedInk is meant to work! The whole point is for people to collaborate in order to express themselves with a single voice. We encourage everyone to borrow everyone else's ideas. At MixedInk, copying text isn't stealing or plagiarism. When users register, they agree to our terms of use, which means you are allowed to incorporate the ideas they submit on MixedInk into what you write - and they can borrow your words too. We know, this isn't how it usually works. While you're on the site, you get to play by a new set of rules! We do our best to give people credit for what they write, even if it gets reused or edited by others. So, any user whose words are included in a submission gets listed as a co-author. This is kind of tricky, though. So if we don't give credit where it's due, you are certainly invited post a comment on your submission mentioning any users whose words and ideas were included but didn't show up in the list of authors. Since the winning version may contain only text written by a handful of individuals, is it really created by the entire group? It's true that the final text may not have been directly written by everyone - that would be impossible with a really big group and a short text. But any user that rates submissions, contributes or remixes ideas, comments on a submission, or invites others to join is helping to shape the final product, even if their words aren't included in the final version. It's possible that a submission written entirely by a single individual will be the top rated one, but it's pretty likely with a big group. A submission can almost always be improved by adding ideas and edits from others in the group. How are the responses within the browse area ordered? Can I change the order? By default, the list of submissions in the browse area is set to "shuffle." That means it is ordered randomly, though with a bias toward submissions that are high rated and recent. You can change the order by clicking on one of the other sorting options. We may add more ways to sort. Let us know which ones you'd like to see! What's the notepad for? The notepad is a place to put any text you might want to use later that you don't want to add directly to a draft you're writing. The text might be incomplete, or maybe you're not sure where (or whether) it belongs in your draft. You can type a note yourself, or you can move text to the notepad from an existing submission by using the "add to draft" button within the browse & rate tab. When you're ready to add a note to your draft, click the "add to draft" button at the bottom of the note. What if I just want to make a minor edit to someone else's response? For now, try to avoid submitting a version that is only different by virtue of punctuation, or spelling, or a single word. We'll add the ability to make slight edits without submitting a new version soon. Just trust the organizer to do the copy editing before using it outside MixedInk. We know this is a big deal - please bear with us! What's the difference between submitting a draft from the write & edit tab and posting a comment? Drafts that are submitted from the write & edit tab are eligible to become the final, collectively authored text. Comments allow users to discuss a particular submission. For example, a comment may suggest how the submission could be improved or compliment the author for an eloquent concluding sentence. But comments cannot become the final version. So be sure submit any text you'd like considered for the final version in the draft area in the write & edit tab. What's the "Borrow this Sentence" box for? MixedInk is all about mixing ideas to come up with the best, most representative text. The "borrow this sentence" box encourages you to incorporate others' words and ideas by recommending pieces of other people's submissions that might help you express yourself. We choose these suggestions by matching the words you're writing with words in other people's submissions. You can add anything you like directly to your draft or to the notepad to use later. Within a given topic, how can I find text I submitted, or text written by any other specific user? Just use the search box at the top of the list in the browse & rate tab (don't use the one at the top right corner of the screen - that searches the whole website instead of just your topic). If you want to find stuff written by a specific user, enter "user=" followed by the username in the search box. For example, if you wanted to find text written by someone with the username "PhillyGal," you would enter "user=PhillyGal" in the search box and click "search." How can I find drafts that I've saved but haven't submitted? The title box at the top at the top of the draft area is also a drop down menu containing a list of drafts you've saved. If you select a different draft, it will show up in the draft area. Legal, Abuse & Privacy Can I republish a final collective version created at MixedInk? You certainly can - and we hope you do! Collectively authored text on MixedInk is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license. That means you can republish the content as long as you also include the note found next to the final version: "This [link to original webpage] was created by 30 members of [group name if applicable, otherwise, "MixedInk"] community using the democratic, collaborative writing tools at MixedInk.com. For more about how it was created, see here. It can be republished only if accompanied by this note." If you are republishing the text online, you must include a link to the page where you found the text. Please see our complete terms of use for more information. What do I do if I find an inappropriate response? Ruh-roh!!! If you find offensive language or imagery, or spam, within a submission, PLEASE use the "report" link at the top of the submission to let us know about it! We depend on you, our users, to maintain the health of the MixedInk community and the quality of the collaborative writing experience. By doing this, you can improve the likelihood your own topic will turn out well, while at the same time keeping this a fun and democratic place to be. What if someone illegally submits text for which another person or entity holds a copyright? Plagiarism of this sort is a violation of our terms of use. Please email us at dmca@mixedink.com to let us know about any violations. Please include the following information in your message:
Company Who are you guys? The founders are Dan & Vanessa Scanfeld (yep, married) and David Stern - three friends who met as undergrads at Cornell way back around the turn of the millennium. Combined, we've got 20 years experience working in nonprofits and for-profit companies, domestically and abroad, in the fields of web development, economic consulting, global health, and bioinformatics. We've got three masters' degrees (and part of a PhD) between the three of us. Michael Glass, a kick-ass developer we rescued from the computer science department at Columbia University in the midst of our grand endeavor, has also played a huge part in the site's development. And no, we've never done anything like this before! Why did you create MixedInk? People have been talking about the democratic potential of the internet ever since the days of Compuserve and AOL. While a lot of progress has been made, we think the bulk of that promise is still unfulfilled. We built this site because we're passionate about what groups can do with this power we provide the ability for big groups to speak with one voice. Using this democratic new tool, people can impact a wide range of institutions within our society, including media, business and politics. Of course, the effect we can have depends on how many people care enough to express themselves in this way. MixedInk's always a work in progress. We hope you like how it's turning out. Where did you get the name "MixedInk"? We came up with a list of about 150 domain names that were available, narrowed it down to about 25 ourselves, and then put it to a vote among our family and friends. "MixedInk" won pretty convincingly. We think it captures what we do pretty well. How do you make money? We have two revenue sources. You may have noticed the text advertisements visible on the side of some pages on our site. We collect a small fee from advertisers when visitors click on these. We also provide an enterprise version of our service to organizations that want to integrate MixedInk with their own websites. Click here to learn more about this service. How do I contact you? Visit the contact us page or send us an email at info@mixedink.com. Can I advertise with MixedInk? The only advertisements we currently accept are from the Google Ad network, but that's only temporary. If you're interested in advertising with us, let us know by using our contact form or sending an email to advertising@mixedink.com so we can contact you when we begin to accept advertisements. It should be pretty soon. What's next for MixedInk? Good question. Only time will tell! You can follow our progress by coming back often, joining our email list and checking our blog regularly. |
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