I’ve also decided to call the community site The Hive, because ‘Jobseekr Community Site’ has too many damn syllables already. We’ll see if the new monicker sticks or not.

There are all kinds of changes, including oembed functionality — just plop in a link to a Youtube video (or video from most other video sites), for example, and it’ll automatically embed it for you automagically. Just drop the address for the image or video (from your browser address bar — no need for ‘embed code’) into anything you post, and if it’s from one of these sites (and more all the time)

• YouTube
• Blip.tv
• Vimeo
• DailyMotion
• Flickr
• Hulu
• Viddler
• Qik
• Revision3
• Photobucket
• Scribd
• Wordpress.tv

it will appear automatically! (Note that Hulu won’t work if you’re outside the USA, though. Damn their eyes!)

Another major new toy is the @user notifications. Anything you post, or any comment or reply you make, just type @ and then a username (like @admin for me), and the user will receive a notification to come and have a look.

There are lots of other little surprises, but I hope folks will enjoy finding them for themselves.

Lots more changes are coming down the pipe, so stay tuned.

The problem is that when people visit a site, not entirely certain if it’s brand-new or has been around for a while, and don’t see it as a bustling hive of activity, then they’ll probably move on, especially if they’re looking for somebody ask questions of or just to talk to. I do the same thing — I look a little askance at sites that push forward their plain old phpbb forums, when a quick glance shows a total of 6 or 7 posts in total. ‘Nobody else is engaged,’ I think to myself, ’so it can’t be worth my time, either!’ Something a bit dodgy there, it feels like.

But a site creator, like, you know, yours truly, is put into a precarious position in early days of a site launch — we invite people, but if they don’t sign up and actually get engaged, become your early adopters and seed the site with content, well, successive waves of visitors will see the site as underpopulated, and themselves be hesitant to sign up. And then a feedback loop starts to develop, and your community never gets traction.

But don’t invite anyone or promote the site, and you are positively guaranteed nothing will happen.

So it’s tough, and it’s a balancing act. I hope that some of the things I’ve added to the community home (and some new things and design tweaks) will help people feel comfortable and confident that they’re joining a living community in its early stages. We’ll see.

As always, anything you care to suggest, I’m all ears!

Thanks!

To that end, a few guiding principles for participation in the community:

Trust

One of our guiding principles here is trust in one other. Anyone can join the community, create a group, participate in a forum, send private messages, upload a resume, ask a question, start a blog, and do much more. Anyone can post a comment in a forum or a friend’s Wire or on their hosted blog, and say whatever they feel.

As the administrator of Jobsee.kr, I give you the ability to do this because I trust you. I trust that you’ll act in a civilized manner, that you’ll treat others with opposing viewpoints with absolute respect and that you’ll contribute in a positive way to intelligent discussions that we hope will take place here every day.

I give you the benefit of the doubt, because I trust you, so all that I ask is for you to honor that trust and promise to become a good contributor.

After more than a decade in Korea and another decade in countries other than my own, I understand that life in another land can be hard, that employers can be… difficult, that the frustrations of daily life in Korea can make us angry or even bitter sometimes. So it goes. But our interactions with other people can either lead to more negativity, or to less. We’re either part of the problem, or we’re not.

Good Contributions

When the level of conversation here is high, conversations are typified by good contributions from a variety of viewpoints and experiences. When we treat other internet-people with respect and make an attempt to understand their point of view, they will do the same for us. When we show forbearance, kindness, or at least a sense of humour, the same is returned to us. When it isn’t, the adult thing is to just turn away. Fire feeds fire.

Be respectful of others, bring your experiences to the table and share them with everyone. If you make a statement of fact, try to show supporting evidence, explain yourself. When everyone brings intelligent, thoughtful contributions and has fun doing it, the site is the best it can possibly be. If you have a unique perspective on a topic, by all means contribute. If you’d like to express an opposing viewpoint in a respectful way, by all means contribute. If you want to get together with other folks to talk about something that interests you, by all means, do it. A web community is only as good as the people who participate there. All I can do as admin and mod is try to make sure that people who are wilfully disruptive are not encouraged or tolerated for long.

One of the things that will make Jobsee.kr valuable to its members is the contributions of the members of the community. This means that what you say is appreciated for the value that it adds to the discussion, to the degree to which it helps, encourages, educates or entertains others. With any number of topics to discuss, some of them controversial or emotionally fraught, members go into a conversation already having a general idea of how they feel about the subject. The most valuable contributions present new information, new perspectives, and new ideas that challenge each of us to consider not just what we believe, but why we believe it.

Which all sounds very serious and highminded, and I understand that people just want to relax and socialize sometimes. Absolutely! Go for it. Have fun! I love a good fart joke as much as the next guy, and without a sense of humour, life’s not really worth living, I reckon.

But keep in mind that myself as administrator and our moderators will absolutely not tolerate hate speech of any kind, slander, homophobic, racist or sexist comments, nor are flame-wars going to be something we look kindly upon. We will not hesitate to delete objectionable content, or to ban members who are deliberately disruptive.

That said: I’m confident that people can act like adults, be sociable, get along, at least most of the time. I still have faith in human nature.

After months of work, we’re getting close to launching the Jobseekr site. A major piece of the puzzle was trying to put together a community site that wasn’t just another boring old PHPBB bulletin board, but that had the same flexibility and functionality, updated, extended, and brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Hopefully we’ve succeeded — users will be the judge. If you’re reading this, you’re an early adopter, and there will be perks, yes, my friends, there will be perks!

So: kick the tires, have a look around, and be assured that all the other pieces of the puzzle including, most importantly, an active and vibrant job board, are on the way, including subsites for Questions and Answers and the splendid Jobsee.kr Resume-o-matic, where you can post and upload your resumes for free for employers to peruse.

Drop a comment here or friend me up and drop me a comment in my wire, if you want. I look forward to serving the Korean expat community in any way I can.