Madison Commons

There are three major things I like about Madison Commons. First of all, its news comes from multiple sources. Besides posting news originally appearing in newspapers such as Wisconsin State Journal, it also trained citizen reporters to report what they have observed in their neighborhoods (I assume the news that didn’t come from major newspapers came from this source). The advantage of it is that citizen reporters might offer a different viewpoint than those major newspapers, and they might also give reports in a more timely fashion (i.e., whatever they see this minute, they can post it right away without going through all the editing, printing processes that are common in newspaper businesses).

The second thing I like is somewhat relevant to the first point, which is Madison Commons encourages users to make comments and contributions to the website. Madison Commons visitors are encouraged to add new info to “Madstub,” a “short description on a current community topic” that calls for “collaborative news reporting.” Besides, at the end of every news article or blog posts, there is a place where readers can leave comments. I think if this idea works out well, we could get rich info about the community as well as how community residents think about these issues within a very short period of time. It could be an effective way of getting info and communicating ideas.

Finally, I noticed that the website categorized each news article, and after reading an article relevant to environment, for example, there is an icon I could click, and it would lead me to other articles relevant to environmental issues. I found it convenient for me to find articles that interest me most.

Despite these strengths, however, there is something I didn’t appreciate that much. First of all, it took me a while to locate my own community. When I first visited the website, I was excited to see that I could click on my own community and read the news that was most relevant to me. However, I couldn’t find my community on the menu. Then I tried to locate my community on the map they provided, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t zoom in the map. Not a very skillful map reader, it was challenging for me to locate a place on a map if I can’t see the names of the roads. Then I tried to enter my street name and community name in the search box, in the hope that the search engine would find the correct info for me. But then it told me that it didn’t find any relevant info. Finally, I decided to go through the trial and error process: I clicked on several possible communities and finally found the right one. If I could make some changes about the website, I’d like to make it possible for the users to zoom in the map. Even better yet, I’d hope that once a user enters his/her street address, the search engine could locate his/her community for the user.

Second, and probably the biggest problem, is that the updates on the website is not timely enough. As of the time when I post this message, the most recent news article was posted in Jan 24, 2010, and the second most recent story was posted in November, 2009. Also, there were no posts between April 2009 to October 2009. The comments and blog posts were also out-dated, and no one has ever contributed to Madstub. It looks like not many people are aware of the website and thus not many people are making contributions to it. In order to make the website work better, I think we need citizen reporters who are willing to update the content more timely and regularly, and we also need more promotions/advertisements of the website, making it known to more people.

Relevant to the idea of making it known to more people, I noticed that while most newspaper websites such as New York Times and Washington Posts have integrated “sharing this news on Facebook/twitter” on their website, Madison Commons has not. If Madison Commons could add this feature to the website, people who find interesting news could share it on their Facebook, and in this case we should be able to increase the visibility of Madison Commons.

Finally, I appreciate it that the website offered different versions of Madison maps (e.g., gas price maps, engine-free maps), but I thought it would be even more useful to include something like google maps so that users who just wants to know how to get from one place to another could easily get such info. Even just including a google maps link might be helpful.

Overall, I like the ideas that the website tries to get info from multiple sources, to encourage users to make contributions, and to make it easy for readers to find the articles that interest them most. At the same time, however, I thought the website could make it easier for users to find their own communities on the website, to make it more visible and thus attracts more users, and to include an additional type of map that gives directions.