When we first let this secret out (almost 3 weeks ago?) we were *totally* unprepared for what would happen next. At first, we were nearly paralyzed by the volume of stuff - new data in ravelry, emails and contact us forms, tons of discussion threads..
Now that we are more organized and more clear headed, we are trying our best to make this site awesome. First order of business? Taking care of the issues that are keeping this thing in beta. I need to fix bugs ("crappers!" bugs and browser bugs), build better tools for editors and moderators, and make sure that managing the amount of data coming in is a snap. Oh, and the site needs to handle an assload of knitters and crocheters.
I know that lots of you have sent in your bugs, requests, and ideas and most of those are still somewhere on The List. I'm confident that our progress during the next couple months will be just as fast as Ravelry's first 3 months but I think that a lot of the work that I am doing right now will be somewhat invisible. So - I just wanted so say a bunch of thank yous..
* Thanks to the folks with IE6, Safari, and Opera! There will be lots more of you when the site opens. Thanks for the bug reports and for all of your patience. You've been dealing with some annoying issues for far too long.
* Thanks to the crocheters - we want you to feel like the first class citizens that you are and I know that we aren't there yet.
* Thanks to everyone outside of the US. We're still not international enough when it comes to currency, the metric system, conversions, and even books. We certainly don't want to be US centric - we just needed outside help (which we have plenty of now!)
* Thanks to everyone who has ever seen a "Crappers!" error message. Your misfortunes produce a wonderfully detailed bug report.
* Thank you thank you designers, dyers, and spinners! We want to do so much more for you and we are so happy that you want to be a part of this. I'm really excited about the future - I'll be proud to help get some exposure and sales for indie crafters.
* Thanks for everyone who has spent time jotting down their ideas in the forums. I read every single post (although I don't always reply) and I've received a ton of valuable feedback and many great ideas for improvements.
* Thank you editors, moderators, and community members who have been flagging, checking, cleaning, and merging data. In less than 1 week, duplicates have been disappearing like crazy and 29% of our 3800 patterns have been checked and approved. This is AWESOME. We were not ready to the amount of data that came in and I'm so grateful that you guys have helped clean up the mess. The beta testing has helped us learn and formulate a plan but the expense was a large amount of stuff that needed to be sifted through. I'm working on improving the site so it is easier to manage and harder to dirty up. You guys need a rest :)
* Thank you to each and every Ravelry user. The site is nothing without your contributions - every time you enter a project, you make the site better.
PS - the blog that is behind this newsfeed is yet another unfinished task. Someday it will be the official Ravelry mouthpiece. You can comment, if you come in the back door: http://blog.ravelry.com