Changes to NING (and a few other things)

NING - the EtsyPaper Team's social networking site

Our team site on ning was taken offline yesterday for some much needed updating. Here are a few of the changes that were made and also some of the things we are working on for the near future. I hope these changes will help us work toward becoming a more successful team and better serve us all as sellers and crafters.

NING UPDATES:

Changes on the main page - our team description was edited and updated and the admin list received their own box to give a more clean appearance and to better distinguish the two areas.
Our welcome and how to join messages were updated. All "aspiring" members will be able to create a page but admin will have to approve it before it goes online. We have had an issue with a few people not interested in the team but trying to advertise and junk up our site with non-craft related pages. They didn't have etsy shops and were adding inappropriate photos and comments to our site. So unfortunately, we had to take this step.

NEW on NING - You may notice that we have a new box on the main page titled "Featured Members". We will choose 2 team members a week and feature them on our team blog. Their shop links will appear in the "featured" box. We will add the 2 new links each week and leave them up
for one month. Hopefully, we can bring some much needed and deserved recognition not only to individual members but also to our team as a whole.

TAB CHANGES - "MEMBER" tab. If you run your mouse over the "MEMBER" tab, you'll notice a drop down sub-tab that reads, "OFFICIAL MEMBERS" and "ASPIRING MEMBERS". It will take a little work, but each member and aspiring member will be listed in the appropriate section. This should help make members easier to find and will also aid our membership coordinators when it's time to update our team roster and verify new official members.

TAB CHANGES - "TEAM SHOPS" tab. This idea has been in the works for a couple of months and we are getting ready to start working on it more seriously. The tab will have a drop down box that will be divided into sections (like the members tab) and will serve as a shops directory based on what types of items our members sell. For example, a few of the sections may be "Handmade Cards", "Art & Illustrations", "Books and Journals", etc. We will need our members help for this to work. More info will be coming soon so be on the lookout.

TEAM ADS - The team ads were removed but only temporarily. We will be bringing them back! We have quite a few issues and "kinks" to work out before we will be able to provide this service. We do think they are a great idea, it will just take some time - please be patient with us on this one:)

We are working very hard to improve our team while making it a fun group that everyone can benefit from and enjoy being a member of. As always, please feel free to contact any member of admin if you have any questions, suggestions, criticisms or comments you would like us to address. Thanks to all for being a part of the EtsyPaper Team - we appreciate you!!!