This week is your only chance to vote for the Projects you care about in the N2Y4 Mobile Challenge and the Change the Web Challenge. But, many of you are finding the voting process and platform hard to use. We hear your cries for help! We feel your pain and are actively trying to make things better for everyone. Here are some details - we'd love your feedback!

Take a quick survey (just 3 questions) to let us know your ideas!

We're Working To Make Things Better

First, thanks to everyone who took the time to share thoughtful feedback about ways to improve our clunky voting process.   In the spirit of transparency, our "Voting Improvement" list is below.   Please leave any other ideas or suggestions at the bottom of this post.  

Oh, and if you happen to be a UI genius interested in helping us make NetSquared better,   please drop a line to NetSquared's director, Billy Bicket, to discuss how we might work together.

• What do the stars and comments mean, and why can't I add any while voting? Answer: stars and comments are disabled during the vote.   We use stars and comments as tools that enable peer-to-peer feedback.   The comments section is also used as a place for people to share insights, resources, etc prior-to and post-Challenge voting periods.
• What does "Send to Administrator" mean?   The red flag and "Send to Administrator" feature is a community-policing feature that lets anyone flag inappropriate material for our Administrator's review.   Clicking on the red flag is NOT a vote for any project.
• Why do I have to register in order to vote? Answer: We want real people voting on the projects they think have the greatest potential for social change.   Registering to vote helps to ensure people not robots vote.  

Things We're Fixing

Here are some of the things we are already doing to address the issues above and make the voting process smoother:

• Move "Flag for Admin" to bottom of project page.   How this will help: by moving the Flag option to the bottom of the page, we will separate the different user options and make the links necessary for voting easier to identify.
• Link back to gallery based on which gallery user got to project view.   How this will help: by providing the direct links to Project Galleries which a Project is a part of, users will not have to navigate through multiple links or the Global Gallery to keep finding projects and keep voting.

If you are having trouble registering, changing your password, anything else related to your account, just email us with your username and your request and we can get it all fixed up!

Thanks so much for your patience and participation.   We are really excited to get your votes and to help shine the light on these innovative Projects.   We'll continue to work on things and post updates here.