Recently several users have expressed their concern about instances of insult and personal attack. Our vision at Minekey is to provide a shared environment for people from all over the world to connect and share their perspective. To accomplish this vision, it is important we maintain it as a place where people feel safe and comfortable to share their opinions.

We consulted several Industry experts on how to make Minekey a safe and comfortable environment that promotes sharing. We have received some practical advice based on the best practices adopted by top Internet communities and we plan to move forward with their recommendations. As a part of this exercise, we have also retained a moderation team well versed with the Industry best practices to help achieve our goals. Some of the suggestions we will implement over the coming weeks are:

1. Profanity filters
2. Block user function to prevent certain users from posting notes on profile
3. Content rating and reputation system that helps surface quality content and discussions

We are committed to making Minekey more friendly. We seek support from all our users to help us reach this goal by complying with the Community Guidelines. Violation of Community Guidelines could result in disabling of content and user access. Listed below are a few suggestions on what constitutes good behavior and bad behavior on Minekey:

Do
1. Respect the opinions of Minekey peers, even when you disagree with them.
2. Avoid using profanity.
3. Delete any offensive comments on your opinions and any offensive notes on your profile.
4. Use the report abuse system judiciously to alert the Minekey team.

Don’t
1. Personal attacks are prohibited.
2. Trolling is prohibited.
3. Sexually explicit material is prohibited
4. Creating multiple accounts and identities is prohibited– It’s a place for real people to connect through real conversations.

For more details refer to Minekey Community Guidelines (http://minekey.com/footer/code). The use of Minekey is a privilege, not a right. The Minekey staff reserves the right to revoke access and remove content without notice. If you have any questions or suggestions email us at “community AT minekey DOT com”.

We just rolled out a new feature that allows Minekey users on Facebook to set their opinions as Facebook Status Messages. This is a great way to get your friends to notice your opinions and vote on them. Won’t that be Fun?

You don’t have to pick your opinions only. You can pick anyone’s opinion for your Status Message. Minekey has plenty of controversial opinions and funny opinions which would make great Status Messages.

Through Minekey you can connect with people beyond your immediate social circle and gain more friends. Posting an update as a Minekey opinion and setting it as Facebook Status Message can bring more interaction and participation to your Status Updates.

Let the fun multiply! To set your opinion or anyone else’s opinion as a Status Message on your Facebook profile, click on the “set as your status” link just beneath the opinion. Check out the slide show below for step by step details. If you have any questions or need any additional help send an email to community AT minekey DOT com.

Until mid-September, before the news media launched its daily assault on the American public with stories about the economic downturn, immigration consistently ranked as the first or second most important issue facing citizens of many states, particularly those in the West and Southwest.

A late August survey by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research of 2,400 likely voters in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Wyoming found that 53% wanted the estimated 12 million undocumented workers in the U.S. to be offered the chance to apply for legal status.

Barack Obama and John McCain both support the proposal to accommodate illegal workers in America. In 2006, Senator Obama voted for the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act – co-sponsored by John McCain and Ted Kennedy – which proposed to both give illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship and to boost security at the U.S.-Mexico border. Although the bill was passed in the Senate, it was defeated by Congress.

In spite of each candidate’s support for this legislation, of the 4,000+ people who voted upon McCain and Obama’s respective immigration agendas on the Minekey Election 2008 microsite, an overwhelming majority of 83% approved of Obama position, whereas only 33% gave a thumbs-up for McCain. Why? Primarily because the Obama plan emphasizes giving priority to those immigrants who have applied legally for citizenship, whereas McCain’s plan proposes offering VISAs (with conditions) to all those working in the country illegally.

Says one user in support of Obama’s plan, “the whole immigration and naturalization process should very well be revamped, from the ground floor, up. Kick out illegals, but streamline legalization.” Says another, “I agree with protecting our borders but I don’t agree that we should accept amnesty. Your intentions are good when giving everyone opportunity but if they broke the law that wouldn’t be fair for the legal immigrants who worked to get here by honesty & clean record.”

Visit the Minekey Election 2008 Microsite, and discover how people from all over the world are voting on each of the Presidential candidates’ policies.

Check out the following new features that we’ve launched today on Minekey.com:

Real-time Topic Suggestions When You Search

Now, when you type in a search term on Minekey, you will be prompted with a dropdown list of active topics which match your query. Each of those suggested topics will also be accompanied by a number, identifying how many relevant opinions there are already on Minekey.

You can now view your past searches. On the settings page within your Minekey.com profile, you can see your entire search history, delete record of any specific search, clear your entire history, and disable search history altogether. All information about your search is completely private, and only visible to you.

Protecting the Privacy of your Minekey Profile

You can now render invisible your Minekey profile page to anyone who has not logged in to Minekey.com. If someone does not have an account with Minekey, they will not be able to see your profile when they click on your picture or name on any of your opinion pages or beside comments or notes you’ve posted on other opinion and profile pages.

Opinion Management

On Minekey.com, you can now delete any comments from all of the opinions that you have posted.

Coming Soon

In addition to these new features, we’ve just begun beta testing a News Feed for Minekey. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to share feedback with us in preparation for the official launch in several days.

If you haven’t already signed up for Minekey, Sign Up here to join the conversation. It’s free and anyone can join.

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama offer very different solutions to jumpstarting the economy and reversing the housing crisis, and those differences are boldly contrasted by voting patterns on the Minekey 2008 Election microsite.

So far, over 3,000 people have voted on each of the candidates’ economic stimulus and housing policies. 82% of users have voted in support of Obama’s economic plan, and 23% in favor of McCain’s proposed solutions to the housing crisis.

A Landslide Victory for Obama?

Although Obama has taken the lead with three weeks left in the campaign, the overwhelming support for his policies by members of the Minekey community is not at all consistent with current polls which track the political sentiments of the average American voter. One possible explanation for this big variation is the global demographic which makes up the Minekey community. With regular users from the U.S. and over 100 other countries posting opinions, voting, and commenting on others, Minekey opinions provide truly international perspectives on current issues and trends.

Recent polls conducted by both the Economist and the Reader’s Digest magazines asked 1,000+ respondents from countries other than the U.S. who they would vote for if they could choose the next U.S. President. The numbers from each poll are similar to those emerging on the Minekey Election microsite, suggesting also that Obama would achieve a landslide victory if everyone in the world could vote in this election.

Of those who voted in the Reader’s Digest poll, 90% of Dutch and 85% of Germans would vote for Obama. Similarly, of those who voted in the Economist’s “Global Electoral College” poll, 88% of British and 86% of Japanese would also vote for Obama.