By the way, I'd be happy to feature Crowdmind on our website, www.usefultools.com, either now or in the future (since you're still working on it).
Any suggestions on how we can build the community? Its definitely been a struggling point for us at the moment.
You can also submit your site to social media sites like Digg and Reddit. Getting other websites to write about you will also help point people in your direction.
Once you start attracting people, I think having a credibility rating system will become increasingly important in helping to keep the community healthy, intelligent and civil.
It looks like quite a bit more work to create the question than is usually the case, which might be a disincentive for some - although it will also help them to focus on the issue at hand. The layout is a little confusing at first and god only knows why you made the search box background color to dark grey against a black background - I found myself wondering why there was a search button with no search box until I looked more closely. I think you could use a one line explanation like 'Our members help you rate and discover your options' on the landing page, because it took me a couple of minutes to realize that the stars and ratings were functional rather than mere window-dressing. your 'about' page does this very well, why not use the top two elements from that (title and icons)?
It also wasn't obvious to me that the 'good/bad because...boxes were text fields at first. Stick a flashing cursor in them or something, because they look like headers.
For a site with so few questions and needing a network effect to take off, I'm already impressed and think you're onto a winner here. I would even suggest spinning off a 'pro' version aimed at business or other markets so that professional users who could really gain from this won't have to encounter questions of the 'how does I shot web' variety. Also, find some way to embed it besides the x-posting to twitter, FB and LI. And why aren't you posting 'How can we make CrowdMind better?' as one of your featured questions, you silly-billies!?
Overall, excellent: simple but not shallow.
Do you plan to foster a community with certain features? Or are you looking for a broader range of people?
If you look at this page (http://alpha.crowdmind.com/decision/17_What_Is_The_Best_Java...) I'm the trusted advisor to the decision maker. So our ratings and scores are maintained separately and displayed in the box above.
Right now the site is open to a broad range of people. We are also considering allowing people to import their credibility from their blog, forums they are active in, etc.
The "get a bigger crowd" options are a really good idea.
However, the question/answer pages are rather crowded. A clearer seperation of elements would probably make it easier to see what's going on where. Also, the "Reason (intellect)" section has good functional elements for rating/feedback, but the "Attribute Ratings (feelings)" part doesn't. Why a drop down menu? That's an extra two clicks for every rating I want to give.
EDIT: And the "0" button for a 0 star rating doesn't feel intuitive and I don't see why it's even needed.
We will look into re-working the UI for Attribute rating, I do agree that its extra clicks for something simple.
The reason for the "0" is to give something 0 stars, because in the system 0 has a negative value vs. not entering anything. Not entering a rating means you may not know about it to rate it. a "0" star means its bad. But, I see your point about how that can be confusing.
I guess the actual options should be more prominent than the "feeling aspects" of said options.
