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Welcome to the Ink Exchange alpha site. This site was created to make the Kcat Ink Exchange System even easier, by allowing users to search for others with specific inks for trade, indicate whether or not they are actively trading, and more.

Please keep in mind that this site is currently in the alpha stage. This means that it is still being built, but it is together enough for a few intrepid souls to try things out and start giving feedback. These adventurous alpha testers are critical to helping me finish the site because they can help me spot trouble early, when it's easiest to fix.

If you would like to help out as an alpha tester, here are some things you should know:

• While the site is in alpha, there may be data loss at some point. I will try to keep this to a minimum, but it happens when everything is in flux like this. If you have your heart set on never having to re-create your account, profile, or other data, don't enter it until the site has gone stable, or at least beta.
• There are some known issues with the site. You should read the list before reporting any problems, and save me time by not reporting things that are already on the list.
• I've written a rough road map of where the site's development is going. You should read it before posting any feature requests.
• You can report issues or make feature requests by posting a comment to this page, where everyone can discuss what is brought up. If this becomes too unmanageable, I'll set up an issue queue.
• I would appreciate it if, at least during the alpha test, users would register here with the same user name they use on Fountain Pen Network. This will help reduce confusion if/when I can implement some kind of cross-site login with FPN.
• Data Entry -- Sometimes there are things we need to get into the site that must be cut-and-pasted or entered by hand. For example, the list of possible inks and their corresponding pages.

If you would like to help out with any of the following, please use my contact form to let me know.

• Documentation -- Typical documentation tasks include trying out different site features, then writing instructions so that others can learn them more easily, or writing help text for various forms and pages.
• Sample Graphics -- I'd like to eventually show samples of each ink as part of that ink's page. However, this will require someone to collect the scans from those willing to contribute them, make sure they are as uniform as possible, crop if needed, and match them to the inks they show.
• Descriptions -- Many of the inks and brands on this site lack descriptions. Help fleshing the individual ink and brand pages out is always appreciated.

Other things may come up as time wears on, but those are our current needs.