Remember when we voted in Charitocracy's Top 10 for September? If it feels like forever ago, that's because it's been almost a whole week. I'm happy to say there's no crisis that needs your attention. Everything is running smoothly. If you take no action, we'll narrow the field down to the Top 3 tomorrow night, and the world will keep spinning.

But if you feel restless, I encourage you to do  5  3 things to calm yourself at <redacted>:

1. Reconsider your vote, especially if it's still set to a non-Top-10 cause. This way your vote will still count when we tally the Top 3 tomorrow. You can set it right back to your favorite cause on October 1 when the full field opens back up. Or if it's looking like your favorite Top 10 cause isn't going to get the votes, now would be a good time to try to boost another cause into the Top 3!
2. Write a comment on the discussion thread of your vote recipient to let others know why you're picking it, in case it helps them decide. It can be short and sweet. Maybe you volunteer for this cause, or have been personally touched by it somehow. Maybe you're choosing it in honor of a friend or family member. Your testimonial could persuade others! Even if your favorite cause isn't still a contender for September, your messages will help attract voters next month!
3. Supply an avatar if you haven't so discussion thread readers can put a face (even a fake face) to your name (even if it's a fake name). Just click on the default avatar an it will bring you to the profile photo upload page.

For once I'm not coding things up to the last minute, since it turns out that narrowing down to the Top 3 causes is a lot like narrowing down to the Top 10. Instead I'm focusing on important details, like having your email notifications call you Steven & Maggie instead of Steven &amp; Maggie. This is important stuff. The bugs I'm killing off have nasty, big, pointy teeth!

Things are going pretty great. We've hit a few milestones since last post:

• We crossed the 40 donor mark.
• The September pot crossed the $200 mark.
• Total donations crossed the $2000 mark.
• We crossed the 2 week mark, and selected our first Top 10!

Some new things you'll notice on Charitocracy when you next log in:

• The donor map has a lot more pins, including our first mid-western (Colorado) donors! <3
• The Dashboard tells us when the next phase will commence (e.g. Top 3 selection in 6 days).
• Only Top 10 causes can receive votes this week, and only Top 3 starting next Thursday. If a cause you voted for (including one you nominated) didn't make the cut, you're free to revote at any time now.
• There are handy icons next to the cause names to make it easy to eyeball causes that you've nominated, voted for, liked, and commented on, as well as ones that have been updated since you last checked, and ones that didn't make the cut and so can't receive votes at this time.

But the most important thing I'd like to draw attention to right now is your profile pictures, or the lack thereof. I'd like to see some discussion pick up in the forum, with nominators and other supporters of causes cheerleading and trying to attract more votes. I think this is more likely to happen if we can "see" each other, instead of a sea of generic avatars. To this end, I've turned your profile pictures into animated GIFs that gently nag you to click them and upload a photo. This is super easy to do from your phone, whether you want to take a fresh selfie, upload a screenshot you took of something on the web, or whatever avatar reflects your mood.

We narrow down to the Top 3 in less than a week, so nominators, start your hype machines! And maybe we can push that pot up to $250?!

When we were low on nominees a week ago, you came through with flying colors, resulting in 15 great causes, many of which were new to me. In 18 short days, one of them will win Charitocracy's first ever pot. But we need your help.

I don't mean to sound the alarm bells again, but our latest "crisis" is too few distinguishing votes! 2 days from now, Charitocracy will narrow the causes eligible to win this month from 15 down to the top 10. Number of votes is the top criteria, and then ties are first broken by the number of voters. For example, a cause with 5 votes from 5 donors will be ranked behind a cause that receives 10 half-votes from 10 donors, rewarding  the cause with a broader base of support. Then if there's still a tie, a cause with more likes will win.

The problem is, thanks to the urgency during this first month to nominate causes, we have many causes with a single vote -- the vote automatically cast by the nominator -- which cannot be changed until October. So we need a bunch of non-nominators to get in there and shake up the votes! Right now we have 5 causes that have nicely separated themselves from the pack, but we have no way of distinguishing the other 5 we need for the top 10.

If you've already nominated a cause this month, thank you, your work here is done until October. If you've already voted for causes nominated by others, you're welcome to revote as often as you like, and even split your vote among up to 5 causes, but you've already helped select our top 10, so thank you, too! If you haven't signed up yet, or you signed up but didn't vote yet, we need your help! By the end of the day Wednesday we need to have enough votes that we can name the top 10 without there being a 10-way tie...