Developed a structured discussion platform where users assert, debate, and verify claims

Dalton Enterprises set out to build WikiCheck — a community platform where members can connect around shared interests, post assertions, and engage through substantiation, refutation, and upvoting across a wide range of topics.

Their goal was to launch an MVP that validated the platform's core concept, with a feature set that was functional enough to attract early adopters and generate real feedback for future development.

• No existing platform to support structured assertion, refutation, and substantiation workflows
• Community moderation tools were absent, leaving content quality and safety unaddressed
• Topic management required a flexible, user-driven system with admin oversight and approval controls
• User engagement features — upvoting, following, notifications — needed to be built from scratch
• Admin visibility into user activity, content flags, and community analytics did not exist

1. Start with the MVP, not the full vision

We scoped the initial build around the core user journeys — assertion posting, substantiation, refutation, and upvoting — to get a working product to market quickly and learn from real usage before expanding.

2. Design for two distinct user types

The platform needed to serve community members and administrators differently. We built separate application and admin portal experiences from the ground up, each with its own feature set and access controls.

3. Build security into the architecture from the start

With user-generated content and community moderation at the core, we incorporated industry-standard security practices and role-based permissions throughout the platform — not as an afterthought.

4. Agile delivery with regular client touchpoints

We worked in two-week sprints using Basecamp for client communication and JIRA for internal task management, sharing progress reports at each milestone and conducting UAT before go-live sign-off.

User Application

• User authentication with email/password login, remember-me, and logout
• Profile management with avatar upload and following/follower controls
• Assertion creation, substantiation, refutation, and upvoting within topic sections
• Topic subscription, unsubscription, and stat visibility (followers, activity)
• Content reporting for posts that violate community guidelines
• In-app notifications for new assertions, substantiations, refutations, and upvotes

Topic & Content Management

• User-initiated topic creation requests with admin approval workflow
• Topic rules and guidelines surfaced via in-page links
• Homepage feed showing popular and new content across all topics
• Search functionality across content and topic pages

Admin Portal

• User account management with create, edit, delete, ban, and suspend controls
• Content moderation tools — remove, flag as spam, mark as inappropriate or misleading
• Topic approval and unapproval controls with community guideline enforcement
• Basic analytics and reporting: user counts, topic page counts, activity views

Dalton Enterprises launched WikiCheck as a structured, moderated platform for community debate — with all core assertion, refutation, and upvoting workflows operational from day one. The MVP gave them a working product to validate with early adopters and a clean foundation to build on.

Business Impact

• Launched a fully functional community debate platform from scratch
• Structured assertion and refutation workflows live across all topics
• Admin moderation tools in place to manage content quality from launch
• User engagement features — notifications, upvotes, following — operational at go-live
• Scalable MERN architecture ready for post-MVP feature expansion