Rhea, in many ways, is like a newsgroup that some of my other classes have. The main difference being:
1. TAs and Professors respond to newsgroups while Rhea is entirely student run.
2. Participation is required and a grade is given based on making at least one post each week.
These two differences, especially the first, made Rhea much less useful than a newsgroup. The biggest problem is the lack of reliability using Rhea. If you ask a question, you really can't expect a prompt and/or correct answer of any sort. As a result, there's really not much point in posting a question on Rhea. If for example, Professor Uli where to check and answer Rhea questions once a week, the project would certainly become more valued. Having a person of authority on rhea would also attract students to actually read/post on Rhea without the participation requirement as it would then be a legitimate source of information instead of a collection of random thoughts.
I do believe Rhea is a good idea; but drastic changes are required for it to be actually effective.
~ Yu Suo
