Colorado Independent Media Center

Hey IMCistas,

There have been quite a few changes to the site recently that should make it better. Here's what's been going on behind the scenes at Colorado Indymedia.

1. New Ways To Upload Images
If you've ever tried to upload more than one image to your stories on indymedia or make an image gallery, you know how hard it is. Those days are over. After installing some plug-ins, uploading multiple images is really easy. Just write your story like you normally do and then go down to "node images", which is right below the video uploader. Add as many images as you want there and then the images will automatically display in your story. There will also be a gallery link at the bottom of your story. If your story is promoted to the front page, a thumbnail of the first image you uploaded will be displayed in the story teaser. You also no longer need to worry about how large your images are because they display as thumbnails in your story. When people click them, they get the full image in a separate window. Anonymous people can use this as well.

2. Rating System
You can now rate stories with the rating stars in the teasers and at the bottom of the posts. Eventually, stories will be automatically promoted to the front page if they get high enough ratings. Anonymous people can rate.

3. New Privacy Policy
There is a new privacy policy available at http://colorado.indymedia.org/node/550 which tells you what information we collect and how we use it. As always, you should be proactive about your privacy instead of relying on us, Comcast, AT&T, and everybody in-between to keep your data safe. Check out Tor if you're interested.

4. Housekeeping
The site should be simpler as the excess forms, links, etc. have been removed. We've also added the indymedia.us newswire to the columns on the right, so there's no need to cross-post.

5. Spam : (
Unfortunately, spammers seem to have beaten our CAPTCHA system again. The damage has been cleaned up and the system has been tightened up a bit. This might seem annoying at first, but the good news is that every time you solve a captcha (the thing where it asks you to type a word to verify you're not a spammer), you help digitize books into the largest digital archive on the planet! For more information, check out http://www.recaptcha.net. To see what all this digitizing is going to, check out The Internet Archive.

6. Editorial Policy
What determines what goes on the front page? Right now, it's whether the editors like it or not. Unfortunately, it isn't very democratic so we're trying to open up the editing process. If you have an idea for what criteria a story should meet to be promoted to the front page, please send it to ringo aaat coimc dottt org. Eventually, users will be able to vote stories on to the front page, but right now the best thing to do is to come up with an editorial policy.

As always, the site isn't pefect. If you are having trouble with the site, something doesn't look right, or stuff is just downright confusing then send an email to ringo aaaat coimc dottt org.

be the media!