Trial Period For Sovereignty Main Page

This also means that we are getting information posted on a wider variety of topics. While that makes the site more interesting and diverse, it also means that our very specific activist mission and vision can sometimes seem buried. Every time someone posts an article, and an editor approves it (as we do for the vast majority of information on the site), it goes into a specific topic (eg Environment, Labour, The Border). If you click on the topic in the topic menu at left, you can see all the articles in that topic, starting with the most recent. The editors also always have a choice whether or not to show each article on the main page. When we first started out, almost everything went both in the topic and on the main page. But with so many stories being posted, it's making less sense to keep doing this. Remember, the main page is a section of it's own so everything posted there is therefore archived twice, in two different sections. As you can see, the main page section is now huge. We've held a site poll on this and the governing board has voted on it, and in order to give more structure and topicality to the main page, what we're going to do is make it policy to put only articles that have the most to do with our mission and vision (ie Canadian sovereignty, democracy, our columnists) on the main page. All articles in other topics will still be posted--just not to the main page. And remember, we have always done this to some extent, as we have stated in the FAQ. But we are going to do this on a trial basis, to be reassessed at the next board meeting (January), and we are going to provide a poll allowing you to express whether or not you like the new format as it becomes more obvious how it's working. The editors will also be seeing how they feel about it. Meanwhile, we are also looking into methods of global moderation--or allowing you to add "karma" or rankings to posts, meaning that the ones everyone judges useful will rise to the top, and possibly the main page, and those that don't won't be visible (it's basically troll poison). However, this is still only in the theoretical phase and we have to determine whether or not it will work. Lastly, I want to say once again that this is your site, and we aren't interested in censorship, ie not posting articles just because we disagree with them. All the same articles will still be posted, but prominence will be given to things that are on topic. If you want to see what new articles have been posted, see the "What's New" box, which makes it easy to view any new articles, comments, or links. And if you want your piece on the front page, make it topical, important, interesting--vital to Vive--and it will appear there. Check out pages like the FAQ, Why Vive le Canada, the mission, about, and the backgrounders to find out what we're looking for; and take a look in the Sovreignty Watch and The Border section for some good examples. Or check out http://www.notacolony.ca. Something on the environment will still fit on the main page if it talks about the environment and Canadian sovereignty. If your article still doesn't appear on the main page and you think it should, you can always appeal to the editors personally--if you make a strong case, we are always willing to reconsider. The editors are volunteers who spend a lot of time working on the site and are committed to the site's mission and vision and are there to keep things spam free, on topic and as fair as possible. By sharing editing duties we are limiting the influence one person's bias may create, and we are always looking for more editors to lighten the load. But we are also a site, and an organization, with a very specific activist mission and vision, and we need to make sure the site is still serving that larger reason for being. Thanks for your support through this trial, and Vive le Canada! This country is not for sale. Susan Thompson and Dr Caleb