[kcindymedia announcements] Website updates

[Chuck]

Stefani B. contacted me a few days before Christmas about a spam problem 
with the KC Indymedia website. Stefani runs the server in Seattle which 
hosts our website. The spam problem was pretty bad, so Stefani gave me 
access to a special database tool. I've spent around 4-5 hours in the 
past week deleting spams from the database. There were over 2000 spams 
for gambling and viagra websites. Most of them are gone, but we are 
still getting a few each day.

What mystifies me is that nobody complained about this problem!

Anybody who has "editor" or "admin" access to the website can delete 
spam. It would be good if we can make this a collective responsibility. 
If people don't remember how to delete records from the database, we can 
go over this at our next meeting.

The spam problem is pretty minor (compared to what I deal with on my 
websites), but we should check to see if a new version of the dadaIMC 
software is available and if it has anti-spam tools.

In other news, I activated a special "events" box that highlights 
upcoming meetings, protests and events. This is modeled on what the 
folks at the Chicago IMC have set up on their website. This will 
hopefully be a good way to highlight local events. People have suggested 
that we add an events calendar. We could add an interactive calendar 
like the website used to have which would allow people to submit more 
events than can be featured in the special section.

The special events section was created using the "razorwire" feature of 
the software. This tool is listed among the other options when you are 
logged in as an editor or admin. You can edit the current "events" wire. 
One tip: you don't have to add HTML codes for breaks between lines as 
long as you hit the "enter" key between lines.

The razorwire feature was originally designed for IMCs to feature 
breaking news by the minute during large protests.

See you all soon. Happy New Year!

Chuck