RECORD OF UPDATES

Justin Raines, the webmaster, maintains these records of the changes he has made to the appearance and functionality of Virtual Citizens.

 

(18-21 September 2007 - NOT TECHNICALLY AN UPDATE): I posted this message under Announcement to clarify any misunderstanding:

Since about 3 am Tuesday, 18 September 2007, an email spammer(s) has been aggressively spoofing email addresses from Virtual Citizens. I found out our domain was being spoofed when I received over five hundred returned emails in the last 18 hours (and they’re still coming!) from delivery-failed automated systems and spam-blocking software. Such tools, however, will only block a fraction of the emails actually sent, indicating that thousands or more emails actually did get to users.

Spoofing emails involves faking the “From:” and “Reply-to:” headers in emails, so emails in this case will appear to come from [someone] @ virtualcitizens.com.

If you received one of these emails and decided to visit Virtual Citizens, please understand that Virtual Citizens does not condone or conduct spamming campaigns.

Virtual Citizens is a political news and commentary website committed to the advancement of democracy, human rights, government restraint and above all, reason.

Virtual Citizens is free and articles are available for reproduction.

- Justin

Update (11 pm Thursday, 19 September): The spamming problem has gotten worse, and in the last 24 hours since posting the update last night I have received another 1764 returned emails, placing the total so far well over 2000. Consequently, if you're wanting to email me hold off a couple of days. I'm going to set up a seperate catch-all because right now any email is getting lost in the return notices. John's email is still working fine.

I hope this ends soon.

Update (4 pm Friday, 21 September): The spamming problem has subsided and I will move the announcement to the Updates page in a day.

(March 2007): Virtual Citizens site layout completely redone. This also makes many updates below (* denotes) noted more difficult to view because the style sheet is no longer attached. Old Virtual Citizens layout can be found here (minimally functional).

(November 2006 - January 2007): Slight changes to design and added functionality.

(Tuesday, 28 November, 2006): Images in all articles changed to absolute locations from relative ones (i.e. src="pictures/logo_small.jpg" to src="http://www.virtualcitizens.com/pictures/logo_small.jpg") . A dynamic article count was also added to all archive categories.

(Monday, 27 November, 2006): Revising URLs for "search-engine friendlines" complete. URLs addressed to article.php with GET information after a "?" are now addressed to articles (no file extension). Information passed in the url now falls after a "/". Older URLs will continue to work. The same right, navigation bar is now being used for the home page.

(Saturday, 24 November, 2006): Begin revising URLs for "search-engine friendlines".

(Tuesday, 21 November, 2006): Finish revision of comment, feedback and "share with friend" forms.

(Sunday, 19 November, 2006): Begin revision of comment, feedback and "share with friend" forms.

(Sunday, 19 November, 2006): Completed including right-aligned navigation-bar, which leaves little need for a sitemap, so it has been removed. The list links at the top of all pages has also been shortened, and the update records has replaced the sitemap. Visits to http://www.virtualcitizens.com/sitemap.php will now redirect to this page.

(Friday, 17 November, 2006): Begin adding right-aligned navigation-bar to all pages.

(Wednesday, 16 November, 2006): New logo for syndication form added and default values changed.

(Sunday, 13 November, 2006): Link to Halloween layout on front page taken down.

(Sunday, 13 November, 2006): Event information for "Immigrant Women" taken down.

(Wednesday, 8 November, 2006): With the 2006 election over, Kinky Friedman advertisements removed (see below).

(Monday, 6 November, 2006): Announcement for "Immigrant Women" added. It will be moved higher after the election.

(Friday, 3 November, 2006): On a lark, Digg.com submission integrated into all articles.

(Tuesday, 31 October, 2006): Halloween themed index page implemented. For those who missed the occasion, click here. Happy Halloween!

(Saturday, 21 October 2006): Sitewide conversion to CSS complete.

(Friday, 20 October 2006): CSS conversion of index page complete. Tables version available here (index page only).

 

(Monday, 16 October 2006): Begin revision of site: Convert tables to CSS.

(Thursday, 12 October 2006): Virtual Citizens endorses Kinky Friedman for Texas Governor.

(Thursday, 12 October 2006): Sitemap complete.

(Wednesday, 11 October 2006): Redesign of front page complete. The size of the banner on all other pages were also reduced. Click here for a cached version Google created on Sunday, 8 October 2006.

(Monday, 09 October 2006) Begin revision of front page for faster loading.

 

(Saturday, 07 October 2006) Horizontal rule under rights statement removed on articles display page. Most resent articles also added to left margin.

(Friday, 06 October 2006) "Feedback" and "Comment" links moved from the top of articles pages to directly under the title/author/VirtualCitizens.com/date block. This has no effect on functionality, but improves usability for people with small resolution settings.

(Monday, 02 October 2006) Record of Updates created.

(Sunday, 01 October 2006) Comment feature added to articles.

(Sunday, 24 September 2006) In an effort to make the syndication of Virtual Citizens articles simpler, we are now providing an alternative to our RSS Feed. We will continue to provide our RSS as well. This service is free, so click here for more info.

(Monday, 4 September 2006) "Friends" link-exchange list added to Virtual Citizens.

(Friday, 1 September 2006) Virtual Citizens switched to a content management system. Our old Original Media page is still available so people who have it bookmarked can update their links, but the content has not been updated since Thursday, 31 August, 2006. Click here to visit our new Original Media page.

(Friday, 1 September 2006) Virtual Citizens switched to a content management system. Our old Categorical Archives page is still available so people who have it bookmarked can update their links, but the content has not been updated since Thursday, 31 August, 2006. Click here to visit our new Categorical Archives page.

(Tuesday, 4 July 2006) Virtual Citizens came online.

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Layout, style sheets, scripting and graphic design by Justin Raines