Welcome to Our New Web Site

(This announcement is reprinted from last week's issue, for the benefit of those who missed it then.)

If you've visited our web site during the past week you've probably noticed that... it looks different. Our web site has a new look, new structure, and new functionality that we hope will enable increased readership, more ways that we and our readers can make use of the site, and more enjoyment.

The biggest change to the site is an increased prominence devoted to how we present news and other current information. Previously, our home page had a box devoted to the Drug War Chronicle newsletter in the upper left-hand corner, presenting the top three articles, and with a link to read the latest issue of the newsletter. There was also a block in the right-hand column for "Latest News" links to recent articles in the mainstream media. Most of the page was devoted to the full text of items in the Speakeasy blog. The new home page presents teasers or summaries of the Speakeasy and Chronicle articles -- mostly including pictures now -- with links to read the full text of them. The Speakeasy is in the left-most column, and the Chronicle is in the middle.

Chronicle articles now come out on the site as they are written, as soon as possible after the news hits as we can manage. This reflects an increased emphasis we are giving to daily publishing, as opposed to weekly. The Chronicle column also includes links to the Latest News items (which we now call "Wire" or "Newswire"), as well as to our "In the Trenches" activist feed and other items, allowing all of the important types of content we publish to be highlighted prominently for our readers, as the content comes out, without making people go to all different parts of the page or site to see them. (Though see below for different links on the site to get information in ways similar to the old format.)

We have a featured item section at the top of the page, currently presenting one of the latest Chronicle features, but which will often display other content instead. The new web pages make it easier to submit or "like" items on Facebook, or to send them to Twitter, Digg, Reddit or Stumbleupon. You can now comment on Newswire stories (the links first take you to a page on our own site where we summarize the article, with a comment board and link to the article). And when there is really big news, our new, more compact Breaking News bar displays across all the pages on the site, not just the home page. The site also has a far more prominent signup form for our email list -- log on to your site account and it goes away.

This is the first stage of a multi-part upgrade and expansion of the site. The near- and medium-term future includes more new functionality, some important new content sections, and some additional graphic design work. We are also still working out some bugs and issues in the new design, so if you spot anything that doesn't seem to be working right, or which could be better, please let us know.

Some links and other information you can use to help make sure you can find the content you've gotten used to here:

• In addition to the home page feed, Drug War Chronicle stories display reverse-chronologically -- in full-text -- at http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle.
• We still publish weekly issues of the Chronicle, organizing the content that was published at the main page during the prior week. There is a link to the current issue near the top of the Chronicle main page, and soon we will have a permanent URL that always displays the current issue. (This week's URL, as you've probably seen here already, is http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/642.)
• If you liked being able to read the full text of Speakeasy articles on our home page, a bunch of them one after the other without having to click from one page to the next, you can still do that, on the Speakeasy's main page, http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy.
• Newswire links (formerly "Latest News"), in addition to displaying in the Chronicle's new column on the home page, also appear on their own at http://stopthedrugwar.org/wire.
• In The Trenches items, which also display in the Chronicle's new column, appear on their own at http://stopthedrugwar.org/trenches. (Note that some Trenches and Wire items only appear in those sections, not on the home page.)
• Event listings also display in the Chronicle column, but a nicer-looking calendar than we had before can be found at http://stopthedrugwar.org/events.
• All of our news content can be found aggregated together at http://stopthedrugwar.org/news.
• Last but not least, our donation form should be a lot easier to use. (The new form is mostly working now, but credit cards are temporarily offline -- hopefully for just another day or two -- while we sort out some issues with the new system. PayPal is set up in the meanwhile, which also offers a way to just use a credit card.)

Please make a generous donation to support the continued growth of StoptheDrugWar.org!

Sincerely,

David Borden, Executive Director
StoptheDrugWar.org
Washington, DC
http://stopthedrugwar.org