Thursday, March 28, 2024

LT Update

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This year marks the 10th year that this website has been serving content to the visitors, whom we consider to be the main supporters the site since re-branding in January 2007. The first post was made on the 6th of January. It was not until 22nd January 2007 at 11:42 AM that the first comment was posted, and it was not by the usual suspects. The first person to post a comment was one with a screen name called Bena Ndola on this story click here. Since then, we have been very faithful in preserving every story and every valid and legitimate comment that has been posted on Lusakatimes.

To continue preserving the content and comments for the next 10, 20, 30 years and beyond, we will be making non-visible major changes to the backend systems of our website over the weekend. Over the last 10 years, we have accumulated a lot of technological artifacts that have become relics and need to be expunged from the site. As a matter of fact we have been working on improving some backend systems without having to take the site offline, and this explains some of the high latency that you have experienced on the site lately, especially during this week. Latency has been extremely high and we sincerely apologise for the pain and inconvenience caused, without prior warning.

Some of you must have noticed that the accuracy of the flag detection engine has improved. It indeed has grown from a paltry probability score of 0.23 to a more sensible current score of 0.76. You can safely bet that the flags shown against a person posting a comment is now 76% accurate and we shall continue to work on that to get to the famous five nines in accuracy.

Expect intermittent site availability over the weekend and the situation could get worse between the hours of 21:00 and 04:00 ZMT . During this period, there is a high probability of valid and legitimate comments posted getting lost, forever.

As with all things major, we expect teething problems to last for another week before we can be back to 100% normality. Once we have reached normality, we will post a new update. We hope to share the emerging challenges in keeping this site available and share some parts of our plan for the next 10 years. Yes, we will include in our next 10 years plan, a strategy to aggressively address the legendary and well documented appalling language quality in a lot of the content that is published, tweeted and indexed. We could win an award for this!

Once again, we apologise for the inconvenience caused, and from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for the support you have rendered to lusakatimes.com over the last 10 years by  either coming to the website to read content and  post comment on issues or sending us content to publish.  We are very grateful for this.

Team LT

25 COMMENTS

    • Well done Lusakatimes, you and I have come a long way.

      There is a lot of wannabe’s of course and thank you for perpetually having back

      You do know you still owe me $200 right?

      Thanks

      BB2014,2016

    • I wish you come back even better. Now that we are losing space on MSM we hope to have alternative media where we can still interact without fear of Big Brother. I shall endeavour to remain objective in my comments but I request that you enhance your privacy protection so that I’m not abused by people who may not like my comments. Thanks again.

    • I just located my first post on here and it was 27 December 2007

      I am not doing too badly then

      Thanks

      BB2014,2016

    • thanks LT for being candid in your weaknesses but I must admit, I think its the only social media website for Zambia I am comfortable with. at least we interact although you should really improve on clamping on those who think they own LT and those who insult others with no breaks. I would really love to see LT advising on a train of postings.

  1. ONE THING I LIKE ABOUT LT IS THAT WITH EVERY POST YOU SUBMIT TO LT YOU ARE SURETHAT IT WILL BE PUBLISHED.
    HOWEVER, LT SHOULD IMPROVE ON THEIR SCREENING OF UNPALATABLE POSTS. PEOPLE INSULTING THE PRESIDENT AND OTHER POLITICIANS DOWN TO THEIR PANTS MUST HAVE THEIR POSTS THROWN OUT. ALSO, LT DOES NOT SEEM TO BE BIASED.. IT IS BALANCED. WHICH IS GOOD.

  2. PEOPLE LIKE NEZ AND OTHER INSULTING BLOGGERS WHO SYMPATHIZE WITH PF MUST ALSO HAVE THEIR POSTS RESTRICTED ON LT.

  3. am greatly humbled to be the first person to post a comment on LT.
    it was quite fun how I came across to this site.
    how I wish I used my real name.
    but it’s best we leaves things the way they are.

    • Are you sure you’re even saying the truth that you’re the real “Bena Ndola” or you’ve just posted this comment with that name ?

  4. Chisenga go and kiss a live wire. Without me this useless site doesn’t get the traffic it needs to survive. Mind you I won blogger of the year but Lusaka times who are pf thugs couldn’t stand having a upnd supporter win the title so they cooked up figures. There is a reason why I am best blogger and you lot are not. Have some respect.
    Nez
    Blogging live from the United kingdom on business holiday

  5. Somehow the flag inaccuracy keeps or makes us feel protected. When fereedom of speech seems stifled in the country, we come to LT.. Keep us protected, keep us talking.

  6. Congrats Lusaka times for cloaking 10 years. We love you and please continue protecting our privacy for purposes of upholding freedom of expression. Enjoy the day!

  7. I must say you have done great work in publishing unbiased news and please continue otherwise it will affect your readership.Your other strength is that unlike other publications you update your content often during the day and i visit the site maybe ten times a day to check on updates on news and am never disappointed .Great work and please only get better .Consider in depth news of other issues though .In your business section kindly have such news as for instance aggregate retail sales ,if consumers are buying more or less ,cover random things such as the biggest businesses by market share ,revenue etc .Expand on your news as the problem is its widely centered on politics and most of us are tired of that .thanks once more .If you allow contributors you can let us know as am sure a lot…

  8. Your service is much appreciated; and thank you for noting our concerns about some bloggers and use of language.

  9. congrats but please do not select in your reporting as sometimes you tend to favour one side; we would like fair reporting regardless of who or what party.

  10. Congrats LT for clocking ten years! Keep up the good work. I started blogging about 5 years ago under a name which someone picked up, hence I changed to this one.
    As has been mentioned, please filter the people with dictionaries of insults, both from opposition and ruling parties. Also ensure that you pay your taxes so that you do not suffer the same fate like benango. No one should have an excuse of banning you. Once more all the best.

    Tili together tight mpaka kumanda.

  11. Have been avoiding your site of late because of vulgar language from certain microscopic brained under developed men and women. I hope you will convince us that you are distinguished and honourable people, able to differentiate right from wrong by withholding unpalatable language from publicity, and not just indiscriminately offloading everything to the public in the name of the right to freedom of expression. Be firm though, truthful , sincere and neutral . By and large ,you have our gratitude for having kept us in the loop about all events happening in our beloved Zambia. Keep talking!

  12. Kudos to LT for being a versatile news site second to none in Zambia. I am impressed with three things: Real time news casting (though this can improve further), voting on opinions and privacy of bloggers. On the other hand I have noticed certain bloggers receive populated voting within a very short time one wonders if it is a true tallying. Otherwise keep it up and be an internationally reputed site.

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