Welcome to 2016 !! We hope you had a wonderful 2015 and we look forward to making 2016 a worthwhile one as you visit Lusakatimes.com
As the year starts, we would like to just highlight a few things:
Technology
In 2015 we introduced a whole host of new technological changes to the site when we made a decision not to support old browsers anymore and moved the site from the insecure http to the secure https. This process led to a loss of revenue and a big section of our audience. We have however, noticed that lately people are now upgrading to new browsers and the numbers are getting back to the levels we had prior to August when we made the changes.
The new changes enabled us to push more content to your browser at a much faster speed and we are pleased with the results thus far and continue to push for the 3 seconds mark per request. We are currently sitting at 6 seconds to load a page.
LT Best Blogger
LT Best “Blogger” 2015 Award to be Announced on Friday 8th January,2016.
As we have mentioned in the past, Comments is what drives this site. News you get here can be found elsewhere, but the comments and user engagement remain unique to this site and it is what makes people come back to this site again and again.
This year we want to honor the people that have been the driver of the comments section from the time we started keeping the records in 2007.
On Friday we shall publish the top five people that have posted the most comments on Lusaka Times and list the exact number of comments they have posted since 2007 when we started keeping the record. No doubt, a lot of people change IDs they use for posting, but this award will go to those that have maintained the same ID over the years. It is the only practical way to deal with this.
Going forward we shall look at giving an award to the person who posts the most comments and also the person who receives the most ‘up’ votes.
Comments Moderations and Flags
We have addressed this issue before, but looks like it is worth addressing as we continue to get new people visiting the site and posting comments.
The Flag does not necessary represent your location. Internet Traffic travel through a lot of gateways before it arrives at Lusaka Times website.
None of the comments you post on the site are censored by a human being. However, if you use the banned vulgar words the system will take care of your views and throw them into the trash bin and we shall lose the good parts of your contribution. Sometimes the system is kind enough to keep your comments in moderation and when the editors get to them, they will manually publish them or discard them based on their content, appropriate or inappropriate.
FAQs on comments
Why is LT blocking my comments?
Comments are sometimes held up automatically by our system for the following reasons
Our system mistakes you for a BOT
Your comment contains some words that have been blacklisted ie.offensive/vulgar words
You have posted many offensive comments in the past and your comments are being moderated
How long will it take for my comments to appear if they are held up for moderation
Comments held up for moderation are reposted on the site within 24hours
Coverage
We actually have some values! From time to time people mistake us for belonging to this group or that group, but we don’t and we thought we would share some of our values with you.
First, we place a huge responsibility on the LT team to focus on facts and truth. We deliberately avoid speculation and fancy and sensational reporting. There are a lot other sites that do that. We want to slowly, but surely build an institution and brand that will last many many years to come, even 100 years when we are long gone. No institution can last 100 of years if it is not founded on truth, justice and fairness in its dealings. Our model is premised on these five common core values:
1. Accuracy
2. Independence
3. Freedom from bias
4. Integrity
5. Reporting from the Internet(We shall NEVER have a printed paper)
In short we strive to be fair to all sides.
Secondly, we again deliberately avoid speculative or investigative journalism, unless we can back it up with solid evidence of audio, video or paper evidence with quoted sources. Speed of reporting facts is good enough for us. We have no political agenda of any sort. We don’t side with ruling or opposition party. Neither do we take funding from either sides. All are welcome to send us articles.
Thirdly, we avoid at all cost injecting our opinions into stories. We avoid labeling people we are reporting about like thieving politician, fool, rapists, wife beater , PF thugs, UPND thugs, MMD thugs, etc. We let our readers form their own opinion. They are intelligent enough. Our job is to give our readers facts so they can accurately think and form opinions. We deliberately avoid quoting unknown sources or some secret source or impeccable source, we leave that to the other papers that do that. We would rather go with a reaction from the person affected by the speculation.
Lastly, this platform is open to all.Whether you are a fisherman, secondary school pupil,bus conductor,politician,academic etc we value all your views and will gladly publish your article. At no point have we rejected any article sent to us based on difference of opinion. We cover/publish them all, albeit sometimes late because the queue can be long at times. From time to time one party sends in more stories than other parties and this may give the impression of bias.We encourage everyone to send in stories.However, the articles must be informative,of interest to our audience and comply with our values.
LT
Always professional and above board in the news market. Bravo LT!
Ok twaumfwa nomba, try to change the paradigm of your system always witholding comments made in our local languages. Even IT systes are discriminatory on our languages, ninshi what chance do we have of saving our languages. this is a challege for your IT specialists.
Keep it up Lusaka times, you are the best. here is my top ten since I am an addicted blogger, (1) Lusaka times-Zambia (2)Monitor-Uganda (3) Nyasa times- Malawi (4) Daily nation- Kenya (5) The Citizen- Tanzania (6)Sunday express- Lesotho(7) New era-Namibia(8) The sun- Botswana(9) Swazi times- Swaziland (10) The Herald-Zimbabwe.
….atleast… compared to other online publications, LT site seem to be fairand mature though at time traces of biasness towards the ruling party can be seen (though not so distinctive as we see on other sites)
….I only find it difficult and time consuming to locate a comment since you do not number them anymore….a friend would ring me and ask me to read a particular comment on a certain article…if there are 78 comments to locate the very comment takes time compared to your previous design were I would just be given the number….
…another query….why do u consider words like R.A.P.E, f00l, S.E.X to be vulgar words..??
Continue with the https protocol, I wouldn’t want to be tracked by Chinese Malware bought by government to track users/readers/bloggers. Privacy is vital!
Happy new year too to LT. This site has been so educative to me as I have read so many stories and the comments bloggers have been making are really awesome. Keep it up LT as we start yet another journey. Thumbs up!!!!
Keep up the good work Lusaka Times as some of us do identify with your core values! I personally believe you are independent and I think politicians from both sides of the aisle do access your site to get a balanced view of issues. You certainly do not seem to have any hidden agenda! You will always get support from Zambians like me who value honesty,integrity, even handedness and objectivity!
Keep it up and happy new year LT.
Keep up your good works LT. Be as balanced as possible in your reporting unlike what we see on other sites that are one sided. Some sites do not even allow bloggers with views different from what they promote. Here they are views from every of course most insults are filtered out.
Also interact with readers on Twitter (Retweets, replying etc) or Facebook once in while, Lusaka Times feels like a bot posting links sometimes. I hope you know what am trying to say.
Ok, nice to hear.
LT, Happy new year to you too.
I have noticed that in your detailed comments above you have deliberately avoided to comment on your grammatical errors and the frequent incorrect spellings of some words. Are you going to jack-up on proof-reading and editing? Other than this I think LT you are doing well.
Comment:Thanks LT for the balanced reporting, indeed we get divergent views on this platform, somewhere else…..
so one sided!
Do something about Sunday Message and replace it with messages that promote African consciousness, African proverbs etc
So far so good, especially when compared with the decidedly biased (and often times pathetic) covereage offered our so called “public media!” This year’s elections are a referendum on whether we will continue to wander around aimlessly as a nation, or finally seize the various opportunities in front of us, in that regard balanced coverage such as yours will play a critical role in disseminating truthful information to the nation, we can’t be fed with propaganda 24/7! Bravo & wishing you all the best in 2016, Lesa alemona…
Compliments of the season LT and happy 2016; there you are; you gain a lot by being neutral and reporting facts. Soon you will be a leading organisation creating jobs. Congratulations.
Thanks LT and welcome to 2016 as well!
I have been wondering; who really do you refer to when you say ‘blogger’? Is this term a ‘loose’ LT term for all the people who are ‘posting comments’ on this site or there is something I have missed over the past years?
I also question the wisdom of honouring people who posted the ‘most comments’. You can publish their names but let the readers give them the thumbs up or down, and then honour the ones that will crossed the 50% + 1 threshold! ( The only downside is that after being honoured they quickly ‘degenerate’ as can be seen with what has happened to one Mushota!)
Please also seriously consider The London Eye’s ‘view’ on proof-reading and editing, some of us are HURT by bad spelling and grammar!
Otherwise yours is a…
brilliant effort and that’s why we keep coming back..!
*..will have crossed the 50% + 1… (Editing and correction!)
The only forum I make comments on…..mainly because at most times, there is a fairly mature and tolerant attitude towards divergent views. There will always be ‘hot heads’ who have very little regard or respect for opposing viewpoints. Thanks for the space, LT
Apart from some grammatical errors in some articles, you have been awesome. You provide us with a platform on which we can freely express opinions. I love it when a comment I have put here is quoted by a politician or some opinion maker. Goes to show how wide our interacting is & how we are all participating in the governance of our country. Bravo! Keep it up!
With dual citizenship, comments and interactions will gradually rise above race just as the Copperbelt province gradually rose above tribal inclinations. Freedom is a virtue. The Sunday Message supports this virtue and reminds us who our Creator is.
Of course some will feel that ‘things are falling apart’ and will continue to oppose the new dispensation. That’s part of the freedom.
EXCELLENT LT YOU MAKE OUR LIFE EASY WE CAN READ AND RESPOND TO ISSUES THERE AND THEN.
I M SURE EVEN GOVT HAS BEEN BENEFITTING FROM POSITIVE CRITICISMS, OF CAUSE NOT FROM THOSE INSULTS WE READ SOMETIMES FULL OF HATRED.
HAPPY NEEEW YEAR ZED
@ jkalusa. Happy new year to you too without any anger! Why are you beginning the year with so much anger?
Happy new year to all LT readers! May the new year bring you good health.