As of Thursday, February 10, we have switched to the new, upgraded version of Intercom.
Those who are visiting the Intercom website and just reading articles will notice very little that is different. The same topics will appear in the menu and they will be accessible in the same way -- some to every visitor, others only to logged-in visitors.
Looking more closely, site visitors will see the "contributed by" at the top of each story, directly under the title instead of at the bottom.
Those who enter the site to submit news will find quite a lot of changes. To begin with, "contribute a story" won't appear among the links at the top of the page. That link will appear in the "user functions" box at the left of the screen only after a visitor has logged in.
The first time you log in to submit news, you will need to spend some time to follow the new instructions and learn new patterns. We are confident that, once they become familiar, the new features of Intercom will provide welcome advantages.
One new feature of the site is that stories will not just accumulate endlessly into a perpetually deepening stack of pages. By default, every story will be "archived" after six months -- copied into the "archive" topic and removed from the main site pages. It will also be possible for the authors of stories to set earlier or later dates at which to archive their stories.
Another important new feature is that, in certain topics, users will be able to post stories directly to the website without waiting for Intercom staff to edit or approve the items. Currently, the topics with this feature will be Among Friends, Community Connections, Letters, and Carpooling.
Please feel free to explore the new features as soon as the new version of Intercom goes live and don't forget to post stories and comments to let us know your impressions and suggestions.
Contributed by Andrejs Ozolins
