From Desk of Tracy Bond It is hard to believe that it has been almost a month since I have written my first newsletter. So much has changed. The site is changing almost every day. Let me give you a quick rundown of some of the most exciting features. The Long Poem module was introduced. It is also called a progressive poem or a serial poem. The basic premise is that every Starliter has the option of creating a poem that is added to by other poets. Each poet can add four lines to the poem building on the previous storyline based on the criteria set by the moderator. . Depending on the moderator setting, it is open to all of starlite or to just the moderator's friends. If you havent checked it out yet, open up your own long poem.

You will also see pictures of your recent visitors has been added to the public homepage. This feature allows you to see your visitors and if desired the ability to return the visit. This goes hand in hand with the promote a poem feature. Each poet has the abiity to promote a single poem. This is selected via the Post-Comment menu just like the bookmarks. After a selection, the poem is proudly presented to all visitors as a great poem on your homepage. You can see all the currently promoted poems from your private homepage.

Another big hit has been the introduce yourself category and long running challenge. This has been a great way for poets to introduce themselves to each other. We expect this challenge will continue indefinitely. If you add your poem to the introduce yourself category, then it will appear on the site's front page.

You may have seen the 5 Star Rating System on the poems and comments. This system allows readers to give a rating to each poem that they read. The highest ranked poems are entered into the news feed and on the front page to give the poem more popularity. I have been very pleased with the acceptance and the quality of the poetry being selected.

Another area of improvement, I have had the Manage Notifications enhanced to allow a reader to request notifications whenever a challenge goes to voting regardless of whether they had a poem submitted in the challenge or not. Also, there is an option in Manage Notifications to notify you when there is a new Newsletter. While you are there, please check all your notifications. You can select to have an email note sent to you for each poem posted (when you want to know quickly) or a combined email note at the end of the day,

The biggest up and coming change is the new authentication system. The old security system is being replaced. It is a huge effort. Everyone will need to enter their new userid and password into the new system. All processes that used the old system is being replaced including access to post a poem, enter a challenge, make a comment, add to a bookcase, etc. We are allowing people to start the migration now. To do so, please click this LINK. Going forward, you can log in on the front page via the link entitled "Login via the New Authentication System INSTEAD". During the migration period, both systems will authenticate you. On November 3, we will move all users to the new systems. At this point, you will not be allowed to enter Starlite with the old userid and passwords. So please work with us to get you migrated to the new system as soon as possible. We don't want anyone to be blocked out.

As you can see we are making a lot of changes. We are adding new features on almost a daily basis. We expect this pace to continue until the end of the year. As always, we want to thank our sponsors. We have changed our mail address. If you are interested in helping us grow, please feel free to use our PayPal account or our new mailing address. This continued support will be invaluable to us as we move to upgrade the server to support our publishing dreams.

If you have other ideas that would make Starlite a better place, then please feel free to email me

Tracy Bond
Starlite Admin