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Explore the New LIW Website

Posted February 17, 2010 by Ted Hesson

As you probably noticed, we’ve overhauled the Long Island Wins website, adding new features that will make it easier for readers to follow the latest immigration happenings and to participate in local immigration actions, like rallies and lobbying.

Aside from the groovy Long Island color scheme, “What’s so different?” you might ask. To answer that question, come with me on a quick tour of the site, where I’ll explain some of the new functionality.

Let’s start with the homepage. On our old website (it seems such a distant, web 1.0 memory now), the blog was the centerpiece of the homepage, and of the site in general. On the new site, content is divided up into different pages, with sections for feature stories, Long Island immigrant culture, information on immigration actions, and, of course, the blog. There are also pages for Patrick Young’s Immigration 101 series, our media and resources, and for donations to Long Island Wins.

As I noted, we now have a “Main Features” section on our homepage. In the same way a magazine has a cover story, these three posts are the posts that we think are the most important for our readers. In general, the main features will change weekly, but there may be occasions when features will rotate off the homepage more quickly or more slowly.

If you’re reading this post, then you found the “Main Features” section, but here’s a screenshot of it in case there’s any confusion:

As new features are added, older ones will cycle over to the “Features” page, which you can reach via the main navigation bar.

The blog, which used to be the centerpiece of the old website, is still on the homepage, with the latest blog post shown in a box to the right of the “Main Features” under the title (you guessed it) “Latest Blog Post.” Other recent blog posts will be displayed below that box. Check it:

Over the past nine months, Long Island Wins has been building up its social networking presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and we added links to our profiles on each of these sites under the “Connect With Us” box on the right hand side of our new homepage. You’ll also find our “latest tweet” in this box.

Below the “Connect with Us” box, you’ll see a section of the homepage devoted to local immigration-themed events. Here you’ll find anything from immigration rallies to cultural festivals, all in the Long Island area. If you have any events that you think would be a good fit, send them to us.

So that’s the homepage in a nutshell. Traveling on to the next page in the navigation bar, we come to Immigration 101.

Our regular readers will be familiar with Immigration 101, Patrick Young’s extensive blog series covering all of the immigration law basics. The content is still the same, but the posts are now organized more clearly. The newest Immigration 101 posts will appear in the “Featured” section, which you can see here (Also, note the wonkish picture of Pat):

Beneath the featured post, the Immigration 101 posts are now split up into sections like “Arrest and Deportation,” “Citizenship,” and “The Rights of Immigrants.”

The next page is LI Culture, a new addition to the website. In the LI Culture section, we’ll have blog posts that cover the cultural contributions of immigrants on Long Island. That means posts about Italian restaurants, Argentine dance, Chinese music, and anything else related to immigrant culture. Just like in Immigration 101, there will be a featured post at the top of the page with older culture posts below it.

In addition, we’ll have our “Meet the Neighbors” videos and our event calendar, which I described earlier in this post. We plan on building up this section of the site over the next few months.

That brings us to the blog. As always, the LIW blog will cover all the latest local and national immigration news, as well as offer commentary. To the right of the blog is a list of the most recent comments and a tag cloud, which shows the most frequently used tags in our blog posts.

We’ve also added an immigration newswire to this page, which will constantly update with blog posts from some of the newsier immigration blogs on the web. Regular commenters will noticed that are comments are now added through Disqus. The advantage to Disqus is that you’ll be able to share your comments via Facebook and Twitter, if that interests you.

The Action Center page is the place where we’ll update you on the latest immigration rallies, petitions, and Long Island Wins projects. One of our biggest initiatives right now is Welcoming Long Island, and you’ll notice that it’s positioned in the center of the Action Center. For more information about Welcoming Long Island, click the “Join the Movement” button shown on that page.

I already explained the Features page, so let’s move on to Media & Resources. This page serves as a warehouse for Long Island Wins videos, immigration reports, and links to local and national immigration resources.

The last page in the navigation bar is the “Donate Today” page. Long Island Wins greatly appreciates donations and the funding that we receive through private donations helps us better serve you.  With that in mind, if you’ve enjoyed this virtual tour and would like to leave a tip, this is the place to do it.

Something on the new site not working right? Email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and we’ll try to help.

Tags : long island wins, website

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