Peoples Times

• read the news pages
• search the Communities database
• view community homepages
• read notices on the NoticeBoard

You will have to register if you want to contribute content, comment on other people’s content, join or set up a community, post notices or subscribe to receive notices from other users.

No, you can join as an individual. Individual users can:

• read the news pages
• write and comment on articles
• signpost other users to stories, images and videos you find on the web
• upload files, photos and videos
• post, read and respond to notices on the NoticeBoard
• search the Communities database
• join existing communities
• set up their own community!

Businesses are welcome to set up groups on People’s Times’ Communities for social purposes (e.g. company sports teams), but they may not invite other site users to join or send unsolicited messages to anyone through the People’s Times.

Similarly, the News and Noticeboard sections are intended for use by individuals and non-profit organisations – they may not be used as a platform for promoting or selling goods or services on a commercial basis.

The simple answer is, we don’t – or not from our users, anyway! The People’s Times is a free service for individuals and grassroots community groups and we plan to keep it that way.

The People’s Times was set up with a grant from the Community Partnership Fund, which made money available under the Government’s Digital Strategy to help Kiwi communities get online. We aim to attract ongoing financial support from others who share this vision, potentially through collaboration with central and local government (please contact us for more information on collaboration or sponsorship opportunities).

You won’t see a lot of advertising on the site either. We may run advertisements for not-for-profit groups or purposes from time to time (e.g. for community events, government consultations etc.), but we have made a deliberate choice to keep the People’s Times entirely commercial-free. We hope you like it that way!

Anyone can join the People’s Times, regardless of where they live. International users are most welcome!

As any user can upload content to the People’s Times, it is possible that inappropriate items may appear on the site from time to time – and we’d appreciate it if you brought them to our attention! We promote – and provide a forum for – free expression, but we will immediately remove content we deem to be inappropriate and warn or expel offenders.

You can report any content that you think should be reviewed to a People’s Times administrator for investigation. All items in People’s Times News can be flagged by clicking on the ‘Report content’ link directly underneath the story. If you see an inappropriate community, or a community hosting inappropriate content, please contact us directly at info@peoplestimes.org.nz and we’ll look into it right away.

You can change your account settings and profile details as often as you like.

Click on the tab marked 'My Times' at the top of any People's Times page (next to the Communities, News and Noticeboard tabs). Look for the tab marked 'Edit' at the top of the page - above your name but below the blue navigation bar.

Clicking on this allows you to edit your Account Settings - these include your username (yes, you can change it!), password and profile picture. Note: ONLY enter your password into EITHER of the password fields if you want to change it. Some web browsers may try to enter your password in the top field automatically when you visit this page - if this happens, you will need to delete it before you can click 'Submit' to save any changes.

Next to Account Settings is the link to edit your Profile, which contains your name and location settings.

When you have finished making changes on either page, click 'Submit' to save your changes.

Your information is kept confidential and will not be shared with any third parties. Click here to view our privacy policy.

You should use your real name to register, but if you want to keep this private you can choose to hide it on your profile. The username you choose at registration can be anything you like, and it this name that will be displayed next to any content you create or comments you post on the People’s Times.

You can use any picture as your profile picture – it doesn’t have to be a photo of you – and you don’t have to upload a picture if you don’t want to.

The People’s Times is a not-for-profit initiative, and we won’t contact you unless you have requested it or there is a problem with your account.

We will periodically ask a sample of users to give us feedback on our service, but participation is optional and you will not be contacted again if you decline.

If you subscribe to receive any notifications from People’s Times, you will receive automatically generated messages to your nominated email account. These can be stopped or changed at any time by managing your subscription settings on My Times.
Click here to view our privacy policy.

The username you choose at registration will be displayed next to any content you create or any comments you post on the People’s Times.

When other users click on your name or picture, they will be taken to your My Times page. There, they will only see your profile box and boxes showing your recent posts (e.g. stories you have submitted, notices you have posted, etc.) and recent comments you have made.

Your profile box shows your picture, your real name, your location, and how long you have been a member of People’s Times (but no contact information). You can control which of this information is displayed by visiting your My Times page – click on the ‘Edit’ tab near the top of the page and then ‘Profile’.

Anyone who wants to contact you can do so through your personal contact form – see How can I contact another People’s Times User? Although messages sent to you through the personal contact form will go to your registered email account, your email address is not shown on the form.
 

In the interests of privacy, People’s Times users can only be contacted directly through the ‘personal contact form’.

To use this feature, click on the user’s name – this will take you to their My Times page. In their profile box, look for the words ‘contact them’ displayed in blue. Clicking here will take you to the user’s personal contact form, where you can email them a message through the People’s Times. Note that your registered email address will appear in the message so that they can reply.

If you are receiving unwanted messages or contributions from a People’s Times user, please contact us at info@peoplestimes.org.nz and we’ll look into it right away.

Yes. As well as being the homepage for your members, it’s also where prospective members can come to find out more about you.
See also Will people be able to view my community’s uploaded files, photos, blogs (etc.) without being a member?

Only community members can view content uploaded to your community homepage, with two exceptions:

• If you post a notice it will also appear on the People’s Times NoticeBoard; and
• If you post a news story or share a video it will also appear on People’s Times News.

If you want your uploaded content restricted to people that you know, you will need to make your community a ‘managed membership’ community. It’s very easy to change this setting, and anyone who wants to join your group can still do so – you will just need to approve their membership request first.

See I want to set up a private community for more information about changing your membership options.

The dedicated servers that host the People's Times and store all content on the site are located in Wellington, New Zealand. They are locally owned and operated and no data will be stored on overseas servers at any time.

It’s easy to find a community on the People’s Times. If you know exactly what you are looking for, simply enter the name into the search box on the Communities page. If you don’t, try entering a keyword into the search box – e.g. ‘basketball’ and refine the search by your area and/or the community category.

Found a community you want to join?

If you're not already registered on the People's Times, you'll need to do this first. It takes less than a minute - just look for the blue box labelled 'Login / Register' (it's on the right-hand side, directly underneath the blue navigation bar on any People's Times page).

Once you're registered, simply click on the link labelled ‘Join this community’ – you’ll find it directly underneath the community’s blue contact details box on their homepage. If it as an open community, you are now a member and will be able to view any files, photos, blog, etc. uploaded to the community homepage.

If the link says ‘Request membership’, it means the community administrator has to approve your membership first – click on the link to send them a message. You will receive an email when your membership has been approved or declined.

You can access all of your communities and your account information from your MyTimes page.
 

No – you can still send a message to the community administrator even if you’re not a member. If they haven't listed a phone number or email address on their homepage, you can still send them an email through the system by clicking on their email link (marked 'Community administrator') in the blue contact details box.

Note that if you send a message to a community administrator, the email will contain your email address so they can reply.

There are two ways you can help people to find your community on the People’s Times.

If your group already exists ‘in the real world’ and your members want to join your community on the People’s Times, go to your community homepage and click on the ‘Recommend to a friend’ link – you can add a personal message to your recommendation and send it to up to five email addresses at a time.

If your group doesn’t have existing members, you can still recommend your community to friends (see above) or you can help people to find your community when they search the People’s Times Communities database. Here’s how you can increase your community’s chances of being found:

• Choose a name for your community that will help people tell at a glance if it’s right for them – for example, if your group is for classic car enthusiasts in South Canterbury, it’d be better to call it ‘South Canterbury Classic Car Club’ rather than just ‘Classic Car Club’.
• If your group falls into more than one community category, you can choose several by holding down the ‘Ctrl’ or Apple key as you click on additional categories – this will help your community to appear in more search results.
• Keywords help others to find your community when searching – for example if you are a social walking group for the over-50s, you might enter the following keywords: walk, walking, ramble, excursion, social walk, outdoors, social club, 50+, over-50s, retired, pensioner, senior citizen. You don’t need to re-enter your community category, area or country as a keyword – these will be made keywords automatically.
• If you haven’t done so already, it’s a good idea to upload your community’s contact details as soon as you can so people can contact you for more information.

It’s easy to set up a community on the People’s Times.

If you're not already registered on the People's Times, you'll need to do this first. It takes less than a minute - just look for the blue box labelled 'Login / Register' (it's on the right-hand side, directly underneath the blue navigation bar on any People's Times page).

Once you've registered:

1. Click on the ‘Communities’ tab at the top of any People’s Times page.
2. Look for the blue box on the right hand side of the page, and click on the green button labelled ‘START NOW’.
3. Enter the details of your community into the boxes provided. Here are some points to remember:
   • Choose a name for your community that will help people tell at a glance if it’s right for them – for example, if your group is for classic car enthusiasts in South Canterbury, it’d be better to call it ‘South Canterbury Classic Car Club’ rather than just ‘Classic Car Club’.
   • If your group falls into more than one community category, you can choose several by holding down the ‘Ctrl’ or Apple key as you click on additional categories – this will help your community to appear in more search results.
   • Keywords help others to find your community using our search function – for example if you are a social walking group for the over-50s, you might enter the following keywords: walk, walking, social walkers, ramble, excursion, outdoors, social club, 50+, over-50s, retired, pensioner, senior citizen.
   • You don’t need to re-enter your community category, area or country as a keyword – these will be made keywords automatically.
   • You can decide whether you want people to be able to join your community automatically, or have to be approved by you first (you will receive an email message when someone requests membership). You can change these settings later.
4. Click ‘Create community’ and you’re done! You’ll be prompted to enter your community’s contact details and upload a logo, if you have one. It’s a good idea to put your contact details in as soon as you can, so people can contact you for more information.
5. Still confused? Why not print out and follow our step-by-step user guides - you can access them here, or look for the link at the bottom of any People's Times page.
6. Remember, you can access all your communities and your account information from your MyTimes page - look for the tab above the blue navigation bar on an People's Times page.

It’s easy to restrict access to your community, so that only you can personally approve or decline membership requests. When you set up your community, one of your choices is ‘Community Membership Settings’ – you can choose from ‘open’ or ‘managed’.

If you choose ‘managed’, people must request to join your community. You will be sent an email notification of their request, which contains links you can click to approve or decline their membership. The email may include a personal message from the prospective member explaining why they would like to join. They will receive an email back from the People’s Times to let them know whether they have been approved or declined.

If you have already set up your community and want to change your settings, simply click on the ‘Edit’ tab above your community’s name on your homepage. Scroll down until you get to ‘Community Membership Settings’ and choose from ‘open’ or ‘managed’ membership.

When you have finished, make sure you click ‘Create a community’ again at the bottom of the page – this will save your changes.

Check that you have submitted contact details for your community – click on ‘Edit community contact details’ in the ‘Manage’ box on the right hand side of your community’s homepage.

Enter your community’s contact details into the boxes provided. Remember that these will be visible to visitors to your community’s homepage.

When you have finished, make sure you click ‘Update contact details’ at the bottom of the page to save your changes. You should be taken back to your community’s homepage automatically, and the updated contact details should appear in a pale blue box to the right of your community description.

Everyone who wants to join or set up a community on the People's Times has to individually register with the site first. Unfortunately this step can't be skipped, as without each person setting up an individual identity on the system most of the features we offer couldn't work (e.g. being able to subscribe to email notifications from their community).

However, there are very few details required so it only takes a minute or two, and you can register people on their behalf (make sure you have their permission and their email address). Or, you could help by reading the site’s terms and conditions and privacy policy on behalf of everyone and noting that you have done so when you invite them to join.

The good news is that once people are registered with the site, you can add them to your community instantly using their People's Times username. To do this, go to the 'Manage [your community name]' menu at the right hand side of your homepage, click on 'Manage your members' then 'Add new members' and follow the simple instructions - you can add up to ten people at a time.

You can also invite up to ten people at a time to join - the process is exactly the same as above, only for the last step click on 'Invite new members' rather than 'Add new members'. The people you nominate using this form will receive an email containing a personal message from you, as well as a link they can follow to join your community (they will be be prompted to log in to the site first).

If you want to invite people to join your community who haven’t yet registered with the People’s Times, you will need to use the ‘Recommend to a friend’ link on your homepage (under the pale blue contact details box). You can enter up to five email addresses on this form, which will send recipients an email containing a link to your community homepage along with a personal message from you. If when they visit your page they click to join your community, they will be prompted to register with the People’s Times first.

You can see who belongs to your community at any time – look for the grey box headed ‘Manage [your community’s name]’ when you are on your community homepage, click on ‘Manage my members’ and then ‘View community members’.

If you don’t already know your members personally, you might also consider starting a permanent forum discussion where new members are encouraged to introduce themselves to the group.

To protect your privacy, People’s Times users can only be contacted through their ‘personal contact form’ – see How can I contact another People’s Times user?

If members of your community want to be able to contact each other directly, why not upload a contact list to your community files – only members can access these.
 

If you don’t enter any contact details, members or interested people can still contact your community – they can click to email the Community Administrator (you), and their message will be routed by the system to your registered email address.

To help you stay in touch with happenings in your community, you can subscribe to receive an email notification when something new is posted to the community homepage – a notice, a new forum discussion, a photo gallery...

You can choose which types of content you’d like to receive updates about, and whether you want to receive email notifications immediately, or as a daily, weekly or monthly digest.

To subscribe to notifications from a community, go to the box titled ‘Community tools’ on the right hand side of your community homepage and click on ‘My Membership’. Check the box next to ‘Enable email notifications’ and click ‘Submit’. Next, choose which of the content types you’d like to be notified about (e.g. forum topics) and how often you want to receive your updates (e.g. daily). You can change these settings at any time.

To unsubscribe, simply un-check the box next to ‘Enable email notifications’ and click ‘Submit’.

(To subscribe to notifications from your own community, go to the box titled ‘Manage [your community’s name]’, click on ‘My Membership’, and follow the instructions above. Even if your community notifications are turned off, you’ll still receive an email notification when someone new joins (or requests to join) a community that you administer.)

NOTE: If you want to be notified by email every time anyone posts a comment on a particular discussion forum, you can subscribe to this on the discussion forum itself - go right to the bottom of the discussion page (underneath the comment box) and tick the box labelled ‘Send me email updates when new comments are posted to this discussion’. You will now be notified every time someone comments, but remember you will still need to subscribe to other forum discussions separately. You can un-tick the box to stop receiving emails from a forum discussion.

As the founding member, you hold the role of community administrator automatically.

You can choose to promote other community members to administrator status by clicking 'Manage your members' on the management menu on your homepage, and then 'Manage community members'.

Administrators are able to edit your community's details; remove other members; send group emails to members; delete content posted by other members; and even delete the community itself. DON'T promote anyone else to administrator unless you are sure you want them to have these permissions.

However, please note that as the founding member and main point of contact, any enquiries or membership requests sent to your community will still go to YOUR registered email address.

If you are the community administrator, you can make changes to your community's details as often as you like - but make sure you warn other members if you plan to change the name!

First, ensure you are logged in. Go to your community's homepage and look for the management menu at the right hand side of the page. Click on the menu option 'Edit community' - this brings up the original page you filled in when you created your community, and you can change any of the details you entered. Remember to click 'Submit' at the bottom of the page to save your changes.

To edit your community's contact details or logo, look for the link of the same name in the 'Manage [your community name]' box at the right of your homepage.

No. Even if you have an open membership community, only members can upload content to your community.

When you are on your community homepage, you will see a row of icons underneath your community description – labelled Forums, Blogs, Files, etc.

Click on the icon you want and a blue link will appear underneath (labelled something like ‘Start a forum discussion’ or ‘Upload a file to this community’). Simply click on this link to start.

Anything that has already been posted to that category will be displayed in a list underneath. Only community members can see these, with two exceptions:

• If you post a notice it will also appear on the People’s Times NoticeBoard; and
• If you post a news story, it will also appear on People’s Times News.

Community members who wish to be notified when new content has been posted (or existing content has been updated) can opt in to this service from ‘My membership’ on the community homepage.

When you are on your community homepage, you will see a row of icons underneath your community description – labelled Forums, Blogs, Files, etc.

When you click on an icon, anything that has been uploaded to that category will be displayed in a list underneath – simply click on the item you are interested in.

If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, try searching for it in the search box at the top of your community homepage – enter any keywords that could fit the item you want – e.g. ‘school fair’, or ‘meeting minutes’. The search will bring up a list of possible matches.

When you are on your community homepage, you will see a row of icons underneath your community description – labelled Forums, Blogs, Files, etc.

Click on the icon labelled ‘News’ and a blue link will appear underneath (labelled ‘Post a story or video to this community’). Simply click on this link to start.

Give your video a title and choose a news category (all of the other fields are optional). Look for the ‘Video URL’ heading under the ‘Media’ section, and enter the ‘Embed’ code if you have it (otherwise just enter the URL of the webpage the video is from - you can't upload your video directly to the People's Times yet - click here to find out more).

An Embed code will allow the People’s Times to display the video here on our pages, rather than just linking to it elsewhere on the web. If you are on YouTube, the Embed code appears in the grey box to the right of the video. Bear in mind that some content providers on YouTube (e.g. the BBC) don’t enable their videos to be embedded.

Once you’ve entered the Embed code or URL, enter any other information you want to include into the boxes provided (e.g. a description of the video) and click ‘Submit’ at the bottom of the page.

When community members click on the ‘News’ icon, they will now see your video displayed in the list underneath. The video will also appear on People’s Times News in the news category you selected.

The maximum file size is 5MB. Any images uploaded to community galleries that are larger than 1600x1600 pixels will be automatically resized.

To leave a community, go to the box titled ‘Community tools’ on the right hand side of the community’s homepage and click on ‘My Membership’. Click on the link titled ‘Leave this community’ and when prompted, confirm that you want to leave.

You can’t leave a community that you have created yourself, but you can delete the community or pass it to someone else to administer. See I want to leave the People’s Times, can I delete my community? or I want other members to be able to administer our community too – at the moment only I can make changes respectively.

Yes – if you are the only member of the community, simply click ‘Remove this community from the People’s Times’ from the community management box to the right of the page, and confirm that you want to delete it.

If your community has other members, you will have to request deletion from a People’s Times administrator.

See I want other members to be able to administer our community too – at the moment only I can make changes.

Yes – you just need to register with the People’s Times first.

This takes less than a minute - just look for the blue box labelled 'Login / Register' (it's on the right-hand side, directly underneath the blue navigation bar on any People's Times page).

See also: How do I upload an original article or photo gallery to the People's Times? and How do I share a story/video/page from another website with the People’s Times?

People’s Times columnists contribute well-written columns on a regular basis, on a single theme or across a range of topics. If you are interested in becoming a columnist, we’d like to hear from you – please contact us for more information.

Keywords (also known as tags), help you to find articles, photos, videos or communities on the site that relate to topics you’re interested in.

You can enter words into the search box – something specific, like ‘Barack Obama inauguration speech’; or more general, like ‘Gisborne’ – and any item on the site that has one or more of these tagged as a keyword will be listed in the search results. Keywords also appear at the bottom of (most) items posted on the site, so if you’re interested in reading more on that topic, you can click on a keyword to find related articles.

Similarly, tagging content you have submitted with accurate keywords will help others to find it – for example if you wanted to write a review about a new Indian restaurant, you might enter the following keywords: [restaurant’s name], dining, food, dinner, restaurant, cafe, review, India, Indian food, ethnic food. You don’t need to re-enter the news/community category, area or country though – these will be turned into keywords automatically.

It’s easy! All you need to know is the URL of the page you want to link to (copy this from the address bar of your browser window).

Go to the People’s Times News front page and look for the bright blue box on the right hand side, titled ‘Your News Is Our News’. Click on the middle link to ‘Share it with the People’s Times’, fill in the boxes provided and click ‘Submit’.

For more information on embedding media from external sites, see also How do I upload a video to People’s Times News (e.g. from YouTube)? and How do I upload a podcast to the People’s Times?

Note: if you're not already registered on the People's Times, you'll need to do this before you can upload or share any content. It takes less than a minute - just look for the blue box labelled 'Login / Register' (it's on the right-hand side, directly underneath the blue navigation bar on any People's Times page).

If you are having difficulty uploading photos or other images to the People’s Times, try the following:

• Check that the file doesn’t exceed the maximum allowable size of 5mb, and is in a supported format (files ending in .jpg, .jpeg, .png, or .gif). If you need to resize or reformat it and don’t have a photo editing suite on your PC, you can download software for free from the internet – try Picasa by Google – or use an online photo editing site like Picnik (no downloads required).
• Make sure you click the ‘Upload’ button after you have found the file location on your computer. You should see the image appear and have the opportunity to give it a title, before clicking ‘Submit’ at the bottom of the page
• If the image still doesn’t appear, try clicking ‘Preview’ instead of ‘Submit’ after you have uploaded it. If your image successfully appears in the preview, it should now appear when you click ‘Submit’.
• If you still can’t upload your pictures, contact us at info@peoplestimes.org.nz

To share a video, go to the People’s Times News front page and look for the bright blue box on the right hand side, headed ‘Your News Is Our News’.

Click on the top link, titled ‘Submit an article or multimedia’ (you don’t have to write anything if you don’t want to). Or, if it’s important that people can see the website address that the video has come from, click on the middle link (‘Share it with the People’s Times’) and enter the URL for the website page at the top of the form.

Give your video a title and choose a news category (all of the other fields are optional). Look for the ‘Video URL’ heading under the ‘Media’ section, and enter the ‘Embed’ code if you have it (otherwise just enter the URL of the webpage the video is from. You can't upload your video directly to the People's Times yet - click here to find out more).

An Embed code will allow the People’s Times to display the video on our pages, rather than just linking to it elsewhere on the web. If you are on YouTube, the Embed code appears in the grey box to the right of the video. Bear in mind that some content providers on YouTube (e.g. the BBC) don’t enable their videos to be embedded.

Once you’ve entered the Embed code or URL, enter any other information you want to include into the boxes provided (e.g. a description of the video) and click ‘Submit’ at the bottom of the page.

If you are having difficulty linking videos to the People’s Times, ensure the following:

• Make sure you enter the ‘Embed’ code, not just the URL of the page the video is from. This will allow the People’s Times to display the video on our pages rather than just link to it elsewhere on the web. If you are on YouTube, the Embed code appears in the grey box to the right of the video. Bear in mind that some content providers on YouTube (e.g. the BBC) don’t enable their videos to be embedded.
• If the video still doesn’t appear, try clicking ‘Preview’ instead of ‘Submit’ after you have uploaded it. If your video successfully appears in the preview, it should now appear when you click ‘Submit’.
• If you still can’t upload your video, contact us at info@peoplestimes.org.nz

Unfortunately you aren’t able to upload your own video footage directly to People’s Times – we don’t have the necessary space or bandwidth to support this at present.

However, you can upload your video to almost any other video-hosting site (e.g. YouTube) and then quickly and easily display it on the People’s Times. Simply copy the video’s Embed code – this is usually displayed on the same page as your uploaded video (e.g. on YouTube, look for the grey box to the right of your video – a URL and an Embed code are displayed underneath your YouTube name).

Next, choose to submit your video either through your community or directly to People’s Times News. For the former, click on the ‘News’ icon on your community homepage; for the latter, click on ‘Write an article’ in the blue ‘Your news is our news’ box that appears on the news pages. Once you have given your video a title and description, paste the embed code into the box labelled ‘Video URL’ and click ‘Submit’.

At present you can only link to a podcast elsewhere on the web – we don’t have the necessary space or bandwidth to host your original material yet. However, you can upload your podcast to a specialised hosting site (e.g. Podcast Alley or podOmatic) and then quickly and easily link it to the People’s Times.

To share a link with us, go to the People’s Times News front page and look for the bright blue box on the right hand side, titled ‘Your News Is Our News’. Click on the middle link to ‘share it with People’s Times’, fill in the boxes provided and click ‘Submit’.

If you're not already registered on the People's Times, you'll need to do this first. It takes less than a minute - just look for the blue box labelled 'Login / Register' (it's on the right-hand side, directly underneath the blue navigation bar on any People's Times page).

Next, go to the People’s Times News front page and look for the bright blue box on the right hand side, headed ‘Your News Is Our News’.

To upload an article:

Click on the top link to ‘Submit an article or multimedia’, fill in the boxes provided and click ‘Submit’. It's that simple!

To upload a photo gallery:

Click on the bottom link to 'Create a photo gallery', and fill in the boxes provided. You can submit a gallery of up to 10 pictures, and the maximum file size per picture is 5MB. For each picture, click 'Browse...' to find the image on your computer and then 'Upload'. When you've finished, click 'Submit'. Note that your images will not be saved until you submit the page.

See also: How do I upload a video to People’s Times News (e.g. from YouTube)? and I’m trying to upload an image but it doesn’t show up when I save it.