Important Information
About this website
What is a Beta website?
Beta is a term used most commonly with IT type work. If you remember, Google's email stayed "Beta" for several years as they worked the bugs out and made it more stable.
What is the purpose of this website and the new layout?
The people that originally built the www.hbeark.com site for its Internet customers, to have a simple community-based portal for information, have needed to "upgrade and update" that site for a while. This site is replacing that site.
What's with all the sponsorship blocks and ad strips?
As stated, this is a "Beta" website, so things will be changing daily, sometimes weekly and so on. The layout will vary throughout the site. But the main difference is that local businesses will be able to get tremendous exposure on the site. It has been getting a lot of web traffic for a lot of years. "Top" sponsors will actually have their own "mini website" within this website. (Click on the sponsors listed right under the "Top Local Headlines" green bar and you will go to their "mini website".)
Is the layout I see today the layout that will stay?
Yes and no. The basic layout will stay the same, but many things will change and many new additions will be added.
New additions
OK, what new additions will be added?
For one, just added on November 13th: the Forums. These are categories based on cities, counties, etc. for community members like yourself to post questions, observations and general information, allowing other community members to reply and respond.
Who will control what is on the forum, and how do you "police" the posts and activity?
The forum will have moderators who will read the forum posts daily and keep up with members and their forum behavior. There are forum rules, and if a member breaks those rules they can and will be blocked or removed from posting.
What other new additions are in the works?
We are presently taking applications for individuals to be contributors. They will be vetted by experienced writers and journalists before they are accepted.
How will you control what these contributors post?
A contributor's post does not get posted by the contributor. It goes to the admin side of the website and waits for an Editor to read it and approve it before it goes live on the site.
What are you looking for in a potential contributor?
We are going to have "area contributors", meaning they will contribute articles in their area of expertise and most likely where they reside. Berryville contributors will most likely be from Berryville and/or Carroll County, Harrison contributors from Harrison and Boone County. I think you see the idea.
Your website
In conclusion, we just want everyone in the community to have a place where they can do things like this:
- Daily Crossword: different every day
- Today's Trivia: new every day
- Horoscopes: new every morning
- Today in History: different every day
- Each of the 6 cities' own news
- All Local News, pulling all the cities' and surrounding areas' news into one portal
- All local online banks in one location
- Up-to-the-minute weather alerts
- A highly engineered weather portal pulling together all the important weather info for our areas into one location
- Radar that shows storms, lightning strikes and special severe areas during storms, so you know what is coming your way
- 35 different local services all in one block, with links to those services
- 22 different farm reports all in one block, with links to those reports
- Direct links to all the cities' websites
- News from all the local newspapers in the 6 cities and counties, all in one portal
- All the area's local lakes and their reports in one block
We could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. This is YOUR website for YOUR needs. ENJOY, Neighbor!
