Inside Cinema Minima

What is the Reporter Rewards Program?

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 01:19:03 GMT

The Reporter Rewards™ Program pays quarterly cash rewards to Cinema Minima's Correspondents, based on the quantity and the quality of the stories they publish.

The money comes from Cinema Minima's net advertising revenues. Those advertising revenues are related to — surprise! — the quantity and quality of the stories published by Correspondents.

The more stories a Correspondent publishes, and the more noteworthy they are, the greater the cash rewards.

Stories must be exclusive to Cinema Minima — not published anywhere else.

Guide to posting stories, and Help

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:50:13 GMT

Help for posting stories

Guide to Posting Stories

How to make the Write page work like Microsoft Word

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 20:47:15 GMT

If you prefer the look-and-feel of Microsoft Word and its "What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get" interface, you can change the interface of the Write/Edit page in Cinema Minima's Content Management System to work like it. Here is how —

You will need a modern, standards-compliant Web browser, such as Mozilla Firefox. It is free-of-charge. It is available for nearly every modern operating system, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Login to Cinema Minima.
Click on the Profile link (this may say "Users" instead).
Scroll down to the bottom of the Profile page, to the "Personal Options" section.
Select the "Use the visual rich editor when writing" option.
Click the "Update Profile" button.
Go to the Write page. You will see the Visual Rich Editor toolbar which will let you compose stories as you would in Microsoft Word.

How to publish a story with Cinema Minima's Content Management System

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 20:03:40 GMT

A step-by-step guide to posting a story to WordPress is an article which explains the the Write/Edit feature of Cinema Minima's Content Management System, which is called "WordPress."

Tools to publish your story

Thu, 03 Aug 2006 07:55:35 GMT

You have several options to post your story to Cinema Minima's news feed and Web site.

Drafts. You can save your story as a "draft," and continue to work on it until you will be ready to publish it. A story will not be published until you click the "Publish" button. There is no limit to the number of drafts you can save.
Comments. You can permit readers to post comments about your story. Fear not — no comments will appear without first being approved, either by you, or by an editor.
Categories make your stories easy to find. Choose the one category which best describes your story. The default category is "Trade," which is movie-business argot for "the business of making movies." After you have selected a relevant category, you should de-select the "Trade" category, if it does not apply.
Status. You can change the status of your story from "Draft" (unpublished) to "Published," or from "Published" to "Draft." However, if you wish to schedule a story to be published at a later date, designate it as "Published" and use the Post Timestamp tool to assign the time and date you wish it to appear.
Date (Post Timestamp). You can choose when your story will be published. If you do nothing, the story will be published as soon as you click the "Publish" button. However, you can schedule your story to appear at a later date. This is particularly helpful if you post several stories at once — you can arrange for each to appear at intervals, say, one or two days apart.
Link Tool. Select some text, click the link tool button, and add a Web address or an email address — this tool will create an HTML link.
Image Manager. This tool will: upload a picture from your computer to Cinema Minima's server; create a large "thumbnail" image from it; and insert that image into your story. Information about size, alignment, etc. will be added automatically. When a reader clicks on the image, your original picture will be shown in its original size.
Amazon Tool. Use this tool to find a link and an image of a DVD or book at Amazon.com. The link can be inserted into your story. This tool works best in the "standard" Write page. (If the "Visual Rich Editor" toolbar has been enabled, it would be necessary to click on the "HTML" button to insert the Amazon link.) The commissions on purchases made through this link contribute to the Reporter Rewards™ program.

Martin Leduc, Gilbert Ndahayo selected for Correspondents program

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 09:09:07 GMT

Martin Leduc, of Ottawa, Canada, and Gilbert Ndahayo, of Kicukiro, Rwanda have joined the Correspondents program.

Comments OK

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 07:33:59 GMT

Now it is OK to accept comments on Cinema Minima stories. Hitherto, comments had been discouraged at Cinema Minima because readers' comments have been lost in storms of comment spam. Recently, anti-spam software has been installed on Cinema Minima's site. It appears to be effective in blocking comment spam, while letting readers' comments through.

Cinema Minima on MySpace

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 22:25:30 GMT

<myspace.com/cinemaminima> is Cinema Minima's address on MySpace.com. This is for MySpace participants who would prefer to contact Cinema Minima via a MySpace address.

Other than providing a contact address, there will be no updates posted to Cinema Minima's MySpace presence.

Bluehost outage info

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 18:02:19 GMT

Re cinemaminima.com offline 2006 JUL 15 0014 GMT

Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 05:29:37 -0700
Subject: BLUEHOST.COM: Serious Issue!
From: "'BlueHost Support'"

Dear Bluehost Customer,

This evening (July 14th) from about 5:25pm-6:55pm many of our servers were offline causing significant downtime for many of our users. The outage was due to a severe power outage in the north end of Orem, Utah where our servers are located. We do have UPS backup as well as diesel generators, but at about 5:30 they finally gave out. The power outage was for much longer than that period of time, but the reserve power was eventually consumed in its entirety. When it rains it pours.

For users on box65-box145 there have been periodic problems with the Redhat linux kernel that we were using that was causing problems with the filesystem that your data is stored on. This issue has been causing periodic problems for users on those boxes. In the last few days we have resolved that issue which also caused those boxes to require a reboot.

The downtime is extremely regretable. We apologize profusely for the inconvenience to our customers and in turn to those who were trying to visit your sites during the outage. With the fixes we have put in place in the last few days coupled with other upgrades you should experience MUCH better uptime in the future. Thanks for you patience,

Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com

Cox interactive blocks Craigslist -- and Cinema Minima, too

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 06:54:23 GMT

Silicon Valley Watcher reports that Craigslist is being blocked by Cox Interactive. Jim Buckmaster, the CEO of Craigslist, reports that the problem of access had been going on since late February. It had something to do with the security software that Cox is using from a company called Authentium.

This situation does not look good in the context of the net neutrality debate. This is exactly the kind of scenario that many people are concerned about, that the cable companies and the telcos will make it difficult for their internet users to access competing services.

[Scripting News]

Cox — or its agent, Authentium — also blocks Cinema Minima.

Here's a tip — www.cinemaminima.com is blocked, but cinemaminima.com is not.

cinemaminima.com online

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 01:13:45 GMT

BY SOCRATES. VENICE (CINEMA MINIMA) 2006 July 15 Saturday 01:11 GMT -- Cinema Minima's Web service is available again. Bluehost -- the company from which Cinema Minima rents its Web space -- had reported that it had been having power problems today. Bluehost is based in the American state of Utah.

cinemaminima.com offline temporarily

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 00:19:19 GMT

BY SOCRATES. VENICE (CINEMA MINIMA) 2006 July 15 Saturday 00:14 GMT -- Cinema Minima's servers are down. Bluehost -- the company from which Cinema Minima rents its Web space -- reports that it is having power problems. Bluehost is based in the American state of Utah.

Reporter Rewards(TM) Program

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:48:11 GMT

Starting 2006 August 1, Cinema Minima Correspondents will be eligible to participate in its Reporter Rewards™ program. The program, which will be administered quarterly, will be in beta test from 2006 August to December.

What is the purpose of the Reporter Rewards™ program? Reporter Rewards™ is designed to encourage the publication of ambitious stories which are noteworthy, and which adhere to Cinema Minima's Style Guidelines.

Only stories which are exclusive to Cinema Minima will be eligible. Stories which appear in any form in any other publication — including the author's own Web site or blog — will not be eligible. Stories must also adhere to Cinema Minima's Style Guide.

How does the Reporter Rewards™ program work?

Although Cinema Minima does not pay for stories, it does offer quarterly cash rewards to Correspondents whose work contributes to Cinema Minima's influence, which is reflected in the rates which Cinema Minima receives for advertisements it carries.

Contributions will be assessed by the Editor, based on several factors, including quality, relevance, and influence measured by the quality and number of links to a Correspondent's stories from other influential Web sites and citations in other publications. The Editor's judgement shall in all cases be final.

Example — You publish several short, weekly interviews with prominent and up-and-coming directors, in which you provoke them to say noteworthy things. Several very popular Web sites link to your stories, each week. Your interview with Christopher Nolan is cited in an article in the highly-ranked The New York Times Web site. In consequence of this — and similar contributions by other Correspondents — Cinema Minima's page rank rises, and with it, the amount advertisers pay for ads on Cinema Minima. Your quarterly cash reward will reflect your contributions.

How important are "hits" — the number of visitors to the Cinema Minima Web site? The number of hits is no longer a significant measure of performance for an online publication. Most Cinema Minima readers get it by subscription to its RSS news feed — since 2005, more people read Cinema Minima's news feeds than visit its Web site. News feed subscription is the significant indicator of online readership — not the quantity of visitors to the Web site. So the number of hits will not be given much weight — if at all — when considering the degree of success of a story or a series of stories.

How much money? Don't quit your day job. Reporter Rewards™ will be funded by Cinema Minima's advertising revenues. The net — after expenses — would be divided among participating Correspondents, according to the magnitude of the contributions of each. If Cinema Minima has a good quarter, it will be reflected in the size of the rewards; if Cinema Minima has a bad quarter, that will show in the form of reduced revenues and smaller rewards to participating Correspondents.

If I participate in the Reporter Rewards™ program, would I become an employee of Cinema Minima? No. The purpose of Reporter Rewards™ is to encourage excellence — not to offer compensation for work done.

Should I join the Cinema Minima Correspondents program for the money I expect to get by participating in the Reporter Rewards™ program? No. You should only write for Cinema Minima if you have something to say to movie makers about cinema.

I am already a Correspondent, but I do not wish to participate in the Reporter Rewards™ program. (My stories will not be exclusive to Cinema Minima, or I just don't need the money.) Would that be OK? Yes. Please advise the Program administrator — which, for now, is the Editor — that you do not wish to participate in Reporter Rewards™ program.

Details Details about Reporter Rewards™ will be posted at Cinema Minima Per Diem: Reporter Rewards. Reporter Rewards™ is a trademark of Cinema Minima.