Welcome to the new-look Lockdown Sceptics. Don’t worry – we’ll still be doing the daily update each day, but it will no longer be on the homepage. Instead, you’ll need to click on “Today’s Update” underneath the horizontal menu bar to see it. (To see today’s, click here.)
If you’re an email subscriber, you’ll still receive a daily update that looks similar to the one you were getting, but visitors to the website’s home page will see a rolling news blog, constantly updated, rather than a static page. As you’ll see from this post, you’ll be able to share each stand-alone item on Twitter, Facebook, etc. by clicking on one of the icons at the bottom. We’ll also tag each post which will make it easier to find related comments. You’ll no longer be able to comment on the daily update because of the new format, but you’ll be able to comment on each individual story, which should make for a more focused discussion. And you’ll still be able to post comments in the Forums – no changes there.
The reason for the change is partly to make it easier to comment on – and share – individual stories, but also so the people who bring you Lockdown Sceptics don’t have to take turns to stay up until dawn to prepare the daily update. The update that email subscribers will receive, and which will still be viewable on the site, will consist of a newly refreshed version of everything from the Round-Up on downwards – which we call “below the fold” – plus all the stories that have been posted to the rolling news blog in the previous 24 hours.
We still plan to bring you plenty of original articles, as well as analysis by Toby Young and Will Jones, readers’ comments, poems, and so on. Jonathan Barr will be doing the daily below-the-fold updates (Round-Up, Theme Tunes, Woke Gobbledegook, etc.), while Conor Chaplin and Michael Curzon – a new contributor – will be responsible for summarising breaking stories on the rolling news blog.
If all restrictions – or nearly all – are lifted on June 21st, we will switch from a daily to a weekly update, but continue to post stories to the rolling news blog every day. And if, God forbid, the lockdown is reimposed in the Autumn, we’ll restore the daily updates.
As always, if you have any stories you think we should flag up – or original material you’d like us to publish on the site – you can email us here.
Stop Press: We’re experiencing a few teething problems with the new site. Please bear with us. Everything should be working properly shortly.
Stop Press 2: After a lot of pushback from people who post in the comments beneath the Daily Update, we’ve decided to make it possible to still comment there. However, at 6am each day, when the new update is published under “Today’s Update”, the comments posted beneath the previous day’s update will be deleted.
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