Tracking the Crisis: Open News Aggregation

After a whole day of testing, the Middle East conflict tracking page has gotten yet another overall. The ‘page’ is now an entire section, consisting of:
class=”textlink”>The Blogs View : the original page aggregating blog posts
The Map View: the map view showing local blogs and recent news events
The News View: a summary page showing all recent news events with the option for readers to rate them
The main enhancements today have been around the ‘News’ capability. The system is now open wide so that anyone can submit a news item they have found on the conflict. The item will then be placed on the unapproved items page, where other readers can rate it. Those items that achive a sufficiently positive response will then automatically migrate onto the main news page and the map page.
I’m currently working out additional methods of categorizing and presenting news items — particularly in visual form on the map — but for now, you’ll see that there are several categories from which to select when submitting an item.
My hope is that with this system, and a sufficiently interested community of bloggers and blog readers focusing on it, we can create a single location which sums up the very best reporting, analysis, and breaking news from both the traditional media and the bloggers on the ground. I invite everyone to join me in this effort, and as always, suggestions are welcome.