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NicaPlaza Concepts

NicaPlaza is, at this point, evolving. That is, new ideas are being tested and the site structure is being developed. The ultimate goal is to partner Nicaragua Living | Making Nicaragua a little closer. and NicaPlaza in such a way that it is easy to find information about Nicaragua, easy to discuss Nicaragua issues and easy to talk about your Nicaragua experiences.

NicaPlaza will assume the role of a relatively static information source. NicaLiving will, as it already does, focus on discussions and Blogs. We will then cull important information from the NicaLiving Forums and Blogs and offer more authoritative information in hierarchical areas of each site.

NicaPlaza will have information organized into three hierarchies. The first one which is pointed to by the clickable map on the front page offers geographically organized information. The information is textual.

The second hierarchy is the Places catalog. Here entries are made for specific places within Nicaragua. It could be anything from a Department to a volcano to a business. It is organized by type of place. Each entry contains a map and may contain a link to a photo or photo gallery.

The third hierarchy is the photo galleries. Besides browsing through the hierarchies, the search feature will make it easy to find information.

Most of the information here will be entered by staff. That doesn't mean our employees but people who have been trained to properly enter information. For example, if you would like an entry added for your business, you would contact one of the staff to do that for you. More about this is coming soon.

Logging-in

You need to login to the site in order to conduct actions under the privileges of your username, and to be able to claim control (if you have the permissions) over the content you submit. You may also need to login to access restricted zones, categories, and pages. You can create an account here or use one of the OpenID providers (such as Google) to establish your site credentials.

News/Blogs

The add news page allows you to add your news to the site. For most members, this will put the news into a validation queue and inform the staff of the submission. You may also get a chance to submit to your own personal news category; this is your own blog on the website.

Other things you may do

You may see submission links on the menus, and in other places. Submitting any kind of entry will be a similar process to submitting news: your entry will likely be put in a validation queue.

CEDI

CEDI stands for 'Collaborative/encyclopaedic database interface', and is a system that allows users to post content into a database of posts. This system is similar to that of a forum, however rather than having a structure of forums and user created topics, it has a staff-managed hierarchical structure of pages.

In the left menu you see a block labeled Information. This section (as well as clicking on the main page map) is how you enter this section. Currently it contains a hierarchical structure of pages with all of Nicaragua at the top and then moving down into smaller geographic areas (departments, cities, towns and such).

This is your entry into geographically browsing the site (and Nicaragua). Links from this area point to both entries in the Places catalog and the image galleries. If you are just looking for something to read, the Random page link in the menu can offer a surprise. The Show structure link displays the hierarchy (tree structure) of this area.

Other Sections

Other parts of the site include the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) catalog, photo galleries and downloads section. You are encouraged to check out each area and also encouraged to subscribe to our newsletter.

Getting Involved

If you live in or spend much of your time in Nicaragua and would like to contribute content, ask for an upgrade in your permissions. We are always looking for more people to make this a richer site.