We now want to inform you about the latest updates and many new functions within our community system. Some of you already saw and used the new functions while we tested them.

There are still many things to do and many things in work. We will provide the community and their members as much functionality as possible to communicate and interact with each other.

Spam

We have internal changed the registration provess for new members; the e-mail addresses of new users now will be directly compared to spammer databases. If an e-mail address is registered in one of the databases, the registration will be aborted. Certainly this mechanism cannot succeed for all spammers, therefore we would like to ask all members, if you are realizing a spammer within our system, please use the function "Report user" or "Report article". We will check the report, block the according user and then report the data to the spammer databases.

Photos

Now you can create own photo albums and upload your personal photos. According to your privacy settings other members could view and comment them. Every uploaded picture will create an entry within the activity stream, so other members could see in community overview, who has uploaded new photos. Additional the latest photos are shown in community overview as thumbnails. In all lists your privacy settings are applied.

Videos

Uploading and embedding of videos is available now too. To embed a video you can directly use the address of the according video-provider (e.g. YouTube), description and all other data will be imported automatically. For uploading own videos there is currently a maximum of 8 MB. Videos could be commented too. In the video channel we ask all members to help us building the categories. Simple go to "Participate" and "Suggest category" to send us your category suggestion.

Groups

The user groups are now completely available. Every user is now able to create an own user group about a topic of his own choice. This applies not for groups with direct reference to an own business (see "Business Updates 1"). The groups could be created for private or public use. For private groups all new members must be approved by the group owner. Every user group has its own photo and video gallery and could have its own discussions.

Applications

Some days ago we made some additional applications available, which could be used within your profile. Now you can for example integrate your latest photos directly into your profile. Newsfeeds or your Twitter Timeline are usable within your profile too. Simply use the function "Add application" on your own profile. Every application has its own privacy settings, so you can for example show your Twitter Time to your friends only.

Photos on Frontpage

Members who want to show special photos to the public and viewable for everyone on our frontpage, could create an photo album named "GermanBC" and upload photos into it, which then will be shown on our frontpage. Photos within a album named "GermanBC" do not apply your privacy settings; certainly all other do. All photos our of an album named "GermanBC" will be shown on the frontpage.

Currently this will happen automatically. We therefore ask you to respect the following rules: only photos of city or countryside out of British Columbia or the west coast of Canada should be used; no photos showing persons in any way.