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Please join us here at 2:30 p.m. ET for our first iReport roundtable of 2012. It will be nice to catch up with everyone after the holidays and we'd love to meet new members of the community.
We can talk about anything you want, but we'd also like to hear your story ideas for 2012. We'd also like to hear your thoughts about the future of the roundtable -- is the time good, should we change the format, are there things you'd like to talk about?
We'll open comments at 2:30 p.m. ET and look forward to talking with you then.
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- Stories from around the globe: The best of iReport this week
- iReport roundtable: Thursdays at 2:30 p.m. ET
- May Day Occupy protests: Fired-up or fizzled-out?
- iReport Pundit of the Week: Fresh faces, hot issues
- Arbor Day on iReport: Your favorite trees
- A game of throngs: The best of iReport this week
- iReport Roundtable: It’s not too late to debate
- CNN iReport nominated for Webby Award
- iReport Pundit of the Week: Adriana Maxwell
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Hi everyone,
Hope you're doing well and I look forward to talking with you.
Happy New Year to all
Happy new year to everyone from London - where it's very windy!
Happy 2012!
What should we talk about? :)
Hey Sherbien,
How are you? Were you in the area where the mudslides were?
Hope everyone had a good New Year
One of the big things I'm interested in hearing is what sort of projects or assignments would you like us to try.
We're gearing up for 2012 and we're trying to focus as much as possible on projects that we feel passionately about. We want you to be passionate about the assignments as well.
Happy 2012! Another ground-breaking year for iReport, I'm sure.
Nice to have you BobEvans53 - I see you just joined at the end of the year. What brought you on board?
Thanks, I am looking forward to working with the iReport team.
Happy New Year everyone! With the election year upon us, I think we'll all be in for a very, very bumpy ride.
Ground will be broken, I can promise you that beetraveler.
I don't know if everyone saw Mike's blog post yesterday, but iReporters in Nigeria have really led the coverage on these protests there.
It's been exciting to see the flood of stories from the region.
We also got a great first-hand account of what's going on in the area affected by the Philippine mudslides today.
Those are really exciting examples of what we can do together.
As someone who has been here for quite a while, I do not envy David and the rest of the team as the elections get closer. I really do not want to see the vitriol of the past take over again. Was very nasty back in the day and I see some of the same creeping back in from all sides.
@davidw
I'm interested in documenting this year without the human factor. How about highlighting interesting animals around the world? Everyone can contribute in some way. I'd love to know what is out there!
Check out my latest iReport about Icana.
I'm looking forward to our election coverage. We've learned so much since 2008 and I'm looking forward to seeing how we tell this huge national story together.
I think most iReporters have learned to disagree respectfully and we now know what to do with the people who aren't respectful.
That could be very interesting, Chris. I know my first one would be on the best dog breed out there - Great Danes! (OK, best for me at least...)
hi david. i'm in quezon city. manila ireporters just went to cdo and iligan last week to give outreach to the typhoon victims. we are planning also to go back there to give more donations. the mudsline is far from my home. seen the vetted ireport of ben in compostella valley. think you have an ireporter in mindanao that can give ireport all the breaking news there. he reports the biggest croc and the first account of typhoon sendong aftermath i think.
Animal stories would be fun. We'll keep an eye out for an idea that would work for us editorially.
I'd like to see a special assignment on the great fence builders of the world!
You are doing a great job covering Sherbien! Everyone over ther Be Safe and I wish I could help out more!
Happy New Year, everyone! :o)
It was brought to my attention that there is a download" button available on iReports which allows anyone to come along and download our photos and videos to use and keep as their own. Is there a way we can opt out of that? I do not want my photos/videos being downloaded, shared, manipulated, posted on other websites and even sold without my control, permission, compensation or even credit. Can that feature be removed?
I was informed that my New Years Eve in London video had made its way to YouTube without my knowledge or consent. Also, a fellow iReporter contacted me and told me she had downloaded by photos and turned them into posters for her home. I wouldn't mind so much, if I had control who I give them to for free.
Thanks Sherbien,
I didn't know if that's where you did the typhoon aid.
I'm glad y'all are home safe.
hi chris, i uploaded ireport about animals after the flooding in cdo and iligan. the title of my ireport is not just another day...
One thing that would help is a longer notice of special programmes- examples from 2011 were the CNN features on Poland and (err, another country - I forget which one!)
They were only announced on CNN the week before, too late for me to make contributions.
If you're featuring a country or theme, with local CNN reporters- or sending anchors form Atlanta, it must be planned some time in advance and I'm sure I and others could contribute - not just travel, of course! It would make life easier for the programming planners, too, I guess.
Just a suggestion!
Fence builders? That's intriguing @seeitnow. Do people keep track of the best fence builders? Is it a specific kind of fence?
What ho happy new year!
Interesting, Joyful...I didn't realize that. Good points indeed.
JoyfulGipsy's London post was wonderful!
I hadn't realised anyone can download and then re-use my films - I have no problem with CNN doing as they wish, but the thought of others amending them, re-posting etc is a bit scarey.
The County Fair would be a nice one to bring back!
@seeitnow We were just talking about your fencebuilding comment. Sounds like you have something in mind. Eh? Eh?
How's it going y'all by the way you know hey hey hey.
The Chinese did a great fence and I think they top the list...what??? Wrong kind of fence?
@davidw If you think about fences are everywhere for every reason, take the North South divide of Korea, big fence, then there's the White not so big and then there's your white picket fence and of course the ones surrounding prisons. IS your fence keeping you in or others out. I think it was the Norwegians that invented the fence.
Good fences make good neighbors, seeitnow...at least per R. Frost.
Thanks, AlunHIll. Apparently, anyone can come along and steal our pictures and video and do whatever they want with them. Not cool.
The UK has the Queen's Jubilee, with lots going on - including a flotilla of 1,000 ships, led by the Queen, on the River Thames (and a day's holiday for us, too!).
We also have the Olympics.
Although media accreditation is difficult, there's loads of stories around the country - including the Olympic Torch being carried 1,000 miles around the country, by 1,000 people, one mile each!
Each country will have it's own stories too - it would be great to get an iReport from each contestant's country ....
Hello, Happy New Year 2012!
That is concerning, joyful. You've posted way more than me, but still...there are some that I do not mind sharing with my fellow iReporters, but would not want to see then splashed out in other places. Great points. Maybe a button to "opt-out" the sharing aspect prior to posting a report should be available.
Hi JoyfulGypsy
We're looking at what's going on with the download button.
It looks like it's only enabled on some assignments.
The reason we wanted it, was so that iReporters could work together on special mashup assignments.
It is what made projects like the Katrina Then and Now photos possible.
It does seem to be acting odd, so we're looking at it.
I used to know a Norwegian fence builder. The person came from a very long line of fence builders and I used to listen to her stories about her family and their amazing fence building. Most of the time it put me to sleep but the fence idea caught my attention. The ones that come to my mind are the slate fences in the Cotswalds, the same slate that was used to make the first pencil by the way! Village of Borrowdale famous for fences and pencils!
Fences ... hmm .. I should be in the island of Cyprus next month - a country divided in two - one of the last in the world - by NATO troops as the Greek and Turkish sides continue to argue.
You can now cross the border, at last - but the "fences" have been there too long.
"Fences" is growing on me!
Hint!
Assingment: London Olympic Games 2012? What do you think! Maybe we could begin it immediately?!
@AlunHill
I'm not sure if we're going to be doing the Eye on series again this year.
If we do, I'll see if we can post a schedule of all of the destinations in advance.
We do that in partnership with CNN International, so we'd have to work it our with them.
@joyful
Read the CNN Service Agreement. You upload and they own all content to do whatever they wish.
Isn't that correct CNN iReport Producers?
This is something everyone who is an iReporter agrees to. Nothing new.
I could see the "fence" thing too...for example, living in Texas and the proximity of the Mexican border begs the question "Do we need a boarder fence?" if so, what type? Physical? Electronic? Cyber? Interesting indeed.
Here's another idea. It's a bit of a trade secret but you're all so good at this now so here goes.
"est" stories. est as in the superlative fastEST, biggEST, PrettiEST, ugliEST, longEST, TallEST, every city or country has one. What about the EST in your location?
Fences (and borders) sounds like an interesting meme. Grew up in AZ and there was always a lot of border talk out there.
@seeitnow
That idea would never work because everything is bigger and better in Texas!! :P
Chris, I understand that CNN has the rights, but, for example, I shouldn't be able to download one of your reports and post it someplace else without giving you credit at least, right? I think that's what Joyful is talking about.
I'm sure there's going to be tons of interest in the Olympics and the Queen's Jubilee.
I don't know...we already have the biggEST pair of boots in the world right outside one of the malls here in San Antonio!
Hi davidw and other fellow iReporters....
Happy New Year Everyone!!!....haven't been on roundtable for a while.....
but, I am back!!...and back reporting again....
@chrismorrow
Yes of course Texas is the biggEST but what about the smallEST, You know what they say about things in small packages : > )
Hello team iReport and fellow iReporters alike! I look forward to jumping back in as the 2012 election season is now officially kicked off.
I want to see more positive stories about police officers, instead of the bad things that seem to put them into the news all the time. By the way, Hello..
Well, as much as I'd like to stick around, duty (work) calls. Y'all have a great year and let's all play nice in the coming election year. Be safe, everyone.
Hi @JoyfulGypsy - sorry to be slow weighing in on this one. It's been a busy day!
The "download" button is something we've used since the iReport site started, but we use it really sparingly. In this case, we accidentally turned it on for the New Year's Eve assignment and are turning it off now. But sometimes it's really useful to allow downloads. For example, last year when we did a project around the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina we enabled the download button on historic photos of the damage because we were asking people to re-create them for the anniversary.
Ha yes many places lay claim to the biggest ___ in the world, especially in the smallest towns.
Thanks, David. If I had known downloading was going to be possible, I would not have contributed to the assignment. I'm disappointed that this happened at all and don't want to be a part of such assignments in the future. Would you please let us know in advance when an assignment is going to be open to downloading? I don't mind giving CNN iReport my photos for free, but I do mind giving them away to everyone and anyone else out there, too? I am not happy with this.
@mab91c
Download away! I'm happy to have my images and videos going viral. Just makes it easier for me to establish my work. I'm being promoted by CNN! Most journalists want this.
I'd also have them download a nice version vs. rt click on image.
Sorry, seeitnow, we Texans don't know anything about the smallest...you need to talk to those folks from Rhode Island! See ya!
@DavidW -apologies - I now realise what I did wrong - won't happen again, promise!
Thanks, Lila. I posted my comment above (to David) before reading your comment. I appreciate your answer. It would be great if in the future we were told when the download button is going to be used so we can decide if we want to contribute or not. Thanks, again. Happy New Year.
Bonjour everyone!
Happy new year to you all and good health!
Hello! David,
I was hoping for 2012 and for the sake of freedom of speech and liberty around the planet to see more and more ireporter's face on instead of hiding behind avatars. I think we claim for freedom, we want to stop slavery... but than again we hide behind avatar isn't that peculiar. I think for people who fight for equality, freedom and human rights we should express ourselves openely with a picture not an avatar.
Also, I would like to suggest to have a radio button option at the end of our stories so we can click and share our stories direclty to someone in particular. A lot of the time, my friends went to search for my articles but coulnd't find it. Is that faisible?
I think the choices of stories you give us were quite good hope I receive an email update when you come up with a new subject so I could participate more often.
Have anything hot for this month so when I get better I can run around the globe for exciting assignment!
Let's all have fabulous stories to tell. Good luck everyone!
On the topic of fences:
Fences date back to the Scandinavians, not specifically the Norwegians, actually. In fact, the fence building "tradition" is more of a Swedish one. (Norwegians are most notably connected to their viking/sea history.)
An interesting fact is that the original wooden Scandinavian fences were simply to keep animals out, and not to mark boundaries. Boundaries, on the other hand, were marked by natural landscapes, such as streams and rivers, the easiest boundary markers. As such, in Scandinavian language, the words for boundaries were the same words used to describe rivers etc.
Freedom of Speech has it's good side and bad. If you load a video or picture onto a public site, be prepared for someone to steal it.
Hello iReport friends
Personally I'm not a fan of the download button as it puts that video out of the direct control of somebody that I have an approved relationship with. That said, if somebody wants it bad enough it's obviously very easy to download with a button anyway.
Got to go guys. Work calls. This has been interesting for my first roundtable.
@JoyfulGypsy - Like Lila said, we would generally only use the dowload button on assignments where we want people to collaborate.
In this case, it was enabled by mistake, but in cases where we meant to do it, we have included instructions on downloading the material and what we want people to try to do with it.
Another example where we tried this was with the Around the World in a Day project because we wanted iReporters to try making their own mashup videos.
I'm sorry for the mistake.
Hello my friends at iReport staff
Mab that is what I'm talking about.
I'm not of the same opinion, Chris. I do mind. It's one thing for our images and videos to go viral and get credit for it. That would be great. However, it's quite another when some dude in Kentucky or something takes your pictures and claims them or sells them as his own. Baloney to that.
I'd also love more food assignments for 2012.
@airnation1 - each iReport has a unique url, so you could forward that to people.
Also, theres the facility to automatically send all your iReports to your Twitter and / or Facebook accounts.
Does that help at all, please?
Welcome @professirx
Hi airnation1 - I agree that it would be great if everyone used their image as an avatar.
Could I also encourage everyone to fill out their profiles more fully, so we can see what we have in common.
I don't know if we can add the sharing with a specific person, but you could always use the private message system or post it on Facebook.
My last comment on "fences":
The tradition of fence building is an interesting one. There are ton of amazing natural, man-made, as well as imagined boundaries in the world -- many being built (ex. new countries etc.) and many crumbling down (ex dictatorships etc). Not a boring topic at all, nor are the stories behind it.
Attention sports fans, and fans of awesome iReport interviews - Shaquille O'Neal is taking your questions tomorrow! So post your videos here today! Thank you for reading this PSA.
http://ireport.cnn.com/topics/726747
Welcome back DaElmer, Sorry I'm getting a bit behind.
Your idea for tributes to police is interesting. I'll see what we can do.
Olympics, queen jubilee, animals, How about flea markets, the best home gardens?
Hey HHanks, I'mn in Atlanta
@joyfulgypsy
It happens all the time but not ALL the time. Those small instances do not matter. The truth comes out when it matters.
@hhanks
Wow- a commercial break in a round table - love it!
Wow professirx welcome indeed!
We launched another assignment I think a lot of you will be interested in. We saw the story about Kodak filing for bankruptcy and decided to ask people to share their most memorable Kodak moments:
http://ireport.cnn.com/topics/726798
Thanks @AlunHill
Norwegian fence builder stories, oh ya there's excitement for ya. I've heard a few of them in my time.
Just when does the truth matter, Chris? When does it not?
@ChrisMorrow I agree. More food assignments. I like when there are assignments featuring foods in various cities around the world. Food photos are fun!
I think expanding the Political assignments, maybe more specific may be good, maybe on the "issue of the day" or something of that nature.
@davidw
Kodak, now there's a great story. I saw that this morning and though not unexpected it's certainly a dramatic metaphor for many US industry's. They had it all at one time, even a famous song, soon it's a faded memory.
@joyfulgypsy
That is up to you and CNN who also owns your content. :)
I now see that the Kodak story is developing, but I'd been in the dark about this.
I'll see if there's anything in print.
Didn't want to be negative.
Sorry....
Anyway, I've got to go to get back to work. I hope my comments are taken into consideration.
Happy New Year, all.
well did and did not...tks
Fence you can all come and have your next meeting at my place and build me a fence 100 feet long 4 side too.
Hows'that i can provide the beer. Every one will bring a huge ciment block so I don't have to see my neighbours no more and let's make it nice and pretty for the environment and cover it all with greens see you on the 24th of june in Quebec.
I'm sure we're going to be sitting down soon with Kat and Sarah at the Eatocracy blog to come up with some new food ideas. They've loved working with iReporters.
Welcome @cam4573 - I think you will find no shortage of political topics on iReport this year.
Joyful, an iReport fellow has used my Occupy Berlin photos on his blog in internet; It is not nice; I don´t know what I could or should do...
CNN Breaking News
For first time in history, digital #music sales top physical sales.
They just tweeted this - amazing story!
Hi markpel,
If you see other iReporters using your photos, feel free to shoot me a note with the link to the iReport.
I'll be happy to talk to them about it.
One more thing..... CNN might "own my content" as per terms of service. I agreed to that.
However, I did not agree to the unknown dude in Kentucky owning my content and doing as he pleases with it. That is my point.
@markpel I think you should force him to listen to Norwegian food and fence stories, now that's torture
hi from dominican republic
Welcome @misael!
is there any mountaineering assignment? got hooked up with mountaineering last year and as a matter of afct, I climb the highest peaks in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao islands here...
food love it too
gtg
hope this meeting will bring you;
food for the Brainnn!
Au Revoir!
davidw...how about a follow-up story to our volunteer pledge story that we did last year??
I agree that it's completely inappropriate for someone to steal your images and sell them as his own.
You should be able to file a claim against the person using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
You would have to go to the site where he posted the image and request the takedown.
Here's how you would go through the process with iReport, to give you an idea of how it works, http://ireport.cnn.com/terms.jspa#DMCAnotification
Again, I am sorry that happened.
@misael
I heard there was an earthquake there today - is all well?
David, this iReporter used the photos in his private blog site in internet not in iReport.
Thanks for the suggestion Patricia, I'll pass it along.
Mountaneering might be good Sherbien.
Lets all go to visit @misael and have an iReport convention there, away from stray Norwegian fence builders.
markpel -- If you want to email me the information I can look into it and at least talk to him. It might help.
I've got to run to another meeting. I was nice talking to everyone and we'll be back soon.
Seeitnow, fences, walls... this is not new for me...
apparently this year we will have many iReports to report, and just this year 2012 take 5 days, I think we live hectic few months
Have a great day all!
yes, i agree with patricia. i think manila ireporters has aloted more time in volunteering and soing outreach. AND WE ARE PLANNING A BIG ONE THAT WILL SHOCK AND AMAZE I REPORT TEAM!!!!
this year, i'm planning to climb all the dangerous and killer treks here in the Philippines. but now, i'm a bit sad because i might not join climbing the most dangerous trail this january.
well, have a nice weekend to all.
Davidw, thank you. I will send mail to you.
@Markpel @JoyfulgypseyThat's unfortunate about your photos!
@AlunHill that's incredible breaking news about digital music sales! There could be an assignment around that??
yes sir @ AlunHill so, we got a big scare, we feel very strong and was only 5.3, but for me the most impressive was the parades reuido of my apartment
@beetraveller Yes - I think it's definitely worth posting about!
yes sir @AlunHill so, we got a big scare, we feel very strong and was only 5.3, but for me the most impressive was the sound of my apartment walls
@joyfulgypsy and @markpel I've had my work stolen by former partners as well so I know how infuriating it is. They're the lowest of low life's. They're disgusting!
Thanks all!
Have a great time!
@Sherbien Maybe a mountain peaks around the world assignment would be neat?
@misael - Glad you're OK.
Yes, Sherbien, I agree with the mountaineering assingment!!!
I am a peakbagger, too.
yes mark.. you have great photos of your hiking and mountaineering
Sorry I missed the roundtable...again...but I wanted to add my suggestion for a 2012 assignment...Reporting on products that went over and above what you expected them to do....thx
in 2012 i'd like to see CNN ireporters do an open-story on environmental issues.
how many republican candidates believe in climate change? would some just leave it up to GOD and ignore it? this could affect everyone everywhere on the planet, there should be more discussion.