What & Who is Saba News and Who funds it?

In response to questions concerning Saba News we drafted the information below. Please contact the Editors if you need further information.

What is Saba-News.com?

Saba-News.com is a transparent, independent website where information related to Saba is shared. The primary focus is on news articles and announcements relevant for Saba residents, their guests and visitors. The first version came on-line in 2008 as Sabanews.nl.

The moderators of the site are no journalists so they do NOT write articles themselves. Volunteers search for information published on-line. Because Saba News has no financial interests, we have “gentlemen’s agreements” for publication with the key sources of information, subject to a proper reference to the original source of the information.

In addition the site offers a way for individuals, organizations and governmental institutes to publish announcements, events, etc. or share their views on local issues in the form of a “Letter to the Editor”, “Open letter to officials” or “Comments” to posts published.

Who is Saba News?

The Saba News website maintained by volunteers. The contributors are listed in the “Credits” page at the bottom of each page of the site. Persons who would like to actively contribute are always welcome. Please contact the Editors through the form at the bottom of each page.

Who funds Saba News?

All cost related to Saba News are paid by the webmaster. There are no sponsors nor is there any income from ads nor publications. Everything on the site is published free of charge. The site is a gift to the community.

What is published?

As a principle, we will publish every contribution or message that meets the conditions set out in our House Rules. Moderators check compliance with the House Rules and, on that basis, take the final decision for publication. However, if someone takes offense against a publication, then the decision to publish will be reconsidered.

The site offers dedicated sections for organizations and enterprises to promote themselves. In addition, everyone can place private ads in the Classified Ads section on the site.

Please take note of the Disclaimer for which the link is listed at the bottom of each page.

How many readers has Saba News?

Because of the specific internet structure on Saba, it is not possible to identify and count individual readers as many Satel clients share the same unique internet address. In stead, we count every time a post is read on Saba News. This does not facilitate to count the numbers of unique readers, but it gives an indication of the popularity of the site. Note that views by Saba-News.com staff are automatically eliminated from the view counts.

The picture below depicts the number of articles that are read per day during a recent 20 day period.

 

We also maintain a Facebook page on which copies of the most relevant posts are shared. Due to the rules of Facebook we had to change the name of our account from Saba Newspaper to a name related to the Editor. In addition we invite everyone interested to become a Facebook “friend” of Spike Swierstra.  As a “friend” a link to every new post is automatically announced on your time-lime. At the moment of writing Saba Newspaper has more than 2600 “friends”.

Where do our readers live?

On the basis of the internet addresses of our readers the software that builds the statistics can trace their location. We learned that some 33 % of our readers is locally from Saba, 25 % lives in the US or Canada and 18 % originates from the European Netherlands. The rest lives somewhere on this world.

Everything published on Saba News finds a widely spread audience.