Rene, as you pointed out in your reply to my topic here on this issue (my topic, of course, got ignored, at least you got some kind of an answer!), these issues need to be transparent and well-defined.

When contributors upload photos, can they then be used by AP or NP, now or at a later date, without credit or payment? Is this just another form of what the networks and newspapers are doing with their "you report" (various names used) programs to get free material sent in by viewers/readers?

And, as you point out in another of your postings, we also need to know if there will ever really be any revenue-sharing with contributors, or any payments of any kind (as in usual AP stringing fees; I used to string for AP in college). If so, what formula would revenue sharing be based on? Do the already-paid staff contributors (red/orange crowns) get first cut? Who determines the rest, and how?

Will this issues be based on quality of material, or political affiliation, or consistency in providing materials to NP, or some math thing re: how many page views someone gets? If it's based on page views, those are easily manipulated by various flags, especially "Good Stuff", as a staff person's flag counts many many more times than a GE, a Wrangler, or a member (there's a formula for that).  By ignoring some contributors' material, or by agreeing to promote others' material, or by updating someone's material *for* them to keep it on the front page, the staff pretty much can control even who gets what traffic.

We've lost some good contributors here. One good contributor got banned after being baited by someone; alas, the person banned, or their politics, wasn't popular with the person who did the banning. Two people, in a hot debate, equally culpable, one got banned. The other continues on, baiting and insulting. 

And all of that is too darned bad, isn't it? If NP wants to be a true citizen site, then the old-fashioned standard of true editorial objectivity employed in evaluating material and contributors needs to be a constant standard. In the past, I've GS'd material that I personally didn't agree with politically, because it was well-presented and was good stuff. Simple. I've GS'd material from people whose discourse style I didn't personally "like," but that bit of material was good. Quality not personalities; quality not politics.

Every other "news" site I've experimented with inevitably winds up being more "social" and more about personality/personal views than news. I had high high hopes for NP; hope they can avoid that trap.