St. Maarten Private Eye

Welcome to St. Maarten Private Eye

Even if you are are not a new visitor, it is strongly suggested you take a look below and check out the new guide to SXM Private Eye and other important information.

Click here to Read More
_________________________FRONT PAGE___________________________

What is St. Maarten Private Eye?

Founded in May 2005, SXM PE was inspired by a US based blogsite called The Agonist, a site that not only offers highly intelligent discussion and debate, but which is also a wonderful resource for news, information and interesting articles from around the World. It is powered by both the editors input but also the users who comment and add their interesting opinions and perspectives.

I wanted to create something similar, but locally based and focused, the problem was, only a tiny fraction of St. Maarten news was available online at the Daily Herald website and most often not the news I wanted to blog about. This meant I had to scan them myself.

So the Main Threads Library was born, a place to file away news stories so that anyone could go back and refer to them at any time. I decided to try to keep track of most important issues and stories, because even if I had no plans to write about them, maybe one of you readers would decide to. As you can imagine this created quite a workload to stay on top of, fortunately I have a couple friends who help out from time to time by scanning news for me, or writing the occasional blog post. (You can write one too if you like

Check out this previous posting for more.

Navigation

Finding your way around SXM PE is fairly straightforward and I need to tell you all that the Search option in the top right of every page does not work very well. The best way to find the news item you want to find is to look in the Main Thread list and find it there.

Main Theads List ------------------------------------------->>>>>>>>>>>>

For example, anything to do with housing, children's homes, rehabilitation, health, social issues, are all filed in the Social and Health Care Thread. Often stories are placed in several threads if the issue overlaps, and if you don't find something then take another look through the threads to see where it might be. Two things you need to know when looking, the approximate date and the approximate headline.

Some Threads have a list of related threads, sub threads, documents or articles at the top of the page, be sure to check there too. At the top in the Police Thread you can find the sub threads for Merx, CBS Assualt and the Angelique Murder.

When reading Blogs and comments which include links, try right clicking and 'open in New Window' so you don't lose the page you are currently reading. Clicking back on your browser also works and at the top of every page you will find a Home link which will return you to the Front Page.

Making Comments

If you have registered with a user name, then your comments will appear on the site as soon as you post them, if you are not registered then it will queue until an editor has approved it. All you need to register is an active email address, as of July 15th 2006, SXPE has 301 registered users.

Writing a Blog or Opinion

If you are interested in writing an opinion or article about something on SXM that interests, pleases, perplexes, concerns or outrages you, then we welcome you to submit one. Registered Users can do so by posting it using the Page Option in create content, including links and photos within the article using the code shown in the policies and guidelines page if you choose to.

If you are unsure how to do this, then you can just insert page addresses where you want the links to appear and an editor will take care of it when preparing it as a Blog. We try to edit or change very little, mostly it is just the laying out that we might tinker with. We do of course reserve the right to edit and even refuse submissions if poorly prepared or presented.

The best thing to do is type the codes out on a wordpad or MSWord page, and then save it, copying and pasting the code into your script when required.

Writing a Blog or article for SXM PE does not mean you approve of every other Blog posting on the site. What you should keep in mind though is that anyone may comment and agree or disagree with what you have to say, if the later then you should be prepared to defend your view.

Don't be afraid of the internet.
Don't be afraid to have an opinion.
Don't be afraid to voice it.

SXM PE is here to provide a forum to the community in which to discuss and raise awareness of important issues that concern our island home. It is open to anyone and everyone to use. This website is about and for the users and readers, it's up to you to make it what you want it to be. Overcome your fears, voice your opinion.

For internet learners it is suggested that you first spend some time browsing the website and stories. If you feel inclined to leave a comment, just click under the story or item you want to comment about.

We hope you enjoy the website and that you feel encouraged to add comments and news items to share with other readers and users. We are happy to know that it has become a resource of information for students, activists, lawyers and even civil servants, we hope you value and have a use for it too.

If you have a topic or issue you want to see discussed or a photo you would like to share then please send an email to sxmpemail at gmail dot com. We prefer you do it yourself though, that is the idea here.

NOTE! SXM PE Does not accept responsibility for users' or non-users' comments or content. Editors do watch over the site and readers are asked to inform SXM PE of any content that may cause danger to, or threaten, individuals or groups. This site is for intelligent, informed debate. Abusive or threatening comments will be deleted and if recurring then the user will be blocked.

SXM PE is also not affiliated with any political party. The goal is to be informative and to encourage debate and discussion within the community. The future waits for no one. We have a choice about what ours will be, but not for long, every day that passes brings the future closer.

Feel free to leave questions in the comments section below.

Flipper and crew - SXM PE

30 comments | read more