Introducing the McKinley Park News

The McKinley Park News announces its launch to the public at the www.mckinleypark.news website. An evolution of the McKinleyPark.org project, the McKinley Park News continues its focus on the McKinley Park neighborhood of Chicago by covering community news and event information, and offering features to support the neighborhood's residents, institutions and enterprises.

"The success of the McKinleyPark.org website led to the decision to evolve into the McKinley Park News," said Publisher Justin Kerr. "This change will help the project grow, and it more accurately reflects our status as a publishing operation."

One primary change involves moving to a .news top-level domain from a .org top-level domain, which implied a non-profit organization, Kerr said. "When McKinleyPark.org launched in 2012, the original intent was a collaborative community website for the neighborhood, but the effort also revealed a real hunger for news and event information for this underserved part of Chicago."

Other website changes have included refocusing the site's feature set and making improvements to site infrastructure. In particular, Kerr said, the entire site is now served via valid https protocol, so all communications between the website and its users are encrypted, improving privacy and security. Web performance enhancements result in faster-loading pages, and this is an ongoing task, Kerr said.

Readers of the former McKinleyPark.org site will note that the McKinley Park News no longer includes translations for Spanish and Chinese languages. "The effort required to maintain the translations didn't match up with results we saw in website traffic analysis," Kerr said. "Changing this focus will allow us to devote more effort to other areas, and improve our news and events coverage.

"Of course this publication remains committed to representing all of the voices of our neighborhood, including our primary enclaves of Hispanic, Chinese and white residents," he said. Kerr noted that McKinleyPark.org's translations were mostly auto-translated, and web users already have many good tools for translating pages.

All visitors to the former McKinleyPark.org website are now being automatically redirected to the McKinley Park News website. The news and events content previously published on McKinleyPark.org has been retained at the McKinley Park News. The McKinleyPark.org domain will be retained for potential future use, Kerr said, leveraged in some way to benefit the neighborhood.

Kerr anticipates more website changes moving forward, in particular, a beta-test advertising program, premium content and more voices from neighborhood residents. All updates and changes will be announced on the McKinley Park News website, he said.

More information about the McKinley Park News is available on the About Us page, and inquiries or feedback can be sent via any of the means on the Contact Us page, Kerr said. "We look forward to continuing to serve the neighborhood by covering local news and events, and expanding the features and services we offer to our audience."