HOWTO: Make a contribution
By | Mar 18, 2007
Logging in for the first time
When you register an email will be sent to you contaning your userid, password and a link to take you to the login screen. Click on the link in the email and login.
Once you have logged in you’ll need to set a few things up. First, click on the ‘My Profile’ link in the top right hand corner of the screen. Ensure the ‘Use visual editor when writing’ box has a tick in it. Click on the empty box to put a tick in it.
Second, fill in the details on the profile page, providing as much information as you feel comfortable with. The more you tell people about yourself, the more chances there are for connecting around shared concerns. Once you’re done, click on ‘Update Profile’ button.
Making a contribution
Before you start posting, take time to get familar with the editor (those who know about blogs might like to know that this site is powered by Wordpress, and you can blog to it using any desktop or web browser plugin designed to work with Wordpress).
When you post, you will need to supply a title, content for the item, and a category into which your contribution will be posted. If it’s news, give it the category ‘news’. If it’s an article or similar about a particular subject, choose the relevant category from the list.
In general, a non news item will differ from a news item by virtue of the long lasting nature of it’s content. It can be added to over time and developed. It might provide a perspective on or definition of a particular issue or situation; or it might provide a story and account of a situation or person/people. Like news items, it can incorporate multimedia elements where they exist (eg. a video from YouTube), be written in any language (although an English translation would be helpful for users of the website), and try and be as neutral as possible.
Images: we encourage you to use these. But please ensure you upload them to our site through the upload section of the editor page. Offsite images do not work well due to security measures on our site. The use of links to other pages and sites is always encouraged.
Content Guidelines
Wherever possible, try and avoid the use of language like “many people say” or “according to research” – instead, identify which people, or what research. However, “my grandmother says” or “according to legend” are, for instance, perfectly acceptable and appropriate. And if you say that it’s your opinion, or your view, then that’s great too!
Use links to other sites and references to help people expand their knowledge of the subject area. Wherever possible, refernece significant themes or issues to other articles on the internet that may be useful to people. So for example if you are talking about climate change you might want to link “IPCC” when you mention it with “http://www.ipcc.ch” and select the box to make the page open in a new window. That will allow people to explore the IPCC site easily, and not leave the article they are exploring on this site.
The story may be self contained, or link a lot to other sites and information; it may come with photos, or might be just text.
Try and avoid uploading Word documents or PDF files unless really necessary. The server can’t search inside these documents. It’s much better to cut and paste text into your article and make it ‘plain text’ as a result. Use plain language as much as possible, and be sure to link offsite to references and other resources as you go.
Reference material wherever possible, and offer followup leads to allow people to learn more or find our more. This makes your article more interesting to the reader, and more useful. All references should go at the end of your article.
Kia kaha!
Users
“Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets.” Num. 11:29
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