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How do I contribute a news item?
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Written by Administrator
User Rating: / 0
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Friday, 09 January 2004
Tip: You may find it useful to print a copy of this article
to have next to you as you enter your news item into the system.
First, check the topic of your news item and double-check that you have selected
the most appropriate Sense site to post your contribution (you cannot post a news item directly to the World of Sense Portal). If in doubt, please
ask for help via the Contact Form.
Tip: It is better to paste a completed document into the submission
form than to type it all in. This is because your work will be lost if your
browser crashes or your session times out while you are working. Eeek!
- Log in to your chosen Sense website, and select the Submit
News link from the My Senses menu.
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You should be on the Content page. If not, select the
Content tab.
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Enter details as follows:
- Title: Please be descriptive, but succinct. Avoid
using time-related words such as 'latest' as your news item will be
available to site users for long enough that it won't be latest news
anymore! Similarly, 'News' or 'Update' are too generic for users to
understand what your item is about. You can make the title catchy or
intriguing, but make sure you clarify the topic within the first two
lines of the body of your article so that Portal users can work out
what the item is about, as they will have access to news items from
all the Senses and may not realise where yours has come from if is is
displayed on the front page.
- Category: Select the name of the website in the drop
down list. You may use this form to submit articles to other websites
as indicated, but it will not appear on the front page.
- Intro Text: This is the opening part of your article
that will be displayed with the heading on the front page. You can use
HTML tags in this section if you wish, but do not change the font size.
If you are not used to HTML, all you need to do is put <p align="justify">
before each paragraph and </p> at the end of each paragraph. This
will ensure that your text does not run on as one continuous paragraph. There are additional formatting buttons on the page to help you with the layout, but avoid using everything available! If you need help understanding HTML, please let me know.
- Main Text: You can optionally enter main text too.
Unless your news item is very short, I would suggest that you use the
Main Text feature. If you do not, users who read your item on the front
page will not score hits to your document as they will not have selected
it. Scoring hits will make your document a candidate for the 'Most Read'
documents on your chosen Sense site and also the Portal. Users will
also need to access the document to rate your item.
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Select the Images tab. There is no need to complete this
section if you do not want images in your document. If you do, avoid using
too many images as some users will have slow connections to the Internet
and your document will take longer to download to their browsers. Please
do not use the World of Sense logo without my permission as this is reserved
for special articles.
- Click on an image name in the Gallery Images list to see a thumbnail.
When you have decided which to use, click on the Insert button.
- Click on the image name in the Content Images list.
- Use the Align option to specify the horizontal position of your image
in the document. If you select 'none', the default will be for the image
to appear on the left.
- Not all users opt to download images when browsing the Internet so
it is a good idea to put a description of the image in the 'Alt Text'
box. Something like 'sense logo' or 'pink flower' will be plenty of
information as they can use this to decide whether or not they want
to see the image.
- I would advise you to leave the Border as '0' unless you have a particular
need for a border around your image.
- Click on the Apply button to save any changes you made.
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Select the Publishing tab.
- Change the State to 'Published', or your document will not be displayed
on the websites.
- Select an Access Level - 'Public' will ensure that everyone can access
your item and 'Registered' means only logged on users may view it. Do
not use the 'Special' option as this is reserved for later use.
- If you wish to submit the article under a pseudonym, please enter
it in the 'Author Alias' box. Please do not submit lots of articles
under different names.
- Leave the start and finish publishing boxes alone unless you really
need to change them. I will automatically archive old items, so you
only need to specify when to finish publishing if you've submitted,
say, a telephone number to ring if people are interested in an event
you are publicising. It would obviously be wise to have your details
on the Internet only for as long as necessary, so in this case you would
aim to finish publishing the article after the closing date for booking
the event had passed. The date format for the publishing boxes is 'yyyy-mm-dd
hh:mm:ss'.
- Select the 'Show on Front Page' box if you would like the article
to appear on the front page of your chosen Sense site. If you would
also like to have it appear on the front page of the Portal, please
contact me after you have submitted the item as I have to set this separately.
- Do not select 'Hide Item Title' as this is reserved for later use.
- Select the Metadata tab. Metadata is used by search engines to locate and
return relevant documents to users when they are looking for something specific
on the Internet. The Sense sites are frequently checked by search engines
such as Google, so your document will be picked up along with the others on
the site, and if you enter enough relevant information in the metadata section,
your document will rank more highly in related searches.
- Description: Enter a single sentence to explain what
your item is about. Be brief and do not repeat the title name.
- Keywords: Enter up to 25 keywords separated by commas.
Do not use punctuation. Keywords can be one or more words - the search
engine will use the commas to separate the phrases. For example, if I
had written a news item to notify everyone of a group discussion I was
running to do with home birth, the keywords might be: mothersense news,
home birth, group talk, group discussion, putney town hall, putney.
Don't
be tempted to separate all the phrases into single keywords just to cover
everything, as specifying a keyword like 'group' would not gain any extra
hits from the search engine because 'group' could relate to just about
every walk of life and another document with a more relevant choice of
keywords would be ranked more highly in the search than yours. Try to
imagine what you would enter into a search engine if you were trying to
find other documents like yours, and you will most likely have found the
best keywords to use.
- There are two icons on the right above the tabs. Clicking the cross on the right will cancel your item and it will not be submitted;
clicking the save icon on the left will submit your work.
Thank you very much for your contribution! |
| Last Updated (
Saturday, 10 January 2004 ) |
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