Wildlife Promise Blog Documentation

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Darrell Craig
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1 Wildlife Promise Blog Documentation Updated December 2010 Logging into Wildlife Promise... 2 Completing Your Blogger Profile... 3 Blog Accounts for Interns... 4 How to Post on Wildlife Promise... 6 Commenting and Responding to Comments Wildlife Promise Blog Categories Tagging Posts on Wildlife Promise Social Media & Blogging Guidelines

2 Logging In to Wildlife Promise Your username and password were assigned to you by the blog administrator. To login to the blog, go to the following URL: login.php Enter the Username and Password assigned to you by the blog administrator. 2

Set as either your first name or full name Drop Down to select how the system displays your name.

3 Completing Your Blogger Profile Once you have logged in, click on Profile in the left column to update your profile: Once you have opened your profile, make sure you set the following items: Field First name Last Name Nick Name Set Display Name As e Mail Bio/About the User Change Password Avatar/Headshot Description/Updated? Text of your first name Text of your last name Text. Set as either your first name or full name Drop Down to select how the system displays your name. Set to your first and last name Update with your correct e Mail Text field, short bio about your self to display on the Blogger page, written in third person. See for examples. Your password has been automatically set to a generic password. Reset it to one unique to you. Headshot or other image to identify yourself. Small square images less than 10K work best. A good size to use would be a rectangular image measuring 90 pixels wide by 70 pixels deep. Once you have completed this, e mail the blog administrator to set your profile to be visible. By default, all profiles are hidden until this has been completed. 3

4 Blog Accounts for Interns Interns at the National Wildlife Federation are valuable team members who contribute significantly to NWF s mission and our work. We encourage our interns to blog on behalf of the organization and to find their online voice. With that in mind, we have established the following procedures and guidelines for interns and their use of Wildlife Promise the National Wildlife Federation s blogging platform. Getting an intern blogging account: o Blog login requests for interns should be sent to the blog administrator from the intern s supervisor. o The Supervisor s request should include the appropriate blogging role for the intern including one of the following: o Contributor can write and manage their posts but not publish them. o Author can publish and manage their own posts o After an appropriate number of posts, the supervisor may request a change in the blogger s role. o Supervisors should continue to mentor the intern and review blog posts to ensure consistency with the National Wildlife Federation s messaging and standards. Blogging Guidelines: Interns should remember that when they are writing on the Wildlife Promise blog, they are representing the National Wildlife Federation. Posts must be factually correct and consistent with NWF s mission and values. The following guidelines from NWF s Social Media Guidelines apply specifically to our blogging efforts: o Promote NWF values. If you choose to talk about NWF online, please try to do it in a way that helps NWF s mission and promote NWF s values. o Be mindful. Familiarize yourself with NWF s Political Activity Policy. Keep in mind that the rules about what political activities are allowed do not change fundamentally in cyberspace. Therefore, if you engage in advocacy or political commentary of any type, and you have not been authorized to speak on behalf of NWF, it is important to use a disclaimer (such as the example in section 2.) to ensure that you clearly represent that you are communicating in your personal capacity. o Respect copyright, fair use and disclosure laws. In order to protect both NWF and yourself, you must obey the laws that govern copyright and fair use of material owned by others (including images). Remember to link to citations of others work and never quote more than small excerpts from another s publication or blog. Keep in mind that laws may be different depending on where you live and work. 4

5 o Respect privacy. Do not provide NWF or another s confidential or other proprietary information. Ask permission to publish or report on conversations that are intended to be private or internal to NWF. Don t pick fights. When you see misrepresentations about NWF made by the media or other bloggers, alert NWF s communications staff, who can guide you in responding. Always be respectful, stick to the facts (and get the facts straight), and identify your appropriate role within NWF 5

How to Post on Wildlife Promise The Dashboard After logging in, the first thing you will see the Wordpress Dashboard. The most important thing from this Dashboard is to start writing your blog post.

6 How to Post on Wildlife Promise The Dashboard After logging in, the first thing you will see the Wordpress Dashboard. The most important thing from this Dashboard is to start writing your blog post. To start writing, the easiest thing to do is to click on the New Post button in the top right. (Highlighted in the screengrab above). This will bring up the EDIT POST Screen and you can start working on your blog entry. The Dashboard also tells you about recent activity both at your site and in the WordPress community at large and provides access to updating WordPress, plugins, and themes. Dashboard (unless you are a Wildlife Promise admin, this content is probably not relevant) o The Dashboard provides a number of links to start writing Posts or Pages, statistics and links on the number of posts, pages, Categories, and Post Tags. o A Recent Comments box shows the number of Comments awaiting moderation and a list of the recent comments. 6

A screen grab with labeled fields is below: Title (A) The title of your post.

7 Writing a New Post Below are descriptions of the fields you will see after you click on New Post and enter the EDIT POST Screen. A screen grab with labeled fields is below: Title (A) The title of your post. You can use any words or phrases. Avoid using the same title as other posts on the Wildlife Promise blog as that will potentially cause problems. You can use commas, 7

8 apostrophes, quotes, hypens/dashes, and other typical symbols in the post like "My Site Here's Lookin' at You, Kid." WordPress will clean it up for the link to the post. Even with this automatic clean up, please be careful about overuse of symbols in titles as certain symbols such as an em dash can make the title hard to read and may make the post URL may make it hard to render. Post Editing Area (B) The blank box where you enter your writing, links, links to images, and any information you want to display on your site. You can use either the Visual or the HTML view to compose your posts. For more information on the editing tools see Visual Editing Tools. Publish Box (C) Contains buttons that control the state of your post. The main states are o Published the post has been published on your blog for all to see. o Pending Review the draft is waiting for review by an editor prior to publication o Draft the post has not been published and remains a draft for you. If you select a specific publish status and click the update post or Publish button, that status is applied to the post. For example, to save a post in the Pending Review status, select Pending Review from the Publish Status drop down box, and click Save As Pending. (You will see all posts organized by status by going to Posts > Edit). To schedule a post for publication on a future time or date, click "Edit" in the Publish area next to the words "Publish immediately". You can also change the publish date to a date in the past to back date posts. Change the settings to the desired time and date. You must also hit the "Publish" button when you have completed the post to publish at the desired time and date. Save Allows you to save your post as a draft / pending review rather than immediately publishing it. To return to your drafts later, visit Posts Edit in the menu bar, then select your post from the list. Preview Button Allows you to view the post before officially publishing it. Publish Publishes your post on the site. You can edit the time when the post is published by clicking the Edit link above the Publish button and specifying the time you want the post to be published. By default, at the time the post is first auto saved, that will be the date and time of the post within the database. Permalink (D) After you save your post, the Permalink below the title shows the potential URL for the post, as long as you have permalinks enabled. The URL is generated from your title. The commas, quotes, apostrophes, and other non HTML favorable characters are changed and a dash is put between each word. If your title is "My Site Here's Lookin' at You, Kid", it will be cleaned up to be "my site heres lookin at you kid" as the title. 8

9 You can manually change this, maybe shortening it to "my site lookin at you kid". Please note that this change needs to be made BEFORE you publish. Once you publish, you cannot change the Permalink/URL. Categories (E) The general topic the post can be classified in. Readers can browse specific categories to see all posts in the category. Wildlife Promise has 8 pre defined categories for all posts in the NWF Blogs. Please see Blog Categories for details on each category. Post Tags (F) Refers to micro categories for your blog, similar to including index entries for a page. Posts with similar tags are linked together when a user clicks one of the tags. Add new tags to the post by typing the tag into the box and clicking "Add". The box will start to autofill with existing tags so you can select from tags used in other blogs and categorize your post with those posts. Please see Tagging Guidelines for more information on tags and suggested tags. Featured Image (G) Use the Featured Image tool to either add an image to the post and select it as a featured image or to select an existing image as the featured image. Featured Images appear on the home page of Wildlife Promise and having a Featured Image will publish it in one of the above the fold spots on the home page. Excerpt A summary or brief teaser of your posts featured on the front page of your site as well as on the category, archives, and search non single post pages. WordPress will automatically use the first few words of your post as the Excerpt or you may enter your own excerpt. If you enter your own, limit your excerpt to no more than 30 words. Make sure to check how it renders on the front page of the blog and cut any words that cause it to leave things uneven on the homepage. Send Trackbacks A way to notify legacy blog systems that you've linked to them. If you link other WordPress blogs, they'll be notified automatically using pingbacks. This is an advanced blogging tool that few Wildlife Promise bloggers will use. Custom Fields Do not use. Discussion Do not change. Post Author (H) A list of all blog authors you can select from to attribute as the post author. This section only shows if you have Editor or Admin rights. Use the drop down to select an author. If you are posting for a guest blogger without an account, use the NWF author. Revisions (I) Wordpress tracks the changes and versions to your post. This area shows each save and you can use it to revert back to a previous version of your post if you need to. 9

The Formatting Toolbar The formatting toolbar at the top of the Post Editing window uses a number of the most common functions that are familiar to users of Microsoft Word and

Below are details on specific items unique to the Wordpress tool bar that you might not find in other editing tool bars.

When inserted into a blog post, it appears as follows: Link and Unlink Buttons Highlight a section of text, and then select the insert link button (on left) to bring up the Insert

10 The Formatting Toolbar The formatting toolbar at the top of the Post Editing window uses a number of the most common functions that are familiar to users of Microsoft Word and webmail tools like G Mail including bold, italic, bullets, and justification. Below are details on specific items unique to the Wordpress tool bar that you might not find in other editing tool bars. Blockquote Highlight a paragraph or specific quote to highlight that a quote is a featured quote. When inserted into a blog post, it appears as follows: Link and Unlink Buttons Highlight a section of text, and then select the insert link button (on left) to bring up the Insert Link window. Enter your link destination in the LINK URL area. If you are linking to another blog post, select OPEN LINK IN SAME WINDOW. For any other links to outside websites or even to NWF.org webpages, select OPEN LINK IN A NEW WINDOW. Make sure to enter a title of the destination website. To remove a link you have already inserted, highlight the applicable copy, and click on the Unlink button (on right) to remove the link. 10

Spell Check Click this to turn on the built in spell check which will identify any misspelled words with a red underline (similar to Microsoft Word).

11 Spell Check Click this to turn on the built in spell check which will identify any misspelled words with a red underline (similar to Microsoft Word). Embed YouTube Video Clicking on this button will pull up a window to automatically embed a YouTube Video. Go to YouTube and navigate to the specific video you wish to share. Copy the URL and paste it into this window. A few notes: o If you are copying a video from a YouTube Channel (e.g. NWF s YouTube Channel), make sure you get to the individual page for the video. o By inserting a video, WordPress will automatically grab an image from the video to use as a featured image. o The other buttons to the left will function the same way to embed a video from DailyMotion, Vimeo, Veoh, or Blip.tv. However, these will not create a featured image. Show/Hide Kitchen Sink Clicking on this button will bring up the second row of editing tools. Most Wildlife Promise will not need these. However ones you may need include: Style Formatting Use this drop down button to assign different format values to your content. Most common uses will be to assign Header Styles such as Heading 1, Heading 2, or Heading 3. Paste from Word Blogging best practice is generally to write your content either directly in the online editing screen. Or if you write your post in Microsoft Word to copy your content to Notepad and then copy that content into Wordpress before posting in order to remove any extraneous Microsoft Word code. If you must post directly from Microsoft Word, using this tool will remove most of the bad code and will reduce the effort needed to clean 11

12 Commenting and Responding to Comments We use the Disqus system to moderate comments on the National Wildlife Federation blog. If you wish to respond to comments left on your blog posts (highly recommended), please visit Disqus and set up a commenting profile using address. The URL to set up an account is At a minimum you will need to set up an account. However, you may complete as many elements of the Disqus profile as you wish including: o Connections options to connect your Disqus profile to your Facebook and Twitter feed. o Public Info options on how to display your name, organization website and location Once you are logged into Disqus, the system will put a cookie on your computer that recognizes you. To comment, simply go back to the post on Wildlife Promise and scroll to the bottom of the post, enter your comment, and click on Post Comment. VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT COMMENTS. Disqus will follow you to any other websites using the Disqus moderating system currently more than 450,000 sites including CNN.com and Engadget.com. When leaving comments on those websites, remember that you have established an account identifying yourself as an NWF staff member. As such you are responsible for the comment as documented in the National Wildlife Federation s Social Media & Blogging Guidelines. You will know if the blog/site uses Disqus because it has recognized you and has your image and name displayed. If you wish to comment under your personal identification and not affiliated with NWF, make sure to log out of Disqus (typically there is a logout button) and login through some other method, or create a Disqus account using your personal e mail address. 12

13 Wildlife Promise Blog Categories Wildife Promise uses predefined categories to organize content and encourage visitors to view multiple posts. Posts must be labeled with at least one appropriate category and where appropriate labeled with a subcategory. If a post fits into more than one category, go ahead and label it as being in both. Here are some things to remember about categories: Categorizing posts will assign the post to one of the topics so it appears in that RSS feed and on the homepage. Uncategorized posts will not appear on the homepage. Categories may not be added however, posts may be tagged to specific subjects (see Tagging Guidelines). If a subcategory is required, please contact the blog administrator or ray@vanhilst.net. 13

14 Category Conservation Friends of Wildlife Global Warming Campus Solutions Schools Personal Solutions Get Involved Kids and Nature Outdoor Activities Camping Gardening Hiking Paddling Photography Sustainable Living Wildlife Animals Birds Plants Trees Description For posts describing NWF s conservation and habitat protection efforts. Note: Oil Spill posts have been placed in this category and tagged with BP Oil Spill For posts related to efforts conducted with various NWF partners including: Affiliates Corporate Sponsors/Partners Other organizations For posts related to Global Warming. All Campus Ecology posts need to be added to the Campus Solutions category For posts that want the reader to take an action including: Make a donation Write your congressman or official For posts related to getting kids involved with nature including Be Out There, Green Hour, Hike and Seek, etc. For posts related to outdoor activities including those represented by the subcategories. If enough posts of a specific subject are added, we can create an additional subcategory for it. For posts related to the green lifestyle and sustainability including recycling, energy efficiency and green products. For posts related to specific animals. These may be either informational or action desired posts. Many posts in this category may also be included in other categories including Conservation or Get Involved. 14

15 Tagging Posts on Wildlife Promise The Wildlife Promise blog uses tags to add a more focused sorting of content on the blog. These tags can also be used for additional RSS subscription options and to feed content back to the NWF.org site using the tags. The following page outline our guidelines for selecting and using tags in your posts. A few notes to consider: o We currently have almost 1,500 tags in the NWF blog. To make it easier for blog readers to find and use the tagging system, please do not create new tags. Either use the tags on the following pages or look for an existing tag. If a new tag is required, follow the guidelines below. o Be judicious in your use of tags on your posts limiting your tags to 12 tags. Overuse of tags can be seen as a spam technique by search engines 15

16 Tagging Guidelines: o Animals o If discussing a broad category, make it plural (e.g. bears ) o If discussing a specific species, make it singular (e.g. grizzly bear ) o Programs o If tagging a specific NWF program, use the full name in caps (e.g. Get Outside or Certified Wildlife Habitat ) o Locations o Tag with the specific locations as opposed to a broad area (e.g. Yosemite vs. California ) o People o Tag with the proper name of the person minus any titles (e.g. Barack Obama instead of Sen. Barack Obama or President Obama ) o Companies o Tag with the full name of the company if it is an abbreviated name (e.g. Volkswagen instead of VW ). Be sure to double check the company s website as it may have rebranded to an acronym. For example, BP is not British Petroleum they rebranded to BP. o General Activities o If a post fits into one of the categories, use that first o If adding a tag, make the tag as general as possible o Government Agencies o When possible, spell out the name of the agency. (e.g. Department of Energy instead of DOE ) o If space doesn t allow or the acronym is a widely used term (e.g. someone not connected to NWF knows what it means), use the acronym (e.g. USDA or USFWS ) o Issues o Tag with the broad name of the specific issue (e.g. Climate Bill ) o Also add tags that relate to something specific about the issue (e.g. cap and trade or emission standards ) 16

17 Tags for Regional Centers: We have added tags to the Wordpress platform to specify content created by and for each regional center. If you are writing from (or for) one of the regional centers, please make sure to use one of the following tags with your post: o Great Lakes Regional Center o Mid Atlantic Regional Center o Northeast Regional Center o Northern Rockies and Prairies Regional Center o Pacific Regional Center Seattle o Pacific Regional Center Alaska o Rocky Mountain Regional Center o South Central Regional Center o Southeast Regional Center These are predefined tags and if you start typing the name of the tag, you will see a list of choices start to show up including the appropriate tag. 17

18 Recommended Tags: activities duck otters turkey anglers eagles pandas turtles astronomy Earth Day parenting wetlands Backyard Campout endangered species pelicans whales Backyard Habitat energy efficiency penguins Wild Animal Baby bats fireflies pigeons Wilderness Act Be Out There fish plants Wildlife Watch bears fishing polar bears wolves bees flowers policy woodpeckers bicycling frogs public lands wrens biodiversity Gardening pythons Your Big Backyard bird watching geese rabbits birds Get Outside raccoons butterflies camping campus Campus Ecology cap and trade catfish Certified Wildlife Habitat children Clean Air Act clean energy Clean Waters climate change Climate Capsule Community Wildlife Habitat coral reefs deer deforestation desert tortoise Department of Interior dolphins dragonflies Great American Backyard Campout Great Lakes on the Ground Green Hour green jobs habitat hare hiking honeybees hummingbirds hunting insects invasive species kids ladybugs manatees migratory birds National Wildlife Barack Obama oceans offshore drilling oil spill rainforests Ranger Rick recycling renewable energy reptiles running salamanders salmon school sea slugs sea turtles seals sharks snakes snow geese snow leopard solar power spider monkey spiders squid squirrels tigers 18

19 Campus Ecology Specific Tags For the campus ecology blogs, please use the following tags. Note, the bolded items are overall categories as well as tags. Tag with both the bolded item and specific tag below it. Note that all Campus Ecology related posts should be in the Global Warming Category and the Campus Solutions sub category. Campus Operations green buildings alternative energy water conservation energy efficiency LEED recycling dining compost local food campus gardens commuting habitat landscaping dorm energy competitions sustainability offices endowments return on investment Curriculum: environmental literacy internships majors job training student engagement extra curricular activities Outreach: Local food service projects town and gown activism campaigns policy media Research: alternative energy biofuels transportation sustainable agriculture ecology biology Behavior: dorm energy competitions automatic light shut offs campus based campaigns 19

20 Social Media & Blogging Guidelines Purpose NWF seeks to promote open and transparent communication in order to inspire Americans to protect wildlife for our children s future. As blogging and other social media become increasingly important to open communication and engagement around our issues both on and off line, NWF seeks to encourage employees to express their opinions and share information as part of an ongoing conversation with the national community. While NWF encourages all employees to participate in this national conversation, it is important for NWF staff to understand what is expected when they discuss NWF and topics that relate to NWF over social media. The same policies that apply to NWF employee activities in general apply to their activities online. The policies outlined here apply to all forms of online publishing and discussion, including blogs, wikis, file sharing, user generated video and audio, social networks, and other social networking applications (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.). Guidelines and Policies 1 1. Using social media for work purposes. Only certain staff are authorized to publish online on behalf of NWF and use social media as part of your job at NWF. 2. You represent yourself. Except as directly authorized, when you communicate through social media, you represent yourself and do not speak on behalf of NWF. Only staff authorized to do so may speak for NWF. Staff who are authorized to publish online on behalf of NWF nevertheless represent themselves when they use their personal, unauthorized identities to communicate through social media. NWF executive or high profile staff may need to be especially careful to make clear that they are expressing their personal views for any personal publishing that could be confused with NWF positions. Where appropriate, use a disclaimer such as: The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent NWF s positions, strategies or opinions. However, while a disclaimer is good practice, you cannot count on it to avoid problems that may arise from what you write. 3. Promote NWF values. If you choose to talk about NWF online, please try to do it in a way that helps NWF s mission and promote NWF s values. 4. Consider being personal. Background information about you and your personal interests may help establish a relationship between you and your readers, even if you are talking about NWF issues. However, it is entirely your choice whether to share this information. Always remember, if you do include personal information, take steps to provide your privacy. 5. Know and follow the NWF Code of Conduct. Lines between personal and professional are blurred in online social networks. If you communicate about NWF in your personal social networks, if you identify yourself as an NWF employee, or if you have professional contacts linked to your social media, then what you publish reflects on NWF. Respect others. Do not 20

21 use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, or engage in any conduct that would not be acceptable in the workplace. Think about reactions before you post. Know and follow the NWF Code of Conduct. 6. Be open. Be honest and transparent. If you use social media to communicate about NWF or NWF related matters, you should identify that you work for NWF, as required by Federal Trade Commission rules, and use your real name (unless you already have a well established persona that differs from your name). For example, if you expect to use your personal site to help spread the word on official NWF posts, then include the fact that you work for NWF in your online profile. 7. Be mindful. Familiarize yourself with NWF s Political Activity Policy. Keep in mind that the rules about what political activities are allowed do not change fundamentally in cyberspace. Therefore, if you engage in advocacy or political commentary of any type, and you have not been authorized to speak on behalf of NWF, it is important to use a disclaimer (such as the example in section 2.) to ensure that you clearly represent that you are communicating in your personal capacity. 8. Respect copyright, fair use and disclosure laws. In order to protect both NWF and yourself, you must obey the laws that govern copyright and fair use of material owned by others (including images). Remember to link to citations of others work and never quote more than small excerpts from another s publication or blog. Keep in mind that laws may be different depending on where you live and work. 9. Respect privacy. Do not provide NWF or another s confidential or other proprietary information. Ask permission to publish or report on conversations that are intended to be private or internal to NWF. 10. Don t pick fights. When you see misrepresentations about NWF made by the media or other bloggers, alert NWF s communications staff, who can guide you in responding. Always be respectful, stick to the facts (and get the facts straight), and identify your appropriate role within NWF. 11. Provide context. Please be sure to provide enough support in your posting to help readers understand your reasoning when you write about NWF or NWF related activities. 12. Remember that you are personally accountable. Be aware that what you publish will be public information and that ultimately you have sole responsibility for what you post to your blog or publish in any form of online social media. 13. Ask questions before you act. If you are not sure whether you should pursue a form of social media to discuss NWF or NWF related matters or have a question about it, discuss it with your supervisor or communications staff. 14. Remember your day job. If your use of social media is a personal effort, it is your responsibility to make sure your efforts do not interfere with your job responsibilities and 21

22 work commitments. If you have further questions about these guidelines, please contact your manager. 1 These guidelines and policies are adapted from the policies of the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA), social media guidelines.pdf, International Business Machines (IBM), Yahoo!, blogguidelines.pdf, Microsoft Corp., stuff/microsofts employee bloggingpolicy/. 22

WordPress Blogs for CFCC Faculty and Staff

WordPress Blogs for CFCC Faculty and Staff What is WordPress? WordPress is a web log program that allows users to create and manage their own blogs. Users can create and manage blog posts using a web based