Serpentine News - Help

Overview

The news manager provides the following functions:

  • interface for easy editing of news stories by non-technical authors
  • publication permissions - limiting publication of news to trusted authors
  • allows a wide selection of locations for news stories
  • automatic embargo and expiry of stories
  • flash news and normal news on new home page
  • categorization of stories enabling selection of stories for different parts of the site
  • support for follow-up links and images
  • support for emailing of stories to members
  • support for news to PDAs
  • support for printing of news stories, eg for Sentinel
  • functions to ease use of stories across the website

By making a selection of news stories available on the home page to logged-in members, an incentive (or reminder) is made to use Serpiebase, giving an additional benefit of better quality membership data.

The news manager is not a general bulletin board, only a few authors will be permitted.

The news manager does not replace more static web pages.

Guidance on usage

The news manager was written to help resolve the devaluing of the e-group as a news medium. Hence it is essential that the quality of news is high and that it is timely.

Your story will sit on a very active website, read by our 2000 members as well as many outsiders. Your story will also be read by readers of the Sentinel.

Think very carefully:

  • do you want someone else to read over your story before putting it live? If so, then write it but leave the Is Visible box unchecked
  • if you make a mistake go and correct it quickly
  • does your story really need to go on the home page?
  • give the story the right category, different parts of the site rely on the correct categorization
  • if you have any second thoughts about posting to the flash box, then don't post there, it must not be used very often
  • if you have any third thoughts about posting to the home page, then don't post there, try to keep the total number of stories on the home page down to around 5 (it is limited in any case to 10)
  • do you really need a picture, is it the right size?
  • follow-up links can be very useful for readers and may mean you don't need to write that much text
  • set an appropriate expiry date, eg news about a specific Wednesday night should expire by 10pm that day, general news should not stay much longer than 7 days particularly not if on the home page
  • use the names of days when referring to events - it makes it easier for people to remember, eg use Friday 1 April 2005 not 01/04/05.

Basic guide to writing stories

You must have the correct permissions set to write or edit a news story. The number of permission granted should be carefully considered and kept under review.

Most of the news management is carried out at the following page:

www.serpentine.org.uk/news/newsmgr.php

From here you can see existing stories, add new ones and carry out control functions such as creating an emailable set of stories.

Stories that are not visible are shown in italics.

Add a new story by clicking on the Add new story link. Edit an existing story by clicking on the headline of the appropriate story. The page is identical for both and has the following fields:

Headline

This text appears on all Serpentine media carrying news stories. It should be short yet still fully sum up the nature of the story for readers. Readers will get fed up with cryptic headlines.

News category

Select from the drop-down box. Carefully consider which category your story best falls under. Uses of the news manager include feeding stories to parts of the website based on the category.

Summary

The summary appears on the home page to provide a little more context than the headline. But if the headline is enough to make sense, this can be omitted.

Story

This is the news story itself. Remember that readers will not want huge amounts of information and they will expect clear writing.

Notes

This field is not displayed to readers and is intended to provide the ability to write short notes about the story, perhaps for another author.

Follow-up link

A standard HTML link eg:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4399059.stm

Don't use relative links to the Serpentine site as you don't know where on the site the story will be displayed (or even if the story is on the site as it may have been emailed or printed). So, for example, link to the results database using the full URL:

http://www.serpentine.org.uk/rdb/

Image link

The name of an image file in the /images/news/ folder, without the full path. Note that links anywhere else will not work. This is for security and file management purposes (eg to allow for deletion of images from expired or deleted stories). The image file should already be in the required size as no checks on this are carried out. Images will be alternatively shown on the left and right down the main news page. If you don't have the permission to upload files then you must ask someone who does. The news manager does not provide the capability to upload image files.

Is visible

This checkbox determines whether the story is visible to readers. If unchecked then the following checkboxes have no effect and hence your story will only be viewable in the news manager control page by permitted viewers.

Home page flash box - put the story in the flash box at the top of the home page
Home page news box - put the story in the news box at the bottom of the home page
Weekly email - add the story to the weekly email to all members (not live)
Immediate email - send the story out immediately to all members (not live)
E-group email - send the story out to the e-group (not live)
Tri-group email - send the story out to the tri-group (not live)

Valid from

Valid to

The story will display only if the time news is requested falls between these two dates. Click on the calendar icon to display a pop-up date selector.

Valid from defaults to the time the form was loaded (not the time the story was submitted) and Valid to defaults to 7 days after the time the form was loaded.

Click on the Save button to save your changes. If you don't make any changes to the form but still press Save you may get an error.

If in doubt about anything about your story, you can fill in all the boxes but leave the Is Visible box unchecked.

If you decide you don't want to make any changes or add a story then use the back button in your browser.

Delete a story by editing it then selecting Delete at the bottom of the page, you will be asked to confirm the deletion. Once confirmed there is no way to retrieve the story.

Resubmit a story by clicking on the Resubmit button - this will set you as the owner of the story and also set the submission date to the current date. Useful if you are recycling an old story.