Principles of News Gathering HowTo

What is WordPress?
WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. Often associated with a blog, WordPress is much more than a blog- it is a simple and easy-to-use web publishing platform that can allow you to build a web presence with little or no fuss!

UMW Blogs is running a WordPress Multi-user installation which allows the Mary Washington community to quickly sign up for and customize their own web publishing space. By extension, each member of the community can create as many distinct spaces as they like and begin experimenting with this space for teaching and learning. See the "Ten ideas for using UMW Blogs" page for examples of how others have used WordPress at UMW.

How do I get a blog on UMW Blogs?
To setup a blog on UMW Blogs go to the sign-up page and enter a username, e-mail address (you must use your UMW email), and a password. Make sure the "Gimme a site!" radio button is selected.

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View larger version on Flickr here.

Once you have done this, you will be taken to a page that asks you to specify a domain (this can be anything you like, however there can be no spaces and no special characters- only letters and numbers), enter a blog title (you can change this later on), and select the privacy settings for your blog. (Note: Once you've setup your blog, you will be able to further customize your privacy settings.)

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Once these steps are all completed, you should receive an e-mail confirming that you do, indeed, want a blog. (Be sure to check your Junk Mail folder when looking for the email - sometimes it ends up there.) Click on the link in the e-mail to activate your blog and log into your account.

How do I just get a username?
To just get a username on UMW Blogs go to the sign-up page and enter a username, e-mail address (you must use your UMW email), and password. Make sure the "Just a username, please" radio button is selected. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3612/3549399828_ecc3526f43.jpg View larger version on Flickr here.

Once I have a blog, where and how do I log in?
First things first, where is your blog? Your individual blogs should be located at the address you specified on UMW Blogs. Your initial blog address is determined by the domain you choose when creating your blog. For example, if the domain you chose is "myblog" your blog address will be http://myblog.umwblogs.org.

If you go to this address, you will see the public "front-end" of your blog. In addition to this view, you have an administrative (private) "back-end" for your blog, where you can add and edit posts/pages, change your theme, activate plugins, and, generally, administer your blog's content and appearance.

There are two ways to access the administrative back-end of your blog:
 * 1) Go to http://www.umwblogs.org and enter your Username and Password in the "Login" block on the right.
 * 2) Go to your blog's URL and add the following to the end of the address: "/wp-admin" (no quotes) - the address should look like the following:

http://myblog.umwblogs.org/wp-admin

Once you are there, you will see two fields asking for your login and password, as pictured below.

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How do I change my password?
When you sign up for a blog, you will be given an automatically-generated password. It's a good idea to change your password first thing. To do this, login to your blog, go to the Users tab on the left side in the administrative back-end, and click on the Your Profile subtab. From here you can enter your personal information and change your password at the bottom of this page.

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How do I change my blog title?
To change the title of your blog go to the Settings tab on the left side in the administrative back-end and you will see a field for blog title as well as a field for the site tagline, which is a space for a brief description of your site. Just type in a new title or tagline and save the changes.

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Note: Your tagline is automatically displayed in the header of some, but not all, of the available blog themes in UMW Blogs. If you want your tagline to be visible, be sure to choose a theme with this option.

How do I deal with issues of privacy?
Privacy at UMW Blogs is a major concern, and it is important to realize from the start that the spaces you create here are, by default, open and accessible to the general public. You can password protect individual pages and posts (learn more here), as well as select more granular privacy settings for your entire blog or website.

To make your blog or site private, go to the Settings tab on the left side in the administrative back-end and click on the Privacy subtab. From here, click on one of the the five options for controlling external access to your space, each of which is detailed in the image below. It is important to keep in mind, however, that if you restrict your privacy settings to members of the UMW Blogs community, registered users, or administrators only, the RSS feed will be disabled (find out more about RSS feeds and what they do here).

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What's the difference between writing a post and writing a page?
This is an important terminological/conceptual distinction to grasp, as posts and pages serve radically different functions. A post is an article that shows up in the chronology of your blog. In other words, posts appear in your blog, most recent at the top of the page.

A page is what most folks may be more familiar with. This is a static space that is not part of the chronological logic (try saying that five times fast) of the blog. A page sits outside of this inverted time line, and often features more static content like information about the site, the author, a syllabus, readings, etc.

How do I write a page?
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This section is where you can write new pages and edit existing pages. Writing a page (as opposed to a post which is distinct from blog pages because posts show up in reverse chronological order) is probably the lion's share of how you will use your site. When writing a new page you can control the status, i.e., make the pages drafts, password protect, etc.

Additionally, you can change the template for your page. For example using the TwentyTen theme you can choose the "One Column, No Sidebar" template to get rid of the sidebar on select pages.

What are comments and how do I manage them?
Part of the logic of a blog is allowing people to comment on your work. Comments are often associated with posts as well as pages and offer a way to have a discussion about a particular post.

Often times, initial comments are placed in a moderation queue until you approve them. Once you approve a comment from a user, he or she should be able to comment freely thereafter. You can view the comments on your blog as well as those awaiting moderation in the Comments tab on the left side in the back-end of your blog. If you want to change the permissions for your comments- say allow anyone to comment without moderating- see the Settings tab and look for the Discussion subtab. This is where you can control the comment settings.

Additionally, when writing a post or a page, you can turn off the comments on a per post (or page) basis by scrolling down to the Discussion section below the text entry field and un-checking the comments field.

How do I control the comments, reading, and writing settings on my blog?
All of the options for reading, writing, and commenting are housed within the Settings tab in the administrative back-end of your blog. For example, using the Reading sub-tab options will allow you to create a static front page for your site rather than the default blog. You can also use the discussion tab to turn off comments on your blog, etc. For more detailed information go here.

How do I add users as authors to my blog?
1) Go to the administrative backend of your blog, and navigate to the Appearance-->Widgets subtab. Widgets allow you to customize your sidebar. Add the widget titled "Add Users" (you may also want to add widget like recent posts, recent comments, meta (which is the login link) and anything else that catches your fancy. Also, you can drag the widgets to arrange them as you see fit.

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Click for larger version on Flickr here

After that, you should edit the add users widget (click on the edit button) and make it so that those who are added are authors, and no password is required nor a pre-existing list of emails (uncheck box). Then save the new sidebar settings.

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2) Tell the potential authors they need to sign up for a username at umwblogs.org (if they already have a blog or username on UMW Blogs they can skip this step).

3) Now anyone who has an account on UMW Blogs can login, then navigate to your blog and click on the "Add Me" button in the sidebar of your blog and immediately have privileges to post on your site (if you are already logged in as an author, you won't see the "Add me" button, but a Welcome, Jane Doe message). Users who add themselves to your blog will not have administrator privileges, just permissions as an author and will be able to write posts.