How To Make Your First Contribution
After you have logged in, the first page displayed is a simple page. It shows your account name and how long you have had your Author Account. Underneath your Author Account name you will see "View" and "Edit". Click on the "Edit" link.
This page allows you to update information about yourself. You can change your email address if you would like. You can also change your password. If you decide to change your password you will need to type the new password in both the "Password" and "Confirm Password" text boxes.
There is also a "Signature" text box. If and when you post comments to someone elses contributions, what you have typed in the Signature text box will be added to the end of your comment. This works the same as the "Signature" configuration option in, say, your email client or an online discussion board forum. A Signature is optional and not required; you don't have to enter one if you don't want to.
There is also a check box for a "Personal Contact Form". If you want visitors to the web site to be able to use The Boone Baha'is Contact Form to send you an email (perhaps in response to something you contributed, or to ask you specifically a question) then you can place a check mark in this box by clicking it.
After making any changes on this page, you click the Submit button to make them take affect.
Note that if you change your password and later forget what it was, you have two options. You can use the Contact Form to send an email to the site administrators requesting your password be reset, OR you can scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the "Lost Password?" link. If you click on the "Lost Password?" link, it will give you instructions on what to do next. Follow the instructions and you will soon be able to log back in.
Authoring Content
Notice on the left hand side toward the top is a new section that appeared after you logged in. This section is titled "Authoring Content" and appears just under the "Home" link. The Authoring Content section has links beneath it labelled "Create content". Click on this link.
A new set of links and descriptions will appear on the page. To get you started, we are going to create the simplest entry. Click on the first item listed which is the link for "Blog entry". A new page will now appear titled "Submit Blog entry"
When you contribute a blog entry you are adding a new entry to your personal section of The Boone Baha'i web site. You can write about pretty much whatever you want as long as it has something to do with the Baha'i Faith. It can be about your personal experiences (past or present), or it can be about some topic you are particulary interested in. It can be ramblings, musings, or poetic prose of which you are particularly fond. Regardless of what you write, the distinguishing aspect is that blog entries are typically more personal, typically written from your perspective as a Baha'i, and they are from you.
A good starter item to write about is an introduction of yourself. Now remember that you are sharing this with potentially the entire world-wide internet community, so don't get too personal, but feel free to tell everyone what you would like them to know about yourself as a Baha'i and as an author here on this web site.
Start by giving your blog post a title. For your first one, something like "Hello from Joe Smith" would do just fine. Enter this in the "Title" text field. The next field to fill in is the "Body" text field. This is the "meat-n-potatoes" of what you want to say. Here is where you can let your creative voice run (moderately) wild and tell everyone what you would like them to know about yourself as a Baha'i and as an author on this site.
Note the greyish-tanish bar above the "Body" text box. This works much like MicroSoft Word or WordPad on your computer. You can italicize text by highlighting it and clicking the "I", or you can make it bold by clicking the "B". Alternately, you can highlight text and then click on the little drop-down arrow next to "Format" and you can choose to make the font "Normal" or a big "H1" (header1) or a slightly smaller "H2" (header2). You can also make numbered lists and bulleted lists, although these may take a little bit of practice. Fortunately, this is a place where you can experiment. Go ahead, do some experimenting now...
When you are done typing in your blog entry, scroll down the page a little more. You will see a link line that says "Comment settings". Click on this link. Three new options will appear. They are "Disabled", "Read only", and "Read/Write". Comments are little postings that other people can make in reply to your blog entry. Note that only other Boone Baha'i Authors can make comment postings to your blog entries. The general public cannot make comments to your postings. The three options you have are...
- Disabled -- Nobody can make comments on your posting and no comments are displayed.
- Read only -- People can read the comments previously posted but cannot add any more comments.
- Read/Write -- Other Authors can both read and write comments on your posting.
Finally, when you are done, click the Submit button at the bottom to contribute your blog posting to your personal section of The Boone Baha'i.
The web page in your browser will refresh and show your completed blog posting. You will also see a notice that your blog entry has been created. That's it. You've just made your first contribution to The Boone Baha'i.
If you notice something you want to change in your posting, simply click on the "Edit" link under the posting title. The editing page you saw previously will be re-displayed and you can make whatever changes you need to your contribution. You can edit and re-edit your posting as many times as you need.
After a while, say like a month or so, you may decide there's no more use in letting people post comments on your blog entry. That's fine, simply edit the posting, scroll down to the "Comment Settings" and set it to "Read Only" and click the Submit button. Comments already there will remain, but no one will be able to add any more comments.
Viewing Your Blog
People or yourself can view your blog entries by clicking the link to "Community Member Blogs" in the navigation on the left (It is the last one listed under the heading of "Missouri Highlights"). A list of all the blog sections on The Boone Baha'i will be displayed. You can click on the link to "View All Blog Entries" to see a listing of everyone's blog entries, or you can click on your Author Account name to view just your own blog entries. At first a listing of all your blog entries is displayed with each of these listing their title and a brief excerpt. Clicking on the title of one of those entries will display that particular blog entry in full.
Removing A Blog Entry You No Longer Want
You can remove one or more of your blog entries by clicking on the title so that the "View" and "Edit" links are displayed. Then click on the "Edit" link. To remove the entry, scroll all the way to the bottom and click on the "Delete" button. A confirmation page will be displayed which asks you "Are you sure you want to delete [title-of-your-blog-posting]?". If you click on the "Delete" button again, you will permanently remove that blog entry.
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