Tips for IEC Journal Reporters

Updated August 23, 2004 to reflect move from Movable Type to TypePad and other matters:

Here is some advice for new IEC Journal reporters:

• To post, log into TypePad (http://www.typepad.com) and enter your user name and password. The moderator (see Contact Us link at left) will arrange for you to receive a user name and password.
• As you would expect, the buttons marked B, i and U will insert tags to make material bold, italicized or underlined. There are similar buttons to create a hypertext link (link to another web page), to turn something into an e-mail address (avoid this, because spammers use automated software to pick up addresses from web pages), to make something into a blockquote (indented on left and right margins), to upload an image and to upload a file (like a word processing document or slide show).
• Try to avoid uploading large images or scanned documents, because TypePad only provides 200 MB of storage space on disk. This will take care of an enormous number of text-only postings, but could be eaten up fast by large images or scanned documents. If we have large files we need to store, we can post them somewhere else and build links to them.
• Postings don't have to be heavy-duty analysis. You can add value even if all you do is provide a link to something that's already available on the World Wide Web, like an issue of the DoD SOCO newsletter, or a new resource on the OGE web site.
• After doing an update, select the "View Weblog" menu choice to view the site (http://www.iecjournal.org) in your browser so you will see what your changes look like. You can do this by selecting the "view site" option at the top of the editing page screen. If it's not what you want, edit it.
• If you have a long post, use the "Post continuation (extended body" feature. This is a window that appears in your posting screen. Put the introduction to a long post in the regular text entry box, and put the bulk of it in the box labeled "Post continuation (extended body." This reduces the amount of scrolling for viewers of the website. If the box labeled "Post continuation (extended body" is not visible, you may have to use the "Customize the display of this page" option.
• One of the most convenient features of this software is the Quick Post "bookmarklet." Just in case your Links bar is not already visible in the Internet Explorer browser, set this up by going to View, then Toolbars, then selecting Link. Log into TypePad. Select menu choice "Weblogs," then "Set up Quick Post bookmarklet" and follow the instructions. After this, if you are looking at a page you want to cite or quote, select any text you want to quote and click on the bookmarklet. It will automatically open a window for a web site update, with a link built to the site you came from, and the text you want to quote entered. This is a giant time-saver.
• When customizing your Quick Post screen or your main data entry page, you might not be familiar with the options for "Comments," "Pings" and "Trackbacks." I recommend leaving "Comments" off, to avoid automated comment spammers. It's probably OK to leave "Pings" and "Trackbacks" on. "Pings" sends out a notification that new material has been added. "Trackbacks" lets people using sophisticated software leave a notice telling us that they have cited our page, which is often good to know.
• Under "Control Panel" and then "Profile" you can set up a nickname that will be used to credit your posts. Most of my posts have been under the name "IEC Team." Other times I use my initials. For what it's worth, I think it's probably better not to include a reference back to your agency. There is a disclaimer at the site, but not having a reference to your agency reduces the chance that someone would try to attribute one of your comments to your agency.
• For similar sites I run, when I'm not as busy, like on weekends, I like to stockpile posts. Then during the week when I am more pressed for time but still want to do an update, I will pull up one of the stockpiled posts, change the date, and then change the status from "Save" to "Update." This keeps the site looking fresh.
• The software used is TypePad. If all you are doing is adding updates, little instruction should be necessary. If you are the type that likes to get "under the hood" and figure out how things work, check out the more detailed documentation. This is mostly oriented toward technical topics like upgrading templates, etc.
• Quoting from articles within the scope of Fair Use under the copyright laws is OK, but do not reproduce entire articles without permission from the copyright holder. Merely publishing something on the Internet does not put it into the public domain and is not a waiver of copyright.
• As of this writing (August 23, 2004), the areas IEC Forum (Private) and IEC Meetings are inactive placeholders for future expansion. It is envisioned that these will be private areas for discussion between Interagency Ethics Council members and interaction with presenters at monthly IEC meetings. These will be opened for business when we have suitable volunteers.