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Guidelines for Editors

Adding/Editing Articles for GAMEO as an Editor

Contents

 To be a GAMEO editor, you need to be a registered user with a Login Name and a Password. These are initiated by one of GAMEO’s Managing Editors – Sam Steiner, Librarian & Archivist at Conrad Grebel University College, Waterloo, Ontario or Richard Thiessen, Librarian at Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, British Columbia.

If you have been invited to serve as an editor, you will receive an email with your Login Name (which will be a combination of your first and last name) and a long web address that you need to go to in order to set up your password. You may choose any password you like. It must be at least five characters long. We recommend that it be seven or eight characters, and a combination of letters and numbers, and possibly even including a special character like a #, % or some such. After you have chosen your password, you will be invited to log in for the first time.

Your Dashboard

When you login you will see your name on the righthand side of the gold bar near the top. Clicking on this link will bring you to your personal “Dashboard.†You will see three “portlets†on the page – with News, Upcoming Events and Recent Articles. If you are a Reviewer, you may also see a review list. If you click on “Edit†you will find there are other “portlets†you can add to your page if you find them useful.

At the upper right are three additional links – “Profile,†“Change Password†and “Personal Preferences.â€

Profile – Here you will see listed the most recent articles you have created. You’ll also see an outline of a portrait. If you click on “Edit†you can see some fields where you can change values, i.e. full name, you can add location, language, etc. If you want to add a short bio that’s fine. You can also add your home page if you have a personal website. At this point, this information is not visible to the public, but it is visible if another registered user searches for an article and clicks on the “modified by†name that is returned by the search. Leave the content editor at the “Kupuâ€default; the external editor feature has not been turned on, so checking this will not change anything. If you want to add your portrait, you can upload a picture from your computer at this point. It provides a recommended size.

When you’re done updating your Profile click save or cancel.

Change Password – Use this anytime you want to change your password.

Personal Preferences – You may notice this is what came up when you edited your Profile.

Available Tools

Now click on the “Editors†tab at the top. This is the information that was available under “Site Map†on the old GAMEO site.

Here you will find:

Guidelines for Editors – Guidelines for basic creation and editing of GAMEO articles.
 Guidelines for Reviewers – Guidelines for reviewers to "publish" or "reject" articles, to add images, maps or other multi-media to articles.
 Key to Abbreviations – All the authors who have written articles in the Encyclopedia; this was more crucial before we began to show the author of each article with the article. Style Sheet – This tells you how we do things, e.g. spell out numbers under 10, then use numerals; style to use in bibliographic entries, etc. Although it’s boring reading, you need to be familiar with this, or a Reviewer may send an article back to you for correction. Common Abbreviations – These are bibliographical sources frequently used in articles in the print Encyclopedia, as well as newer forms. You can use this information to “cut and paste†into your bibliography on occasion, especially if you’re helping to enter articles from volumes 1-5. ME I-V Editing Guidelines – These are guidelines when you are creating articles from volumes 1-5. Hopefully you won’t find contradictions between these guidelines and the Style Sheet! Table of Mennonite Encyclopedia articles included in GAMEO – This table tells you where we’re at with inclusion of the print encyclopedia. Common Links -- These are names, places, conferences and institutions that are often used in internal links. Templates – Here are a variety of templates to consult when you’re writing a new article or extensively revising a current article.
Biographies (Standard) Biographies (Brief) Congregations Institutions Periodicals
Assigned Articles – This is an older listing of biographies and institutional articles that are being worked on/assigned by regional Mennonite historical societies in Canada.

Writing a New Article

To begin a new article:

Go to the “Tools†tab, and click on “Open Drafts Folderâ€. Click on “Add New†on the gold bar on the right, and select “GAMEO Article†Here you see a form with lots of blanks to fill out. Don’t worry – generally you’re dealing with only a few of them. Before proceeding for the first time, look at the five clickable tabs at the top.
Default – This is where you are now at the blank form. Categorization – We have the option of filling in location and language, but we will allow these to remain blank and language neutral. Dates – This is used with News releases and Event information. We do not time constrain encyclopedia articles. Ownership – You will see your name listed as “Creator.†You can leave the fields blank. Copyright information is automatically inserted. Settings – Leave “Allow Comments†and “Exclude from Navigation†blank. You do not need to worry that an incomplete draft will be seen by the public – it is not visible until it is published.
Now return to “Defaultâ€
Completing the Basic Article Form
Fill in “Title†with the approved form of entry, e.g. Darmstadt (Hesse, Germany); Dathenus, Petrus (ca. 1531-1588), etc. Leave “Description†blank. Anything filled in here will show up like a subtitle in the article. Fill in “Index ID†with the same information as you have in the title, e.g. Darmstadt (Hesse, Germany); Dathenus, Petrus (ca. 1531-1588), etc. Plone will create the Index ID with this information. It will eliminate blanks and special characters, and will insert underscores for you. Fill in publication location with: encyclopedia/contents
 It must be entered exactly as shown (but doesn’t have to be boldfaced), anything else will mean the article cannot be published. This also means no space at the end.
 Ignore the next check boxes (Parent Table of Contents; Source Document) In “Body Text†either type in the content or paste it in from your Word, WordPerfect or other document. The toolbar above this form shows various editing features you can use, not unlike a word processor. A few may not be obvious – the “tree†is for an external link (not usually used in the basic article); the “chain link†is for links to other GAMEO articles (you’ll use this a lot); the “anchor†is for linking to a lower spot in the article if it is a large article with subheadings and the like. This will not usually be the case. The “table†is to create tables. If you do need to create a table, generally use the defaults. (See g. for using a table in inserting an illustration.) If the article is long, you can experiment with the drop down where the default is “normal paragraph†The “html†tab takes you to the raw html if you are comfortable in using that.

If you cut and paste an article into this field it is good to highlight the whole article and click on “Normal Paragraphâ€. You may also need to click on "Remove Style." This will help ensure uniform formatting. You can eliminate extra space between paragraphs if necessary.

You probably have a number of proper names, institutional names or geographic locations in your article. We encourage you to create links to other GAMEO articles as much as possible. There are three ways to do this.
Highlight the name or term you want to create a link from, e.g. “Palatinate†and click on the “chain linkâ€. This brings up a search box. Fill in the term (perhaps you’ve copied it your clipboard and can paste it in). Hit the “Enter†key to start the search. Plone will give a list of terms that match the search. Look for the article that you want to link to – it may be somewhat further down the list, or the search may tell you that it found nothing. Click the term (the full title of the article will show up beneath the search box) and click OK if this is the desired article. The term is now a greenish color and is underlined. Follow the same procedure for any other links you want to create. (remove any paretheses in your term, or you will get an error message. The search box does accept letters with diacritics) Sometimes a term is very common, e.g. Pennsylvania, Palatinate, Menno Simons, Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. You can also open another session of GAMEO and open “Common Links†(listed on the Tools page). This is a page of links to commonly used terms – mostly geographic places and institutions. You can then copy the appropriate link and paste over your term in the article. If necessary you can modify the spelling to match the way the term was used in your article. Alternatively, if the search result is too long, or the term includes a diacritic, open GAMEO in another browser session. If the results of your search in option 1 are too long, go to the encyclopedia and browse to find the article I am looking for. Once located it, simply note the file name, go back to option 1, and search for the file name instead of the article name. That is especially helpful when looking for articles with diacritics.
If you wish to insert an illustration into text (an illustration already in the database, or that has been uploaded by a managing editor), go the paragraph where the illustration is to be placed. Click on the table box. Indicate there will be two rows and one column in the table. Uncheck the box for "Create Heading." Then click "Add table." This will create an empty table above the paragraph where you wish the illustration. With the cursor in the top cell of the table, click on the "tree" to find an image. The search box will in the images folder -- search for the image, you can use the file name of the image if you know it. When you select the right image, it will give you a choice on the size of the image to be displayed in the picture. Our default is the "mini" 200 x 200 pixels. In the bottom cell of the table place the caption for the illustration. This usually also includes the source of the image. Highlight the caption, click on the dropdown edit box and select the style "Image subtext." This creates italicized in a slightly smaller font. Now click on the image that is in the top cell and click on the "chain" to create a link to the full size of the image. You should be able to search again for the image. Now you need to decide whether you want the image table to be on the left or on the right. Click on "htlm" and look for the line that reads "<table class="plain">". It should contain your caption and other html code. Now insert align="left" or align="right" just before the last angle, i.e.  <table class="plain" align="left">. Be sure there is a space between "plain" and "align". Click on "html" again and you should see the image where you want it! If not try again, or ask for help from a managing editor.
Skip the Commentary box – this is used only with some large articles that are mounted by the managers. Skip the check box for “Use Parent Bibliography.†This is used by Managers in creating Large Articles. The Bibliography form is similar to the “Body Text†form. Make sure your bibliography follows the correct style. Again be sure "normal paragraph" is the format for entries on this page. If there is a reference to an online historical source, you may create an external link to that site. Highlight the term as you would for internal links, but click on the "tree." This brings up a place to fill in the web address for the site. You can check that it works, and then say OK. Skip footnotes; this is only used in some “source†document. We do not use footnotes in regular articles. Skip the check box for “Use Parent Additional Information†The Additional Information form will be where you might place a link to the website of the church or institution the article is about. For a congregation or institution you may provide “Directory Information†in this section (Address, phone, conference/professional affiliations, etc.). We do not put email addresses in these fields.  If you have tables for listing pastors, membership, board chairs or whatever, they go into “Additional Information†Skip the check box for “Use Parent Citing Informationâ€; this is used only in large articles. Fill in the Author boxes as indicated. This is the person who created the content. That’s you if you wrote the article, or the actual author if you are doing the inputting for them. If there is only one author, leave Author2 blank.
If there is only one author, and the author has a middle initial, do not put a period after the initial in the first box. If there are two authors, do use a period after middle initials. This information is copied into the “How to Cite this Article†at the bottom of the articles. Fill in month and year in the “Last Written†box, e.g. December 2007. There is no comma between month and year. If you putting in an article from the print edition, if the article is from volume 1 use the year 1955; for volume 2 use 1956, for volume 3 use 1957, and for volume 4 use 1959. If the content clearly indicates it was written at another time you can use that year. If you are entering an article from the print encyclopedia, check the “Use Herald Press Info†box, and also fill in the “Herald Press Citing Info†in the manner of:  Vol. 3, p. 76 (no period at the end) or Vol. 2, pp. 11-12

Otherwise leave these spaces blank. Click “Save†Check over what you’ve done. You will see the State is “Draft†in the right end of the gold bar. If you need to make corrections, click edit and make your revisions. If you click “Sharing†do not change any settings, you will only restrict persons from seeing the article. If you are satisfied with the draft, click on “State†and select “Submit for Review.† One of the Reviewers will look over the article, and either “Publish†it to public view, or return it to you for further work, hopefully with comments.

 

If you wish to add an image to the article, you will need to forward the image to Richard Thiessen or Sam Steiner. Provide a full-size image (up to 800 pixels on the long side is fine) and the caption to go with the image. Give the source of the image if possible. There are instructions in 4.g for adding an illustration that already exists in GAMEO.

If you go back to your Dashboard, you will see the new article listed among “recent changes.†Other registered users will see it as well. However, if you log out and search for the article as a public user you will not find it.

Editing Current articles

1.      If you want to go back and edit an article that you created earlier, you can search for the article (when you are logged on) and see that its state is “Published†on the right end of the gold bar. You can click on “State†and select “Modifyâ€. This will give you the option to edit; the fields will look the same as when you created the article. You then will "Submit for Review" again when you are ready.

2.      If you want to edit an article you did not submit you will need to ask one of the moderators to make you the “owner†of the article. We can change the "Creator" to include your ID, thus allowing you to edit the article.

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