How We Do Things

Instructions and memory jogs for how the SAPAA site is managed. Includes technical notes as well as a general style guide. This is broken into 3 sections: Protected Area Pages, other web pages (this guide), and other including blogs and images.

Hiking-Rain

Style Guide and Instructions

This page is intended for SAPAA members who have access to the site to contribute content. Anyone can comment on a post or a page but you need to be logged in to write a post, update a page or contribute photos.

To log in, you must have a wordpress.com account and be invited to contribute to the site. To be invited, email: sapaasteward@gmail.com.

Pages

SAPAA tries to keep non-core-content pages to a minimum. The following list of pages describes their purpose and who owns them. Pages contain stable content. Conversational or time sensitive content should go into the Newsletter or a blog.

Final editing is currently provided by Secretary.

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Page Specifics

  • CSS and Font: The Standard Font size is Normal and black.
  • URL Slug: Kept to about 25 characters or less, word press does not allow spaces (hyphens, etc.).
  • Feature Image: not used.
  • Excerpt: a short (<100 word) summary of the page; what is the page and be read.
  • Comments: Visitors and subscribers can comment on all pages except for Home, Contact Us, Newsletters.
  • Parent Page: set by the webmaster.
  • Headers should be used if the text is more than about half a printed page in length.
  • A table of contents at the top of the page and anchors throughout are used if the page is more than about one printed page in length.
  • Ideally web pages should be no more than about two total printed pages in length.
  • A protected area page is the exception to the above length limit; see the protected area style guide for reference.

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Subsequent Updates

Unlike a printed page, web pages are meant to evolve over time as standards and content changes. The following guidance is provided to understand how changes are typically identified, whom makes the changes and what approvals are required.

Updating of ‘passed’ pages

  1. Changes Made by a Committee Member with no Notice
    1. WHO: Any web committee member makes changes and approves it.
    2. WHAT:
      1. Corrections of errors that do not change the substance of page
      2. Spelling, grammar, style, changes to standards
      3. Minor technical changes
      4. Additions to further reading (e.g. newsletter, partner organizations).
      5. Content published in the SAPAA Newsletter.
  2. Changes Made by Members with Notice to the Committee
    1. WHO: Any web committee member and it is endorsed by the web committee without references or approval by the board.
    2. WHAT:
      1. Articles published in relevant partner and peer organizations relating to a protected area.
      2. Unsolicited content from members, stewards and official sources (e.g. government).
      3. Changes in photos, significant changes in formats or standards.
  3. Changes made by the Committee, Re-Approval by the Board
    1. WHO: Web committee makes a change and seeks re-approval of the page from the board.
    2. WHAT: Changes that are contentious or create risk for the Association.

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Home Page

Provides an overview of SAPAA; owned by the President with suggestions from the executive.

Contact Us

Current executive of SAPAA; owned by the President with suggestions from the executive.

News

Historical listing of SAPAA newsletters. This page is owned by the Newsletter editor with changes acknowledged by the President and Webmaster.

Protected Areas

Detailed descriptions of protected areas of interest to SAPAA; owned by the President with suggestions from the executive. As this content is central to SAPAA, it has its own specific style guide.

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  • Links within the site (e.g., page to page) should open in the same tab.
  • External links (i.e., outside of the SAPAA site) should open in a new tab.
  • Anchors, Page table of contents and “Return to Top” are used for lengthy pages (e.g., Protected Areas landing page).

System Administration

Adding Users

SAPAA has 5 levels of system access:

  1. Public: anyone can access the public pages. Comments are allowed on select pages but are held for moderation (approval or deletion if deemed spam).
  2. Contributor: (not currently used), a SAPAA member. Able to write blog posts, upload photos but may not publish any content. An editor must approve/publish the content. Not able to edit pages. Must have minimum WordPress skills.
  3. Author: (not currently used), having contributor privileges but able to post their own content. Unable to change another user’s content. Not able to edit pages. Must possess basic WordPress skills.
  4. Editor: Has access to all posts and pages. Must possess good WordPress skills.
    1. Current Editors: Chris, Krystin, Patsy and Hubert.
  5. System Administrator: Full power over the site: can invite people, modify the site settings, etc. Must possess very good WordPress skills. Administrator: Frank

Settings:

  • Theme: Twenty Twelve.
  • Default: All theme settings use the default settings.
  • Blog Post Page: Home Page.

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General Style Guide

  • Use “and” instead of the ampersands (&) unless used as part of a title or name.
  • Change “web site” to “website”
  • Change “sub-region” to “subregion”
  • Change by-law to bylaw
  • Put a space between the number and km
  • Are we going to capitalize the names of animals? Use lower case for plant names.
  • Italicize all Latin names
  • Capitalize “Natural Area”
  • Place a period after the end of each reference.
  • Include reference no. in square brackets within the sentence and follow by a period. Check that reference no. is included in the text.
  • To represent plant communities, separate plants of different habit with a slash, thus white spruce/Pleurozium schreberi (moss) or white spruce/wild sarsaparilla, or white spruce/willow, but plants of the same habit are separated by a hyphen, e.g. aspen-balsam poplar.
  • Make sure references are in numerical order in the text.
  • In Further Reading, add newsletter references in reverse chronological order, i.e., latest first. In References, place newsletter in order in which refs appear in text.

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Editing, Review and Silence Procedure

  1. FRANK: Publish page
    1. All components completed
    2. Validate statistics against sources
    3. Update order in page setting
    4. Change status in the Master spreadsheet to built.
  2. HUBERT/PATSY: Assign page for editing by update tbd in the Title
    1. Review for readability and alignment to SAPAA organizational reputation.
    2. Best available image
    3. Review for accuracy including:
      1. Correct map and site statistics
      2. Area size is correct
      3. Standards (e.g. use of hyphens, spelling, etc.)
      4. References are accessible and and notes match
      5. Review for formatting, e.g.: Centered captions, No empty blocks
  3. HUBERT/PATSY: Last walk through
    1. Any final discussion or notes
    2. Remove [name] from title
  4. HUBERT/PATSY: Send silence procedure email
  5. FRANK:
    1. Natural Area spreadsheet
      1. Change the link from the file to the page
      2. Change the type designation from File to Page
    2. Master Spreadsheet
      1. Change status and insert date of silence procedure.

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