United BOINC

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Getting started!

When you register on this website and login, a new menu will appear on the left side of the page called "User menu". This menu has two links that you can use for writing articles and submitting them to the website. There is a "TinyMCE demo editor" that you can use to practice writing articles and there is a link called "Submit an article" that you can use to properly submit an article to the website.

How to submit an article to this website

To submit an article to this website there are several things you must do to properly format the article and get it published. This guide will help you do this properly.

When you register on this website, you are given "Author" status which allows you to submit articles. An Author can submit articles but he cannot edit or publish them on the website. An Editor can both submit articles and edit the articles again afterwards but he cannot publish the articles on the website. Only a publisher can submit, edit and actually publish completed articles on the website for viewing by the general public. If you have submitted an article to this website and you want the article published, you need to post a message on the forum. Or if a website admin or publisher finds the article and reviews the article, he might just publish it anyway. This procedure might change over time.

This is the management structure for the website

Note; The forum is separate to the website and runs from a different database so the forum has a different structure. The following is the management structure for the website;

Public; Anyone that has not registered on the website and is not logged in, can only see content and menu's that are marked as public. They cannot submit anything to the website and they can only see articles that are published by an authorised publisher on this website.

Registered User; (Not used on this website!) Have the ability to see articles and menu's that are marked as registered and might be hidden from the public. They cannot submit articles or links to the website and they cannot see articles that are not published by a authorised publisher on the website.

Authors; Have the ability to submit articles and links to the website and view content and menu's marked as registered. Author's do not have the ability to edit or publish articles, they can only submit stuff.

Editors; Have the ability to submit articles and links to the website. They also have the ability to go back and edit an article after it has been submitted. Editors have the ability to see articles marked as registered or special. They do not have the ability to publish new articles on the website.

Publishers; Have full access to submit, edit and publish articles on the website. They can see all content on the website.

Submitting and article

Step 1; Click "Submit an article"

In the User Menu, click the link "Submit an article". This should open a new blank article.

Step 2; Fill out the article title

To prevent you from submitting an article with missing details, before writing the article you should first fill out all the details necessary for the article to be published in the correct category and section. So first fill out the article title;

Step 3; Filling out the publishing details for the article

The blank article will list the section and category of the article as "Uncategorized". It is very important that you select a section and category for your article because if you leave this blank, your article will be uncategorized and will go missing. If this happens, contact an admin. Choose the appropriate section and category from the drop-down menus.

You should only tick "Yes" to "Show article on the front page" if you know your particular article is front page news, most articles won't be on the front page. In the vast majority of cases, you can leave everything else blank if you choose. Author Alias is only if you want a different name to your user name. Start and finish date for the article are only necessary for unusual circumstances and most articles will be public access.

Step 4; Adding the Metadata to your article

If you know what the article is going to be about, try to fill out the Metadata before you start. This is so you don't forget to fill this out before submitting the article. The reason you need to fill out the Metadata is because this website needs the words to link similar articles together. Search engines also need the Metadata to read the article properly. In the Meta description, just write a short description of what the article is about, you don't need any great detail here. In the Keywords box, fill out the main key words that are important in your article.

Step 5; Writing your article

Once you have the title, publishing details and metadata filled out, you can proceed with writing your article. This website uses the TinyMCE WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor, for writing articles. Because there's a lot involved in using the TinyMCE editor, i have written a separate article that explains in greater detail how to use it. Read the article here; Using TinyMCE WYSIWYG article editor.

The best way to learn how to use the TinyMCE editor is to play around with the toolbar in the editor and try things out. As time goes on, you will get better at using the TinyMCE editor by trial and error. I have created a section on this website called "Articles editing area" specifically for this purpose. You can submit a test article to this section and experiment with your test article to become familiar with using TinyMCE. You can learn more about using html in much greater detail from W3 Schools here; www.w3schools.com

TinyMCE demo editor

If you want to try out the TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor or do some testing, we have a demo editor that you can use for writing test articles here; TinyMCE demo editor

Step 6; Adding images to your articles

Because of the nature of this website, and the fact that hosting this website is NOT FREE, i would ask that when you write articles, you host the images somewhere else on the Internet. The vast majority of images you see on this website are hosted on photobucket.com because its free. So i would ask that you open a free account on the photobucket website and hosting your images there. Then when you write your articles, you are simply inserting images hosted on another website. Here is a link to Photo Bucket, please open an account if you don't have one; photobucket.com

Step 7; Adding a "Read more" link to your article 

Most of the stories on this website are displayed in a blog style category or section and we use the "Read more" button to split a story into two. If you have used a "Read more" break in your article, then when you view a section like "Projects", you only see a teaser of the first part of the article and the reader will have to click "Read more..." to view the full article.

This is what the end result looks like when you view the article;

Step 8; Adding a Page Break to an article

Adding a Pagebreak to an article is only used for very long articles. If you add a pagebreak to an article, you will literally be splitting your article over two pages, or more, if you add more pagebreaks.

Step 9; Saving your article for publishing

When you are happy with the way your article looks, give your article a quick once-over to see you have included everything. Check you have the best section and category selected and you have filled out the Metadata. Then click the "Save" button and your done!