If you’re new to this system, you may need some help to get your contact details up. This short article shows you step-by-step what to do.
At the foot of the membership page, there is a directory of members. It contains basic contact information: address and phone number – and anything else you want to say about yourself.
Although it’s entirely up to you whether you want to be listed in that directory, and it’s up to you what you publish there, we’d certainly encourage you to publish at least the basics and an email contact form. That’s so that:
- Members of the club can contact you, if they need to,
- Publishers can contact you to discuss buying your work or commissioning more,
- You and your work can be found by the Internet Search Engines (this website is highly visible to search engines)
If, after reading this article, you still don’t feel comfortable setting up your own contact page, then please contact one of the administrators, and they’ll be able to do it for you.
Step 1: Make sure you’re on the system.
In order to post anything on this site (except the occasional comment) you’ll need to be a member of the website. In fact, you’ll need to be registered in the system in order to see the private stuff that’s here.
All you’ll need to get started is an email address.
- Contact one of the administrators (use the “Email me” link on one of their pages) and tell them your email address.
- The administrator will reply with an invitation. This will ask you to create your WordPress account (it’s free!) and will then join you to the site as a contributor.
Make a note of your username and password. You’ll need it every time you log onto the system.
(Hint: you can log onto the system any time you want to by clicking “Log in” on the box labelled “Meta” on the bottom right of every page.)
Step 2: Write your biog page
Once you’re logged-on, you’ll be able to create your page. Though you can use the admin bar to find the way in, I’ve made it easy for you: just click here.
Note that you need to be logged-in to use this link, rather than “just visiting”. You can tell that you’re logged in because there will be a grey stripe along the top of the page.
If you want to do it manually, go to the Dashboard (the grey stripe along the top), click “Write“, then “Page“, then you’re in! It’s a page you’ll be writing, not post.
In the window that opens, you’ll see a number of fields to fill in. Working from the top to the bottom:
- Title: Type your name
- Post: This is like a very simple wordprocessor.
- Write your biog in here. Keep it short and simple – remember people will be reading from the screen. Use some of the other biogs as starting points, and don’t publish any sensitive information.
- You can use the square button right at the top of this field, just to the right of “Add media” to upload a mugshot. Be fair to your fellow web surfers: don’t upload a picture bigger than about 400 pixels square. When you insert the picture, select “Thumbnail” and “align right”.
- If you’d like people to be able to email you, then you can add the text [contact-form] anywhere on the page. This won’t publish your private email address: it will create a form which people can fill out and WordPress will send you the message privately. Any questions? See here.
- Comments and Pings:
- Untick “Leave Comments”. (That’s because you probably don’t want people leaving graffiti on your biog. It also gets confusing when you use a [contact-form].)
- Tick “Pings”.
- Password protect this: Type the club password in here if you want to preserve your privacy. Otherwise, leave it blank. (I’d advise you to leave this unprotected unless you’ve got a very good reason to hide. I’ve been on the internet since before it was called the Internet, my footprints are all over it – Google “Jules May” to see – and I’ve never had any privacy problems. In fact your footprints are all over the Internet too – you just need to know how to look – so publishing your phone number or address here won’t do you any harm.)
- Page parent: Click the little down-arrow, and select “Membership”
- Page Template: Leave this as-is: “Default template”
- Page Order: This is a special code number which is used to keep all the biogs in alphabetical order on the Members page. You’ll need to work out what this number should be – see the instructions at the bottom of this post.
- Page Author: Make sure that’s you.
And then click “Publish” (near the top, on the right) and you’re done! Just check on the membership page to make sure you’re listed correctly.
| Letter codes | |||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 0 | A | K | U |
| 1 | B | L | V |
| 2 | C | M | W |
| 3 | D | N | X |
| 4 | E | O | Y |
| 5 | F | P | Z |
| 6 | G | Q | |
| 7 | H | R | |
| 8 | I | S | |
| 9 | J | T | |
How to calculate your “Page Order” code.
The pages are listed on the Membership page in order of this number. We want you to appear more-or-less in alphabetical order of surnames. So, we have to calculate a number which makes this happen.
You’re going to make a four-digit number, based on your initials. So:
- Write your initials (surname, then first name)
- Underneath them, write the numbers from the table below, column, then row
- Put the two numbers together to make the four digits.
So, in the case of our grand-sire, Nathaniel Gutbucket, he’d write:
| G | N |
| 06 | 13 |
And his number would be 0613.
