Introducing the Article Management System

[Semper Fidelis]

Thanks to Patrick (AMR) and the other Admins, I've been able to install and configure the Article Management System (AMS) for this Board. I hope it proves to be a valuable resource for the creation of thoughtful and edifying articles for the PuritanBoard.

I envision the Articles to be of a few types:

1. Thoughtful, well-written articles on various categories of the faith or about current issues. Articles do not have to pass the muster of a theological journal (though we hope to receive those as well) but should be well-written and edifying to the board and the wider public who view the PuritanBoard.

2. Re-posting of good articles from around the Internet on theological issues. Don't re-post the entire article but post a snippet or "executive summary" of the article and add your own commentary. The purpose is then to be able to discuss the article and its merits or demerits within the context of a Confessional board. I don't know about you but it's often difficult to discuss articles on Facebook or elsewhere because they don't lend themselves to meaningful discussion or interaction. If you see a great article then re-post as an Article here and let's talk about it. I hope to become another kind of clearinghouse not only for good theological articles (or things that make us think) as well as the comments from our confessional context to help others think through their implications.

Who may post?

If you see the Create Article feature then you have permission to post. Most submissions will be moderated by the PB team to determine suitability/quality but please contribute if you have something meaningful to say.

Categories
I've attached a picture of the categories for Articles. It will likely grow but it gives you an idea of how to bin your articles.

What to avoid?

We have a section in Articles for Current Issues. I don't want the Article system to be used for sharp political commentary. We have a protected forum for those discussions. That said, we're not averse to airing some controversial issues going on in the Church, etc but let's keep the PB focused less on the political climate of the nation/world and more focused on broader theological trends, etc. We may create a Member's Only article area if the need arises but think about the kinds of topics that it's OK for the general public to read.

I think that's about it for now. Hope to see some participation but please interact and ask questions about how this will play out. It's brand new so we don't have everything figured out yet.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

All PB Members are encouraged to try out this new feature to highlight something that crossed their desks, perhaps from a blog feed, journal article, denominational publication, etc. Take a look at the currently posted articles to get a sense of how to make the best use of the Article feature.

 

[Timmay]

So I tried it out and submitted an article. But I had to submit a stripped down version of it, because my original article was too long. So there are word limits?

Also one of the current articles on there now about the Confessions, has multiple pages and a table of contents. How does one create that?

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

So I tried it out and submitted an article. But I had to submit a stripped down version of it, because my original article was too long. So there are word limits?

Also one of the current articles on there now about the Confessions, has multiple pages and a table of contents. How does one create that?

The limit was probably my fault. I assumed the article length limit was a word limit, but it was a character limit, so I have adjusted it to accommodate a 15,000 word article now. Try again.

After you have created your article content offline and have it paginated as you want, multi-page articles can be created basically as follows:

1. Create an article with at least 50 characters, the min. number for Article submission.

2. Save as Draft so no one else can see it while you construct it.
3. Open draft.

4a. At the "Article Tools" dropdown above right of the article select "Multi Page Article Management"

or...​

​

4b. Select the Create Article Page button

5. Now select the Create New Article Page button.
6. Proceeed accordingly adding your various pages. This should be intuitive.
7. Finally, submit your completed article.​

Bottom line is that the multi-page Article feature presumes some article content has been created beforehand before any multi-page options are made available. Note also that we do not have superscript and subscript BBCodes enabled. So just use block style referencing [1],[2],[3]...[n] in Articles having references.

As Rich explained above, we also ask that you not repost entire articles by others already in existence. Just leverage some of their content along with whatever you have to say about the published item in the article you are posting.

 

[Timmay]

You don't want us posting our own entire articles? The one I tried posting is not published anywhere

 

[NaphtaliPress]

If it is not already up elsewhere do post the whole thing. Rich was talking about promoting material already up elsewhere, and in that case do like Aquila Report does, and put a good chunk and then end with a link to the original.

 

[Timmay]

The limit was probably my fault. I assumed the article length limit was a word limit, but it was a character limit, so I have adjusted it to accommodate a 15,000 word article now. Try again.

After you have created your article content offline and have it paginated as you want, multi-page articles can be created basically as follows:

1. Create an article with at least 50 characters, the min. number for Article submission.

2. Save as Draft so no one else can see it while you construct it.
3. Open draft.

4a. At the "Article Tools" dropdown above right of the article select "Multi Page Article Management"

or...​

​

4b. Select the Create Article Page button

5. Now select the Create New Article Page button.
6. Proceeed accordingly adding your various pages. This should be intuitive.
7. Finally, submit your completed article.​

Bottom line is that the multi-page Article feature presumes some article content has been created beforehand before any multi-page options are made available. Note also that we do not have superscript and subscript BBCodes enabled. So just use block style referencing [1],[2],[3]...[n] in Articles having references.

As Rich explained above, we also ask that you not repost entire articles already in existence. Just leverage some of their content along with whatever you have to say about the published item in the article you are posting.

The limit is fixed and now works.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

If it is not already up elsewhere do post the whole thing. Rich was talking about promoting material already up elsewhere, and in that case do like Aquila Report does, and put a good chunk and then end with a link to the original.

You don't want us posting our own entire articles? The one I tried posting is not published anywhere

Indeed, what Chris said.

 

[jwithnell]

Well, you have the definite "the" and indefinite "a" or "an." Heh, heh ...