Webkit Usage

Documentation & Support Collaboration
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Step 2: prepare the content

As a general principle, let all your content live on the platform.

  • Do not use third party websites (except for things like YouTube videos, that were never meant to be uploaded onto the platform. This fragilizes your website, because now more websites have to keep working (and update their certificates etc.) for your own website to display correctly.

  • And do not write text directly in the configuration files. If you do this, you lose the automatic updating feature. Now you will have to make updates manually, tediously editing the XML file.

Choose and structure a home for your content

Make sure the materials for your website remain easy to find, for yourself and others. Currently, I (@alberto) am using this method:

  • Make a subcat Web content in the top-level cat that the website refers to. So, for example, Research Network > Web Content within Research Network. Note that the category containing your content must be public, or the webkit will be unable to display it.
  • Within that subcat, start by creating an empty topic that will be the home of your configuration file. Give it an explanatory title, for example “Website of the collaborative ethnography webinar series – configuration file”.
  • Create a reply to that topic, and upload to it the logos and pictures that you need. Web designers call this “the assets” (example).
  • Within that same subcat, create topics and posts as needed for “static” text blocks (for example, the “about” section). Remember to use titles that help “future you” to find what you are looking for, when you or a colleague want to change the website a year from now. You can create a topic for each content block: in the example here these will be called “About”, “Methodology”, etc. Alternatively, you can create a single topic, using different reply posts for different static texts. The webkit can handle both methods.

Make or choose high-quality content

Websites are longer-lived than forum topics. Better get them right.

For static text:

  • Be brief and snappy. No rambling about. Short sentences. Avoid adverbs and passive forms as much as possible. I like to write these texts with the Hemingway Editor..
  • Be confident (but not arrogant). Edgeryders no longer needs to prove its worth, so you don’t need to put a whole list of publications to prove the point that we authored several publication. We just write “we authored several high-quality publications”, and people will believe it.

For static images and videos:

  • Make sure that logos files are available in an acceptable definition.
  • Choose nice pictures and videos.
  • Make sure you have the legal right to use the pictures; find out the license they have been published under, and respect to the letter its terms. Here is a how-to guide to attribution for content published under a Creative Commons.
  • Find out If the client or funder requires the inclusion of logos (this is the case for all EU-funded projects), and again behave accordingly.