As a Honored Registered User* who has logged-in, congratulations!
You are now ready to start posting content.
There are various types of content that you can post using Drupal. Many of these are organized into what are called "nodes". Basically,you can think of a node as the content of a page. This might be, for instance, an article you wish to post, an event, or a comment. Content is added or updated through web page forms. So to add an article, you bring up a form, enter text into it (like the title and content of an article), and hit a button to submit the form.
Content on Drupal websites is usually organized using categories through a system called "taxonomy". A taxonomy has different "terms" that are used as categories for articles. When you are adding an article, you will find a drop-down list for you to select a "Focus Area" and "Habitat". If you are entering an event, you will also be given drop-down options to select such things as "Region" and "Setting." By selecting one, you choose how to categorize your article on the site and where it will show up. If this seems hard to relate to, you can think of topics as being like folders on your hard drive--they help to organize content, so that you can find similar things in the same place.
What types of content you can create or edit depends on the privileges that have been assigned to the "role" or user group to which you have been assigned. In general, to find out what you can do:
Q: I submitted a story, but it doesn't appear anywhere!
Sometimes a Drupal site is set up so that when you submit a story it goes straight up on the site. Often, though, a Drupal site is set up with a "submission queue". This means that articles submitted are marked for evaluation to be read by an administrator. Don't worry! When a site administrator has had a chance to look over your submission, they wlll make the decision about whether it meets the criteria and post it accordingly.
*HRU's are the minimum role required to post content to the site. Click on the link for a more in-depth description of roles.
Special Announcements vs. Events
Thanks for your interest in posting content on The Dirt! website. Keep in mind that a summary of all "events" are also listed in our weekly email newsletter that is sent out to more than a thousand readers that are separate from our current users that access their information via our website.
"Special announcements" are also featured in this weekly email newsletter but appear in a different fashion. They also are different in terms of their purpose and the scope of information that they are conveying.
Originally, prior to upgrading The Dirt! to include our spiffy current website, The Dirt! existed only in email form. There, events were things that occurred at a particular time, for a particular duration, on a particular day. Events then exist as opportunities for people to actively get out, get involved and do something concrete to help the environment for part of their day.
Special Announcements now, they also present opportunities for people to get involved but in a different manner. The time span may vary: as in a few minutes that people spend when they personally write a letter to their representative in Congress; extend for longer than 1 day like a conference or multi-day training for a volunteer to take on a leadership role, or simply may entail a piece of information or news that may have a deadline attached to it or may affect a person's personal behavior at any time.
Now that we have an understanding of the basic differences between these two things as they exist in our email newsletter, let's take a quick look at how to create a Special Announcement vs. an Event on our website.
Now you might think that, as an organizer that has a lot of upcoming events that maybe listing one Special Announcement is the way to go? We would encourage to think NO on this account. What is the use of a calendar that does not accurately reflect when the events are actually taking place? Mt. St. Helens Institute may be somewhat of a special case. Consider that for their trips they are requiring RSVP in advance since their trips book up quickly. Also, they took the time to individually enter each event separately as well. Once that has been done it become an easy task to link the Special Announcement to the actual events where details specific to that event (like meeting place and cost) are described. Redundancy then is eliminated!
Question: How do I enter a Special Announcement?
This also is a bit of a trick on the website, since Special Announcements, depending on what they are, can have very different final purposes and therefore show up in different place on our website (although they show up in the same place in our email newsletter!). To help you decide how to go about it, think about:
Hope this helps clear up any confusion! Remember, if you are posting something that you would like to show up as a Special Announcement, WRITE THE TITLE IN ALL CAPITALS!