Guidelines – Global Voices Community Blog https://community.globalvoices.org Join the Conversation! Sat, 13 Mar 2021 00:17:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.6 Design Update: No-Sidebar article display https://community.globalvoices.org/2021/03/design-update-no-sidebar-article-display/ https://community.globalvoices.org/2021/03/design-update-no-sidebar-article-display/#respond Sat, 13 Mar 2021 00:17:14 +0000 https://community.globalvoices.org/?p=11464 After testing a clean new post design, we're making it official!

Originally published on Global Voices Community Blog

Following-up on Design Testing on Global Voices and the new “Skinny Post” Variation, today we are launching an update to all GV sites that makes the “skinny post” (no-sidebar) design the default.

animated gif of the old and new designs, with and without a sidebar.

The old and new post designs. The sidebar will no longer show beside posts on Global Voices.

Sidebars on posts are officially disabled

If you've been reading Global Voices over the past couple of months, you've probably noticed it showing on some posts but not others: The sidebar is gone, and instead the post has more room to breathe on the sides.

If you're like me, you've been noticing how much nicer it is to read in that format. I know I personally have found myself refreshing GV articles trying to get the randomizer to give me the “no sidebar” version before starting to actually read ?

Well I hope you preferred the new version too, because it's now how all articles will look all the time from now on.

Analytics findings

I won't bore you trying to summarize all the numbers because the reports involved are very complex and have a lot of disclaimers, but here's what we found when we compared the two versions (with and without sidebar) using Google Analytics:

  • All of the variations were very subtle and the behavior of most visitors seems to have been unaffected. 
  • The overall reading experience is better without the sidebar.
    • Metric: Total reading time is slightly higher on the no-sidebar version.
    • Metric: Readers are slightly more likely to scroll past the bottom posts in the no-sidebar version.
    • Explanation: Qualitative feedback (everyone saying they prefer it) supports the no-sidebar design being more comfortable to read, which explains why readers would spend more time on our stories and be more likely to read them to the end.
  • The no-sidebar version gets less clickthroughs to other posts.
    • Metric: There was a slightly higher “bounce rate” in the no-sidebar version, meaning more people visited a single URL and left without reading for 30 seconds or clicking on any links.
    • Metric: Visitors had slightly less “pages per session” in the no-sidebar version, which matches the “bounce rate” already described. They are more likely to leave rather than clicking on more pages.
    • Metric: The no-sidebar visits had less “average events”, which tracks the number of actions people take inside the site. This is likely yet another signal that people are not clicking around the site as much.
    • Explanation: When the sidebar is visible it has a huge, attention-grabbing set of “Top World Stories” headlines with large images. The analytics indicate these are not clicked particularly often, but they are still used by 0.5% of visitors, which is enough to create the effects in the metrics above. It is inevitable that hiding the sidebar would create this effect to some degree. When we put all the emphasis on the article itself, some people who might have clicked on a “Top World Story” will instead just leave if they find they aren't interested in the main story.

Our conclusions based on the findings above:

  • With the no-sidebar design we give up a small amount of subsequent traffic from one post to another through headlines, but in exchange we improve reader comfort and have more engaged readers who finish articles.
  • Everyone we've talked to prefers the no-sidebar version, and we believe it will lead to increased reader loyalty due to reading comfort.
  • We will use the no-sidebar version as the default going forward!

So there you go. That's our thinking behind this change.

Other related changes

Screenshot of the footer of a GV post in the new design

Example footer of a post in the new design, showing the new location of the COVID-19 Special Category badge, category listing, and “Top World Stories” headlines.

The essential change we're making is that the “tablet” design of GV, which normally only shows when the window is too thin to display a sidebar, is now the default layout regardless of window size. This has a few effects:

  • Author credits will always show at the top of the post below the headline, like they do on mobile and tablet, rather than in the sidebar.
  • Taxonomy terms (categories) will always show in the footer like on mobile, rather than in the sidebar.
  • Special category badges, like the ones for Advox, Rising Voices, and The Bridge, will now show in the post footer, rather than the sidebar.

Another change we've made is to add more “related headlines” to the footer of posts. Previously in the post footer we showed “more from this region” with headlines based on a region category from the post. With this new design we will also be showing the “Top World Posts” headlines in the post footer. Hopefully this will help offset the clicks lost from people clicking “Top World Posts” headlines in the sidebar.

What about “Pages”?

On GV WordPress sites, “Pages” are the documents like the About and Contact pages that are linked in the header and footer and don't have dates or authors. For now we are not enabling the new design for pages, because their sidebars contain an important tool that helps people navigate what are often complex hierarchies of different pages.

The plan is to review the header of pages, add new way-finding tools like breadcrumb links, then disable the sidebar once we are confident that the sidebar is no longer needed.

What does the “Full-width content” option for posts and pages do now?

Screenshot of the setting in the GV post editor.

The “Full Width Content” setting below a post in the editor.

In the screenshot you can see the setting which shows in a box below the main post content when you edit a post or page. It says “Full-width content (hide sidebar and fill space with content)“.

Previously this did what it said: Hide the sidebar and use up that space to make the post content super wide. The Privacy Policy page on GV English is a good example.

After this recent change, it still does the same thing, making the content very wide, but without removing the sidebar just 'cause it's already gone! This setting can still be used like before if you want that width, but the good news is that we no longer have to use it just because we find the sidebar is annoying (which is often how it was used before).

When to use the “Full width content” post setting

This setting should be used when the actual content of a post or page works better when it's very wide. A good example is the Donate page where we use the extra space to have a two-column layout.

The problem with this setting is that making the content super wide also makes full-width text  harder to read, because there is an optimal width beyond which text gets harder and harder to read. This property of typography is called “line length” and the GV design has been carefully optimized to have a comfortable line-length, but the “Full-Width” option throws this out the window.

So while the option to use “Full width content” is still there, we encourage everyone to use it sparingly, and always think first about the comfort of the reader and why this particular content needs to be so wide.

Thanks for reading

If you made it this far, I appreciate your dedication! Hope it helped you understand our thinking and that you agree! If you do or not, feel free to add comments on anything you'd like us to hear ??

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Special Categories Temporary Guide – With video! https://community.globalvoices.org/2021/01/special-categories-temporary-guide-with-video/ https://community.globalvoices.org/2021/01/special-categories-temporary-guide-with-video/#respond Thu, 14 Jan 2021 18:57:16 +0000 https://community.globalvoices.org/?p=11316 Learn about the new system that replaces “Special Coverage Pages”.

Originally published on Global Voices Community Blog

Hello everyone, Jer the GV Tech Lead here. In this post I share a pair of new guides — one 20min video and one exhaustive Google Doc – that explain the new “Special Categories” system we will be using to replace the old “Special Coverage Pages” system which is now deprecated.

These guides have two main audiences: Editors who work on “Special Coverage” (now “Special Categories”) and Translation Managers who run Lingua sites and want to translate the new Special Categories.

For a full, detailed explanation of the system, with step-by-step instructions,  please read the Google Doc guide: https://bit.ly/gv-special-categories-temp-guide

The Google Doc is a good reference you can come back to later when you need to do something using this system, since it goes through each aspect in a methodical way.

To get started though, I recommend the video instead! In it I give a whirlwind tour of the new features and how they relate to what came before, and what is hopefully to come. The video is a bit messy, but hopefully helps you get a sense of the new tools so the Google Doc isn't such a slog to work through.

Thanks for your attention, and please get in touch with me (here or on the Global Voices Slack) if you have feedback or notice problems ??

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GV Design Refresh 2020 – With Video! https://community.globalvoices.org/2020/07/gv-design-refresh-2020-with-video/ https://community.globalvoices.org/2020/07/gv-design-refresh-2020-with-video/#respond Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:25:12 +0000 https://community.globalvoices.org/?p=10930 Notice anything different?

Originally published on Global Voices Community Blog

I made this post into a video! Watch it first to get a summary of the article below.

Hi there! I'm Jer, the “Tech Lead” for Global Voices (GV), and I manage all the WordPress sites that make up the Global Voices web presence. We're launching some small but poignant design changes to GV and in this post you can learn what they are as well as the thinking behind them.

If you're reading this on the GV Community Blog, then you can already see the changes! Check out the credits at the top of the post, and the size of this text, what do you think?

A Fresh Old Look

The last major redesign of GV happened in 2014, when we launched our current theme with it's clean, monochromatic look, typographically-inclined design, and responsive support for all types of screens, from smartphones to desktops.

Since then we've done a lot of work within this design, and added a lot of new ways to interact with our stories, like Facebook Instant Articles, and Google AMP versions of everything, but we haven't had any major design changes to the core theme in 6 years now, which is the longest we've ever gone, having previously redesigned the site several times between 2006 and 2010.

Why such a long life? Well for one thing we love this theme! It's original, straightforward, classy, and it makes our content shine. But no matter how good it was, it's getting a bit long in the tooth. In the years since 2014 standards have changed and technology has improved, so we're “refreshing” our design to breathe some fresh life into it.

While this refresh involves a ton of changes to the details of the site, we suspect that many people won't even notice the difference, because the changes have been made to fit into the design language already established by GV's brand and presence.

Overall, our goal for now is to keep the same look for GV while making the text bigger and easier to read, adding breathing room around the content, and simplifying the details to focus on a clean, minimal look that puts our stories front and center.

Aside from these aesthetic changes, we are also re-assesing our priorities about what content and metadata gets shown where, specifically when it comes to highlighting our contributors and translations. This is especially true for the new tablet and mobile experiences, where several changes serve to ensure that authors and translators are treated as the heroes of GV that they are!

Ok blah blah blah, what changed?!

If you want a quick, fun version, watch the video above for a visual tour through all of the changes. For the sake of not letting this post get too long, I'm going to describe the biggest changes below, but let you try and pick out some of the smaller ones for yourself.

To get us started, here's an animated gif showing the old and new versions of an article screen seen at desktop (full) size:

animated gif showing old and new versions of the article design

Comparison of the old and new article designs. The version with the circular avatars in the top left is the new one.

Bigger, cleaner look

One of the most important things to notice is the size of the body text, which has been increased significantly. We feel this larger size has become the new standard (it's similar to what is used by the New York Times, for example), and most people will find it more comfortable to read long texts in this format. As always, users will be able to control the size of the site and text using tools in their browsers, in case they find it too large.

We've also made a subtle change to the font used for the body text, from “FF Tisa” to “Georgia“. The font change was driven both by a desire for a new look, and because “Georgia” is already available on all operating systems, and thus it won't require an extra download, making the page load faster for first-time visitors.

The other “size” related thing is a slight increase in the maximum width of the site, which applies to all pages. This extra space allows for wider margins between objects and overall breathing room.

Re-organizing the post sidebar and header

The most noticeable change is the new layout of the “post metadata” like the contributor credits, list of other translations, and categories.

  • At this full size, the “post metadata sidebar” now has a white background. This makes it feel like part of the header, rather than part of the related posts that show below. We think it looks a lot cleaner and highlights the contributors this way.
  • The author credits now show in a circular format. This style has become the standard across the web, and so far everyone loves it.
  • The related translations have been moved out of the sidebar and into the post header! We think this will make a lot more people find and use these links, as well as promoting the amazing strength of our Lingua translation teams.
  • The dynamic Facebook “Like” and Twitter “Tweet” buttons have been removed. While we know some people find these buttons useful, we decided to remove them for a variety of reasons.
screenshot of facebook and twitter buttons

Goodbye Javascript-driven Facebook and Twitter buttons ?

Why remove the dynamic (blue/teal) Facebook and Twitter buttons? The main reason we wanted to remove these buttons is that they needlessly invite Facebook and Twitter to load their many javascript files onto our sites. These scripts inevitably track our visitors in addition to bogging down the page with many extra kilobytes of downloaded code. Removing these buttons will mean better privacy for our visitors as well as a faster loading experience.

Note that the grey sharing buttons, including Facebook and Twitter, are still there next to the post (and above and below it at smaller sizes)! These buttons work great for sharing, and do so without loading any tracking scripts from their respective services.

The one big reason we've heard that people want to keep the old colourful-but-invasive buttons is to see how many likes a post has at a glance. Unfortunately there's no easy fix for this, but if you ever want to check how many Facebook likes a post has, you can at least copy the URL and paste it into sharescound.com to find out. In terms of Twitter, the button we're removing used to count tweets, but stopped several years ago, and none of the services I found are able to load that info, so it seems like we just have to live with the mystery.

“Tablet” and “mobile” articles highlighting contributors

When you look at the site on a smaller device there's an even bigger change in the direction of emphasizing the work of our volunteers:

animated gif showing old and new versions of the article design at tablet size

Comparison of the old and new article designs at tablet/smartphone size. The version with circular avatars is the new one.

In the old design, once you got down to one column where the sidebar doesn't show, contributors were only visible at the bottom of the post, and the translations were hidden in a pulldown menu that few people used (“Translations” in the screenshot above).

Crediting authors and translators at the top: In this new design, the contributor credits will always show at the top of the page, whether you're on a desktop or a tiny smartphone.

Showing translations by default: Similarly, the translations will show in their full teal glory up at the top, making it as easy as possible for someone to jump to a different translation if their native language is available!

Overall, it takes a little more space to have these things at the top, but I think it's totally worth it, what do you think?

Where are the categories?: At these screen sizes, the categories used to show in the same way as the translations, in a pulldown menu at the top of the post (“Categories” in the top right of the screenshot above). In this new format the categories are instead shown at the bottom of the post, without the need for a popup menu. We think they look better that way and they're more useful at the end of the article, when someone might want to find related posts by clicking the category link.

Overall responsiveness revamp: As part of this redesign, I've gone through all the different screen sizes to review and clean up how our site behaves. It is now a lot more balanced at the “tablet” sizes in between computers and phones (notice the much larger headline in the screenshot above!). The smartphone-size experience will change for a lot of people to be a little more “tablet-like” as well. Since over half our traffic now comes from mobile devices, we hope this helps more people comfortably read our stories, regardless of the device they're using!

Homepage and post archive listings got cleaned up too

The changes to the homepage and archive screens are less dramatic, but they follow a similar theme. To get a sense of how this design also supports right-to-left languages and non-latin fonts, lets compare the GV in Arabic site to it's previous version:

animated gif showing old and new versions of the article design at tablet size

Comparison of the GV in Arabic homepage with the old and new designs. The version with the larger thumbnails is the new one.

Aside from the general “spacing out” and giving everything breathing room that I already talked about, here are the main changes to the homepage and archive screens:

  • Both headline text and featured images are bigger and take up a greater share of the space
  • Special project badges like Advox and Covid have been redesigned to be “tall” rather than “wide”, making better use of the space.
  • Border lines under headings and between posts have been removed, which applies to most such borders across the site
  • The dates between posts, which showed only once per day even if there were several posts in between, have been removed. Each post now has it's own date listed next to the category link (usually a region category)
  • To make space for the date to show under the headline, the single-author credit has been removed from the excerpt display of posts like on these screens.

Why the author name won't show on the homepage and archive screens anymore: I suspect this will be the most controversial change in this design, because we know that seeing your name on your work is important and a source of great pride for our contributors. Please know that we aren't making this change lightly, but after long thought and consideration over many years (at least on my part). Here are some of the reasons why we think keeping author names off the homepage is a worthwhile tradeoff:

  • As I said above, we need the space normally taken by the credit to show the date below the headline. The new layout looks a lot cleaner, and finding a place for the date to show is a big part of that. Having the date is very important because on some category screens, the dates jump back by months and years very quickly, and that is important information for readers.
  • Author credits are very unstable from a design perspective. They vary wildly in length, from a short piece of text to some very long names that end up wrapping to multiple lines. Showing the author credit on the homepage makes the design unpredictable, and replacing it with the date settles the layout down a lot (see the gif above, to me the version with names looks a lot more chaotic, especially in Arabic where they create a mixed alphabet situation).
  • This homepage credit only ever showed a single contributor, even when there are several authors set up on the post, and it never gave credit to translators. To me this is a big reason to remove it, showing a single contributor on a post created by a team just isn't fair! When we show credits on the article view we show everyone who is marked as an author or translator, even if it's a big group, and doing this consistently is valuable.

Consolation prize: Contributor credits are now WAY more prominent on the article page! Remember that in the description of the updated Tablet size for articles above, I described how the credits will show at both the top and bottom of the post, rather than just at the bottom, and with nice big avatars! To me this is a much more important place to show the credits than in a tiny link on the homepage where most readers won't even notice it.

Overall, I think this new refreshed design is a big improvement to the visibility of our authors and translators, and I hope it feels that way to everyone.

More to come!

Is this it? No more changes for another 6 years? I hope not!

We've got lots of plans for more tweaks and improvements we can make to the current site, and ideas for future overhauls to come. We hope you like this batch of changes and are excited to see what's next for the ever-evolving visual and structural design of GV.

Bugs: If you spot any issues with the site, especially little things in the corners that I might not have noticed, please get in touch with me through the contact form on this site or by email to webmaster @ globalvoices.org

Ongoing experimentation: Keep an eye out for little style changes going on with the site. Our plan is to run some A/B tests (serving different versions of the site to different visitors to see how it affects different statistics) to see what works best. If you notice something a little different, maybe you're part of the research!

As always, I'd like to dedicate this design to all our authors, editors, and translators, it's your beautiful content that fills up the the canvas we create ??

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Global Voices Test Post: Formats https://community.globalvoices.org/2020/06/global-voices-test-post-formats/ https://community.globalvoices.org/2020/06/global-voices-test-post-formats/#respond Thu, 25 Jun 2020 23:06:17 +0000 https://community.globalvoices.org/?p=10907 This test post needs a test tagline, doesn't it?

Originally published on Global Voices Community Blog

Global Voices Test Post

Here's an image to get us started.

This is a demo article that uses all of the supported HTML and CSS formats available for Global Voices posts. They should all work on all platforms. We'll start with headings.

Images

Images are a huge part of GV. They can be different sizes and they can float left and right if needed.

Example full width image without caption

Usually there should be a caption but sometimes there isn't.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Full width image WITH caption

Example full-width image with caption

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Floated images display at 50% width

Example of an image with caption floated right. This image also has a very long caption that will wrap to multiple lines, showing how it looks when there's a long text.

Phasellus velit diam, interdum sed tincidunt viverra, porttitor et elit. Etiam auctor, arcu vel tempor congue, erat risus porta dui, vel vestibulum orci massa vel felis. Pellentesque et nisl lacus. Vestibulum consectetur accumsan venenatis. Vivamus vitae nibh sit amet ante porta sollicitudin sed nec lectus. Suspendisse potenti. Etiam semper neque et orci tincidunt euismod. Suspendisse bibendum eleifend dolor, a ornare tellus tristique sit amet. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. In accumsan ultricies neque eu suscipit. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Praesent malesuada pharetra arcu non pretium.

Example of an image with caption floated Left.

Nulla eu lorem at ante semper elementum. Quisque hendrerit gravida eros, ut gravida dolor posuere quis. Etiam tincidunt arcu eget ipsum imperdiet mattis. Donec tempor nisl eu mi blandit et adipiscing elit consequat. Suspendisse a odio tincidunt tortor gravida auctor. Vestibulum a mollis felis. In sit amet lacus vitae est semper bibendum. Donec vel urna velit. Ut enim risus, scelerisque at ultricies nec, eleifend vel nunc. Fusce quis ultricies massa. Nam venenatis dapibus risus non laoreet. Duis et arcu vel metus faucibus pellentesque vestibulum vitae lectus. Suspendisse sed turpis augue, non pellentesque quam. Maecenas faucibus, quam id facilisis posuere, nulla tortor laoreet quam, sed volutpat erat justo ac tortor. Maecenas pulvinar nulla ultrices urna fermentum sit amet tincidunt nunc bibendum. Donec accumsan tortor in ante pharetra nec dictum nibh consequat.

Quotes

Here's a simple blockquote.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus velit diam, interdum sed tincidunt viverra, porttitor et elit. Etiam auctor, arcu vel tempor congue, erat risus porta dui, vel vestibulum orci massa vel felis. Pellentesque et nisl lacus. Vestibulum consectetur accumsan venenatis. Vivamus vitae nibh sit amet ante porta sollicitudin sed nec lectus. Suspendisse potenti.

Here's a translated blockquote:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus velit diam, interdum sed tincidunt viverra, porttitor et elit. Etiam auctor, arcu vel tempor congue, erat risus porta dui, vel vestibulum orci massa vel felis. Pellentesque et nisl lacus. Vestibulum consectetur accumsan venenatis. Vivamus vitae nibh sit amet ante porta sollicitudin sed nec lectus. Suspendisse potenti.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus velit diam, interdum sed tincidunt viverra, porttitor et elit. Etiam auctor, arcu vel tempor congue, erat risus porta dui, vel vestibulum orci massa vel felis. Pellentesque et nisl lacus. Vestibulum consectetur accumsan venenatis. Vivamus vitae nibh sit amet ante porta sollicitudin sed nec lectus. Suspendisse potenti.

Here's a right-to-left blockquote with the .rtl style in it:

في خضم حراك عالمي ضد العنصرية تنقسم فرنسا حول المصير الذي سيتم تخصيصه لتماثيل تمثل شخصيات تاريخية مرتبطة بالرق أو الاستعمار.

Big tag

The text below uses the <big> tag, it should be bigger.

This text should be bigger.

Contributors block

The .contributors style is usually used at the end of a document to indicate other people who worked on the story.

These extra people also helped with this story! Jane Doe, Gohary Gohary, Jer Jer.

Notes block

The .notes style is similar to .contributor and ads visually-distinguished notes to the beginning or end of a post.

These are some extra notes about this article.

Pull-Quotes

Pull-quotes make text large and optionally floated to the right or left. The following text enables their format to be visualized.

This is a .pull-quote at full width, it is basically just giant text that isn't a heading. Note that all pull-quotes end up being full-width at mobile sizes.

This is a .pull-quote.alignright, it will float to the right at 50% of the document width.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus velit diam, interdum sed tincidunt viverra, porttitor et elit. Etiam auctor, arcu vel tempor congue, erat risus porta dui, vel vestibulum orci massa vel felis. Pellentesque et nisl lacus. Vestibulum consectetur accumsan venenatis. Vivamus vitae nibh sit amet ante porta sollicitudin sed nec lectus. Suspendisse potenti. Etiam semper neque et orci tincidunt euismod. Suspendisse bibendum eleifend dolor, a ornare tellus tristique sit amet.

This is a .pull-quote.alignleft, it will float to the left at 50% of the document width.

Nulla eu lorem at ante semper elementum. Quisque hendrerit gravida eros, ut gravida dolor posuere quis. Etiam tincidunt arcu eget ipsum imperdiet mattis. Donec tempor nisl eu mi blandit et adipiscing elit consequat. Suspendisse a odio tincidunt tortor gravida auctor. Vestibulum a mollis felis. In sit amet lacus vitae est semper bibendum. Donec vel urna velit. Ut enim risus, scelerisque at ultricies nec, eleifend vel nunc. Fusce quis ultricies massa. Nam venenatis dapibus risus non laoreet.

Factboxes

“Factboxes” are <div> tags that use the .factbox style to create a block with a colored background to isolate certain information, such as an explainer of “facts” related to a story. Factboxes can be used for anything you want to visually distinguish though, and allow various content like images, headings, and lists inside of them. They can be floated right or left to display at 50% width, similar to pull-quotes and images.

Full-width Factbox

This factbox wasn't given an alignment, so it will just be a full-width area that has a colored background. Here's an example list.

  • This is the first list item
  • This is the second list item
  • This is a third list item

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

Right-aligned Factbox

This is a .factbox.alignright and it will take up 50% of the article width for sizes bigger than “mobile” (and 100% width at mobile).

Here's an example of how images work in a factbox.

Phasellus velit diam, interdum sed tincidunt viverra, porttitor et elit. Etiam auctor, arcu vel tempor congue, erat risus porta dui, vel vestibulum orci massa vel felis. Pellentesque et nisl lacus. Vestibulum consectetur accumsan venenatis. Vivamus vitae nibh sit amet ante porta sollicitudin sed nec lectus. Suspendisse potenti. Etiam semper neque et orci tincidunt euismod. Suspendisse bibendum eleifend dolor, a ornare tellus tristique sit amet. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. In accumsan ultricies neque eu suscipit. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Praesent malesuada pharetra arcu non pretium.

Left-Aligned Factbox

Factboxes can also be left-aligned, though right-alignment usually works better.

GVers discussing the future in Cebu, Philippines.

Nulla eu lorem at ante semper elementum. Quisque hendrerit gravida eros, ut gravida dolor posuere quis. Etiam tincidunt arcu eget ipsum imperdiet mattis. Donec tempor nisl eu mi blandit et adipiscing elit consequat. Suspendisse a odio tincidunt tortor gravida auctor. Vestibulum a mollis felis. In sit amet lacus vitae est semper bibendum. Donec vel urna velit. Ut enim risus, scelerisque at ultricies nec, eleifend vel nunc. Fusce quis ultricies massa. Nam venenatis dapibus risus non laoreet. Duis et arcu vel metus faucibus pellentesque vestibulum vitae lectus. Suspendisse sed turpis augue, non pellentesque quam. Maecenas faucibus, quam id facilisis posuere, nulla tortor laoreet quam, sed volutpat erat justo ac tortor. Maecenas pulvinar nulla ultrices urna fermentum sit amet tincidunt nunc bibendum. Donec accumsan tortor in ante pharetra nec dictum nibh consequat.

Pages list [gvpages]

[gvpages] is a custom GV Shortcode that shows a set of pages as headlines.

NOTE: The shortcode needs to know a `page_id` to work, so the code below will break when this post is moved to a new site. Please find 3 pages with featured images and insert their ID's in the code below.

Communication Within GV

Introductory guide to communication channels used by GV to help new members get up to speed and ensure they are signed up.

Facebook Fundraising Guide

A step-by-step guide to gathering donations for Global VoicesOriginally published on Global Voices Community BlogFacebook has a powerful tool called Personal Fundraisers and Donations. It's free to use and anyone with a Facebook account (with some major geographic exceptions — more below) can use for fundraising and donations. Charitable organizations…

Inline-RSS [gvinlinerss]

[gvinlinerss] is a custom GV Shortcode that inserts headlines from an RSS feed into the post. Below is the output for the following shortcode:

[gvinlinerss feed_url="https://advox.globalvoices.org/feed/" count="3" show_excerpts="0"]

Generic Nicelist

This is a .nicelist. This format isn't set up to be added automatically in the editor but should be supported in posts.

  • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
  • consectetur adipiscing elit.
  • Phasellus velit diam, interdum sed tincidunt viverra, porttitor et elit.
  • Etiam auctor, arcu vel tempor congue

Headings

The .factbox below has examples of all the headings that can be used on GV. Note that only H3 and H4 are recommended for use inside of posts, and they should be big and dynamic as shown throughout the rest of this article. H1 and H2 are demonstrated here only so we can make sure they look okay in case people mistakenly use them.

H1: First-level heading

Should never be used.

H2: Second-level heading

H2 is also not recommended, but should still work normally on GV.

H3: Third-level heading

H3 is the recommended heading for use inside posts

H4: Fourth-level heading

H4's should be used when a document is complex enough to have sub-headings that need to be visually smaller than h3.

H5: Fifth-level headings

H5 should work but rarely be used. Visually it will look like bold text, but can be used to ensure the heading shows up in a Table of Contents. Avoid this if possible.

H1 line-height: This h1 is so long it should wrap to two lines and show the line-height.

H2 line-height: This h2 is so long it should wrap to two lines and show the line-height.

H3 line-height: This h3 is so long it should wrap to two lines and show the line-height.

H4 line-height: This h4 is so long it should wrap to two lines and show the line-height.

Sorry for that.v

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Zoom and Global Voices – Communication and Safety Guidelines https://community.globalvoices.org/2020/05/zoom-and-global-voices-communication-and-safety-guidelines/ https://community.globalvoices.org/2020/05/zoom-and-global-voices-communication-and-safety-guidelines/#respond Mon, 11 May 2020 00:59:17 +0000 https://community.globalvoices.org/?p=10543 Zoom isn't perfect, but it's the best solution we have right now.

Originally published on Global Voices Community Blog

A Neta.mk comics, republished with permission. Click to enlarge.

Hello from the “Tech Lead” for Global Voices! Given the whole situation with COVID-19, and the migration of whole societies into online work, apps that enable us to connect virtually are getting a lot of attention, especially Zoom, a paid videoconferencing app that has exploded in popularity since the pandemic began. The point of this post is to explain how and why GV continues to use Zoom for our work, and to answer some of the privacy and security concerns that have been brought up in the media and by concerned GVers. I'll apologize in advance for how long this document got! I just wanted to answer all concerns as carefully and thoroughly as I could.

TL;DR: The information below is an elaboration of the recommendations in our Communication and Safety Guidelines, where our suggestions for video chat put Jitsi as the ultimate in private video conferencing, but also recommend Zoom for larger meetings (which Jitsi doesn't support) and for situations where privacy is not a top priority. For dealing with safety concerns related to Zoom, our approach is to take advantage of the security tools already baked into Zoom, as described below.

Who decides GV's policy for questions like this?

GV has an “Infosafety Working Group” composed of myself (Jer the Tech lead), Georgia Popplewell (the Managing Director), Mohamed ElGohary (the Lingua Manager) and Maryalice Quinn (the Finance & Administration Director). Part of our job is to figure out recommendations for software and tools both in terms of how we use them internally and in general.

We’ve been looking carefully at the Zoom situation and have been discussing it on our bi-weekly calls. The information below represents our conclusions about video meetings and the safety problems Zoom has been facing lately.

Zoom isn't end-to-end encrypted

We definitely care about the exposed inaccuracy in Zoom’s claims about end-to-end encryption. It turns out that their claims of end-to-end encryption (“e2e”, implying complete privacy, even against wiretapping) were either lies or a very stupid mistake. As of writing, Zoom calls are still not end-to-end encrypted (the video is theoretically visible to them on their servers). Our conclusion on this subject is that Zoom should be ashamed of this error, and they should be held accountable for such a glaring technical mistake in their marketing.

Unfortunately, this is a problem shared with our “more secure” recommendation Jitsi, who also had a scandal in an extremely comparable way when it was discovered that Jitsi calls with more than two participants are not end-to-end encrypted. As far as we know, all videoconference platforms that support large groups share this limitation, so there’s no real alternative in this space at the moment.

If a call is sensitive enough that it absolutely requires full end-to-end encryption, then our recommendation is to use Signal for a one-on-one call or chat.

Call privacy and “Zoombombing”

“Zoombombing” is a new word that refers to situations where trolls or other toxic individuals join Zoom calls where they aren't welcome and harass participants, often by abusing in-call features like screen sharing to force others to watch disgusting materials with pornographic or racist content. The phenomenon relies on the default setting of Zoom meetings being open to anyone with the meeting URL, thus allowing trolls to easily enter calls and even return easily after being removed. Zoombombing is a real problem and can be very upsetting for targeted individuals.

Zoom is an open platform, open even to trolls

One thing that's important to remember is that this problem stems from a very useful feature of Zoom: The fact that you are not forced to create an account or log in to participate in a Zoom call. Anyone can join anonymously, like with Jitsi, which is a very good thing! But the downside is that anyone can join, and we are forced to deal with moderation problems that could theoretically be avoided if we were micro-managing access based on logged-in user accounts.

So far, the issues around Zoombombing have not been a problem for Global Voices and our use of Zoom. Though our calls are theoretically “open” to anyone to join, this has not been taken advantage of. The reality is that the vast majority of Zoom calls do not get “bombed”, and those that do are often high-profile calls that were advertised publicly and welcome the public. For calls that welcome the public, this is an unavoidable problem, and will apply to any platform where participants can join without being individually validated.

Guessable meeting ID's and meeting passwords

In some cases, due to the nature of Zoom meeting URLs being composed of a simple numeric ID, Zoombombers were able to “guess” the ID of a meeting that was never shared publicly, and log in and harass participants. These situations are even more rare than the “bombing” of URLs shared publicly, but their visibility is very high because it is such a disturbing violation.

Zoom offers several security tools that can work to offset the risk of strangers entering your meeting, but these tools come with a very high cost in terms of usability.

Meeting passwords: Requiring a password on meetings is a lightweight solution that provides some extra security for meetings, and we have implemented passwords as part of our default procedure for Zoom. These meeting passwords only protect us from people trying to guess the numeric Meeting ID, so they are not strong security. Even with a password, the meeting URL that we share with participants contains the password, so if we share that URL too widely, someone may obtain it and join the meeting. The only way to avoid this “loophole” is to not distribute the password with the meeting URL, but this makes it much, much harder for our invited participants to join the meeting. As often happens security comes with usability burdens and it's important to find a balance. For GV's use of Zoom, we've decided that having passwords enabled, but included in the Meeting URLs that we share with participants, strikes a reasonable balance.

Waiting room: Another feature that can be used to avoid trolls is called “Waiting Room”. With this feature a meeting host is required to log in before anyone else, and then that person is required to manually review each participant and invite them into the call itself. The upside is that unwanted guests never get into the call, but the downside is that it's a huge extra burden on the host who's attention will be split between the call itself and the waiting room. The “Waiting Room” feature also has a huge downside of disabling the “Host Key” feature, which GV relies on to easily grant hosting/admin access to many individuals. Overall the Waiting Room may be a good choice for some circumstances, but doesn't make sense for GV and our use of Zoom.

The real solution: Moderation and call management

As we see it, the most effective and practical solution to concerns of “Zoombombing” is to familiarize ourselves with the in-call security and moderation tools, which are very powerful and grant the host full control over who is allowed to be in the call and who is allowed to speak, be seen, and share their screen.

A meeting may be “open”, but as soon as someone joins you are immediately aware of their presence, and if they are unexpected, you can question them as to why they joined. You can mute them or remove them easily in the Participants menu.

You can also “lock down” a call in the middle of a meeting if there are problems with unwanted people joining, or even if you are just confident that “everyone is here already”. The security menu has options to “Close meeting” (blocking new participants from joining) or to “Enable Waiting Room” (forcing new people to be reviewed manually). It also lets you enable or disable screen sharing by non-hosts, which should be disabled at times when you have participants that you don't necessarily trust.

Overall, empowering ourselves with these tools is a solution that will keep us safe from attacks if they do happen, while also allowing us to take advantage of the simplicity and convenience of “open” meetings that anyone (usually our friends) are able to join.

Personal information and privacy

Another issue Zoom has been criticized for is their approach to personal information, which was not super great when it was brought into the spotlight by privacy advocates. They were accused of sending users’ personal data to Facebook (a complex SDK issue), as well as of having a privacy policy that generally was very poor and vague about what they might do with information collected about users.

The good news is that Zoom’s new and much improved Privacy Policy shows a dramatic change in their approach, making many things that were vague before explicit. Namely, that they will never sell user information, nor use it for marketing, and that the data they collect about users will only be used to make the product work for those users.

They really seem to be cleaning up their act and promising never to sell our data or use it in sneaky ways, which is a good thing. Now should we blindly trust a corporation to “do the right thing”? No, of course not. But this is a good sign from Zoom, and with so many other companies actively promising to buy and sell our personal information, Zoom seems to be doing what they can to focus on providing a product we are willing to pay for, rather than treating us the users as the product sold to advertisers.

Zoom suffers from both the Apple Effect and the Windows Effect

If you’ll permit me an analogy, I think Zoom’s current explosion in popularity (going from a niche business tool to a household name and generic verb “lets zoom”) has caused them to suffer both what I call The Apple Effect and The Windows Effect simultaneously. Both of them result in a lot of “bad news” about Zoom that can make it seem like a worse product than it is, but most of which will likely resolve over time as the effects of their sudden popularity balance out.

The Apple effect applies to Zoom because they are an extremely popular tool that people pay to use because they love it. The result is that like Apple, Zoom is now being held to a uniquely high standard of ethics and product quality, even in contexts where other companies get a pass. Even if Apple is exemplary in fields like worker rights and environmental impact, because people expect them to be perfect, the media is able to make headlines out of problems that are worse in almost every other company.

As with Apple, we should continue to hold Zoom accountable for any issues that come up, but seeing as Zoom is going through an enormous growth spurt right now, there’s also good reasons to give them time to address the problems being brought to them. The Guardian called Zoom “Malware” and “a privacy disaster”, but by those standards, so are Facebook, Google, Twitter, and many others.

We’ve already seen Zoom clean up their Privacy Policy dramatically, removing loopholes that would have allowed them to sell personal data or do other tricks, and it seems they are aiming to comply with requests to do regular auditing of their relationships to governments and wiretapping. These are the kind of positive steps we’d hope for from a company that is seriously raking in the cash with all their new customers, and like Apple, should have no need to sell user data for profit as long as they continue to make a product that people are willing to pay for.

The Windows effect applies to Zoom because they are suddenly the default tool for their field of endeavor, and that brings the scrutiny of hackers, both those with good and bad intentions. Windows spent it’s entire life since the internet became normal fighting a mostly-losing battle against malware, largely because they were the most popular operating system. Yes there were security flaws in Windows, but it was a curse of popularity that so many people were trying to exploit them.

Zoom has entered into a similar space with their popularity, and both trolls and security experts have flocked to analyze Zoom and find problems, uncovering various large (lack of end-to-end encryption) and trivial (publicly shared Zoom meetings can be trolled by Zoombombers) exploits that embarrass the company. The thing to remember in this context is that all systems have problems, but most of them never get resolved because no one is paying attention. Zoom now has the world watching, and they are working to improve the important issues coming to them.

In the latest version of the Zoom app, there’s a new “Security” button visible by hosts. It allows you to quickly access several settings that will slow down or stop someone trying to disrupt a meeting (disable screenshare, disable users renaming themselves, kick users). This is a good sign that they are listening and trying to improve the user experience in light of the trolls and bad actors trying to hurt people using the platform.

Conclusion: GV finds Zoom useful

Coming back to the general question of Zoom and how we use it in GV. The answer of the Infosafety Working Group, at least for now, is that we will continue using Zoom for our day-to-day work and our casual socialization. None of the problems exposed recently imply that there’s a better platform that solves our problems, and the solutions Zoom is bringing to these issues shows that it’s maturing as a platform in a good way.

Zoom offers rooms of unlimited size, supports all common computer and mobile platforms, and so far their networking tools have given us the smoothest pan-oceanic calls available. If a call requires absolute privacy and anonymity, then we continue to recommend Signal, either voice or chat, as a truly secure platform, but Signal can’t even come close to offering us as an organization what Zoom does.

Exactly how we use Zoom is a separate question, and choosing the right mix of features like meeting passwords, waiting rooms, and host keys is an ongoing process. As will most organizations, GV will try to find the balance between usability and control that will benefit our contributors the most.

In the meantime, we recommend everyone hosting meetings take some time to familiarize yourself with the new Security button and menu, as well as the various user management tools in the Participants menu, which will allow you to review all participants and make sure you know who they are, and easily mute, kick out, and ban anyone who isn’t supposed to be there. These tools were there all along, but now that Zoom has become more popular, and thus targeted by trolls, knowing how to use them has become more valuable than ever.

Thank you for reading all this and those of us on the Infosafety Working Group hope you feel we've listened to all concerns and addressed them in a responsible way. It’s great that GV as an organization, and the world in general, is holding Zoom’s feet to the fire. Hopefully it will make their product both more secure and easier to use, which will benefit everyone.

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The art of hyperlinking in a Global Voices story https://community.globalvoices.org/2020/03/the-art-of-hyperlinking-in-a-global-voices-story/ https://community.globalvoices.org/2020/03/the-art-of-hyperlinking-in-a-global-voices-story/#respond Thu, 19 Mar 2020 13:01:32 +0000 https://community.globalvoices.org/?p=10437 Originally published on Global Voices Community Blog

At Global Voices, hyperlinks serve the primary function of backing up our facts. Our stories, for the most part, rely on publicly available information. Thus any time the information in our story comes from a source, and not you, the writer, it should be attributed and linked to.

Hyperlinks serve a double purpose: they ensure transparency and credibility with our audience, but also help contextualize a subject or point readers to further resources.

However, too many links can be distracting, and can make for a cacophonic reading experience. It might also confuse the reader as to what is a source of a fact, and what is merely an invitation to “read this to find out more.”

As a reporter, reliable and clear sourcing should be your primary concern. Usually, one link — to whoever reported the story first, or whoever reported it best — is sufficient to attribute a claim. Use contextual links sparingly so as to not muddy your sourcing.

Who to link

Always link to the most primary source possible. Example: if you’re citing figures from a UNESCO report, link to the report itself (usually a pdf), not to a media outlet who’s produced a story about the report.

If it is an attribution — link the verb

When attributing, always link the verb said/declared/explained/wrote — and link to where you took that quote from. Alternatively, you could link the words according to. Don’t quote whole sentences of text.

If it is about context — link the noun

If you’d like to direct your reader to further context, link a noun on the sentence that is most related to that subject in question.

For example, if you’re citing an NGO that is not very well-known outside of your region, you could link the NGOs’ name to their website.

If you’re citing a cultural tradition from your community, but don’t want to add a whole paragraph explaining what that is, you could link to a Wikipedia entry about that tradition. However, remember that link doesn’t always replace a direct contextualization and, depending on how central that particular issue is to your story, your editor may ask for an explanation.

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Taglines: What they are and how to use them https://community.globalvoices.org/2019/04/taglines-what-they-are-and-how-to-use-them/ https://community.globalvoices.org/2019/04/taglines-what-they-are-and-how-to-use-them/#respond Thu, 18 Apr 2019 16:02:21 +0000 https://community.globalvoices.org/?p=9526 A few extra words can do more than you think.

Originally published on Global Voices Community Blog

In February Jer published a blog post announcing a great new addition to the GV WordPress interface: the post validation checklist.

Located to the right of the composition pane, the checklist keeps track of word count and reminds us to include a headline, an excerpt and one other feature that we haven't used much here at GV: a tagline.

A good tagline can heighten engagement in a story by arousing the reader's interest.

About taglines

The tagline is the line just beneath the headline. It's also known as a subhead, strapline, or dek.

Our WordPress setup automatically limits the length of both excerpts and taglines—in the case of taglines the limit is 10 words. This makes them sometimes challenging to craft, but understanding the purpose of taglines and how they should work helps simplify the process.

The headline and tagline should work together as a unit. A good tagline:

  • Works in tandem with the headline
  • Complements (but does not repeat) the headline
  • Will often offer one key item of information that advances the story
  • Offers a short, perhaps amusing fact or idea that can help attract readers
  • Is usually a complete sentence

A tagline is NOT:

  • A general statement about the story
  • A list of keywords

Here are a few examples:

In the post below, Afef reported on two bloggers in Mauritania who are facing criminal defamation charges for reporting on corruption. Given the seriousness of the issue and the brevity of the story, we chose a short, simple headline.

For the tagline, we selected one additional detail from the story that vividly illustrates the bloggers’ plight. Not only are they on trial, but it's been reported that they're not being treated fairly or given due process. One telling detail is that the prosecutors have offered no evidence to prove their case against the bloggers: they say that they had found evidence, but that it has since been “lost.” We used that detail in the tagline.

HEADLINE: Mauritanian bloggers face defamation charges for reporting on corruption

TAGLINE: Prosecutors claim that evidence against the bloggers has been ‘lost’.

 

For this first-person piece by Laura Vidal, about GV contributor Luis Carlos Díaz, we chose a playful headline intended to attract readers by referencing a popular the ‘welcome to the internet’ meme.

Note the subtle interplay between the two elements. The headline mentions only their first names, references the popular meme, and also lets us know that this is about Venezuela. The tagline then reveals that Luis and Naky are a couple, and that they are influential voices online in Venezuela.

The header photo works along with the other two elements to convey further information about the pair: namely, that they're young and that their work includes elements of humour and whimsy. It invites the reader to get to know them.

HEADLINE: Welcome to the Venezuelan Internet. Luis Carlos and Naky will be your guides.

TAGLINE: Meet Venezuela’s internet power couple.

 

In this story by Alexey, the tagline adds a new and unexpected detail that complements a headline that's already delivering a lot of information.

HEADLINE: Rumors of Russia's first ‘fake news’ case against a media outlet might just be fake news

TAGLINE: The false story claimed authorities had banned yoga in prisons.

 

For your next GV story, give taglines a try!

 

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Embedding Tweets on GV: Tutorial video and updated guidelines to stop making translators sad! https://community.globalvoices.org/2019/03/embedding-tweets-on-gv-tutorial-video-and-updated-guidelines-to-stop-making-translators-sad/ https://community.globalvoices.org/2019/03/embedding-tweets-on-gv-tutorial-video-and-updated-guidelines-to-stop-making-translators-sad/#respond Thu, 21 Mar 2019 22:40:24 +0000 https://community.globalvoices.org/?p=9419 Embedding tweets can be confusing but here's everything you need to know

Originally published on Global Voices Community Blog

Hey all, there was some confusion about how we embed Tweets in GV WordPress posts, and to clear it all up I've updated the official Twitter guidelines in the WordPress Posting Guide and created a tutorial video on our new GV Guides YouTube account!

Watch the video and you can skip the rest of this post!

Here's the text of the updated guidelines from the WordPress Posting Guide:

The official GV method of embedding Tweets in WordPress is using the Embed HTML from Twitter:

  • Find the tweet on Twitter.com
  • Hover over the tweet and click the “•••more” button.
  • Choose “Embed” and copy the Embed HTML that pops up.
  • In the WordPress editor, click on the “Text” tab and find the place where the tweet will go in the HTML.
  • Paste in the HTML from Twitter.

This procedure results in a <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> with the full tweet text as well as links, credit and timestamp.

By copying the embed code directly, we get a full copy of the tweet right in our post. When the post is viewed by readers, it will look fancier, with images, buttons etc, but behind that is a full backup of the tweet that will always be there, even if the tweet is deleted or Twitter itself goes offline.

Basically, the important thing is this follow-up note (as explained in the video):

Note: Do not embed the Tweet URL directly!

Another way of embedding tweets from twitter is to copy the URL and paste it directly into a post, which is admittedly very easy and convenient. The problem is that embedding this way means that the actual tweet is not in our post, and if the tweet is deleted, the post will just show the URL, which will lead to a 404 error if clicked!

For the purposes of GV, this is not a worthwhile tradeoff, so rather than embedding URL's directly, we always use the method described above to get the embed code with the <blockquote class="twitter-tweet">.

So there you go, please don't just put Tweet URLs into posts, because it isn't future-proof and it stresses out the Lingua translators who end up doing the work for you (and multiple times, since they do it for each post!).

Thanks for your help and attention!

I hope to bring you new tutorial videos coming soon! Let me know what you'd like a video tutorial of first!

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New Feature: Post Validation Checklist! https://community.globalvoices.org/2019/02/new-feature-post-validation-checklist/ https://community.globalvoices.org/2019/02/new-feature-post-validation-checklist/#respond Thu, 28 Feb 2019 22:14:13 +0000 https://community.globalvoices.org/?p=9308 Easily spot problems with your GV posts before publishing!

Originally published on Global Voices Community Blog

screenshot of the post validation box in the wordpress editor

The new post validation box, showing an error for the featured image box, since I had to take this screenshot to upload as the featured image ?

This is a quick post to introduce a new feature being added to the GV WordPress sites: Post validation! I don't know if it's fun or exciting, but I'm hoping it will be useful for ensuring all our posts have all the important metadata they need.

Problem: Post settings are easy to forget and hard to find

A lot of posts on GV end up getting published while still missing something, like their excerpt, tagline, or featured image, while others have problems with their settings, like a featured image that's too small, or an excerpt that's too long.

As you probably already know, the WordPress posting page is just too big, with too many boxes to keep track of, and things get lost sometimes. It's been the sub-editors job to double-check all these things, but really it was too much work!

Solution: Validation checklist right next to the “Publish” button

This new feature is simple: A list of post settings in the Publish box that automatically check if the post has acceptable values or not. If there's a problem, you'll see an ❌(error) or ⚠(warning) along with a description of what needs fixing. If everything is ok, you'll see nothing but ✅✅✅✅.

Click “Edit” to change post settings without hunting

screenshot of post validation box with errors on the featured image, excerpt and tagline

This post needs a bit of work before it's ready to publish.

Even more useful, each test also has an Edit link next to it that you can click to jump straight to that setting instead of hunting around for the Excerpt or Tagline boxes!

In the short time I've been testing and using this feature, those Edit links have already saved me a ton of time.

Tests auto-update as you work

Originally the tests were going to force you to save the post before they updated, but we realized that was too much of a hassle for authors and editors, and decided to make sure each test auto-updates with Javascript.

What this means is that as you work the tests will always be up to date, so you can fix all the problems and save just once!

Current and future tests

Currently there are four tests working:

  • Post length: This one just shows you how many words are in the post, same as the counter below the edit box.
  • Featured image: This test checks that you've set a Featured Image on your post (mandatory!) and warns you if it's too small.
  • Excerpt: Ensures you've set an Excerpt paragraph for the post, and warns you if it's too long. Excerpts are automatically truncated (cut off) if they are too long, so it's vital to keep the length within the limits.
  • Tagline: Checks that you've set a Tagline for the post, and warns you if it's too long. The limit on taglines is more of a guideline than a rule, the full tagline should show even if it's longer than the limit.

In the next little while, we're hoping to add more tests:

  • Categories: Checks if you have set categories other than the default one
  • Geolocation: Checks that you've added a geolocation to the post (this whole feature needs some work!)
  • URL length: A rarely used check that will make sure the URL isn't too long to fit in our database

UPDATE! Now with Lingua Support!

screenshot of post validation box with "Excerpt not translated" and "tagline not translated" messages showing

Here's how the validator looks on a freshly-fetched translation. Don't forget to edit the Excerpt and Tagline!

After publishing this post I figured out a really important addition to this and have now deployed it! Previously, on translation posts, the tests for Excerpt and Tagline would show as OK ✅ as soon as you fetched the target post content, because there was a tagline and excerpt in the boxes. But for a translation post, this isn't OK! The translator needs to go to both those fields and translate them, so the validation test was giving a false sense that this was done.

The update that is now running fixed this: It now checks to see if the content in the Tagline and Excerpt boxes is the same as the original post that you're translating. So if the translator hasn't changed what's in those boxes, they'll see an error like: ❌Tagline not translated

As soon as you've changed the text, the system will assume that you've translated it completely, and the errors will switch to showing whether it's long enough or missing.

I think this will be really helpful for translators and translation managers to keep track of these post settings!

Hope it's helpful!

That's it for now. I hope this makes your work on GV a little easier. Please let me know if you have any questions or find bugs in the system!

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Guidelines for first-hand reporting https://community.globalvoices.org/2018/11/guidelines-for-first-hand-reporting/ https://community.globalvoices.org/2018/11/guidelines-for-first-hand-reporting/#respond Wed, 21 Nov 2018 18:48:03 +0000 https://community.globalvoices.org/?p=8839 Originally published on Global Voices Community Blog

A reporter interviewing a protester outside Calgary's U.S. consulate. PHOTO: Robert Thivierge (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Global Voices is mostly a second-hand reporting site–we curate from sources that live on the internet and quote reporting done by other media outlets. But sometimes we do engage in first-hand reporting.

Whenever we do, there are a few ethical principles we should follow:

1. Obtain consent from the source to be quoted specifically on globalvoices.org

  • The way people talk to a reporter is not the same as the way they would talk to a friend in an informal conversation.
  • Therefore, when interviewing someone for a story, you should ask them very explicitly if they agree to being quoted on a public website that can be potentially be read by millions. Also, bear in mind that in some cases you could be putting your source at risk.
  • When reaching out to somebody for an interview, state very clearly your role in that conversation: e.g. you're a contributor for Global Voices, you're working on a story about X and would like to interview them for, and quote them on, that story.
  • If you've spoken to someone in an informal setting and discover later that you want to use material from that conversation in a story, reach out to them again and ask permission to publish their views on GV.
  • If you've talked to someone on a different capacity (e.g, as an academic researcher), reach out to them again and ask permission to use those quotes on GV.
  • Never assume that someone will agree to being quoted on Global Voices, even if you're confident that you're not misrepresenting their views.

2. Disclose your relationship with your sources

  • If the source is a family member or a close friend, you should disclose this to the readers.
  • One common way writers often do this is by noting it formally near the beginning of the story, but you could also look for a creative way to incorporate it into the text.
  • Bear in mind that for some readers, the idea that a writer has a personal relationship with her subject might lead them to assume a lack of objectivity or cause them to cast doubt on the rest of your reporting. So you should weigh carefully the pros and cons of interviewing someone with whom you have a personal relationship.

3. Keep your notes

  • This is important for the rare occasion on which someone might ask you about your reporting methods, or dispute some aspect of your story.
  • If you're interviewing someone in person, by phone or on a video chat platform like Skype or Zoom, use a recorder whenever possible.
  • If you're taking handwritten notes, type them up and organize them in a digital document as soon as you have access to a computer. Don't wait a whole week to do this — do it while your memory from the conversation is fresh.
  • If you're talking to your source by e-mail or instant messaging applications, save screenshots of the conversation.
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