Astrocartography Net Site Use

You don't really need to log in to use the site.  By using the navigation buttons at the top of the page you can find a lot of information about Astro*Carto*Graphy, and we hope you find this rewarding.  Joining and logging in provides additional features that you may also appreciate, most notably, the ability to post comments and other material on the site.  The Site Tour points out a number of features that are available to you by joining.

Joining is quick and easy, costs nothing, and serves mainly to make sure that you are really a person and not a web "bot" or spam program.  Once  you have contributed material to the site, the login process also helps protect against others impersonating you, and allows you to control the "visiblity" of your contributions.

Sometimes the type size shown in your browser might be difficult to read because it is either too large or too small.  As alternative to adjusting your computer or your browser, simply click on one of the links at the bottom of each page.  You are offered a "small", "normal", and "large" text option.  This will instantly reformat the page for the new type size.

Our terms of use agreement prohibits placement of advertising in member postings.  However, you are encouraged to describe the work you do as well as your training and background.  Also, your author page can provide a link to your own web site if you have one.  Finally, your contribution of content (articles, pictures, discussion postings, etc) can often be even more effective than advertising!  Members can always contact you through your author page.

Once you have joined and logged in, click on the My Folder link at the top of the page.  Since this folder belongs to you, you will find that you can edit it and add things to it.  To add an article, click on the add item tab and select article. Now you can give the article a title, a summary description, and  body text.  Click on Save to make sure all this gets saved in your folder.  You have just created an article.

If you are creating a lot of articles, or other content items, you might want to create some additional sub-folders within your folder to keep things organized.  All of these will belong to you.  And everything you publish will be kept somewhere inside of your folder.  More details are given in Guide to Authoring.

The information shown on your author page is set in your personal preferences.  While you are logged in, click on Preferences at the top of the page.  Then select personal preferences. Here you can enter some biographical information about yourself, your geographic location, a link to your web page, and a picture, if you like.  For the link to your web page, simply enter the complete URL, starting with "http://"

If you create articles, it is also very easy to create reference links which are displayed at the end of the article.  Authors can be expected to enter a link to their own site here.  The Welcome page is a good example of a simple article with a number of reference links at the end.

You will always create your articles somewhere in your member folder.  When you create an article (or a news item, a blog, or anything else) its state will be private.   The state of an object on the site governs who can see it.  A private object can only be seen by the owner (you) and the site management.  You can change the state of your article by using the state tab attached to the top of your article. Other states are public draft (visible), pending, and published.  To change your article to public draft, simply select make visible from the state tab menu.  Public draft articles can be seen by everyone, but they are not yet indexed by the site.  This means that they don't appear in the Articles button in the navigation bar.

Now here is the real answer to the question.  To publish an article, you don't have to move it anywhere.  You just select submit on the state tab menu.  This will notify the site managers and reviewers that you want the article to be published.  The article will be reviewed to make sure it isn't broken (links, pictures, etc all visible and available) and then is published.  Now the state will show published.  Everyone will be able to see it, and it will appear in the Articles tab, and google and other search engines will be able index it also.  Published articles cannot be changed by the author, but they can be retracted (again using the state tab).  Once retracted the article can be edited, then submitted again for publishing.

To be able to view an object (article, folder, blog, etc) on the site, you must have adequate privileges.  For example, if you created the item, then you are the owner and can always view it.  If you are trying to view someone else's object, then it must be either visible or published.  If the the object is private, then you will get the "Insufficient Privileges" error.

All objects come into the world in a private state when you create them.  Then, when you want other people to see them you can make them visible.  Oh, there is an exception...  Comments and discussion posts start out as visible, so you don't have to do anything special for everyone to see them.