Site Administrator

What are the roles and responsibilities of the site administrator?

The site adminstrator is responsible for ensuring the web site is cohesive, consistent and comprehensive. Their job is especially important in a collaborative site where, though many hands make light work, too many cooks may spoil the broth. The Site Administrator is the Head Chef who ensures that Web Site Soup is a delight to the senses and makes certain no-one gets indigestion.

The Site Administrator will also double up as doorman (ensuring safety and security) and janitor (cleaning up other people's mess). But let's begin with the good stuff.

(All site contributors should read the following information to see how they can make life easier for their Site Administrator)

Cohesive, consistent & comprehensive

As site administrator, you are the one who holds the entire structure of the web site in your head. Others will focus on their area of interest, but you alone see the grand plan. Site contributors must be aware that you will have to make changes to their pages from time to time, and see this as a Good Thing (TM). This may mean altering a few words here and there, breaking up text for readability, or moving pages wholesale.

You should:

Look out for and fix poorly chosen page names

Since page names and links are so closely related on a Site Writer site, badly chosen names can cause frustration and/or broken links.

Try to name pages so their names are similar to the names of related pages. So all the 'Policy' pages look like 'BlahblahPolicy' and their 'Master Page' is called '??Company Policies'. This means that when others are trying to write pages and link to existing ones, they know that all 'policy' pages have the same format, and will guess the correct page name in most cases.

Consider how difficult linking would be if page names were 'EqualOpportunities', 'AttendanceInformation' and 'EmploymentRules' rather than '??Equality Policy', '??Attendance Policy' and 'Employment Policy'.

Choose names that work well in different contexts (sentences) for linking. Don't be too specific - but too vague can be just as problematic!

Enforce consistency

Try to ensure all the pages 'feel' like they're part of one site. The visual elements of each page already try to convey this, but different contributors will write in different ways, so you may have to 'standardize' their work!

Break long chunks of text into shorter paragraphs. A web page is more like email than a piece of paper - more than four or five lines is difficult to read on-screen.

Add headings, sub-headings etc between every few paragraphs. As in a newspaper, these break up the text into manageable chunks and help visitors who are scanning for information rather than reading every word.

Add links where appropriate

Since you know the whole site, you should look out for opportunities to add links between pages where appropriate. You may need to reword text to fit in a Bumpy Word link, or use a square bracket link around existing text. These extra links help visitors find informtion they are looking for.

BUT links are the salt of Web Site Soup - they add much to the enjoyment of the page, but can be overpowering if sprinkled carelessly. Remember that on Site Writer, the visitor can click the title of the page to see which other pages link to it. Be especially careful with the 'Related: ' section at the bottom of the page - try to think where a potential visitor might wish to go next. Avoid vast cross-linked lists, as these are difficult to maintain when pages are added, removed.

Avoid (and/or reword) 'Click here' links

These are unhelpful since they do not indicate the actual content pointed to by the link. They make browsing difficult for visually-impaired visitors whose browser may read link names aloud. Five 'Click here' links are less than useless, whilst five carefully named links allow rapid navigation.

The Bumpy Word system goes a long way towards avoiding these problems since Bumpy Word links automatically match the title of the destination page.

Look for holes

Site contributors add pages in isolation. You may need to add complementary pages on behalf of other sections to maintain balance, or suggest that the person responsible for that section may wish to add information. For instance, a visitor may wish to see statistics for three or four departments. If they find results for marketing, but nothing for R&D, the site doesn't feel 'complete'.

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Staying safe and mopping up

Vandalism

As with any party, we want everyone to have a good time. But there is always some muppet trying to spoil things for the rest. Site Writer tries hard to avoid that becoming a problem, whilst maintaining its openness.

Everyone can help by being on the look-out for vandalism or other maliciousness. If you come across a page that looks like it may have been 'altered', check the PageHistory. Site Writer maintains a log of who changed what and when for every page. You can view the text of or revert to any recent version of any page. If something's wrong, fix it yourself, there and then.

See Security Features for more information.

Clean and tidy

The Site Administrator (and every contributor) should try to ensure that the underlying text of each page is written consistently. Although Site Writer will usually figure out what was intended if everything is squashed up, it will be far easier for the next human editor if the raw text is laid out cleanly. Try to ensure:

• keep headings in order: ! then !!, then !!!, not ! then !!!
• add two blank lines before a heading, one blank line after
• add blank lines before and after ---- rules
• AVOID CAPS
• try to make things obvious
• have a look at the source of this page - it's beautiful!

Remember: There will be some tidying up to do!

Children's Safety

Photographs of children. For information on what should and shouldn't go on a web site, see the NGfL Superhighway Safety site

There's a wealth of internet safety information on the Parents Information Network

There are issues for us all to be aware of - follow the Site Guidelines and stay safe.

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Related: Help Pages, admin