From the department of redundency department

A good example of why headlines and excerpts should be different:

Does anyone care about the Web site?

This is how the editor's column looks on our Web site as of Friday morning at 9:19 a.m. vs. how a column is supposed to look:



The lesson here: Look at the page after you published it. Does it look right? Does the boss's head really need to be that big?

Honestly, we make such a big deal in editing about proofing the page; why doesn't this translate to the Web?

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Frequently Asked Questions -- First day of school edition

What do we need to do to change our workflow to django first?

As of right now, the following problems need to be stress tested and shown to work in order for workflow to change:

Notes mode
Spell check
File lock (check-in, check-out)
Reversion -- still in the works
Moving stories around in queues

Once these problems are solved, we'll commence with some training.

When will computers be moved, repaired, re-imaged?
Once we're onto a django-first system, the computers will be re-imaged to allow for long-needed updates (like Flash). Reporting stations will not have Falcon; only the desk will have it.

What's up with the intranet?
All reporters, copy editors and designers should have access to it. I'll be working with Nina to populate and update it this semester. If you have any ideas or documents you want to see there, e-mail me at shelrockj@missouri.edu.

What's next for django?
Find out at the developmental spreadsheet.

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Don't mess with Texas, or with django ID field

Apparently we've had some folks who have been messing with the django ID fields, which has spurred some e-mail traffic from our tech guys. Rob says it better than I can, so here is his e-mail:

We’ve been getting a rash of Web site errors over the past couple of weeks that stem from two places: duplicate slugs and bad Django IDs. Here’s a quick reminder of why those happen, and how to prevent them.

First off: You must put a date (preferred) or some other unique identifier into the “slug” field when you create a new article. The reason for this is that the slug is how Django saves files internally. Two slugs = confusion for the site. (Think of it like saving a file with the same filename as another file on your computer.)

Please also remind reporters of this problem -- “my awesome council story” isn’t a good slug. Nor is “Boone Life” or any other slug that will repeat. If you don’t know exactly when it will run, put the expected run date in the slug. You can always edit it later (as long as it’s not duplicative of an existing slug).

AP stories are particularly susceptible to the error above, as they tend to use the same slugs repeatedly. Dating them is a simple way to avoid confusion. Our preferred way to handle writethroughs is to add them to the existing story, but you could also generate a new story (again, with a unique slug) to use with those.

Second off: You may not edit the Django ID. Just don’t mess with it. It’s generated automatically from the initial title of the story, so put something other than “Headline goes here” if you can.

Questions? Confusion? Let me know.

Thanks, Rob


--
Rob Weir
Director of digital development
The Columbia Missourian
Missouri School of Journalism
207 Lee Hills Hall
Columbia, MO 65211
(573) 882-5057

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