Web Presence Guide
From Los Angeles ACM Chapter Wiki
The Los Angeles ACM Chapter Web presence consists of three top-level sites:
- A blog: http://blog.acm.org/losangeles
- A Wiki: http://wiki.acm.org/losangeles
- A home page: http://www.la-acm.org
This guide has been written to ensure optimal use of these three sites while minimizing redundant information among them; by nature, the capabilities of these resources have some overlap, and so this guide is necessary to ensure that the chapter uses the Web presence in an effective, consistent, and non-redundant manner.
Contents |
Blog
The purpose of the blog is to provide a quick, time-based index to short entries and announcements. Examples of items that best fit the blog include:
- Meeting announcements
- Other event announcements
- Notifications, such as:
- Availability of new or updated Wiki pages (meeting minutes, reports, or other documents)
- Updates to the static Web pages
- Last-minute changes to meeting or other event plans
- News items
The idea behind the LA ACM blog is to give people a quick view of what's new or recent regarding LA ACM. Where applicable, the blog items then lead to links to other parts of the LA ACM Web presence (i.e., the Wiki and/or the static pages).
Wiki
The purpose of the Wiki is to house persistent content such as chapter documents, meeting minutes, reports, member pages, etc. These items are "best fits" for the Wiki because they are frequently collaborative in nature, and may foster discussion. Some may also change or evolve over time, while others, once ratified or finalized, should not be changed any further. All of these characteristics play to the strengths of a Wiki.
Interaction with the Blog
Sometimes, authors of new pages may wish to announce the creation of such pages to the general membership. In this case, the best protocol is to announce the page's availability on the blog, with a link to the page included in the blog entry.
The Wiki's Recent changes page provides some automatic tracking, but it covers all changes on the site, and does not have the time-based focus that a blog provides.
Chapter Archives
The long-term goal for the Wiki is for it to eventually house all chapter artifacts that can be converted into electronic form. The Wiki's ability to track changes as well as lock pages and house document-centric discussions makes it ideal for this purpose.
Home Page
The purpose of the static home page is to provide general information for casual browsers. The static pages provide maximum flexibility with regard to format and structure, so these pages work best as the "public face" of the chapter. While the blog and Wiki are also publicly available, their primary purpose is to serve chapter members. The home page should provide the most inviting venue for interested professionals who have not yet formally joined the organization.
Transition from Static Pages to Blog and/or Wiki
Historically, the static pages have served as the sole Web resource of the Los Angeles ACM. Thus, much of its current content would, based on this Web presence guide, actually be better fits for either the blog or Wiki. The current plan is to transition as much of this content as possible to these new Web areas, leaving only a core set of fixed, seldom-changing pages at the static site. Of course, the site should include links to blog and Wiki URLs where appropriate.
The general rules of thumb for transitioning content are:
- If a static page announces a particular event or includes a short news item, then it should go to the blog (under an appropriately date-stamped entry)
- If a static page includes a summary or report of some event, presentation, talk, or other activity, then it should go to the Wiki; if desired, an "announcement" of that document's availability can be made in the blog, under an appropriately date-stamped entry
(Eventual) Private Section on Static Site
Based on ACM national's chapter documentation, the static site may also run Web software that can generate dynamic content or perhaps interact with a database. Over time, we hope to transfer the chapter's information infrastructure to a password-protected area within this component of the site, enabling the management of chapter data such as members, transactions, etc.
Documents Server
The purpose of the documents server is to hold internal chapter documents that are not appropriate for public or Internet searches. The server is password-protected, and that username and password is managed by the council.
The current location of the documents server is http://acm.cs.lmu.edu/doc. To upload an internal document to this server:
- You must have an account on the Loyola Marymount University computer science (Keck) servers
- If you do not know whether you have a Keck account, please contact the lab manager of LMU's computer science laboratory facilities
- Your account must belong to the acm group
- To check whether your account belongs to the acm group, ssh into keck.cs.lmu.edu using your account, then type:
groups <username>
This command displays the groups to which the given username belongs. That account is in the acm group if acm appears among the listed groups.
- To check whether your account belongs to the acm group, ssh into keck.cs.lmu.edu using your account, then type:
The uploading process goes as follows:
- scp the document to keck.cs.lmu.edu
- ssh into keck.cs.lmu.edu
- Move or copy the uploaded file to ~acm/web/htdocs/doc
- The file should now be available (after password challenge) at http://acm.cs.lmu.edu/doc/filename.
At this writing, the following naming conventions apply to certain files:
- Database reports are named yyyymmdd-database-summary.pdf
- Treasurer reports are named acmyyy1y2-yyyymmdd.pdf
In both cases, yyyymmdd stands for the date of the document. For the treasurer reports, yyy1y2 represents the fiscal year of the report (e.g., 200809). We'll deal with transitions into the 22nd century when we get there! 
