Making Democracy Work
You may create a website written just for your members
1. Log into League Easy Web as usual. On the second login screen, select your League's name, then check the box next to "Create/Edit a separate Members-Only site"
2. The first time you enter "Create/Edit a separate Members-Only site" you will be given the League registration form similar to the one for the public site. Fields are already filled in. Read on for some notes about changes you may want to make in email definitions. There are also some new fields -- some are also offered for your public site.
3. Press "Preview" and you will see the home page, a calendar page, a Links page, and a Contact page included. Decide which pages you want to have and approve them.
4. When you want to "go live", as usual, send a message to support@lwvnet.org and make the request. No money and no MOU, of course!
The URL of your site will be either http://shortname-members.statecode.lwvnet.org (e.g. http://sjsc-members.ca.lwvnet.org) or http://members.lwvdomain.org (e.g. http://members.lwvoa.org). The latter formed is used if you have purchased your own private domain. Do NOT change this field.
Every site must have a primary email forwarding address (league) and a forwarding address for the webmaster. They can be the same on the public and members-only sites. We recommend that the webmaster email address use the domain name for that site. Even if the same person is the webmaster for the public and members sites, this may help distinguish which site the sender is referring to in an email. You can also use "league@publicsitename" (e.g. league@sjsc.ca.lwvnet.org) as the primary forwarding address on the members-only site, and the email will get forwarded twice.
Probably not. We recommend that you use the "Erase all forwarding" button on the members site registration page. If you then keep the same contact information (as copied from your public site), you can have a contacts page in the members-only site with the same email addresses from your public site. If someone wants an email address with your members domain, you may define it, of course. One reason to consider defining forwarding addresses with the members domain is if someone wants to separate email about the members site from email about the public site.
No. If you want to have all of the same contact information, you may keep the definitions and the Contact Us page for the Members site will display it. Or you may use the "Erase all contacts" button to remove all. Or you may want to remove some and/or add others. Or you might want to simply remove this page or make your own Contact page.Perhaps a good use for the Contact page in the members site is to list all of your Board Members. You can use either the forwarding addresses you defined for your public site or a member's real email address or a forwarding address defined in the Forwarding section of the members site registration page.
No, you can have a members_only page (with subpages) within your public site. Create a generic page in your public site with the special Page Name of "members_only". Note that this name must be exact: no capital letters and with the underscore character.This special page and any of it's subpages will be hidden from the site menus (except within the members_only pages). You can tell members about the lwvxyz.org/members_only.html page by private email or newsletter.
These are completely separate sites each with their own pages and hierarchy of pages. Note that you want to be sure to continue to put as much as possible on the public site. It's not that a members site contains "secret" things so much as being able to write directly for members and not having to worry about the public being confused. It's good that the public knows that we do studies, for example, so you might find that you write about a study one way for the public and a more detailed way for members.
Some ideas: current studies, list of board members with contacts, lists of web resources for members. Some Leagues are also storing their master copy of electronic files like by-laws and policies and procedures.Plan how you would like to organize this site before you start building it. For example, how to do you want to organize a list of studies? Do you want to keep archival information?
Some ideas for major topics: Studies, Special projects, Board members and other leaders, Links to other LL member websites (your state and LWVUS sites).
In the title of each page and on the Site Generation Home page, you will see "Members Only Pages" just after the name of your League. Be sure to verify that you are updating the site you intend!
When you check "Save session" and bookmark the site generation URL, the next time you use the bookmark to get to League Easy Web, you will be taken to the last session that you saved. So, no, you cannot bookmark both pages. If you are working a lot with one of the sites, do a "save session" and use the bookmark. Otherwise, signout of one and into the other when you want to switch.
If you have two different browsers on your computer, you can use one (e.g. Netscape) for the public site and another (e.g. MSIE) for the members site with no problems. However, you cannot use two MSIE windows (e.g.) at the same time to update the two sites. This is true for any two LEW sites (if you happen to be a LEWmaster of multiple League sites.) If you use only one browser, you should sign in to the second site in order to update it.
They shouldn't because we have defined something in your site telling search engine robots not to index your site. This means that no one can use "Google" or another search engine to find your members site.
There is nothing to stop you, but you should not do that. The whole purpose of having a separate site is so that you have a place on web to store information just for members. If you find you would like to link to a members page, then that is a very strong clue that you should put that content directly on the public site. You can always link from the members site to any page on your public site.
Send an email to support@lwvnet.org giving the name of your site (and state) and we will change the pw for you. You may want to do this because you have two different webmasters.
The most obvious place to publicize the URL is in your membership directory. Encourage members to bookmark the site on their home computers. You could put it in your VOTER recognizing that some members of the public will probably read it. It is up to your board.
Many think that having to remember an id and password discourages people from accessing the site. Keeping the URL secret is no more difficult than keeping the id and password secret -- and the URL should be easier to remember.
While there is no password protection on pages within a members site, you can add password protection on a .doc file or a .pdf file. In Word 2007:To add a password to a PDF file, you can use Adobe Acrobat (not Reader) or find a service on the internet like http://www.pdfprotect.net/.
- Click on the MS Office button, then on "Prepare", then "Encrypt Document".
- In the Encrypt Document dialog box, in the Password box, type a password, and then click OK.
- Within the Confirm Password dialog box, in the Reenter password box, type the password again, and then click OK.
- To save the password, save the file.
Remember to keep track of the password assigned! After you upload the file to your members site and link to it, the only way people can see the contents of the file is to enter the password.