Making Democracy Work
A History of Changes Made to the LEW System
When lwv.org reorganized its Web site several years ago, all page names were changed. LEW changed its templates to use the new links. On pre-written form pages, the new templates did not and cannot affect the contents of those pages for Leagues who had already started to use LEW -- only those who started LEW after the change. At this time, the lwv.org web site included special definitions to redirect the old page names to the new page names. So we did not ask Leagues to change their links. However, those redirects have been removed. This means that the links no longer work.Leagues who started their web sites before this change was made in the templates, should check their About the League page in the section "Other League Organizations". If you see something like this sentence:
See "other Leagues in [your state]"<http://...> and "other state Leagues and local League websites"<http://www.lwv.org/about/state.html>.The link to lwv.org should be changed to:
See "other Leagues in [your state]"<http://...> and "other state Leagues and local League websites"<http://www.lwv.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Find_a_Local_League>.
For the first time since creation in 2001, LEW is changing the pricing structure. Starting July 1, 2009 the one-time set up fee is $100 and the annual fee is $200. These fees are detailed in the new MOU.Current subscribers:
If your renewal is before July 1, 2009, your invoice will show a $160 annual fee. Your next annual invoice in 2009-2010 will show a $200 charge for the annual fee.
If your renewal is after July 1, 2009, your invoice will show a $200 annual fee.
New subscribers:
if you go live before July 1, 2009, your invoice will show a one-time set up fee of $75 and a $160 annual fee. Your next annual invoice in 2010 will show a $200 charge for the annual fee.
If you go live after July 1, 2009, your invoice will show a one-time set up fee of $100 and a $200 annual fee.
An email was sent to each LEW subscriber's League and webmaster email at the start of April. An announcement email was also sent to each League with a test LEW site at that time.
This is the first change in pricing since League Easy Web was introduced in 2001. We need to keep pace with inflation, as well as fund improvements to the project to keep LEW modern, secure, and fun to use, as well as ensure that we're providing adequate training and support.
LEW expenses include: the server and its internet connection; developers for ongoing maintenance as well as new features; training and leadership development; bookkeeping; design costs to keep LEW in compliance with LWVUS branding guidelines; and limited expenses for communicating with LWVUS and our users.
In the past two years we have made significant improvements to the site as you can see from reading other Q&As in this section. We will continue this work, improving the way LEW handles photos and creating a directory of ready-to-use images. We keep a detailed list of feature requests from users and are working with our developers now to prioritize them. Please let us know your suggestions! Send to support@lwvnet.org.
Because of the growth of LEW, we are looking for volunteers to assist in LEW management. We are also considering starting a "buddy" program so that LEWmasters can get to know each other and share ideas; please let us know if you'd like to get involved!
Leagues in California are being billed for $200 a year, but with a $40 credit subsidized by LWV California, their state League. In conjunction with LWVUS, we plan to work with other state Leagues to encourage them to support their local Leagues by subsidizing part of the LEW fees. We believe Leagues are more successful when they collaborate and support each other, and that state League support is a key factor in making our online presence nonpartisan, informative, and something we can be proud of. LEW is working to find grants and donors willing to help fund this incredible project, as well. We will let you know as other discounts become available!
When you edit a page, we list the pages and files on your site in the right-hand column to make it easy for you to know their names.Now, instead of just listing the names, we have included all characters that you need to make a link. And we are giving you hints at the bottom of the column for how to make each link.
The page and file list entries now look like:
"x"<contact.html>
or
"x"<files/voter2009jan.pdf>
Edit a page and see the improvement and the instructions!
NOTE: if you have asked "support" to upload graphics files, they are currently also stored in your "files" directory. Do not use the link example with a .jpg or .gif file -- it will not work the way you wish. Instead see What is the command I will use to imbed a graphical image?.
You will like these!
- You may now specify a date range
- When you have edited a calendar entry and then click on "Delete", you now have the opportunity to confirm that you want to remove this entry entirely or you may move it to another calendar.
- Single digit day numbers will no longer have leading zeros (duh!)
If an email address using your web site name like "info@lwvleaguename.org" is put into the Contact Us list but it is not defined as a forwarding address, we will tell you. We encourage you to use LEW forwarding addresses, but they must be defined in the "Additional Email Address Forwarding Information" before being used.
When you go live, we will use your League address as your billing address unless you tell us to use another. If you ever want to change your billing address, please send an email to billing@lwvnet.org and include the full name of your League, your state, and the address.
You can see the new section headings at the top of this page. This is the same capability that currently exits on a generic (regular) page. Section heading names should be short, but descriptive. In general, consider using them if you have more than 2 sections in a page.
The Title area becomes the title of your page that you see at the very top of your browser window and it becomes the main heading in the main body of the page. HTML is not allowed in the Title. We will remove the HTML and give you a warning message.Note: if you happen to have HTML in one of your page Titles now, the next time you edit the page, the HTML will be removed and a warning given.
Several have asked for a spellcheck, but because you could use the Firefox browser, we did not provide it. Download Firefox. Firefox will underline a word it thinks is misspelled in red.
Read the new MOU.All existing LEW subscribers will be asked to sign this new MOU on their anniversary date in 2009, when their existing contract renews.
What has changed?
We provide more detail about the services, terms of payment, and the visual design of LEW. We also reformatted the contract slightly in an attempt to make it a little easier to understand. Please note that there has been no change in price - an excellent value!
We encourage you to read over the new MOU and let us know if you have any questions or concerns. Just send an email to "support@lwvnet.org".
For your reference, you can see the old MOU.
If your contract renews before January 1, 2009, you may continue to operate under the existing contract or sign the new contract.
A sentence was added just after "Dues are not tax deductible" to say: "Please make out the check to: League of Women Voters of (your League)".This change will take effect the next time you click on "Update Released Pages".
Now all League Easy Web sites look similar to our LWVUS web site. We announced this change at the LWVUS Convention in Portland, OR and via email before the change was made.
The major changes are:
- Replace the header with an image from the LWVUS site and use the same colors. Put the LWV logo in the upper left corner followed by your League name.
- Put the "slogan" in the new header area in the dark blue background.
- Upgrade the appearance of the menu items in the left-hand column.
- Put the "Serving the people of..." clause in red.
- Change the divider between page sections from the thin red line with the star in the middle to a thin blue line.
- Upgrade the wording on the "Join the League" page. The first two sections were changed in addition to the Description. The changes reflect the Membership Recruitment Initiative messages.
Your site now has its new look.If you have a very long slogan which displays on the home page, you might want to change it. We recommend and most Leagues have a short slogan like "Make Democracy Work" or "Making our Community Fair, Vibrant and Strong". If your slogan takes 3 or more lines, you might want to consider changing it.
If you are still using the original "Join the League" page, all changed content in the main body of the page also appeared.
However, the Join the League page has a new "Description in Table of Contents". Leagues new to LEW will pick up the change, but not existing sites. If you would like to use the newest message, please edit your Join the League page and change the Description to say:
...<i>the</i> organization where hands-on work to safeguard democracy leads to civic improvement
Although the change to the new email addresses helped everyone, there was still a lot of spam. League Easy Web's email forwarding system now filters out spam.
Have you had trouble with spam? We've just completed a study and now have made changes to hopefully alleviate this problem.
"info" and "webmaster" (and "sales" and several other names) are popular email names. Spammers find out the domain names of sites and simply start sending email to those names. So we changed to "league" and "wm" as names very unlikely for spammers to try.All four email addresses are active so you will not lose email.
Originally we said that we would remove the definitions of "info" and "webmaster" from our system after a few weeks. However, it now seems best to leave this completely under your control. You can cause them to be removed now. Then, unless you add forwarding definitions of "info" and/or "webmaster", email sent to those addresses will start bouncing. The people who send email to those addresses, will get a rejection notice telling them the email address is no longer valid. Hopefully, they will go to your web site and find a new way to communicate with you.
Usage Notes: All email addresses on LEW system-controlled pages were automatically changed. You do not need to do anything unless you want to keep "info" or "webmaster" email addresses active.
You must decide if you want to continue to use the "info" and/or "webmaster" email addresses. If you have advertised them widely, you might want to continue to use them at least for a while. To keep "info" and/or "webmaster" active, go to the Forwarding Email address section of the Registration Data form and enter the definitions.
If you do not want to continue using "info" and/or "webmaster", then you need to change the places where these addresses were used: other web pages on your LEW site, your VOTER or other publications, your business cards, or other League web sites.
To delete "info" and/or "webmaster" email addresses now, edit your Registration data, review for any changes you want to make, and then preview and approve (even if you made no changes). After approval, the two older required email addresses will be removed.
For more information about the transition to the new email addresses, see Handling Email - the Transition.
For more information about email addresses, see the Help FAQ for "Registration" -> Email Address Forwarding.
On the form page, people can enter their name, email address, subject line, and message text. Before sending the message, they must look at a graphic that shows some letters and/or numbers and type what they see into a field. This slight annoyance will prohibit most spammers for using the forms. (But not all).Usage Notes: As of this writing (Dec. 2007), it seems to be taking about two hours for a message sent from the form page to reach the intended person. Over time, we expect this to decrease. We believe the delay is occurring because email servers are trying to determine who is a real spammer and who has been targeted by spammers.
By the end of January 2008, we plan to replace the character-matching technology with one that can be used by the sight-impaired.
Before December 2007, we were allowing those Leagues to receive email from both forms of domains. This resulted in no loss of email, but, in some cases, a lot more spam.If you want to delete the email addresses associated with your older domain name, send an email to support@lwvnet.org and request that we delete them.
Usage Notes: The mailing address is now displayed on the same number of lines as entered in the registration data form instead of all on one line. The full name of the League is included.How: On the site generation home page, the dot next to the "Contact Us" page should be pink. Therefore, the next time you press the button to "Update Released Pages", the Contact Us page will be updated.
Usage Notes: Near the bottom of the Contact Us page, there is a link to see a directory of Leagues. It goes to lwv.org (lwvc.org in California) and previously did not open a new browser window. Some users may have found it difficult to return to the original League Web site after taking the link because it is a different Web site with a different navigation system. The underlying template was changed to force this link to open in a new browser window.How: On the site generation home page, the dot next to the "Contact Us" page should be pink. Therefore, the next time you press the button to "Update Released Pages", the Contact Us page will be updated.
We proudly announce several new functions and features to make League Easy Web even easier!
Usage Notes: Sometimes you want to enter an event that is very similar to an existing one. Now you can do it easily!.
How: Just edit the event you want to copy. On the edit page near the bottom, go to the "Copy to New Event" section. Specify the name of the calendar to which you want the event copied, then click on "Copy Event". Next edit the calendar page to which you copied the event. Find the new event and click on "Edit". You may then change what you wish. Convenient!!
Usage Notes: Have you ever wanted to know the actual name of a page on your site that you want to link to from another page? Or have you ever wanted to know the exact names of files you have uploaded? Now you don't have to keep your own lists.How: Look in the right-hand column of a data entry form for the lists of pages and files on your website. To make a link to a page, enter on the page where you want the link to be (for example)
"link words"<>
Then copy the name of the page that you want to link to and paste it within the <> symbols:
"link words"<about.html>
Similarly, for an uploaded file, copy "files/votermay.pdf", for example, into the area delineated by the <> symbols: "link words"<file/votermay.pdf>.
Usage Notes: Previously you could only upload PDF files. We have now extended the upload capability to include other file types. This feature is useful for Leagues (usually State Leagues) who want to offer other Leagues original documents for their use. Therefore, this will probably be only used in your Members website. It is NOT a good idea to upload a .doc file for the public to see. Instead, convert the file to PDF (great for flyers, hard-copy forms, newsletters) or publish the contents direclty on a web page by using copy and paste followed by edits as necessary.How: On your site generation home page, in the area headed "Create a New Page", click on "Upload or Delete File". Then upload the file the same way you upload PDF files. For more information see Uploading Files
Usage Notes: You uploaded a PDF file, but now you know you will never link to it. Instead of sending an email request to support@lwvnet.org, now you can delete the file yourself.How: On your site generation home page, in the area headed "Create a New Page", click on "Upload or Delete File". Then on the "Upload a File" page in the section titled "Delete Uploaded File", select the name of the file you wish to delete and click on "Delete". This takes you to another page that asks you to Confirm the Deletion (a second chance in case you clicked on the wrong file). If you really want this file to completely disappear, then simply click on "Confirm Delete" and you will be taken back to the Upload a File page.
If you believe pages on other websites are linking directly to the file you are about to delete and you have already uploaded a replacement file with a different name, then follow the instructions on the form to handle this situation. This would be very rare because normally if you upload a replacement file, you would always upload it with the same name as the older file which results in the new file replacing the old.
Usage Notes: In the past we have had problems with people writing programs to repeatedly retrieve a very large PDF file from one of the LEW websites. The fees we pay to the company where are computers are connected to the Internet are based, in part, on the number of bytes transferred over the wire. This "bad" usage increased our costs greatly that month. To try to alleviate this problem -- and to encourage everyone to make smaller files that don't take so long for users to download, we have put a "soft" limit on the file size. If your file exceeds the 1MB limit, you may still upload it, but an email will be sent to support@lwvnet.org so we can look at it and try to help you figure out how best to work with that file.
Usage Notes: Have you ever wanted to remove some words from your page, but wished you could leave the text around so you could use it again? Now you can. Just "comment out" anything and it won't print, but it will still be in your edit page for either future use or as a note to yourself.How: Simply enclose the text in a pair of double brackets: [[ comment or old words ]]
Usage Notes: When you link to another web site, it is possible that people will start browsing around and then find it difficult to get back to your website. To make it easer to get back to your site, specify that you want the link to "open in a new browser window".How: When creating the link, for example, "another site"<http://newsite.org>, simply insert the plus sign (+) just before the http: "another site"<+http://newsite.org>.
Usage Notes: The "page name" is the name that people use in a website address to get to a specific page on your site. For example, in http://lwvyourleague.org/action.html -- "action" is the page name. Perhaps you started to put some content on this page, but then it evolved into something a little different and you would like the page to have a new name. You may now do so.How: Edit the page, then click on "Rename". When you change the name, the LEW system will automatically update its table of contents for you. WARNING: the system will not change links you made in the body of a web page. Also other sites may have been linking to this page. Use this feature very carefully -- probably only when you are creating a new page and, on second thought, want it to have a different page name.
Usage Notes: Do you have a page with several sections which has become very long? It would be best if that page becomes a "menu" page with links to subpages which used to be sections on your long page. You have always been able to do this, but it would be tedious to copy and paste each of those sections into new pages. Now you can "Clone" the original page, give it a new page name and headers, then simply remove the text that you don't want leaving the section or paragraphs you do want. There are probably other times you may find this function useful.How: On your site generation home page, in the area headed "Create a New Page" in the box labeled "Clone Page Contents", select the name of the page you wish to clone. Then click on "Create". The next page gives you the content of the old page already filled in the form fields except for the Page Name. You must type in a new name for this page (keep it simple, but descriptive). Decide where in the order of pages it fits, then edit the contents of the page as you want for the new page.
Usage Notes: Some of us have two signin lines that are displayed during the signin process. You need to select one of them to complete the process. Now you may DELETE older signin entries leaving just the most current.How: Put a checkmark by the one you want to delete and click on "Remove Selected Contact Above".
Usage Notes: It is easier to say what is not allowed: "font" and "form" are not allowed. This should make it easier to copy HTML-formatted text from other web pages into your LEW page. <br clear=all> can be used to force text to stop wrapping around images.
Usage Notes: This one's for us! If you want your yearly bill sent to an address that is different from your League's address, please fill in this field.
Usage Notes: If we have special messages, we can now put them near the top of your home page. Don't forget to look there for new messages!