More Good Newsletter 28 December 2005 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- We call upon Internet providers and Web-site creators to become more responsible regarding their potential for influence... (Elder M. Russell Ballard, October 2005) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In This Issue: * President's message * About Really Simple Syndication (RSS) * Moving forward (writers, editors, and graphic designers) * The new Member's Portal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- President's Message by Allen Wyatt The last couple of weeks have been quite exciting at the More Good Foundation. Perhaps the biggest news is that we launched our new Member's Portal, accessible from our home page. All you need to do is visit www.moregoodfoundation.org and click on Member Login in the upper-right corner. The site is doing great - there are a large number of tools available for people to use right away, and we are planning on adding even more over the next couple of weeks. The tools run the gamut, from a collaborative area to create pro-LDS content (MormonWiki.com) to places you can get help creating your own Web site. As the new year rushes towards us, make sure you plan to help do something to help create "more good" on the Web. If you visit the Member's Portal, you'll notice the Tasks area on the right side of the screen. These are items that you can help with right away, and you can rest assured they will make a difference. Have a great new year, and we look forward to working together in 2006! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- About RSS by Richard Miller One of the biggest development of 2005 was the widespread use of RSS feeds. What is an RSS feed? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it's a way of getting content where you want it when you want it. RSS is available in 3 versions, and it also has a competitor called Atom, but all of them boil down to more convenience for you. Here's how it works: Many content publishers provide RSS feeds. This includes the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, and others. Most bloggers also provide RSS feeds; it's automatically handled by most blogging software. Each time these newspapers or bloggers publish a new article or post, the RSS feed is updated to show the new article. In this way, an RSS feed serves as a pipeline to the latest content. Here's where you can use RSS feeds: 1. Firefox. The Firefox browser has an option called Live Bookmarks. Whenever you browse in Firefox to a web site or blog that offers an RSS feed, an orange "wave" symbol will appear. (It's next to the URL in Firefox 1.5 or in the bottom right corner of Firefox 1.0.) You can click the orange symbol to subscribe to the feed. A folder of bookmarks will be created, and each time the content changes, the bookmarks will be changes to match. 2. My Yahoo. Many of you may have a My Yahoo page, a customizable home page that lets you display personalized weather, news, TV listings, and other content of your choice. As of recently, My Yahoo will let you add any RSS content to your My Yahoo page. If, for instance, you have a friend who writes a blog, you can add his RSS feed to your My Yahoo page and see new posts from his blog appear there. 3. Standalone RSS readers. If you want to pay attention to several RSS feeds, you might like using a standalone RSS reader. A good free reader for PCs is FeedReader (http://www.feedreader.com/). For Mac, a good one is NetNewsWire Lite (http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/#lite). These programs allow you to subscribe to several RSS feeds and will then notify you of fresh content. Here are some RSS feeds you might like: * Recent Changes from MormonWiki.com: http://www.mormonwiki.com/mormonism/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss * The Church in the News (articles linked to from lds.org): http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheChurchInTheNews * The online version of the Church News print publication (requires subscription): http://feeds.feedburner.com/LDSChurchNews Once you use RSS feeds, you'll find it much more convenient to get the news and information you want when you want it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Moving Forward by Giuseppe Martinengo We are moving forward with several projects (mormonwiki.com, askgramps.com, oaklandtemple.org, aboutmormonism.com, 14lds.com, blacklds.org, turin2006games.org, and others) but we would like to move forward at a faster pace and start many new projects. For this to happen we really need more members who can help by writing articles and designing websites. If you are a graphic designer and have some spare time please contact me at gmartinengo@moregoodfoundation.org. We have some simple sites that need designing, and we have some designs that need to be implemented. This is where your skills can really shine and help to put pro-LDS sites "on the map," so to speak. If you like to write but you are concerned about your skills or you think you don’t have enough time, remember that we don’t need complicated or perfect articles, but simple basic articles that can explain some principle of the Gospel. Probably you can write one in less than an hour. The easiest way to start is by writing an article for MormonWiki.com, or collaborative site. Try it yourself: write a 500-700 word article on any of the subjects listed at the site. (Visit MormonWiki.com and click on Articles that Need to be Written.) You can also propose a new article topic and others will be able to edit it, if necessary. If you have questions you can contact me. Editing Quite a few Foundation members have indicated that they are interested in editing articles. I thought that it could be useful to explain a few different meanings of editing in our case. If you search for the word "edit" in the dictionary, you'll find the following three definitions: A: to prepare (as literary material) for publication or public presentation B: to assemble (as a moving picture or tape recording) by cutting and rearranging C: to alter, adapt, or refine especially to bring about conformity to a standard or to suit a particular purpose. In our case when we ask people to edit an article we also mean three different things: A: to review the grammar and other stylistic aspects of the article. B: to rewrite an existing article for a different audience: in our case, to make the article particularly understandable and useful to non-members of the Church. This means, for example, to modify an article that was written mostly for an LDS audience and rearrange or simplify it in a way that the final product can be more specific for a non-LDS audience. C: to optimize an article to help increase its ranking in the search engines (see previous newsletter for more details about this). While "A" is probably what most people think of when they agree to edit information, we need members who are willing to help with "B" and "C" also. For more detailed information about writing and editing please go to: * http://www.mormonwiki.com/mormonism/MormonWiki:About * http://www.mormonwiki.com/mormonism/MormonWiki:Style_Guide The information you will find there can be applied not only to articles written for the MormonWiki.com but also to most of the articles you will ever write for More Good Foundation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The New Member's Portal by Matthew Hall Thank you to all who were in attendance on the 15th. We enjoyed hearing from Larry Richman, coordinator of all Church Web sites. We also talked about the new Member's Portal and some of the tools you can use. I would like to bring your attention to the "New Site Tool" found on the Member's Portal. There you will find many of the domain names that we have purchased and simple steps to get your own site started. This tool is very important because in order to make a greater impact on the Web, we need to have more sites with more content on them. We hope that you all are interested in maintaining your own site. If needed, we can help you with tackling technical questions as well as finding content to post. Please take a look at all the great tools that are available on the Member's Portal. If you would like to be a webmaster of a new site, let me know and we can get you started today. If you are already a webmaster, these tools can help you in creating even more effective sites. In order to create more "search relevant" pages, all the sites that we create need to be linked together, one of the reasons for the "Link Tool" on the Member's Portal. Please take a look at these sites we are working with and consider linking to them: * www.AboutMormonism.com * www.SanDiegoMormonTemple.org * www.OaklandTemple.orgad We will be sending updates on other sites we are working on as they progress. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Publication Information More Good News is published semi-monthly for members of the More Good Foundation. More Good Foundation 520 East Timpanogos Parkway Orem, UT 84057 801-705-9385 The More Good Foundation is a non-profit corporation dedicated to identifying, encouraging, and promoting "more good" content on the Web. For more information on the Foundation, visit our Web site: http://www.moregoodfoundation.org