How to submit a story to the WAPA Web

The Process

1. You or anyone fills out the submission form described in this document
2. Press Preview and then Submit to submit the story to the WAPA Authors
3. A WAPA Author will review the submission, possibly combine it with other submissions, and post the results to the web. (If you want to see what an Author has to do, read this topic - AuthorAStory.)
4. All stories submitted prior to 0000 GMT will show up in the automatic newsletter that gets sent via e-mail 2 hours later.

A few things to remember

• We need Submissions The WAPA Web will only be successful if news continues to flow in for publication.

• We need Authors! There is no special requirement to become an author, other than your interest, and a recognition that some limits be placed on what gets published.

• Pictures: and File Attachments If you want to attach a picture or a file to a story, make a note in the story, and the WAPA Author will contact you to upload the files. Unfortunately we don't have an easy way for file uploads at this time.

Practical Considerations

The WAPA Web is both a way to communicate to WAPA members and the general public, and an "online magazine" that can promote general aviation, aviation activities, and fly-in destinations to the public. The WAPA website is a public site that is indexed by any number of search engines including Google, MSN and Yahoo. Stories potentially have a very wide exposure, and it is critical that stories do not expose WAPA to any liability. Because of this, we ask that the following guidelines be followed:

• Do not post copyright material verbaitim without explicit permission.

Most news stories on the web have copyright held either by their publisher or original authors. Under fair use, it is acceptable to quote or excerpt small parts of the article as necessary to clearly identify the subject at hand. Then include links to the original material. If you suspect that the original material will be transient in nature, contact the web admin for asistance in making an archive copy for future reference. However this archived material should not be posted directly to the story. If you do get permission from a copyright holder, please forward it to WAPA for future reference.

• Check your links.

Link to relevant sources of information in the article so that readers can easily find supporting material. Enter the links just as you would type them into your browser - http://xxx.yyy.zzz/...

• Do not post inflamitory or libelous material.

WAPA seeks to promote and to improve the image of general aviation. It's okay to be a bit controversial, and to take a stand on things, but don't go overboard.

Bottom line: Think before you post. We don't want to be the subject of any lawsuits, be it libel or copyright.

Getting started

When you have some news that may be of interest to WAPA members, GA Pilots, or the general public, click the "Submit Story" link on the main web page:

The submission form

This takes you to the submission form. If you are logged in, you will get a list of your recent submissions, along with statistics on how many were accepted for publication:

Who are you?

If you want, tell us who you are and how we can reach you. If you are logged in, these fields will be filled out with your nickname and e-mail address. If you are not signed in, they will be filled in with "Anonymous Coward". You can give as much information as you want, and anonymous submissions are accepted.

What is the story about?

Pick a subject that describes the story. It should be something that clearly describes the story. "Hey, look at this" is not particularly useful. "Safety Seminar at Worcester" is better. "Accident Review safety seminar at ORH, Thursday Feb. 3rd 2005" is even better.

How should we categorize the story?

Here, you choose a section and a topic. ( If you don't do this, the preview button won't work!) Currently the correct section is almost always "Index". The Topic should be one that best describes the story. If you can't find an appropriate topic in the list, make a note in the story text and pick "News".

The story

This is the story text. By default, you can just type in plain text. Separate your paragraphs with a blank line. Include links if you want, in the format of http://xxx.yyy.zzz/

( If you know a bit about HTML and want to get fancy with bold text, or other formatting, you can change the input type from Plain Old Text to HTML using the next menu)

Ready to go?

Now you are ready to go, but before you can submit the story, you have to hit the "Preview" button. Here is the complete form, filled out and ready to preview.

Preview

The preview form shows you your summary of previous submissions, just like the Submit form. And then it shows the story as it would appear on the WAPA Main page.

If you like how it looks, click the "Submit" button and one of the WAPA authors will edit it and post it to the web. If you still want to make changes, you can edit it right here and hit Preview again.

If "Preview" doesn't do anything, make sure that you picked a section and topic!