Using WordPress - The Barony of Dragon's Laire

Making a new article

You should have received an email with your login and password. Make sure you have it handy: you’ll need that information for these steps.

Visit this WordPress site. Good news: it looks like you’re already here!
Select Log in under Meta — you might need to scroll down.
Fill in your login details and select Log In
Up at the top, press + New and pick “Post” or “Page”
- Not all accounts will offer all options. For example, Candlemas participants will only see “Post”
Fill in your article as you wish
- You don’t need to do it all at once!
- The editor will save drafts automatically but you can always select Save draft at the top to be sure.
- Press Preview now and then to see how it’ll look for visitors.
- The article will not be visible to others until you Publish it.
- See here for help with the editor: https://wordpress.org/support/article/wordpress-editor/

Publishing your article

Once you’ve filled in your Page or Post, it’s time to get ready to Publish:

Choose a title for your article. Choose carefully! The title is used in at least three ways:
- Displayed at the top of the article
- Displayed as the name of the article when linked from other pages
- Used to calculate the article “slug” which is part of the web address of the article (this can be overridden manually in some cases)
For a Post: choose a Category
- Articles made for an event, such as Candlemas, should select that event.
- It’s possibly to choose more than one category but it’s usually best to only choose one. If you’re not sure, ask the Webminister.
For a Page: choose the appropriate Parent Page in the “Page Attributes” section.
- This will make sure your new page goes into the correct menu.
If the Checklist section is present, review the items shown there.
- Items marked with a star must be resolved before publishing. If you can’t resolve one, or you think it shouldn’t be required, please contact the Webminister.
- Other items are optional but it’s still probably a good idea to resolve them all.
Press Preview one last time and make sure it looks right.
Press Publish and answer any questions that pop up.

Rules and Recommendations

In general we try to keep this website family-friendly. This means avoiding harsh language, nudity, or violent content, as well as limiting content that might offend a reasonable person. If you think your article might push these boundaries or if you believe your work warrants an exception to these guidelines, please discuss with the Seneschal and the Webminister before attempting to publish the article.
For all content (text, pictures, sound, and video) contained within your article:
- Make sure you have rights or permission to use any content you didn’t create. See the “Copyright Compliance” section below for details.
- Cite and/or credit your sources appropriately. For items under “Creative Commons” and similar licenses, this may even be a legal requirement.
There’s no strict limit on the size of images, but as a general guideline:
- Landscape (horizontal) images should be no more than 1024 pixels wide
- Portrait (vertical) images should be no more than 1200 pixels tall
Which image file format should you use?
- In many cases the differences are minor, so if converting image files doesn’t sound like fun to you then you can probably just use what you have.
- If your image is already a JPG/JPEG then converting it to PNG will probably make it larger with no benefit!
- For images with smooth color changes (like photos) it’s usually best to use JPG/JPEG
- For images with sharp color changes (like diagrams, cartoons, or line art) it’s usually best to use PNG
Because video files can be very large, most video content should be hosted on a video hosting service and embedded on this site.
- See this article for more information on embedding video and other content: https://wordpress.org/support/article/embeds/

Copyright Compliance

The SCA requires this website and all content on it to comply with a fairly strict set of copyright rules and guidelines. This section is an attempt to explain the requirements briefly; please see the SCA Document Library and United States copyright law for complete details.

In short, there are three scenarios to consider when including content (text, images, sounds, video, etc.) that you did not create. Each of these is covered in its own section below.

Content created by or depicting another member of the SCA

To include such content in your article, you will need to have the person fill out one or more of these forms:

For images or video depicting another member of the SCA, they MAY need to fill out a Model Release form granting permission to use their likeness:
https://www.sca.org/resources/document-library/releasemodelfillable/
The rules for this are tricky; see the FAQ linked below.
For photographs taken by another member of the SCA, have them fill out a Photograph Grant of Use form granting permission to use their photo:
https://www.sca.org/resources/document-library/releasephotographerfillable/
For other items created by another member of the SCA, have them fill out a Grant of Use form allowing you to use their work:
https://www.sca.org/resources/document-library/releasecreativefillable/

For more detail and guidance on these forms, see this FAQ: https://www.sca.org/resources/document-library/releaseformsfaqsweb/

Filled forms should be delivered to the Webminister. I recommend filling the form digitally if possible, but printing and filling the form by hand is fine too. Signing the form digitally is also acceptable, but if you do not have a PDF program capable of digital signatures then you must sign by hand. Scanning the form is preferred but a photo is acceptable as long as the whole form is legible. If you can’t scan the form or take a photo then mailing the form might be an option; contact the Webminister.

Content used under a public license

This includes content used under the Creative Commons family of licenses and other, similar licenses. In general these licenses have specific requirements spelled out in the license itself: for example, the CC-BY license allows content to be used as long as the creator is given credit. You must meet the requirements in order to use the content, and if you cannot meet the requirements you must not use the content.

For the purposes of this website, DO NOT USE content licensed under the “SA” variants of the Creative Commons license, or the GPL, or any other license which would place requirements on the licensing of this website. These are fine licenses in other situations but they are not compatible with SCA rules.