The central theme and purpose of RegainAmerica is to bring the people of America together to try to recapture what America somehow lost along the way.  Obviously there are thousands of issues and topics which are relevant to this theme. We have suggested a number of topics in the “About RegainAmerica” page.

This Writing Guide provides general guidelines for RegainAmerica Contributing Writers and a short tutorial on how to use the authoring and publishing environment.  Content is contributed by many independent writers.  In order to maintain a cohesive site, both in style and look and feel, conventions must be used.  By following a common set of conventions, we hope to attain a level of consistency in writing quality.  Consistency in 'look and feel' is made possible by adhering to standard conventions in the use of fonts, colors, and page layout.

The first part of this guide deals with article content - guidelines for wording, layout, color usage, etc.  The second half describes the RegainAmerica authoring and publication environment.  This system has been designed to be a complete and simple to use authoring environment, and requires no resources from the author's computer other than a web browser.  Articles are managed in a private enviornment on the site (including backup draft copies) where only the author and site editor can see until ready for publication.

This Writing Guide should be considered a "work in progress" rather than a set of guidelines set in stone.  As we gain more experience with different situations, and the software becomes more mature, expect for this guid to be updated accordingly.  If you see areas that are missed in this document, or errors, please do let us know!

      
RegainAmerica Articles 
One effective way to decide on a topic for an article is the "Hrrrumph!" Factor.  This occurs when an issue or an event or a happening makes you stop in your tracks and put your hands on your hips and say out loud "Hrrrumph!"       Chances are, that an issue or event or happening that made you go "Hrrrumph!" will make others go "Hrrrumph!" as well and be a good topic for an article! 

The main emphasis of articles that we run will be those that shine a spotlight on the troublesome aspects of contemporary American life.  Sadly, America is in such a state of disarray that many thousands of topics and issues and problems are out there.  Generally, an article should highlight the problem, and discuss, after which we would generally like the author to conclude the article by suggesting or mentioning ways in which the readers of RegainAmerica can fix the problem, e.g, by banding into community groups, contacting their representatives or other appropriate individuals or agencies, etc.  The power of the pen, the voice, and the ability to vote can always be mentioned.  And, it is our hope that as time goes on, RegainAmerica will become a site where people come together to effect real change.

An example of this is shown in an RegainAmerica article concerning an incident in Texas where Texas Governor Rick Perry signed an Executive Order MANDATING Merck's HPV vaccine for Texas schoolgirls.  (Major "Hrrrumph!" Factor here!)

Due, in large part to grassroots organization and activism by groups of people in Texas who reacted with horror to Perry's ill-conceived EO, the EO was effectively "rescinded" with the issue being brought instead before the Texas legislature.

RegainAmerica's aim is to provide an ongoing forum and on-line community where, ultimately, millions of Americans can be brought together to effect change in their communities, cities, counties and states, as did the good people of Texas with regard to the governor's EO.

 

Nuts And Bolts 
How to Contribute
By-Lined Contributing Writer's Articles will be posted directly on the RegainAmerica website where they will join the queue for review by the managing editor.  Articles are scanned to make sure they conform to the guidelines set forth in this document as well as the general theme of the site.  See the section Publishing Process below for details on how this works.
  

Length
Generally, articles should be 200 – 1000 words, with 1500 words being about the max limit.
  

Font Sizes and Usage
For normal article text, it is best NOT to specify any special styles for formats in the web based editor.  This way the site style sheets will be used to produce a consistent font type, size, and color across all articles.  The site currently sets the font color as a dark grey.   This results in page content that is both easier on the eyes, as well as providing a way for authors to use BLACK to further highlight important points.

Except in very rare situations, the font size used for normal text should not be changed from the default.  If emphasis is needed, try to use BOLD or Italized text.  If further emphasis is needed the use of colors can be used to further set the text apart (see below on color usage). 

If you are providing quotes or trying to make special points, text can also be offset, like this:

This text is special and needs to be shown separately from the normal paragraph flow

The above text is offset as well as set in Bold, Italized type, and blue color.  To effect an offset such as above, use one of the two offset selectors:  

Section headings obviously need to be set in a different font size.  Optionally, they can be set in a font other than the default, however most RegainAmerica articles do use the standard san serif system fonts.  To further stand out, a consistent application of color for headings across the article should be used.  It should be noted that the choice of font size should be chosen conservatively.  Huge size fonts, even for headings look out of place and generally unprofessional.  A difference of a few point sizes in headings to the paragraph is sufficient to set titles off from the content text.  Much more and you get a big mis-match betwen heading and text.  The recommended size for headings is "medium" in a bold setting.
  

Color Usage
As with the previous section dealing with fonts, the use of color needs to follow general guidelines in order to result in a consistent and coheshive look and feel with the site.  As with font usage, emphasis is placed on producing pages that are simple to read and easy on the eyes.  As such, try as much as possible to avoid the more intensive colors and instead focus on similar , but more subtle alternatives.

For instance, insdead of using a solid red (#ff0000 RGB Value), instead use the RegainAmerica standard (#ff3333 RGB Value).  The differences in color are small, but significant in terms of how easy on the eyes the resulting page is.   This is especially true with hight contrast monitors.

To change the color of text, first highlight the text you wish you change, and then click on the text color tool: .  This brings up the basic color selection tool:

Only the most basic colors are here.   While the more subtle blue can be directly selected here, the more subtle red mentioned above is not.   To select from a more complete color palate, simply click on the MORE COLORS link in the basic color selection tool.  The following window should appear:

Simply select your color from this palate and click on OK to select and continue.

Whenever possible try to use the standard RegainAmerica colors and conventions in applying them.  The standard colors are:

************ : Red: #ff3333
************ : Light Blue: #3366ff
************ : Dark Blue: #333399

Red is used for minor section headings as well as to emphasize text within a paragraph.  Light Blue is used for text emphasis.  Dark Blue in a Medium font size and bold is used for major section headings.   Dark Blue (in bold font, normal font size) is used for the Author name in the article byline.
  

Byline Standard Format
The start of every RegainAmerica article should being with an appropriate byline.  The format of these lines is "By" followed by the author name in BOLD (color dark blue - #333399).   After this comes the author title - Contributing Writer, RegainAmerica Staff Writer, or whatever is appropriate in normal text.  Following the author name is the publishing date in normal text, italized.  As an example:

By Lisa Simpson, Contributing Writer, May 26, 2008

The font size and color (with the exception of the author name) must not be specified (use system default).
  

References; Footnotes 
References or Footnotes (other than Web-Refs) should be referenced within article text with Footnote numbers only.  The references should then be listed in alpha order at end of article.
  

Acronyms; Emphasis within Text 
The first time an organization or entity is referenced, it should be by its full name, e.g., American Civil Liberties Union. Thereafter an Acronym can be used, e.g., ACLU.  Inasmuch as common web usage views underlined items as being a “link”, the use of an underline for emphasis should be utilized as sparingly as possible.  If an emphasis within text is needed, utilize bold or italics or different colors.
  

Teasers
Index pages are used to group similar articles together.  Each article is presented with the article title (hyperlinked to the actual article) and a short summary of the article contents.

When composing or editing an article, a separate editing area is provided for the article summary.  The contents of this 'teaser' text  is used for the article summary.   Please try to keep the summary information brief and concise so that the reader can get an idea of the nature of the article in a few lines or less.

NOTE: Please use only the default fonts and colors in the teaser section - this is to ensure a consistent look and feel for the main navigation pages of the site.   
    

Sensitivity Issues 
This section is going to be, well, highly sensitive.  

RegainAmerica does not have to be “Politically Correct”, but we MUST maintain an atmosphere of “Political Sensitivity” at all times.  The RegainAmerica “Terms of Service” delineate the specifics of prohibited items such as obscene language or pornographic materials, but articles must also take into account the currently prevailing standards of political sensitivity such as the use of “Gender-Neutral Language” whenever possible, also the following:

Do NOT Use: “Negro, Indian, Oriental, Brown, Yellow, Colored” to describe a Person or a group. 
DO Use : “Black, White, Asian, African-American, Native American, Hispanic.

NOTE: The first letter should always be a Capital letter.

Do NOT Use: “Fag, Faggot, Fairy, Homosexual, Dyke, Butch”
DO Use : “Gay or Lesbian”

Do NOT Use: “Mrs. or Miss” 
DO Use : “Ms”

  
Use of Colorful Language
When trying to emphasize an important or potentially emotional issue, there is a natural urge to use more colorful languge to emphasize a point.  Extreme care must be taken however as in some cases the wrong choice of language can backfire, or reduce the credibility, and effectiveness of the writer.

It is important to note the huge differences between the spoken word and written.  Except in relative rare situations where the spoken word is transcribed to the written and published, it has a relative short lifetime.  The written word however can take on a life of its own, and survive a lifetime or more.  This should be in the mind of the author at all times.  Careful use of words is essential to minimize excerpts being taken out of context and used against the author at a later date.

This is especially true when the author considers the use of more colorful language to embelish points.  Certain areas, in particular, the use of profanity is already covered in the Terms of Service and should never be used.

Use of other language at times while not failing the test for profanity, may still be considered offensive to many.  As an example, consider the reference to a well known celebrity by a publication focusing on celebrity issues as a "skanky whore."  This may be acceptable to that publications readers, however would likely not be appropriate for an online publication such as RegainAmerica, whose focus is on a return to traditional values.

When considering language such as the example above, more times than not alternate verbage can often be used that better emphasises the point while not requiring the author to lower their presentation standards.  Alternate wording for the example above might include words such as 'strumpet', or 'trollip', perhaps substituting levity for the shock factor of alternative more abusive language.
   

Awareness of Issues of Libel and Right to Privacy 
Anyone who publishes the written word has to be concerned with libelous issues.  The general definition of libel is a published false statement damaging to a person's reputation, but this is oversimplifying.  Nevertheless, the guidelines put forth in the following categories should help us avoid most of the pitfalls out there.

Category 1 – Celebrities and Other People in the Public Eye (Public Figures)
As a general rule, we are permitted to talk about, discuss, discourse, opine, blog, pontificate, illustrate, scold, criticize, satirize, praise, complain, wax both with enthusiasm and with disdain, chatter about, and/or otherwise refer to, celebrities and other public figures in our writings for RegainAmerica. Celebrities and public figures are defined as those who have put themselves into the public eye and make their money or livelihood by doing so. This includes actors, singers, dancers, directors, producers, agents, models, athletes, American Idol judges, American Idol contestants, talk show hosts, news media broadcasters, media commentators, political pundits and others of this ilk. Also politicians and judges understand that all aspects of their life must be made available for public scrutiny. Also, previously private individuals who have deliberately put themselves into the public eye – Cindy Sheehan is a good example. Or the Anna Nicole profiteers - Howard K. Stern, Virgie Arthur and Larry Birkhead.

There is obviously a great deal of latitude in writing about people in this category.

However, there is still an important boundary here which must be observed, and that is this:

We cannot publish DELIBERATE FALSEHOODS ABOUT ANYONE, EVER.  EVEN ON CELEBRITIES & PUBLIC FIGURES.

A hallmark case on this issue dealt with Carol Burnett and one of the tabloids. They ran an article saying that she was seen drunk at a restaurant, and Carol Burnett sued. She was able to prove that the tabloid KNEW they were stating a LIE about her in the article (perhaps because she never drank or something). As such, Carol Burnett prevailed in her suit.

Category 2 – People that Become Newsworthy Due to an Event 
Sometimes an individual becomes newsworthy due to an event. They have not put themselves into the public eye – but their names are in the news.

For example, suppose X is a member of a school board that decides to cancel graduation.  If the media decides to broadcast this story, X’s name may be in the news – but X is not really a public figure. If one wishes to write about this school board and their decision, that’s fine – except that we have to stay away from PERSONAL ATTACKS, and deal only with the ISSUES AT HAND.  With individuals such as the hypothetical X, we must be careful to publish nothing which might put their job or economic status in jeopardy, or which might lessen their standing in the community.

Category 3 – People that Are Accused of Crimes
Until someone is actually convicted, one has to phrase carefully. “X allegedly murdered. . . .”, “X who is charged with. . . . .”  Unless and until someone is convicted, no one can be referred to, or defined, as a murderer, thief, molester, criminal, etc.

Category 4 – Private Individuals
These are people like you and me and our friends and neighbors and the people we work with at the office. Private individuals have the HIGHEST LEVEL OF THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY – which basically means that the NAMES of such private individuals should NOT be appearing in RegainAmerica in any way whatsoever.  If one wishes to write about an issue or story or event involving private individuals, pseudonyms should be utilized.

Bottom Line: When in doubt – leave it out (at least for the moment) – and flag for discussion with managing editors.

    
Publishing Process  
RegainAmerica is designed to be a community authoring and publishing platform.  The web based authoring tools give authors the ability to incrementally compose, edit, and change documents in their own private area prior to publishing.   Each time an article is saved, a new draft copy is automatically created, allowing for automatic backup of previous drafts.  If changes made to a draft later need to be undone, it is a simple process to reload a previous version of the document.  When the author considers the document read for publication, it is submitted into the queue for the site editor to review.   As long as it adhers to the guidelines for RegainAmerica articles and Terms of Service, it is then published.  If problems exist in the document, it can then be returned by the site editor for rework.

Note: At the time of this writing (June 2008), the authoring and publishing platform software is still under development and not ready for widespread use.  This is the reason RegainAmerica is initially holding back on open membership.   All documentation, including this section is subject to change over the coming months as the software continues to evolve and get cleaned up and easier to use.
  

Document Workflow and Editing Roles
The authoring and publishing environment is based upon three basic concepts - document types, document states, and editor roles.  There are several basic document types.  These include (more to be added in the future) Blog entry, Page, Poll, and Story.  All articles use the document type of Story.

As an authoring platform it is important to be able to maintain working copies of documents from the initial creation state and later as the document goes through revisions, both before and after publication.  Having the system maintain automatic backups of previous revisions of a document makes it very easy for the author to go back to reflect on earlier ideas or to recover lost content.  Every time a document is saved (regardless of document state), a new copy is created.  A visual representation of this is shown below.

Until an article is published, all copies will be draft copies and only visible to the author and site editor.  Articles are published after the site editor has approved them and then creates a published version.

Every revision of a document has associated with it a state.  States are one of draft, submitted, rework, published, and delisted.  A visual representation of the relationship between states can be seen below.

Authors working on unpublished materials will always be working with revisions in the draft state.  When working on updates to an existing published article, the new revisions are also drafts (in the state of draft).  When approved by the site editory, a new revision copy will replace the existing published version.

This gives authors the ability to work on updates on a running site independent of what is visible to the public.  When the site editor approves an updated article, the changes to the site are immediate, with the new content immediately becoming visible.

We have covered above the basic concepts behind document types and states, but have not said anything about how a revision actually can change from one state to another.  This is where editor roles come into play.  Each editor roll conveys a set of permissions for what state transistions are permitted.  For instance, the Contributing Author role can change the state of a revision from draft to submitted, but not to a published state.  The site editor roll has full control of all transition states.
  

Creating A New Article
Now that we understand how the basic system is setup, it is time to start creating our first article!  To create a new document, click on the Create content link in the main navigation box in the left panel.  This will bring up a page like the following:

From here you can create several different types of documents.  For a regular article, click on the Story link.  You will see the following:

You are now ready to compose your article.  Select a title for your article and enter it in the Title box.  The main content of the article can be entered in the BODY editor box.

The web editor behaves much like a traditional word processor, so the controls should be familiar to most.  If you have existing content, you can usually copy and paste it directly into the editor window.  If at all possible, try to stick to plain text insertions, as other formats may create bad and/or overly bloated HTML code when inserted.  Some versions of Microsoft Word are notorious for this as one example.

Content submitted for publication goes through HTML tests before final approval, so if your document has bad or bloated HTML, it will delay the publication process.  Whenever possible, use the online authoring system to create and maintain your content.  This will minimize any potential display code cleanup later by the site editors.
  

Editing Existing Articles or Drafts
There are two ways to see all your documents, including revisions.  To get a listing of all documents you are involved with, while logged into your account, click on the My Documents link in the main navigation box (left panel).  This will bring up screen that should look similar to the following:

To select a document for viewing, simply click on the appropriate Title link.  Once you are viewing the version of the document you are interested in, additional actions, specific to that version of the document can be selected.

If you want to see copies only related to a single document, while logged into your account, select the document you are interested in.  The document that is currently published (or the current revision version of the draft in the case of unpublished articles) is shown by default.  Several tabs should be visible at the top of the article. 

Click on the Revisions tab.   You should see a screen similiar to the following:

NOTE: in the above example, multiple revisions are all tagged in published state.  This is a bug in the preliminary version of the authoring software and will be fixed soon.  At most, only one revision can be in the published state at a given time.

To view a specific copy, click on the revision date/time on the left colum of the listing.  If the selected copy is different from the current document revision, a short menu of options will be displayed at the beginning of the article.  The options should appear similar to the following:

These controls allow you to revert the revision to the current working copy, to edit the revision, or to delete the revision.  Note: the above example was for a document copy that was the most recent copy, and the author was the site editor (hence the option to publish).  If the copy had not been the current revision, the Revert Revision option would be displayed allowing the author to mark this document as the current revision.

When you are finished making changes to your document, save the document by clicking on the Submit button at the bottom of the page.  Feel free to save your work often to create multiple draft backup copies.  When you are sure old dfaft versions are no longer needed they can be easily removed through the revision listing screen.

NOTE: The current system does not prune, or remove, any old drafts.  Because of this it is possible to accumulate a very large number of copies for each document.  Please try to keep just what you need.   Eventually the system will be updated to perform daily purges of old revisions that are no longer being used.

  
Categories - The Way to Classify Articles
Now that you have created the perfect article, where will it appear on the site?  Articles are classified by Categories.  The current set of categories can be seen in the main navigation box in the left panel of all pages.  By clicking on a Category or Sub-Category, index pages specific to the particluar categorization will be displayed.

The set of categories and sub-categories at the time of this writing are listed below:

• American Heros
  • J. Q. Public
  • Law Enforcement
  • Military
  • Public Service
• Civil Liberties
  • Citizen's Rights
  • Discrimination
  • Eminent Domain
  • Freedom of Speech
  • Religous Freedoms
  • Victims Rights
• Family Values
  • Adoption
  • Drugs
  • Marriage
  • Gender Issues
• Health Care Crisis
  • HMO Nightmares
  • Medical Tourism
  • Middle Class Access
  • Skyrocketing Costs
• Judges and Courts
  • (In)Justice System
  • Judges Run Amok
  • Judicial Accountability
  • Rehabilitation Failures
  • Victims' Voice
• Law & Disorder
  • Government Surveillance
  • Immigration Chaos
  • Police Under Siege
  • Urban Violence
• Media
  • Media Bias
  • Responsible Reporting
• Politics
  • Congressional Performance
  • Corruption
  • Homeland (In)Security
  • Immigration
  • Presidential Performance
  • War On Terror
• Role Models
  • Business
  • Community
  • Counter-Models
  • Educators
  • Entertainment
  • Government
  • Sports
• Schools in Crisis
  • Academics
  • Drugs
  • Global Competitiveness
  • Illiteracy
  • Sex In Schools
  • Violence
  • Zero Tolerance
• Taxation
  • Business Taxation
  • Federal Taxes
  • Sales Tax
  • Social Security
  • State Taxes

Articles are assigned a main categorization and optionally, additional category associations, if the article is applicable to more than one classification.  The categories a published article is associated with often appear in index pages in the upper right side of the listing.  An example is shown below.  In this example the article has been categorized under the two sub-categories of Presidential Performance and Government.

The main categorization is used to create the breadcrumb line at the top of the published article.  This shows the main category association and quick links back to the main category index page (so readers can easily find related content).

When submitting articles for publication be sure to set the sub-categories you want your article to be published under.  Please only select directly applicable sub-categories.  The site editor will review these selections prior to publication and will use your selections as long as they are appropriate.  If sub-categories are selected in every main category for the sole purpose of getting maximum exposure regardless of applicability (Category Spamming), the selections will be rejected by the site editor and set based upon what he/she feels is most appropriate.

To set categories, expand the Categories link in the document edit page.  You should see the following:

From the selector boxes, select the category or categories you feel best describe the content of your article.

NOTE: If you feel the current categorization is not adequate, please let us know how you think it can be improved!

  
How To Publish
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