Hello,
I'm Mervi Eskelinen!
An artist, nerd and sorcerer, dedicated to make world softer and better for everyone, and to get you to make more art. Make art, change the world!
Fix this
Maintaining a website sounds like an easy job. Especially if the job is to just copy and paste the texts someone else has written or to upload the pictures someone else has taken.
Yes, it sounds like an easy job, but really it's not just mindless copy pasting.
Usually the photos or texts need some work to be done on them before they can be posted on the website. Sometimes it's hard to understand what the person sending the texts or photos really want to be done with them. Or sometimes the requests are made in a way it's hard to tell if the person behind them has been really busy or if they are being rude and condescending.
I'm not saying the job should be all easy. But unless the website maintainer's job includes being a copywriter and a mindreader, adding or updating a text or a couple of photos shouldn't be extremely hard either.
There are some ways to make it just a little easier and make sure there's less errors to be fixed and less emails being sent before that text or those photos finally make their way to the site.
1. Know the site
If you weren't there when the site was built, take some time to see how the it works. Sending a request to "change the picture on the front page", when the picture on the front page is a random image from the photo gallery, will make the maintainer to rip their hair off of frustration.
If you don't feel like taking time to do this, then you really shouldn't have anything to do with the updates and you should get someone else to do it.
Asking the maintainer about the site is also a good idea. They would be really happy to explain what was the original idea behind that random image or how updating the site happens.
2. Send plain text
Don't send the texts in a Word document or any other formatted type (unless you are sure it's okay with the maintainer). Send them in a plain text file and make sure there's no extra paragraphs or line breaks where there shouldn't be.
Usually trying to copy and paste formatted text to a website content management system results in a mess of varying font styles and sizes, extra line breaks and such.
If the formatting is absolutely necessary, consider sending a formatted and unformatted version of the same text. Your website maintainer will have to spend far less time trying to fix the formatting.
Or you can just pay them for fixing the formatting for you.
3. No one liners
If you are updating one line of a text, send the whole text, not just that fixed line. Don't write any comments in the middle of the text. They will most likely end up on the site and you don't want that.
If there's a missing comma or dot in the original text that must be added, send the full text with that missing comma.
Don't do this:
"Add comma to the line 2, before the word but."
"I was busy (COMMA) but I had to slow down."
4. Remember the spell check
Check the spelling before sending the texts. If it's not part of their job, the maintainer will not do it for you.
If you haven't checked the spelling, ask the maintainer to do this. But remember, you must pay for it and it must then be part of their job description.
5. Give titles to photos
Rename the photos with the titles you want them to have. If P1010176.JPG is going to be titled "Boating accident", rename it Boating accident.JPG (or preferably Boating_accident.JPG).
Otherwise it may end up titled what ever the maintainer sees in the photo (or even as P1010176).
6. Send all the material
Make sure you have sent ALL the material needed. Don't send half the material, saying something like "include the new menu" or "upload the new pictures" without sending the new menu or the new pictures.
7. Extra points for being polite
Take some time to format your requests. You don't need to be short and blunt, even if you are so very busy and very important person.
The spelling mistakes on the site may not be the maintainer's fault. They probably just have copied and pasted the text you or other person sent to them.
Unless you are a huge web guru, there's a good chance the maintainer will know more about websites than you. Acting like a know-it-all douche is really not a good idea. If you are polite and treat the maintainer like an equal human being, they will be happy to work with you and will do everything to make sure things go smooth.
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