Current Version: 1.2.1

Download WP Post Styling.

Read more about this plugin.

Support this Plugin

New in Version 1.2.1:

• Added ability to delete CSS from the style library

New WordPress plugin: WP Post Styling. The plugin serves only one purpose: to create a place to add custom styles which will only apply to the current page or post in your WordPress blog.

Although not widely used on the internet, it’s a valuable magazine design technique to give each article a unique look and feel. A look and feel which shows the face of that article in a light which best represents the subject, topic, or style.

This plugin is intended to make that kind of post-by-post styling simpler.

It’s not that you can’t readily do this in WordPress — either by using a theme which applies style hooks for unique articles, by utilizing WordPress conditional functions to check whether a given page is active, or by whatever other means you might imagine — but this makes it much simpler, since you can simply enter the desired styles into a textarea directly in the post.

Comments and requests should be made at the WP Post Styling home page.

WordPress Post Custom Styling
Copyright 2004 – 2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design

About WP-to-Twitter

Download WP-to-Twitter

Technically, this plugin has been available from the WordPress plugin directory since last Monday, but today is it’s official launch. This is for two reasons: first, it gave the plugin a week to “shake out the bugs,” so that the official launch could be as stable as is reasonably possible.

Second, it’s my birthday, so I’ll be able to remember when the plugin launched. Isn’t that sweet?

The plug-in is pretty straightforward: it posts a status update about your new WP post to Twitter, passing by Pierre Far’s Cli.gs URL shortening service on the way. If you have a Cli.gs API key, you’ll get the added bonus that your Cli.gs will automatically show up in your Cli.gs account, so you can track the statistics of that Clig right from the beginning.

By default, the plugin will take a chunk of text you’ve defined and your post title and truncate them to an acceptable length (including your Cli.gs post URL) to send over to Twitter. However, you don’t have to just accept this stock text: you can custom author your Tweet for every post, using the WP to Twitter custom field in your post authoring interface.

Read more about WP->Twitter

Download it at WordPress!

WordPress to Twitter with Cli.gs
Copyright 2004 – 2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design

But it’s 15 minutes. You can’t really be effective if you try and cover the entire scope of a subject in 15 minutes.

The first challenge is figuring out the audience. In this case, I was speaking to a group of internet marketing professionals and site owners. For the most part, no programmers, no interface developers — not even people who necessarily have any direct access to the code of their sites. What can you teach them which they’ll be able to apply and understand immediately?

I’ve already given the speech, so I’m not trying to solicit suggestions for this particular event. However, I’m curious to know what you think are the most key issues.

For your reference, I covered three general areas:

• Navigation which can be used by non-visual, non-mouse using groups.
• Content which can be read sensibly by text-aware devices
• On-page navigation which can make the page easier to navigate

I completely ignored HTML validation, web standards, accessibility guidelines, and anything about following technical specifications. For this audience, this didn’t strike me as an actionable conversation. Instead, I focused on practical investigations of site problems: whether the site can be used with a mouse; whether the site makes it’s content available to screen readers (or search engines); and whether standard methods have been employed which will enable disabled users to quickly and easily get around the page.

So I’m curious: what would you have talked about?

Speaking on Web Accessibility
Copyright 2004 – 2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design

“Sitelinks” are additional links Google generates from the contents of a site in order to help users navigate your site — they provide these links in their search results for selected terms. Most sites don’t have site links, so I’m finding it pretty cool to notice them for myself!

If you can’t see the image, the current Sitelinks for this site are:

• Gallery
• Blog Home
• What is Web Accessibility
• SEO and Accessibility
• Articles

On the whole, I’m pretty pleased with the selection chosen here. They’ve pretty well pinned down the key areas of the site: web design, web accessibility, search marketing, and my writing on these topics. Everything is reasonably represented. Perhaps, in my forthcoming site redesign (don’t keep a look out; it’s not going to be that soon,) I’ll make a point to better promote these specific areas of the site.

Google Site Links for “Joe Dolson”
Copyright 2004 – 2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design

If we call ourselves professionals, we owe it to our clients, their clients, and ourselves, to do our job properly. A chef must care about health, a builder must care about safety, and we must care about accessibility.

James Edwards, aka ‘Brothercake’ has published a very neat argument on the frequently-asked question “Why Accessibility?”

Read his comments at Why Accessibility? Because it’s our job!.

James Edwards on Web Accessibility
Copyright 2004 – 2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design

Just one tip, eh? So it better be a good one.

Make it easy for people to give you money.

There’s nothing like visiting the web site for a nonprofit organization you really care about, wanting to give them some help, and not being able to figure out how. A nonprofit’s website, ultimately, has the same needs as any other online business: to convert visitors into “purchasers,” or, in this case, donors.

It’s not just about making sure your contact information is obvious, or that you have a convenient, highly noticeable “Donate” button plastered all over your site. If you’re a nonprofit accepting donations, you have other important factors to take into consideration.

First of all, be sure to list your legal non-profit status: if you have 501(c)(3) status, you need to say it. If you don’t; you also need to say that. Most donors want to know right away what kind of organization they’re dealing with. (And if they don’t; they should.)

Second, make sure you provide the practical information: will you send a receipt? What name should be written on checks? Can you accept donations via credit card? Over the phone?

Third, and most importantly, be explicit what you will do with the donor’s private information. Your privacy policy is very important to your donors. I want to know whether giving you money will cause me and my descendants to receive junk mail from you and your “charitable partners” for the next 150 years. If there’s an option to contribute without getting on any mailing lists, tell me. If there isn’t, tell me that — and start planning to create one.

Visitors to your website must have confidence that you are an organization that they can trust. They need to know that you will handle their information in good faith and that you will handle their money effectively to build on your mission.

Check out the Charity Navigator “Donor’s Bill of Rights”. If your web site can’t answer these 10 issues in the affirmative, it’s time to revisit your online presence.

Here are my tags

So, I have to tag three additional people to participate in this meme. So, here goes. First, I’d like to tag Jack Pickard, to get the voice from over the big waters.

Second, I’m going to ping Rhea Drysdale, a person I finally met in person just last week at Pubcon2007. Hope she’ll run with the topic.

Last, I’m going to tag Mike Cherim. Why? Because I always tag Mike – he’s usually got something worth saying. That, or I’m just sadly lacking in creativity.

Tips for Nonprofits – Meme
Copyright 2004 – 2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design

I’ve also got a lot of cleaning up to do. There were major storms here in Saint Paul while I was gone, and I appear to have lost a couple of trees. Just can’t think where they might’ve gone…

I’m back…
Copyright 2004 – 2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design

Anyhow, I’m going to be quiet until the 15th, unless something really amazing happens.

Going out on vacation…
Copyright 2004 – 2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design

However, his stance is that an article is differentiated from a blog post on the basis that blog postings are always “commodity content,” and that “there’s a limit to the value you can provide with a short comment on somebody else’s work.”

Blog postings will always be commodity content: there’s a limit to the value you can provide with a short comment on somebody else’s work. Such postings are good for generating controversy and short-term traffic, and they’re definitely easy to write. But they don’t build sustainable value. Think of how disappointing it feels when you’re searching for something and get directed to short postings in the middle of a debate that occurred years before, and is thus irrelevant.

He makes the specific point that he’s addressing the content style of the writing, not the method of publishing. He does specifically consider a blog post to be superficial, derivative, and driven by outside events or other sites. And, furthermore, he considers this to be a bad thing.

I’ll absolutely state that this blog post I’m writing is derivative and that it is driven by outside events. Obviously, I’m commenting on Jakob Nielsen’s article. I would like to believe that this is not a superficial post, however. I frankly consider that anything at all posted online or in print which is superficial is simply bad writing.

Commentary on current events in an industry, although certainly derivative, is valuable and important. Superficiality is not. The impression left by Dr. Nielsen’s article is that the article/blog post distinction is essentially the difference between garbage and thoughtful content. I disagree.

There are certainly blogs online which contain nothing more than superficial garbage or worse. But why should we take as our example, as our defining instance of blogging, a baseline which is obviously not valuable? Why shouldn’t blogging be considered to be thoughtful articles written from a derivative perspective, providing commentary or opinions on outside events?

Dr. Nielsen continues to discuss how written content on line should demonstrate leadership. It should be in-depth content which adds value. Again, this is absolutely true. For the most part, what Dr. Nielsen is saying that valuable content online needs to be high quality, thoroughly researched, well-written, and should demonstrate expertise.

He also happens to be saying that any content which does not meet those specifications is superficial garbage and your time is better spent elsewhere. Opinion has value. Regardless of whether your opinion is the most authoritative, the most educated, or the most popular, it provides a window into the way you think and helps you make a connection with your prospective customers. Yes, many industries may not benefit from this. (At least, not at this point in time — things may change.) The value of blogging, however, is not exclusive to “websites that sell cheap products.”

See also the discussion at Cre8asite Forums – Slow Down and Write Great Articles.

Write Articles, or Write “Blog Posts?”
Copyright 2004 – 2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design

I do, however, want to discuss one of the more significant reactions to this situation. Tim O’Reilly has published a draft code of conduct for bloggers. In some blogging circles, this has been reviled as a bureaucratic reaction to the issue. Fair enough: that’s what it is.

The way bureaucracy tends to react to situations is by establishing rules. In this case, rules to suggest how blogs should be run in order to maintain a civil environment. However, any unenforceable guideline is essentially worthless. In fact, I’d argue that the guidelines are more likely to cause problems than to solve them.

Ultimately, the only meaningful system which can effectively control the blogosphere is for bloggers to take responsibility for the content of their blogs, regardless of author. It brings to mind a recent case where Jeremy Schoemaker (ShoeMoney) was subpoenaed over comments left on his blog. And that’s where the question gets tricky.

Responsibility should be taken, in my opinion, but the most immediate named party to the statement in question. What I mean by this is that a comment is the responsibility of the commenter when that person can be affirmatively identified. Evidence could include name left at the time of commenting (easily faked), IP address recorded at the time of the commenting (easily faked), and the email address left at the time of commenting (easily faked.) As you can see, blogs don’t provide an easy means to identify anybody. When no concrete evidence can be used to identify the person who wrote the comment, the responsibility for the content should resolve to the owner of the blog. If you own a blog, you should take ultimate responsibility for the content of your blog, regardless of authorship.

If you’re not willing to be associated with a statement, you should delete it.

Now, back to O’Reilly’s code of conduct. The code of conduct suggests that no anonymous comments should be allowed. This is ridiculous — it’s tantamount to stating that no comments should be allowed, period. Until the identification of a participant on your blog can be positively and concrete verified, it should be assumed that any comment could be falsified. Sure, it’s highly improbable that most of them are. But it’s just so easy to do.

The only thing I can really see this code of conduct accomplishing is an increase in what I’ll describe as “edge cases.” More people attempting to push the boundaries of the code on sites which explicitly state their participation (by, for example, showing O’Reilly’s cute little badge o’ membership.) The people who would normally treat sites with respect will continue to do so. Those who normally abuse their privileges will continue to do so. Now, however, they may attempt to make every post skirt the edges of appropriate conduct with the hopes that eventually the targeted site will delete enough that they could fairly make the accusation of censorship.

When does comment moderation slip into censorship?

Pointless Reactivism
Copyright 2004 – 2011 Joseph C Dolson, Accessible Web Design