Public content evolves with contributor participation. Methods for contributing vary per venue; effective delivery depends on each reader and the author. This guide provides help for authoring. In particular, this guide provides help for authoring content in an Internet CMS (or content management system). More specifically, this guide addresses contributing into a Drupal CMS.

Venue

Intelligence accumulates from multiple observations. That accumulation may be recorded in many ways. Methods of recording intelligence differ in capacity for sharing accumulated intelligence.

As the need to share intelligence changed over time, different methods evolved. As methods evolved, options would gain and lose favor. Each method has advantage and disadvantage with recording various intelligence. Each method has advantage and disadvantage with sharing various intelligence. The differences depend both on medium and vocabulary.

Physical

Physical records are tangible and have inherent advantages and disadvantages.

Presently, some sensory intelligence is best presented physically. While current technology allows remote olfactory study, prohibitive overhead and operational costs constrain remote audiences. Haptic sensations of texture, heat and force are available for remote appreciation with relatively low overhead and operational costs; the process for receiving haptic sensations can be cumbersome and undesirable. Remote tasting, for now, remains the realm of science fiction. For some intelligence, only real world venues satisfy.

Physical records are somewhat comforting, by the act of touching. Unfortunately, every touch takes something away. The mear touch of humidity and dust will, in time, usher destruction of every physical record — witness the Great Sphinx and the Magna Carta to see the destructive effect.

Virtual

Virtual records allow remote study of intelligence. A most significant advantage of virtual record results from the digitally stored representations.

Static

When geography changes nothing more than availability, content is static. When time changes nothing more than integrity, content is static. Traditional books, cave paintings, vinyl records, statues are static records of intelligence.

Dynamic

In both of physical and virtual store, content is static or dynamic. Certainly, combining static content with dynamic content is possible — sometimes desirable. The use of dynamic content, in any part, qualifies the context as dynamic. By definition, the Drupal CMS is dynamic.

The preceding explanations of static and dynamic content are terse definitions. If more elaborate understanding is desired, Wikipedia starts an excellent conversation at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_web_page.

Reading

Reading content is nearly an entire other discussion from authoring content.

The purpose of content is delivering intelligence, but every reader's attention may wander at any moment. Reader attention must be cajoled in many cases. Write content to leverage attention with powerful leading prose.

Authoring

Before contributing, authors must gain permission to add content. While by design or defect some locations do not restrict contribution, most intelligence collects from credentialed authors. In other words, authors must be registered participants with validated access. In the Drupal environment, registered participants are users; a validated access is called a session.

To become a user, a Drupal site visitor must register a user name. Most Drupal sites require a valid user e-mail address. Validation does happen by various means, but most often a password is associated with each site user. Users get a session after authenticating on a site login form. Access is facilitated by a "User login" block on default Drupal sites. Some Drupal site administrators will add a menu item for "User login" with labels that could be useful hints. Most Drupal sites allow contribution, of some flavor, from any authenticated user.

Contributions come in many flavors. One basic, default content of a Drupal site is a "story" — consisting of a title and body. A second, default content type is a page — also consisting of a title and body. Drupal stories and pages may be contributed with no more than typing and mouse skills.

The default Drupal site offers a "Create content" link to session users in the navigation menu. When a user clicks on that link, a page opens with descriptions of all content types for which that user has authorization. The name at the beginning of each description is a link to that specialized contribution's submission form. Options, allowed for the content type, are adjusted in the submission form.

By default, Drupal sites accept filtered HTML for content. This means

• Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
• Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
• Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

For the uninitiated web content author, the list of allowed HTML tags are meaningless — and unnecessary for adding content into a Drupal site. Just type like you would when writing a normal letter to a friend and Drupal will take care of the layout (another meaningless term for the uninitiated). For the experienced web content author, some sites allow additional HTML tags when using the "Full HTML" input format. Non-administrative contributors should not use nor even find the "PHP code" filter — this advanced format is not allowed by most responsible administrators and needs no discussion here.

Other content types may be added to suit specialized interests. Images may be a content type — other content types may be audio samples, polls, order forms, blog entry, forum content, organic group, organic group content, etc … . There are growing numbers of content types, developed for specialized collections and, if what's already available is not adequate, special content can be designed with the "content construction kit (or CCK).

Solitary

Collaborative