Help
From Overlap.org Wiki
General
Q : What is this all about !?!?
A : There are multiple ways to use Overlap.org. You can simply check out our featured content and think of us as a forward-thinking record label, check out our live events we produce (events link), or if you're hardcore like that, sign-up for a free blog, or submit your current blog or podcast URL feed so that all of the other overlapping peeps can check it out. If you're really intense and special like that, you can even get involved on the operational level, like helping us with the design of the website, or helping out with our live events, or making cupcakes for the winner of an imaginary kick ball game.
Q : I've signed up. Now what?
A : There are lots of things you can do!
ADD TO OVERLAP'S RSS POOL
- Since you submitted your blog, podcast, vlog, or other RSS feed, if all is well with it, then your content should start filtering into the commons (http://overlap.org/tag/commons).
- If you don't have an RSS feed, no worries! You can easily set up your own free Overlap blog using your account on Overlap.org. Once you've registered and logged into Overlap.org, simply click on the "Write" link in the top navigation bar -- second link from the left: http://overlap.org/wp-admin/post-new.php -- and start writing! Remember to tag your posts, too -- see our tag guide below for more info about tagging ("Q : What is a tag?").
SHARE OVERLAP WITH YOUR FRIENDS
- Tag us in your blog posts, Flickr, del.icio.us, digg.com, and other Web 2.0 sites. We're using the tag "overlap" to pull content into the Commons section of our website. Don't know what a tag is? Check out our tag guide below ("Q : What is a tag?").
- Invite your friends to join Overlap.org! Blog, email, Twttr/SMS, IM about us. We'd love to meet your closest buddies.
- Link to us on your own site using one of our web badges (insert link here).
BUILD OVERLAP.ORG
- If you're an artist: Want to promote your (unreleased) material (music/design/video/writings) on Overlap.org? Care to perform at one of our Overlap shows? Let everyone know by posting about this on the general overlap.org mailing list.
- Rate and comment incoming posts to help push cool content to the front page.
- Interested in joining our core? Drop us a line at the general overlap.org e-mail list and let us know what you'd like to do to contribute — this project is always needing designers and programmers to help contribute to the website.
OVERLAP ELSEWHERE ONLINE Join Overlap on these other social networking sites:
- MySpace: http://myspace.com/overlaporg
- Tribe: http://people.tribe.net/overlap-org
- Last.fm: http://www.last.fm/group/Overlap
- Vox:
- Subscribe to Overlap's podcast: Within iTunes, go to Advanced > Subscribe to podcast > in the URL dialog box, type in http://overlap.org/tag/feature/rss2
Q : What is a feed or RSS feed?
A : It's basically a blog, a podcast, a vlog. Your blog has a URL attached to it. for instance the featured content of overlap.org has this feed URL http://www.overlap.org/tag/feature/rss2 . When you put that feed into an aggregator, like let's say hmm. this little thing called iTunes you can have all of the featured work automatically download to iTunes/your computer. Same thing with your blog that you submit to overlap.org. Every time you update your blog on Blogger, or whatever you use, that entry will automatically become mirrored in the Overlap.org Commons.
Q : How do I create a podcast?
A : Check out this great link, which explains everything you need to get a podcast up and running: http://www.voxmedia.org/wiki/How_to_Podcast
Q : What is a tag?
A : A tag is a descriptive category name. You can apply them to your blog posts, Flickr photos, del.icio.us links, podcasts, etc. For example, if you upload a photo of a cloud to your Flickr account, you can assign the photo with a tag called "cloud". The fun part is when you search tags online. A quick search for "cloud" in Flickr will yield tons of other photos taken by others of the same subject!
- Tag your blog posts, Flickr photos, del.icio.us links, etc. with the tag "overlap". These tagged items will feed into our "Commons" pool via an aggregator.
Check out these other handy guides to tagging:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tags
- http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html
- http://del.icio.us/help/tags
Q : But what exactly happens when I sign up?
A : When you sign up and submit your feed URL (blog, podcast, vlog, frog :) your blog and the audio or video enclosed in it will automatically dive into the Overlap.org Commons. So then all these cool people, who are already interested independent stuff, can check out your work or words for free.
Q : If I submit my podcast URL Do I still own my images, videos or audio in my feed ?
A : Yes. And if you're stuff is something we'd like to feature we will always contact you before we do so. Similar to a traditional record label / artist arrangement, you hold the copyright of your work until you sign over or split the rights with overlap.org. This may be something to consider if you are interested in more exposure and licensing opprotunites for your work. But again that's something that overlap will contact you about. soon we'll have some legal docs you can look over to see for yourself.
Authors
How do I post to the main page?
Well, you must be in the core of contributors first which means you must have a special flag turned on on our system which allows you to tag posts with the keyword, feature which promotes a post to the main page.
How do I post to the main feature priority box on the main page?
Similar to how one can elevate a post to the main page of the site, you can also do this to the feature box, but only one post at a time. You must annoint a special post with the same criteria as posting to the main page but with the category priority in additoin to feature. If you have done this and have core status, then the latest post should show up in that box.
For images, that if you want an image to show up in this box, since everything else including html, images, is filtered out, and the post is excerpted, then you must set the custom fields with key image and the value a qualified URL to an image.
If you'd like to make text wrap to the left or right of an image, simply go to the edit post page and do the following...
- Select the "code view" tab
- Find the image tag you'd like to set to float left or right <img src=""> and add either of the following:
- class="floatleft" (to set the image to the left side, with text to the right)
- class="floatright" (to set the image to the right, with text to the left)
- Ex: <img src="http://overlap.org/images/image.png" class="floatleft">
- Once this class has been added to the image tag, text should flow naturally to one side of the image after this class has been defined in the image tab
For any additional text that will ONLY show up in this special box, use the custom fields at the bottom of a blog post to set the key reminders to the value of your choosing, which can be ANY HTML. RECOMMENDED: Use an unordered list for bulleted points to bring up, which is good for listing a show, etc.
