Ragged Cloth Cafe, serving Art and Textiles

1. After you have been Invited to become a contributor by June, you will receive an email with a clickable Link. Click on it and join WordPress as a contributor by choosing a user name (in this case, probably some version of your own) and a password. Click on “Make me a contributor” — ignore the bit about setting up a new blog. Once you have show up as having “joined,” I will make you an editor. You will then be able to write your own posts, edit them, upload images, etc.

2. You can now login from the Ragged Cloth Front (Home) Page. Scroll down the right side to Meta and there you’ll see “login.” Click on it and give your bona fides and the home page will reappear; at the top you’ll see a blue bar menu that contain “My Dashboard.” From your Dashboard, you can travel around and see the options that are available to you. The most important ones will be “Write” and “Manage.” “Write” puts you up a clean page to begin writing on. “Manage” will take you to any drafts that are hanging around as well as the other posts in the files. You may see an old draft of mine. This is where you will want to go when you’ve been interrupted in the middle of doing a post and have saved it, but have not published it.

3. At the bottom of the post you are writing are the clickable bars “Save and Continue Editing”, “Save” and “Publish.” These are fairly obvious: the “save” bar will save and take you back to the home page. The “Publish” bar will put your work up on the web for all to see. If you do this by mistake, you can change the “publish” back to “draft” by going to Manage > Posts > and then click on “edit” on the post you want to work on.

4. Images: should be about 72 DPI or whatever web-sized resolution your program calls for. If you take something off the web, the size should be just about right. If you try to upload a photo and the site spins and spins, you may have too large a file. 450 pixels wide is about the largest you’ll want to upload; you can resize after uploading by clicking on the image, grabbing an arrow at any corner and pulling, inward to make smaller, away to make larger.

5. The easiest way to upload images is to put your cursor where you want the image and scroll down to the next set of menus in blue below the text box. Click on Upload and you’ll be given a Browse possibility. Find your image on your computer or the website you’ve chosen, click on it to Open it, and click on “Upload.” Once uploaded, you’ll be asked if you want a thumbnail or a full sized; you will want it on your “Post” (not on a “Page.); send it to editor once you’ve checked the right boxes. The image is then stored and will be available to you again under Browse All. If you click on a thumbnail within the Browse all, you will be given the same options as you had originally.

6. Below the Upload image section is the Post Preview. You can see how the page will look when it’s published. Note that only the latest Saved version appears, so if you haven’t saved, you won’t see your latest work.

7. Be sure to put your name with the title. If you don’t want to use your real name, your Ragged Cloth moniker will do just fine. In order for your name to appear with the post on the side bar, you need to put it into the title.

8. To link to a url, you can highlight (by dragging your mouse over) the word or phrase and then click on the chain icon in the editing menu bar. This will bring up a place for you to enter the URL. I suggest you copy the URL directly off the web and then paste it into the proper line; that’s lots easier.

9. If you are doing a long post, there’s a way to do a continuation so it doesn’t look so intimidating. To do a continuation, there’s an icon in the box where the Bold, Italics etc. menu is; it’s a small rectangle on top a larger rectangle. Put your cursor in the place you want to continue from and click on the box.

10. If you haven’t noticed yet, there a grammar/spell check next to the continuation icon.

11. As Terry Grant said, a blog without a photo lacks salt. So here’s my scoop on the proper use of other people’s images and words:

The simplest guidelines:

 Attribution, including the original URL, is essential. You must always give credit to any source from which you have extracted quotes or pictures or ideas not in general circulation.

Text:Try to limit yourself to using not much more than 100 words from any single website. This is a guideline, not an absolute. However, copying a whole page from a long text and including it won’t do. Select the best quotes, do research on other sites, and write in your own words except for the best quotes.

Images: Try to limit yourself to 25% of the images from any single website. Google to find other sources of the image you want.

Text Length: A good length for an entry is around 1000 words.

Again, these are guidelines. You’ll find you will violate them as often as you adhere to them, but they do give you some sense of what is respectful use of the materials of others and what isn’t.

So, the longer explanation —
First, because we are not commercial and are using materials for educational purposes, we can probably get away with some things. Use of images as illustration (“taking only what is necessary to make your point”) is generally permissible, especially if we are frugal in our use. However, whenever possible, get permission. I would say that it’s particularly important that we get permission to use contemporary working artists’ work. Some say that notification rather than permission is all that’s necessary.

Anything over 75 years old is fair game.

Here’s WordPress’s take on the matter:

There are no hard and fast rules for fair use (and anyone who tells you that a set number of words or percentage of a work is “fair” is talking about guidelines, not the law). The Copyright Act sets out four factors for courts to look at (17 U.S.C. § 107 <http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html>):

* The purpose and character of the use. Transformative uses are
favored over mere copying. Non-commercial uses are also more
likely fair.
* The nature of the copyrighted work. Is the original factual in
nature or fiction? Published or unpublished? Creative and
unpublished works get more protection under copyright, while
using factual material is more often fair use.
* The amount and substantiality of the portion used. Copying
nearly all of a work, or copying its “heart” is less likely to
be fair.
* The effect on the market or potential market. This factor is
often held to be the most important in the analysis, and it
applies even if the original is given away for free. If you use
the copied work in a way that substitutes for the original in
the market, it’s unlikely to be a fair use; uses that serve a
different audience or purpose are more likely fair. Linking to
the original may also help to diminish the substitution effect.
Note that criticism or parody that has the side effect of
reducing a market may be fair because of its transformative
character. In other words, if your criticism of a product is so
powerful that people stop buying the product, that doesn’t count
as having an “effect on the market for the work” under copyright
law.

Images are subject to the same copyright and fair use laws as written materials, so here too you’ll want to think about the fair use factors that might apply. Is the image used in a transformative way? Are you taking only what’s necessary to convey your point? A thumbnail (reduced-size) image, or a portion of a larger image is more likely to be fair use than taking an entire full-size image. If you want to go beyond fair use, look for Creative Commons licensed images <http://search.creativecommons.org/index.jsp>.

from http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-ip.php

Below is my understanding for our purposes and the way I will operate until further notice:

The image and/or can be posted if credit is given to the artist and website and if the image is illustrative of the point we are making in the post. It ‘s at least a courtesy to contact the artist, if possible, to ask permission or to give notice that we are using the material. Multiple use of images and/orshould be frugal and adhere to the bolded info above.

I would endeavor, in all cases, to credit the artist and to ask for permission. Photographers are very sensitive about the misuse of their materials, so I would proceed with utmost caution if you are using a photograph rather than the image of an artist’s work.