Topic vs. Post; which is preferred?

Topic vs. Post:

Which is preferred? The answer is; there isn't a preferred method and we believe the activity streams show best with a combination of each along with a mixture of events. Having said that, each has its purpose and we encourage our members to become acquainted with the Topic options as they provide greater versatility in presenting "Sharable" content! The more content that is shared from our pages, the more exposure Crew List gets which benefits everyone.

A Post is a wonderful way to communicate simply unformatted messages to others within the community. A post may appear in:

• In an individual member's activity stream.
• Within a Group/Department's activity stream.
• Viewable by only the Community (Members) in the 'Explore' stream.
• Viewable to all, including visitors (Day Players) in the 'Main' activity stream.

It may include one attached photo. Also you may embed into a post certain elements like (URL) Links, YouTube or Vimeo Videos, Facebook or Twitter Elements (including the embed links for videos), and some other resources. simply by pasting in their (Embed) URL.

A Topic is a far more versatile and sophisticated way of communicating one’s messages than a post. It serves all of the same areas of the platform as a Post but with many more options most importantly a WYSIWYG Editor ^{(What you see is what you get)} which provides far greater composition formatting not found in the Post’s input box. _{(See “Anatomy of a Topic”, below)}. The editor is most similar to a computer Word Processor such as Microsoft Word, Apple’s ‘Pages’, WordPerfect, Google Sheets, among a few, with formatting buttons to assist the author in placing text, images, videos, lists and so on within the body of the article.

Anatomy of a Topic

Topic Types:

A Topic can be a Blog, a Discussion, a News Article, a Film/Television Review or a Product Review.

• A Blog is a personal journal in which others can interact via comments *
• A Discussion is a place where the author begins with an article “discussing” a subject and then others continue the conversation via comments. *
• A News article is a story of ‘newsworthy’ content. It is a report of timely information announcing something of interest to the Community. It too can have comments. *
• A Film/Television Review presents the author’s impressions of a Produced Film or TV show in which others may comment. *
• Product Review presents the reviewer’s impressions of a Film or TV product within their expertise in which others may comment. *
  
  * Comments can be toggled off/on by the author in the bottom of the topic form.

Title

Each Topic has a Title field (required) which serves as a Headline and appears on top of the body of the text inside of the Header Image. The title and header image represent the topic as references throughout the platform and on any website in which it is shared via Social Sharing..

Header Image

Each Topic has a Header Image which is a large in width and short in height (like widescreen) image that is representative of the content. It is uploaded from your device and can come from a variety of sources but should meet certain size and proportion requirements which are described in the Upload requirements listed under the upload field. After your image is uploaded, There is included a Cropping Tool so that the author may adjust which portion of the image will be used in the Header and another for the square version used in activity summary links.
Note: If no header image is uploaded, a generic image (as used above) is used, but this practice is discouraged.

Whenever possible and appropriate we recommend that you provide attribution (credit) on the bottom of your article for any creative rights such as "Header photo by: name". This can be styled by using the "Styles" dropdown in your editor ad selecting: Footer attribution and then typing in the credit. Here is the result:

This technique may also be used for any creative right(s) you would like to credit from the content in the body of your piece, but should be placed at the very end of your article! - You may also provide a link to the attribution source if appropriate to IMDb, Wikipedia, or a person's homepage or other resource. (see example on the bottom of this page)

Group and visibility

You may select any Group (Department) in which you are a member from the list as appropriate.
Note: If there is a Department that is better suited than the ones available you may apply for membership into that Group by contacting a Group Manager and requesting to be joined. If and when accepted you will then be able to select that group in the future, but for now you may submit your topic without a group and once approved edit the piece to add the group.

Visibility simply defines your audience. Anything marked "Public" is visible to everyone including non-members (Day Players); Or if you select "Community", all members of the website can view the topic; and if you select "Group" then only members of that group will see it.
Note: We suggest most submissions be marked as "Public" so that visitors can see what we're up to, but sometimes that is not appropriate, Make your topic's visibility "Group" for example if it is a Union Notice or some other content suitable only for the eyes of those in that Group!

Description

This is your WYSIWYG Editor. It is like a Word Processor in that it has several buttons which assist in formatting your text size and alignment, images, videos, lists, tables and so on. The best way to learn these functions is to play around with each one. When formatting text. sometimes it is best to enter the text segment first, highlight it and then select the feature you'd like to use such as Bold, Italic, Underline, _Subtext and ^Supertext etc. There is a set of advanced special formatting options found in the "Styles" dropdown such as for making a Embedded YouTube or Vimeo Video full width or a similar style for Embedded Facebook Videos. You just have to experiment.
Watch videos on using the editor and embedding videos in Topics.
Note: Many people prefer to write their text first in a Word Processor and then copy/paste into the editor and then add their multimedia elements. In some cases it is easier to do the final formatting this way. On the bottom of the editor, there is a status bar that shows which formatting elements are in play at the location of your cursor!

Attachments

You may attach (upload) certain documents such as PDF, text and spreadsheet files which readers may open for additional information about your subject! This is the list of file extentions: txt, pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, csv.

Comments and Publishing Status

Before you submit (save) your topic, you may toggle off Comments (rarely done).

You might wish to uncheck the Publish checkbox for the first pass on your document and then check it to Publish when you are ready for others to see it.
Note: There is a Preview feature which allows you to see your work in progress before saving. Be sure not to leave your work in the preview mode without saving or your work could be lost!