Update: It's ok to send an HTML web page, preferably with simple HTML --
no FONT codes. B, I, Hr are cool.
To minimize my work on this end, I've established an easy format I'd like to receive material in. If you're a beginner and it's incomprehensible, forget it and send it some way or other saved as text or in an E-mail message, but skip to and read the More Guidelines.
First, I'd prefer a word processor file. I can get your bolding and paragraph divisions into the web with less fuss.
A text file with only paragraph breaks, not line breaks, is next best. That is, where paragraphs aren't broken up into separate lines - they wrap when the file is opened in a word processor and they go off the screen in a text editor.
If you have a Mac, you'll have to save to text as above, or RTF, which is a text file with formatting codes.
Finally, if you have to save it as text where every line is broken up independently, like most email (you might be composing it in an email program), or if you have to send it in an email message, try to keep the lines under 60 characters long and do the following so I can easily convert it to a web page (realize that I have to put all the paragraphs back together manually otherwise!!! Pretty hard on really long files):
Leave one blank line between paragraphs.
Example:
This is a paragraph in the text file or email message. This is the next paragraph and note the blank line between them.
If you have a list then you don't want all the items to become a paragraph. Put a blank line between each item or denote it thusly:
<LIST> Apples Oranges Crates of psychotronic weapons detectors Parabolic Computer-Redirecting Send-Back Shields Fruit Truck <END LIST>
Be sure not to do a typo on the <LIST> or <END LIST> line.
If you can follow these guidelines, I can run the story through TXT-HTML.EXE (click here to see what that is - you can download it) and it will be automatically fixed up for importing to a web page (via AOLpress, the buggy but very complete freebie).
If all that really floors you, just send the story in a message and I'll format it. Don't feel guilty! Most of the personal stuff here came that way. This is a new experiment for savvy users to do.
Don't forget to, if possible, send a short summary of the article or story that I can use to introduce it. Otherwise I'll have to read it all.
I get alot of FYI stuff and sometimes I wonder if some of it was for publication. So be sure to say you want it on a web page and if it's in a message, not an attached file, show where the prepared part starts and ends.
If you decide to send graphics files over 50k each, please ask me first. GIFs and JPGs for straight VGA compatibility should be reduced to 600 pixels maximum width, or they'll go off the screen.
I got a scanner in November 1997 and am in love with it. You can now send in photographs to be included with your article or story. Some clearly printed or typed documents can be converted to web pages using OCR, though this is a last resort for people who can't keyboard them into text. Some people like to show an image of an original document to show that it exists, then have the text from the document on a regular web page.
I'm so impressed by the crowd of victims and supporters congregating at the site, and by all the other sites sprouting up. This really lends us some credibility. Let's hope we can be free of the ridiculous conspiracy some day and be compensated monitarily - then the MCF can be an online historical museum.
- EJL
PS If you send something with a request to publish it and I forget you, I'm zapped amnesiac and flooded with email. Please remind me after a couple of weeks or so. I'm a good formatter, but not very well organized!
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