Hyperlinking bylines
Apparently the question of whether or not to link reporters' bylines to their respective e-mail addresses is a burning question in some quarters.
Not ours. We intend to. We're just trying to find a non-labor-intensive way to do it.
Right now, we can do it manually in our Web-publishing system by simply inserting the "mailto" link code around the story's byline. (E-mail addresses and phone numbers also appear at the bottom of each story but are not linked.) I've done a couple of random bylines on stories from today's paper just as a demonstration.
What we can't yet do is format bylines in DTI, our print-publishing system, so that when stories are automatically copied to our Web-publishing system the bylines are hotlinked, and we can't (at least not yet) set up our Web-publishing system to automatically format the incoming bylines.
But we're working on it.
Comments (4)
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Unsolicited advice-- Don't use a mailto: link. Your reporters will be drowned in spam. Having tried both ways, I heartily recommend an on-site form that sends the email.
Posted on February 14, 2006 2:11 PM
Yeah, one more job for our crack tech staff.
We print e-mail addresses at the bottom of each staff written story, even online. So if the spiders come, they'll get the addresses one way or another. But I guess the form approach would make the problem less severe.
Posted on February 14, 2006 2:18 PM
Hey Lex, Where've you been? I have stopped by every day to see if you have a blog that will give all the guys another "pee-ing" contest.
Posted on February 18, 2006 12:31 PM
I've been slogging through responses to our survey on the weekday-afternoon e-mail news update. More on that later today.
Posted on February 20, 2006 9:10 AM