Planning Pool

Interested in becoming a contributor to Planning Pool?  We’d love to have you. Here’s how to go about it!

1. REGISTER
On the main http://www.planningpool.com page, scroll down and see the “Login” widget on the bottom of the right column. Click on “Register” and make yourself a username and password.
Usernames are usually the first name of the contributor – if your first name is already taken, then be creative!  This enables you to join in the discussion by commenting on posts.

2. REQUEST “CONTRIBUTOR” STATUS
Email our friendly editorial team at info_at_planningpool.com. Include your Planning Pool username, and ask us to change your status to “contributor”. Once that is done, you will have access to post your own writing on the site.

3. UPDATE YOUR PROFILE
While you are waiting for contributor status to be approved, you may wish to add some information to your profile. Logged into the site, navigate to the “Dashboard,” and then click on “Profile.” There, you can add a bio (as long or short as you like).
From there, you can also click on “Your avatar” to upload a pictures. Pictures must be 150px x 150px.

4. POST YOUR FIRST ARTICLE!
Once you have received an email letting you know that your account has been upgraded to “contributor” status, you can log in and navigate to the Dashboard. In the left column, click on “Post” and “Add new”.

Write away, within the bounds of our Style Guide.

5. FORMATTING YOUR POST
You can compose your post directly in the Wordpress window or in any word processing software. However, if you compose it in word-processing software, please copy it into a text-only program when it is ready to be published, then copy it from there to paste into Wordpress. Formatting like bold, italics, indents, etc, has to be applied in the Wordpress editor itself.

Wordpress gets terribly confused when you paste in text from Microsoft Word or any other rich-text editor. Plain text only please!

6. ILLUSTRATING YOUR POST
Selecting photos to illustrate your post is optional. If you do not select photos, the editor who reviews your post may decide to add a relevant photo or two. If you do want to choose photos to illustrate your post, you can pick ones that you have taken yourself, photos licensed through Creative Commons, or images that we have the copyright holder’s explicit permission to use.

Note that Wordpress only allows editors to upload photos to the blog. Therefore, here’s what to do if you have photos in mind to illustrate a post of yours:

• If the photos you’d like to use are available for download online, simply put a little note at the beginning of your post before you hit “Submit for Review” saying something like “Please upload 2 photos, found here online: (web address) and (web address)”.
• Alternately, if the photos you have in mind aren’t available online, please email them to info_at_planningpool.com, and an editor will upload them on your behalf. Do put a note at the start of your post in either case so that the editor who reviews and publishes your post knows that you have selected photos to accompany the text.

If you have any questions that aren’t answered here or suggestions about how these instructions or this process could be improved, please send a note to the editorial team at info_at_planningpool.com Your questions, comments and suggestions are welcome!