Easy Content Creation with Your Users' Help
Create & Activate Account - Post Info as Pending - Activate Info - Audit Trail - So What?
Users can be a cost-effective, valuable source
of information for your website. But you should know with whom you are
working. You also need to have the final say on what gets posted to your
site. 
At InfoMatters we feel that there is a valuable source of
qualified site content - the site's users. Users often have a great deal
of content and interest in your sites offerings. We provide the framework
to leverage visitor's knowledge by allowing them to sign up for an account
that will enable them to submit information for the site. (We have even
gone so far as to encourage a client's competitors to contribute. By doing
so, the site can become a centralized repository to which the whole world
looks for the latest information.) Once a user creates an account, they
may post information to one of the many areas such as: Companies, Products,
News (press releases, articles, events, news clips, letters, volunteers,
resources, etc.), Feedback/Guestbook, Online Conferencing, Chat System,
Links, Consultants, Testimonials, User Surveys, Awards, Change Notifier,
Rate-A-Page, Bugs, Wish List, Snippets, and Jobs. Manager Edits/Activates
Information (making it available on the site).
Who gets to provide
information, and how can I be sure they are who they claim to be?
For users to be able to submit information for use on your
site, they must:
1. Sign up for a "Full Access Account" through a form on your website. 
2. An email containing a verification code is automatically sent to the email address the user provided during sign-up.
4. All user information is submitted in a " pending " state and is unavailable to the public. This enables the information to be reviewed and edited before it becomes available for public viewing.
5. An authorized "editor" reviews, edits and activates the user submissions. Upon activation of an "inactive" item, a "What's New" item is automatically created and the latest new item is generated. Instant updating!
Can I edit an entry after its activated?
Once an item has been activated and has appeared to the
public, editing is disabled. To make a change, simply deactivate the entry,
clone it, edit the clone, and activate the clone. By not allowing deletions,
a full audit trail is maintained (see below).
Why does it work that
way?
This approach follows standard double-entry accounting principles
and maintains a detailed audit trail over time. In addition to its historical
search value, the audit trail provides concrete backup support should any
issues of content liability arise. This is a growing concern for website
owners.
So what does all this
mean to me?
Overall, with the combined input from the website client
and the validated public, the site's content is much more likely to be
current, and therefore useful! In addition, this structure is valuable
to you because you get the following with no additional investment of
time:
If you'd like... you can be automatically notified when this page changes, rate this page by casting your vote, Join Our Mailing List, or Give Us Feedback! This page was last modified Saturday, April 3, 1999.
