Hi, Columnist! This guide is a quick walk-through of how to update your Biography on the site. You can take a look at mine as an example; it has all of the various sections complete. Your Biography is displayed on the Columnists page and, optionally, on the Speakers page.
To edit your own Biography, you can either go to the Dashboard and click on “Biographies,” or view your Biography on the front-end of the site and click “Edit Biography” on the admin bar that goes across the very top of the site when you’re logged in.
You will see fields for your social media profiles. Paste the full URL of each profile you wish to have displayed. So, instead of pasting just facebook.com, include the https:// at the beginning – https://facebook.com. These profile links are displayed at the bottom of your Biography. If you leave them blank, that’s fine – icons will only be displayed for the site(s) you include as links.
In the box where you’d usually write your post, you’ll see the text of your Biography. That was converted from the existing post about yourself that you composed when you joined this site. You can edit it as needed.
On the Columnists and Speakers pages, each columnist’s profile picture is followed by a short blurb from the Biography. It will, by default, chop off the first 55 words of the content. It will look more professional if you write a custom Excerpt instead (limited to 55 words). The box for the Excerpt is further down the page. You will need to use HTML to format the excerpt if you want to do stuff like include boldface or italics.
The profile picture itself is taken from your Gravatar. You can change your photo by logging into your Gravatar account and uploading a different picture. Use high-resolution images so that it will look good on various screen sizes. You may notice that your Biography might have a Featured Image that is also a photo of you, but that Featured Image is no longer used in the Biography listing. (It was used on the old version of this site.)
If you would like to be featured on the Speakers page, check the box for “Speakers” on the Category list. You can then add descriptions of different talks that you are available to give to groups. Make sure you do not UN-check the box for “Columnists” on the Category list. That’s what allows you to be listed on the Columnists page. Those two categories (Columnists and Speakers) should ONLY be used for Biographies. Do not use any additional categories for your Biography, as the other categories are used to organize columns.
The contact form at the bottom of your Biography will automatically send any submissions to you. You don’t need to do anything additional with the form.
If you have questions, you can email me and I’ll try to respond in a timely fashion. I think this is all pretty self-explanatory, given that you already know how to write a post! Basically, all you’re doing is writing a post with some extra stuff added to it.
Thanks for being part of Amazing Catechists!
– Dorian Speed