Capturing useful information to update and maintain a page's contents

Every page on the site has a page drop box (think "mail box") and a review section.

General website visitors and Red Planetters with lower reputation scores will contribute information into these modules.

Your task as a Page Captain, Page Crewmember, Page Location Owner user is to "process" this information.  High Reputation Score users can also perform this task.

This means you capture useful information, updates and pictures supplied to that page and reformat and summarise it to be clear and concise.

You do this by updating the Page Sections on the page. 

How do I know something has been submitted to the drop box or in a review?

In your User Home page, on the Channels tab and then, depending on your role, you can see links to pages that you have responsibility for or have contributed to.

There are columns "Drop box items" and "Reviews" and a red circle showing the number of items on that page that are pending-processing.

Click through to the page to access the items.

How do I extract key information from the submitted text?

Drop box submissions and reviews will be written from the perspective of the user who wrote it.  

You need to:

• consider the validity of the contents,
• remove any personal views that the submission contains
• extract useful information
• compare it what is already written in the page sections of the page
• and update and augment information in existing page sections or create a new page section, if needed.

Worked example

Consider this drop box submission that was made on the page for the "old town" in Kokkola Finland.

Step 1

Since the user Viivi was logged on when they made the submission they can gain Reputation Score for writing useful submissions; this is clearly a content-laden submission and they should be rewarded 50 Reputation Score for letting us know about Kokkola.  Click the "Mark as Processed (Useful)".

Step 2

The text is naturally written from their perspective "I have always loved.." etc.  This kind of information does not naturally sit in a Page Section without rewriting.   If you are responsible for a page and get many submission containing the same empathy you could consider adding a statement like "Much loved by visitors.."; but only after receiving repeated submission containing the same emotions.   We can gain more information about the user from their profile; in this case we know that Viivi is a local.

For now the submission which original was written:

I have always loved old towns with colorful buildings and cute small streets. Kokkola’s old town Neristan is one of the biggest wooden towns in Finland. Even so it is not so popular place among travelers who often visit other more popular places close by. Before moving to Kokkola I had never even heard about this hidden gem full of bright colors, interesting small museums and of course cute cafes. This old city blooms at summer time when many local tourists visit Kokkola for its interesting festivals and cozy atmosphere. After living almost year next to these pretty buildings and mysterious streets I can recommend following places for all travelers: Luontokokoelma Kieppi (Nature Collection Kieppi), The Home of Fredrik and Anna Drake, Gallery Suntin Helmi and Waffle Café/Art Bakery.

Could be reformatted for Page Section use like this:

Unknown and unheard of even to other Finns; Kokkola locals know about this hidden gem full of bright colors, interesting small museums and cute cafes.

Kokkola’s old town Neristan is one of the biggest wooden towns in Finland, and features colorful buildings and cute small streets.

This old city blooms at summer time when many local tourists visit Kokkola for it's interesting festivals and cozy atmosphere.

In amongst the pretty buildings and mysterious streets the following pleases are recommended for all travelers: Luontokokoelma Kieppi (Nature Collection Kieppi), The Home of Fredrik and Anna Drake, Gallery Suntin Helmi and Waffle Café/Art Bakery.

You can see how the key factual information from the submission has been rewritten from a personal perspective into a more general information piece without loosing any information.

Adding and Updating Page Sections

This was the first submission to this page, there is no existing page section content, so it is easy to simply create one or two page sections which cover the submited information.

As time goes by and pages with existing content receive new submissions, you need to update the page section texts as necessary; for example if a correction is notified (maybe a resturant has closed down) or new information that fits into a particular page section (maybe a museum has a new extension with an artists' work), the existing page sections will need to be updated.

First break down the content into managable sentences like we have done above.  Then click the "Section Management" menu bar on the page.  Browse the preset Page Sections and use a suitable one, or if needed go ahead a add a new Page Section if you can't find one that matches exactly.

Then enter the rewritten text into the Section Text box and add or edit the section with the information.

Adding Submitted Pictures to the Page Section Galleries

If the drop box submission contains any images you can find the images and attach those to the page section once the section has been added.

Editing Tags to allow detailed searching

Pay close attention to the tags for the page.  These need to be maintained as they are they keys to the search system which will potential visitors quick access to places that exactly match their needs.

To familiarise yourself with the full breadth and depth of the tag system explore available tags, and add new ones with the tag explorer.

Edit the page's tags to reflect the new information glean from the drop box or review submission.

Next Steps

Login to your account and see if you have any drop box or reviews that need processing on your pages.

Don't have any account? Think you could help in our project to document the world of travel?  Want to promote yourself as a Travel Writer and submit content read by thousands?  Sign up for a free account and Red Planet Travel and get submitting.