We're happy to announce today that we've just enable static pages for all the blogs on the site. So, if you want to have a page that isn't an article, you can go to your 'blog settings' and add whatever you'd like. For the time being you can code in a good deal of HTML in there. So, for instance, if you wanted to have an About page, then this would be the place to do it.
While the feature was accessible for awhile in the hosted blog setups, we've now made it accessible to all blogs, as well as a lot simpler to use and incorporate whatever someone might like to put in there including such items as: embedding a flickr stream, Google Map, a party you're having, or just about anything you'd like. You can create and take away these pages as much as you want and as necessary, so enjoy.
In the near future, we'll be adding in translation capabilities so that they work just like the articles as well, since there are many authors on this site who are multilingual and might want to be able to have something like an About pages in two or more languages.
What is CSS? The full name is Cascading Style Sheets and it is the code that constructs a web page. The Themes that you can invoke on your blog are new CSS files that override the basic look of the site and create a page that displays differently. Now, in addition to these themes and uploading a custom header image, Maneno users can tweak the CSS on their blog. They can either employ a theme and change its appearance or they can just start with the utmost basic theme (which the Siteblog uses) and build out something new.
CSS is definitely complex and has a very, very steep learning curve to it with a lot of things that can go work are you work with it, so we don't recommend that people start mucking around with this function unless they have some idea of what they're doing. So, why include it? Because it's a function that isn't available on a lot of blogs, or where it is, you either have to run the blog on your own host or pay an additional fee to get access to it. We're not charging for people to use it because we want this platform to be open and available for people to mold how they see fit. If it helps to encourage more bloggers and web developers, that's great. And if you create a custom CSS setup that is quite complex and cool that you'd like to share, let us know and we can set it up as a permanent theme for other people to use.
All of this taken in to account, this is a very new feature. We've put very few restrictions on it as we want to see how people tinker with it. As issues arise or as we see that something could be done better, we'll work on it accordingly. So enjoy it and see what happens. Just keep in mind that any changes you make will immediately show up on your blog (we will be building a 'sandbox' function soon) and also that you don't need to include an opening and closing 'style' tag. If the system detects that you've made use of this CSS function, it will automatically place your code where it needs to go in 'head' of the document with the appropriate tags around it.
Here's to hoping people have a lot of fun with this!
Those who are regular users of Maneno will have noticed by now that we've added a number of new items to the admin menu. These were all sections that have been around for awhile, but we were beta testing them in admin before releasing them to everyone else so that we could make sure that they worked well. Now, we're happy to announce that anyone with a blog can manage their comments, trackbacks, and various media files that they upload to the site.
Obviously one of the most powerful features on any blogging site. Users are free to delete comments that they feel are not appropriate or edit them if there are typos. Both of these items should be used with care, which is why we've made it easy to contact the person who submitted the comment if they listed an email. You'll see that in the comments admin pages, next to their name. Most of them time, people shouldn't have to do too much with this function, but it's there if it's needed.
This word has been problematic to translate as it's an artificial word in English. For those who aren't familiar with this function, Maneno records all the sites that link back to an article you've written. These links are then displayed below the article. It's generally considered to be something of a badge of honor if other people pick up and link to your article. Of course, some people may not want to have this in their blog, which is why it can be turned off in the 'blog settings' section if so desired.
Managing trackbacks has gotten to be something of an ordeal as there are endless spammers and bots who have picked up on trackbacks as an automated way to promote their garbage links. That being the case, we at Maneno do delete trackbacks that are outright bad from the start. There is also a delay built in to the system where once a trackback is recorded, the site waits for a period before displaying it so that it can be determined if it is valid or not and if it isn't, it can be deleted by the user in the admin section where it displays immediately.
Another tricky thing with trackbacks is to make sure that they link to a permanent source. It's often the case that someone will click on a link to an article of yours when that article is on the main page of another blog, recording a direct link to that blog. This is bad because in a short period of time, that link will not be on the front page of a blog and be an invalid trackback. It can take a bit of time to sort all this out, so please contact us if you have any questions.
This section is there for you to manage images you submit through the multiple image uploader. You can also grab the code from previously uploaded images if you want to link to one of them in a post. Lastly, you can upload a new image over an old one if you want to update it.
In time, we will be adding a lot more features (such as managing your sound files) to this section as it's a really powerful tool to control your assets on Maneno.
Open Source is a nice daily paper produced during the Highway Africa Conference reporting on the various projects presented and issues raised during the panels. On this year's first issue, published yesterday, they had a nice article about the presence of African languages online, which was the topic of my talk yesterday on the first day of the Digital Citizen Indaba. Since they don't seem to have an online version anywhere, I'm just reproducing it here for those interested. You can now download the first issue of Open Source as a pdf here.
Written by Thandeka Mapi and Gabi Falanga
Bambara, Lingala, Fula, isiZulu and Swahili: no, they’re not names of pan-African Highway Africa delegates, but five of the nine African languages used on a new blogging platform called Maneno. The project started a year ago and is run by six people from different countries, spanning from Cameroon to America.
Elia Varela Serra, a co-founder of the website, says: “We are not exactly using open source, but one can translate into any language, so that means any language can be used in the site and blogs are not edited.”
“We realised that African languages are treated as inferior”, Serra said, “people are not internet-literate and if they can blog in their own language that might help boost internet literacy.” The issues faced by broadcasting in African languages do not end with technology: “A lot of countries do not include African languages in the context of education,” added Serra.
“The motivation for this platform is to normalise the status of African languages”, Serra says. “We need more content from citizens to minimise the negative stereotypes about the African continent, and blogging can break the bad image about Africa.”
Serra hopes that 2010 will inspire an increase in coverage in other languages. “I hope that media coverage of the World Cup won’t be dominated by English.” However, this will be a challenge in African countries where many people are not internet literate, have no education in non-African languages, and do not have access to electricity and connectivity.
Serra feels it is important for people to have multilingual internet access, not only so their voices can be heard, but also because language is an essential part of one’s culture and identity. Using only one language results in exclusion and is detrimental to democracy.
In order for tools to be developed in different languages, there needs to be a critical mass of content. This means encouraging people to blog in their own languages and starting collaborative translation projects.
Two months ago Maneno also launched a website called barcampafrica for African countries to advertise events and exchange experiences. Maneno can be accessed at www.maneno.org
In just a few hours I'll be heading down to South Africa for the Digital Citizen Indaba and Highway Africa. If you're not familiar with these events, they comprise the biggest gathering of African journalists which happens every year in Grahamstown, South Africa (700 in 2007). Highway Africa is a partnership between Rhodes University (School of Journalism and Media Studies) and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), with the support of several partners, development agencies and sponsors. This is how they described this year's theme:
The theme of this year’s HA conference will be 2010, Development & Democracy and it will offer journalists a reflection on 2010 in the new media environment. In 2010, South Africa hosts the FIFA World Football Cup. As we head for the world’s biggest spectacle, taking place in Africa for the very first time, it is imperative that African journalism and media prepare on how the 2010 Story will told. The Highway Africa Conference 2009 will be both a celebration and an interrogation of journalism and media and their role in sport, identity and the African agenda.
The Digital Citizen Indaba, which takes place shortly before Highway Africa, was established in 2006 after it was recognised that Highway Africa could do more to encourage new media take-up by non-journalists. As a side note, indaba means 'gathering' in Zulu.
I will arrive in Johannesburg on the 1st and will then go to Grahamstown on the 4th for the start of the Digital Citizen Indaba which takes place on the 5th and 6th. I will then attend Highway Africa on the 7th and 8th, leaving Grahamstown on the 9th back to Johannesburg to try to meet up with a bunch of people until leaving South Africa on the 14th.
If anyone would like to meet with me to discuss what we're doing with Maneno, citizen journalism, blogging in low bandwidth, multilingual issues, or any number of other things, please let me know. I'll tweet my mobile number in SA once I pick one up, but any messages sent through our contact page will be forwarded to me.
On September 5th at 15:30, which is the first day of the Indaba, I will be part of a panel discussion on “Digital Media and the Right to Language”. This will be a great topic of debate as only now people are starting to realize the importance of language on the web. Naturally, I'll be focusing a good deal on what is needed to grow local African languages online. You can read the full program for the Digital Citizen Indaba here, or you can download the full brochure [in pdf] here. Their general working theme for this year's event is ‘digital civil society and journalism in Africa’, focusing on the complex interaction between the mainstream media and civil society.
I'm really looking forward to attending as many sessions as possible both in the Indaba as well as in the Highway Africa conference, as they all look like they'll spur great discussions both during and after the panels. You can download the full Highway Africa program [in pdf] here. It's going to be a dizzying, yet wonderfully immersing number of days interacting with African journalists.
I'll try to liveblog the sessions I attend as much as possible at my personal blog on Maneno. I'll be of course tweeting from our Maneno account, as well as the Highway Africa account since I've been giving them a hand with their social media outreach. The hashtags for the events are #dci09 for the Indaba and #ha09 for Highway Africa. Stay tuned!
Kwa hukumu hii ya makala, mimi alitumia uwezo mwezi Google Translate kutafsiri kati ya Kiingereza na Kiswahili, ambayo ni jambo kuu.
That may have been complete gibberish, but it's an option that wasn't available just a few days ago on Google Translate which allows one to translate to and from Swahili or Afrikaans to all of the other languages that were already available. I wrote a bit more about this here for those interested. But here, we just wanted to announce that because of this change, the Maneno Translation Assistant is now able to help out with translations between Swahili to English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. This is the first local African language to gain this ability and we welcome it with great thanks.
So, I was just sitting there, trying to keep up with the onslaught of fantastic projects and people I was meeting at the Maker Faire Africa when the always fantastic Mac Jordan popped in with a fellow who wanted to do a quick interview with me about Maneno. The result is the one you see below, which hits on all the points of what we are trying to achieve. It's just too bad that YouTube makes me look like a snarling guy in the thumbnail.
This Friday (the 7th), I head down to Accra, Ghana on behalf of Maneno. This trip has many purposes. First off is for me to see Ghana for the first time. Secondly is to meet up with the local blogging scene, learn about their approach to blogging and their needs as bloggers, and of course, discussing Maneno. Thirdly is the biggest reason of all, which is to attend Maker Faire Africa on the 14th-16th. Of course given that I'll be there from the 7th-18th, this leaves room for a number of other things outside the fair, which I'm hoping will mean meeting up with as many people who are part of the Ghanaian tech/blogging scenes as well as the people coming for the fair.
Arriving in Accra on the 7th in the evening, I'll be staying until the 9th when I head to Cape Coast and stay until the 11th. On the 11th, I'm going up to Kumasi where I'll stay until the 13th when I'll head back to Accra to stay until the 18th when I fly out in the evening.
If anyone is available to meet around these dates, let me know. I unfortunately don't have a Ghanaian mobile number yet, but I'll get one once on the ground.
I'm excited to meet up with any local bloggers (or people potentially interested in blogging) in these three cities. While I have no intention of bashing Maneno over anyone's heads and telling that they must, under no uncertain circumstance move their blog to our platform. Instead I would like to show what the site can do for people who haven't been exposed to it before, and get their feedback and ideas.
I'm already set to meet Mac-Jordan Holdbrookes Degadjor who writes at Accra Conscious Fever and Kajsa Hallberg Adu who writes at Rain in Africa. Both of them are part of a greater Ghana Blogging Group which it appears have possibly moved their monthly meeting to the 13th this one time so that I could attend, which I am ever so grateful for them doing.
Maneno would very much like to have Twi, Akan, and Hausa language versions of the site in addition to the others that are already available. I hope to encounter people who might be interested in expanding the online presence of those languages, and that would want to help make those happen. If you come across this post and want to sign up to help or chat with me while I'm in Ghana, drop a line.
On Friday night, there will be a loose barcamp event where people can run a session. I'll be doing a short, informal version of the longer spiel I give about Maneno, but with the added bonus of talking to bloggers around Ghana first and being able to address local hurdles and successes at the session. Stop on by if you're around.
Beyond that, I'm mostly just going to be an observer of the event, taking in what Emeka, Henry, Erik, Lars, Mark, Nii, and Emer have started.
To that end, we've created the first of what will hope will be many Focus Pages for Maneno which is for Maker Faire Africa. It's a little bit aggregator with a little bit wiki, with what will be a little bit of general information that Maneno staff compile. You can view the Focus Page for the Fair at www.maneno.org/makerfaireafrica.
These will grow in time and we're hoping they will be another useful part of Maneno to spotlight African content.
Thanks to Maneno blogger Malaidea, Maneno will have a tiny little presence in Sudan... via our stickers! We don't know if in between watching Tom & Jerry in Arabic, drinking tea and eating shortbread with British colleagues, struggling to make her wardrobe appropriate... oh, and international lawyering, she'll find the time to blog about her Sudan adventures. But at least we're happy to see that Maneno has established a firm presence in the country!
We'll stay tuned to find out if the stickers make it safely to Darfur or not...
We've released an update to everyone's Blog Settings page. For those who don't know, this is a section in the admin where, if you have set up a blog, you can change the information about the blog and change the theme. Now, we've added in what we think should be a very popular feature, which is the ability to upload your own header graphic.
The basic specifications are that it should be 900px in width, a jpg file and whatever height you'd like, although anything over 150px in height might dominate your blog a bit much. Some themes take better to customizing the header than others, so feel free to play around and upload at will. If you run in to problems, please contact us.
Once uploaded, your custom header will take the place of the title, so for something like the Site Blog, the words "Site Blog" will not display. If you're quite happy with the current look of your blog, then just leave it as is.
As time goes on, we will be creating more elements such as these to give people greater control over the smaller elements of their blogs, leading up to folks who are code savvy to create their own theme and upload it to the site for their use.
Pleasant uploads!
